Chapter 5 #2
“Fuck!” I groaned. “Fuck, fuck, and fuck it. If ye see me heading her way, stop me, aye? She’s got plans that don’t involve me, and I’m going to end up…” What, heartbroken? Surely not. She’d loved and left me a number of times before.
Maybe she wasn’t the only one who had changed. Maybe I had, too.
“We’re here for ye.” Gordain took out his phone. “We’ve got everything we need for the roof. Ye can work through your angst.”
I grunted agreement, banging my head on the stone behind me for good measure.
“Cal?” Gordain said, making his call to our oldest brother. “We need you. We’re going to get the roof on the crofthouse today and we’re going to stop Wasp making a fool of himself with a lass. Ye with us?”
He listened then ended the call, a smirk on his lips. “He’s on his way. Consider yourself under guard.”
For the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening, we were on the scaffold, fitting crossbeams and nailing battens onto roof felt.
Mathilda, our sister-in-law, took a break from work and brought us sandwiches, her two kids scaling the building like little monkeys. I received hugs, sustenance, the love of a tight-knit family, but still no peace of mind.
I worked until my muscles burned and my arms quaked.
By nightfall, I still had the urge to run to Braithar, but with my three brothers around me, shielding me without question and without unnecessary chat, I wouldn’t make it down the track. I didn’t try, though my mind made the journey over and over.
When the last batten was nailed into place, we cheered, toasting our efforts with warm beer.
Callum and Gordain left, but Ally stayed, bunking down with me on the newly roofed-in upstairs floor. The crofthouse had no power yet, so Ally and I rigged up a lamp and huddled into sleeping bags for warmth.
With the last dregs of battery on my phone, I read over the contract Reportage One had sent, then booked my flight and car hire.
“Where are the gigs?” Ally asked.
“The first is Paris, then over to Milan, and after that up to Berlin. Then they’re flying me to the States for a couple of weeks.” With the first American date in New York City, I’d be right back where I’d just come from, but I could handle it.
Tomorrow, I’d be gone. Taylor could enjoy her visit with Ella, and I wouldn’t be haunted by her presence.
Or she by mine.
My brother traced the route with a finger in the air. Then he blinked. “I’ll be in Milan next week. What day are you there?”
I read out the date, and he pulled a thinking face. “My audition is right before your gig. Same day.”
“I’m only there a day, then I’m driving to Germany.” An idea struck me. “Join me. I’ll be bored as fuck driving between cities on my own. We can have a laugh.”
“A road trip? I’m in. Anything to put off flying again so soon.”
We grinned at each other, and I lay back beside my brother, gazing through the gap left for skylights. Purple night crept over the land. Endless stars popped up, spreading over us.
“It’s so quiet here,” Ally said. “We already live miles from anywhere. But the castle has life and noise, where this place is a work in sensory deprivation.”
“I need that. It’s like I need isolation to breathe. You got all the extrovert genes and me the introvert.”
He blew out a breath. “How are ye going to handle the crowds? It’ll be nonstop.”
I loved my job, but spending time around people exhausted me. “I have no idea.”
“Ye know the question you asked earlier?” Ally said into the gathering dusk.
“Which one?”
“Had I ever turned down a lass. There was one time I should’ve. I didn’t, and it’s been bothering me.”
My twin carried an air of not giving a shite about anything. I, more than anyone, knew that to be untrue. He cared, and deeply. “Who?”
“Remember Kaylee?”
The name was familiar. “She was your fan?”
“Aye. And my first.”
Ah. The first girl he’d slept with, back when we’d regularly post videos online of us messing around on the estate. It had been the same weekend I’d lost my virginity to Taylor. Oh boy, now I was remembering that night…
I shook it off and focused on my brother. “I thought you never slept with the same lass twice.”
“I don’t. Except for her. She came to see me a few months ago and she was upset. We’d always chatted, and I didnae like to see her unhappy.”
“So you slept with her?”
“Don’t judge.”
“I’m not. I almost wish I’d done the same with Taylor.” Except that was my hormones talking.
“No ye don’t.” Ally propped himself up on an elbow. “I didn’t plan to sleep with Kaylee, but she’d had all this shite happen in her life and she told me the one good thing, the only thing that kept her going, was her memories of us.”
I grimaced. “Poor her.”
He made a sound that was half laughter and half frustration. “Aye, I pitied her and then didn’t stop her when she pounced on me. In fact, once we got started, I did everything I could to make her happy.”
“Stop. If ye try and give me a single detail, I’m throwing you out the window.”
He reached over and shoved me then buried his face in his sleeping bag. “I wasn’t going to. I just wanted to talk about it.”
“Are ye still in contact?”
“No. I drove her home and I’ve sent her a couple of messages, but she hasn’t replied.”
“I’m not sure what else ye can do.”
The battery-powered lamp flickered, dimming.
The inexplicable hurt of missing Taylor rose again. “If Taylor asked me again, I don’t think I could turn her down.”
“That’s because you’re in love with her,” Ally replied, muffled.
“I’m not.”
“Ye would be if she stayed around long enough.”
Fucking hell. At least I was leaving her this time. Not that she’d been in contact. Despite the fact that she was on my family estate, thousands of miles from her home, she hadn’t even sent a one-word Hi.
Which told me all I needed to know.
It was a messed-up kind of torture, having something, someone, I badly wanted so close but so far.
The want would fade with the distance. It had to. One more day, and I’d be gone.