Chapter 14
. . .
Xavier
I wake slowly, aware that my neck is stiff.
“Ungh.” My head hurts, and there’s a low-key nausea in my belly.
For a few seconds, I don’t know where I am.
It’s not unknown for me to wake up in some very strange places, so there’s no panic, just curiosity.
Then I hear a familiar chuckle, and the memory slams into me.
Reuben kidnapped me. Well, not kidnapped, but he’d certainly been very bossily organising.
He got his way in the hospital. Jonas had backed off, and everyone had swung into accommodating Reuben like he was the king rather than a retired journalist. Of course they did.
He has a way of making things happen. It’s just I’d forgotten that fact in the years we’ve been apart.
I’d agreed sulkily to the plan when it became clear there wasn’t an alternative, and once I’d got a clean bill of health to travel, events had moved quickly, and I’d found myself dressed and wheeled to Reuben’s Land Rover.
In protest at my situation, I’d turned my back on him and promptly fallen asleep.
I force my eyes open, wincing at the brightness. “Where are we?” I say thickly. My mouth feels like the lining of a hamster’s cage. We’re sitting in a line of cars on a narrow stretch of road. Ahead of me is a vast expanse of water and mountains that seem to touch the sky.
“Lochaline, waiting for the ferry.”
“The ferry?” I reluctantly glance at him. He looks infuriatingly good, dressed in jeans and a black cashmere turtleneck. “What fucking ferry?”
His lip twitches. “The ferry to Mull.”
“What the hell? Why are we going there? Is this more torture?”
“Not at the moment. I only torture after lunch. You should always eat beforehand, because it really takes it out of a bloke.”
I resist the urge to laugh. It might make my head explode. “I thought you lived in the Highlands.”
“Not anymore. I sold my place there last year.”
“Why?”
Reuben bought a little cottage in the middle of nowhere when he left journalism. I remember turning up at one of his hotel rooms in one of my periodic attempts to fuck him over. I’d seen the estate agent’s details for the cottage while unashamedly snooping as he showered after we’d fucked.
“It got too busy with tourists.”
“The cottage or the area?” I say dryly.
“Both. Always people turning up to visit and have a holiday.”
“Oh dear, how terrible for you. Poor baby.”
“I’m not a package tour company. Anyway, I moved to the Inner Hebrides, and even they’re looking too busy now.”
“You’ll end up in Antarctica in the end. Just you and a lonely penguin whinging about overcrowding.”
He taps his fingers restlessly on the wheel, and I startle when I see the split skin and bruised knuckles on his beautiful hands. “What the hell have you done to your hands?” I say, reaching for one before I can think of what I’m doing.
He looks down at them as if he’d forgotten. “Oh, Robbie fell onto my clenched fist.”
I run my finger gently around the abrasion, and he shudders slightly. I immediately drop his hand.
“What a clumsy boy he is.” Memory flares in a progression of broken images. “You dragged him off me and hit him,” I say slowly.
He clears his throat. “I did. It’s very lucky that Pip got there because I would have done a lot worse to him. I’d have fucking killed him.” There’s no hesitation in his voice. Just a deep, deadly certainty.
“Thank you,” I say hoarsely.
“You said you knew I’d come for you?” His voice is hesitant, and he’s looking anywhere but at me.
I huff. “I meant it.” I hold a hand up as he turns to me. “Please don’t make a big deal about it,” I warn. “It doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you, or that we’re okay now. I am still very cross at you.”
“When aren’t you?”
“It’s especially potent when I’ve just been kidnapped.”
“You got in the car on your own.”
“Kidnapped,” I repeat. “And you’ll pay for it.”
He laughs, the sound loud and robust, and it’s so lovely and familiar that I feel the sting of tears in my eyes. I blink them away.
“I look forward to it,” he says with relish.
“You are a very warped man.”
“I’m just very thankful that you’re still around to give me shit.” He looks assessingly at me. His eyes are very bright in the light, still twinkling from the laughter. “How are you feeling?”
I fling myself back in my seat a little dramatically. “Like death.” He flinches, and I stare at him. “What?”
“Too soon,” he says gruffly.
“What’s too soon?”
“Talking about death. Y-Your death, particularly.”
I roll my eyes and immediately regret it when it sends a shaft of pain through my eye. “Don’t be so silly. I’m fine.”
“You nearly weren’t.” The words are abrupt, with a jagged edge to them. He sucks in a breath, staring out the window. Then he utters a low, filthy curse and climbs out of the car, slamming the door behind him.
He walks away but pauses as a man in a nearby car hails him. Reuben turns with a polite smile on his face, and they exchange greetings before standing and talking in a little huddle.
I let out a long sigh. I used to be able to feel the rage the moment I saw him. That rage was the fuel for doing some incredibly shitty things to him, and he’s taken every single one of them. At times it seemed as if pain had become our foreplay.
But I haven’t seen him for a year. It was like he gave up on our explosive push and pull, packed up his white flag, and went home.
When he stopped playing our twisted game, it …
it fucking enraged me. And that’s when I stopped shagging people.
The hookups didn’t seem to mean anything if he wasn’t there to witness them.
I take a deep breath and wince. My lungs burn like I’ve been breathing acid-infused air, and I fist my hand and rub hard at the space beneath my thankfully still-beating heart.
I’d frightened Reuben by coming so close to dying. Literally terrified him into violent action. Even a year ago, that would’ve made my heart warm.
And, yes, I’ve known since Reuben broke the ridiculous thing beating in my chest that my poisonous feelings for him are a little sick and a lot vengeful. But I’ve never managed to cure that sickness. I could never seem to mend the fault line running through my chest called Reuben Langley.
Ironic that he’s volunteered to help me heal. I’m stuck with the person who broke me, and I can’t dance away as I have over the years of our separation. And now I can’t even feel my old friends of rage or revenge lining up to help me get through it.
He’s left his wallet on the dashboard, and I reach over and grab it.
There’s a little kiosk a few feet away, and if Reuben’s got any cash, he’s buying me a coffee.
It’s the least he can do. I open it, withdrawing the fiver I find and stuffing it into my pocket.
There’s a piece of paper sticking out of one of the wallet’s compartments, and I hesitate.
Is it a picture of another man? I haven’t seen or spoken to him for a year. That’s plenty of time for him to have started a relationship.
My heart is hammering far too fast, and I feel sick, but I still need to know.
Is there a man waiting for us to arrive at his place on Mull?
That would be too much. I swallow hard and snag the paper’s edge, pulling it out.
It’s actually two sheets of paper folded together.
I glance out the window and see Reuben is still talking, so I unfold the first paper. I inhale sharply.
It’s not a picture of another man. If I’d been given an infinite number of guesses, I’d never have predicted this.
It’s a picture of me—a black-and-white candid shot of me laughing with my hair loose.
It’s vaguely familiar, and I realise it’s from an old campaign for Dior.
It looks like it’s been clipped from a magazine, and the fact that he keeps it so carefully folded in his wallet makes my heart hurt.
I let out my breath and my hands shake as I open the other paper.
I hear myself make a soft sound like I’ve been punched in the chest. It’s the caricature I drew of him all those years ago.
My eyes are hot and blurry. He kept this.
All this time, he kept a picture of me and something I made for him in his wallet, where people keep precious things.
I run my finger down the silly little drawing.
I remember this. I’d taken hours over it and then handed it over as casually as if I’d dashed it off in a few minutes.
I also remember his words of praise. They’d lit me up inside because it was the first time that anyone had genuinely praised me, rather than the performative compliments my grandparents gave me, like “give praise to Xavier” was on their to-do list.
I sneak another look at Reuben through the windscreen.
He’s now the centre of a small group of men, all talking and laughing.
The breeze blows his hair about, and his eyes are bright with interest as he listens to whatever the men are saying.
Then I carefully fold up the papers and replace them exactly as I found them. I set the wallet back on the dashboard.
Feeling suddenly restless, I unclip my belt and go to climb out of the car.
Something stops me, and I look down. My legs are trapped, covered in a navy and green cashmere blanket, the wool as soft as silk.
Where did this come from? I think of Reuben carefully tucking me in when I was asleep, and my throat tightens.
I force the image away and bundle the blanket onto his seat.
Then I reach for the handle, swing open the door, and step out.
The air hits me fresh and cold, and I huddle into my thin jacket. I skirt the edge of Reuben’s group and move past them. They seem to be talking about local events, and the tone is familiar, so he’s obviously well known here.