Page 90 of Scotch on the Rocks

I scrubbed my hands through my still damp hair, a memory rising of Alexander – my dad – in the last days of his life.It’s all pain in the end, wee one, might as well make the journey worth it.

Even back then he’d been trying to warn me, as if he could see the wall I’d erected around myself. Knowing his death would lay the final brick.

“How’s Dad today?” Callum’s voice filtered through the crack in the doorway and I knew it was time to remove myself. Rising on shaky legs, I scrawled a note, placed it atop his pillow and climbed out his bedroom window.

26

Juniper

Juniper: Left my bra under your pillow. It’s green today.

Callum: Did you really?

Voice note from Callum: You’re a fucking tease, harpy.

Juniper: Ha! Not even thirty seconds between messages. Did you run?

Callum: I’m fast when properly motivated.

Juniper: I know ;)

“What did you do to my cat?” Toothbrush in hand, I watched Shakespeare and Callum from my bathroom doorway. Shakespeare, sensing the attention, flipped onto her back and stretched out her demon legs, allowing his unscathed fingers to coast down her belly.Outrageous. Where was the hissing? The bloodshed? “She looks

high!”

“I’ve been known to have that effect on the ladies,” he said at the same moment Shakespeare purred, further proving his point.

“She makes that sound after I give her catnip.”

“No drugging necessary, some women actually enjoy my company.” He shot me a lazy smile, his hair slightly flattened at the back from where it had squished against the sofa cushions. Other than a couple of flirty texts, we hadn’t spoken all day after our interruption from Alistair, unusual for Callum whose text messages, I was coming to learn, usually came as thick and fast as his thoughts.

I’d grown so twitchy Ada started to fret over the woodworm “infestation” again. I’d eventually shoved my phone in the desk drawer and vowed not to think of his irritatingly handsome face for the rest of the day.

The reinstation of the Macabe brother rule book only lasted a few hours because, at the end of my shift, as I slipped out the back door to walk the fifty yards to my cottage, a husky voice whispered, “Can I walk you home?”

It was late, but I invited Callum in to watch a movie anyway. Though he had an early start at the surgery, he said yes.

Curled beneath a blanket, Shakespeare forming a dangerous wedge between us, we’d watched a nineties action film in companionable silence, Callum’s breaths coming so steadily I thought he’d fallen asleep until he reached over and laced his fingers with mine, pulling them beneath the blanket to rest atop his thigh.

It was past midnight now, the credits rolling silently on the screen. Callum had made no move to leave and though I knew what this thing between us was building to – what I wanted it to build to – I hesitated, taking time to layer on almost every toner, moisturiser and night cream I owned until my face looked like I’d done an hour of hot yoga. I’d break out tomorrow and it would be my own cowardly fault.

“You’ve been in there a long time,” he said, turning myfavourite skull-shaped mug in his hands. His smile a lovely line between charming and timid.

“I …uh.I have a very thorough flossing routine.”

One brow rose at my utter stupidity. “Is that so? Talk me through it.”

“It’s a whole thing,” I waved a hand as he stood. “It doesn’t matter.”

“But I’m fascinated.”

“By my floss routine?”

“By everything.” He came a step closer, halting when I mirrored the action and bumped into the bathroom door. “You’re nervous.” He said it like an impossibility. The way a person might say,Renesmee is an amazing choice for a baby name.

“This is new territory for me.” I admitted.

He nodded, grasping what I meant without explanation. “Me too.”

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