Page 35 of Refrain
Prior to his arrival in Scotland, he’d not been a whisky lover, but there were many, many distilleries, some large, some small, and he had bought a subscription that provided him with samples from a range of them. This was number…
Actually, he couldn’t recall, and couldn’t be arsed to count the empties.
Having settled himself comfortably on the sheepskin rug, and carefully arranged a crocheted blanket around his shoulders—the ritual of the blaze and the blanket being almost as important as the opening of the bottle—he focused on the details of the bottle, beginning with the label, which he read in its entirety: ingredients, history, maker’s name, finishing with the name of the malt. In this case, Bunnahabhain 12 years.
This being a tricky one, he rolled the syllables over his tongue a few times until he settled on something that would serve.Bun-a-hab-ain.Xane would no doubt laugh riotously at his attempt. Diplomat’s son that he was, he probably knew the correct pronunciation of every obscure word the British Isles were capable of throwing up.
“Boonah-habb-hayn.” He tried it again with his native Swedish accent. That made him snort. There wasn’t any sort of direct translation. Breaking his likely mispronunciation up in his mind resulted in something likeBunde-hade-hajen: a farmer had a shark. Well, maybe he did, though he stopped shy of speculating in what way. In any case, the actual meaning probably wasn’t half so interesting. Having sloshed what was likely a triple measure into the glass, he breathed in the liquor fumes ahead of it hitting his tongue. The whisky had barely burned his lips when another knock on the door disrupted his ritual.
Spook froze. No one besides the delivery man ever came to the door. No one knew he was here. The six-month lease on the tiny bothy was based on the precise understanding that he would not be disturbed under any circumstances.
Maybe he’d misheard, and it was just the incessant wind banging a loose shutter in the yard.
Only after thirty seconds or so, the pounding began again, relentless in its insistence this time.
Spook inched open the door again. There was a lone figure standing in the gloom. For a moment, he thought it was the delivery man back again, perhaps having forgotten something from his order. Then the man tugged the woollen hat from his head and an all too familiar cascade of black hair fell over equally familiar shoulders.
Xane.
His heart jack-hammered. Concussive sparks tingled in his nose. “You… you shouldn’t… How?”
Xane’s mouth quirked up at one side, all magnetic charm. It caused a wave of heat that shouldn’t have existed.
“Are you going to let me in? I’d appreciate it, given the wind’s biting my bollocks off.”
There seemed no alternative but to let his former bandmate slide past him into the warmth of the bothy’s main living space, then close the door on the night. While Spook planted his back against the door and stared at his friend. Xane shucked off his leather jacket and hung it on the peg beside the other leather jacket there—the one Spook had stolen from him prior to discharging himself from Southampton General Hospital.
Xane’s silver-grey eyes were bright and liquid as he took in his surroundings, his expression one of studied ease. “Christ,” he muttered after a moment. “Something in here stinks.”
It did?
“Could be the bin.” He’d been rather lax in taking it out. He shot a suspicious glance at it, only to realise it had become a repository for many of the empty whisky bottles. Xane raised his pierced brow, but didn’t comment, turning his attention to the recent delivery instead.
“There a reason you’ve a fruit and veg stall on your worktop?”
“It just came. I was about to put it away.”
The nod his friend gave suggested that answer didn’t remotely explain it. He ticked one black painted fingernail against the newly arrived grocery box. “That accounts for this, but what about the rest of it? Are you hosting a party you failed to invite me to? I could be very peeved about that.”
“No party,” he mumbled. He guessed he did have quite a lot of veg.
Xane did a three sixty turnabout to reach the fridge. “Dare I?” He tugged. Something slimy dripped onto the toe of his boots. “Nice. Might need a blowtorch to deal with the alien lifeforms you’re harbouring.” He swiped a piece of kitchen towel from an unopened roll and applied it to his footwear.
“How? Why…why are you here?” Spook asked.
Xane peered up at him, then straightened so that they were on a level again looking at one another. His expression was open, the love and fear in his heart all too evident and intense. Spook turned away after barely a second. Xane’s presence swirled up feelings he’d been fighting too hard to cage.
Xane clapped a hand on his shoulder, startling him after so long without any kind of physical contact from another living entity. It scared and dizzied him, but he couldn’t bring himself to tear free of it. The warmth from Xane’s palm heated his shoulder and loosened all the muscles in his neck, while his signature Armani fragrance tugged at something in his brain.
“I couldn’t live a moment longer without you, obviously.” Xane’s words batted his ear, insincere, and yet… “God, do you have any idea how much I’ve missed your stupid arse?” He turned that touch into a full on embrace, so warm and close and unrelentingly real that Spook’s eyes welled up. “That, and I wanted my jacket back. Right bugger that you are, you nicked my favourite one.”
“Sorry.”
“Good job I love you.” He planted a kiss on the side of Spook’s head, then released him and made a beeline towards the open fire, where he warmed his hands and then his butt, before snagging an open bag of cheesy puffs off the seat of the rocking chair. A plume of pungent orange dust entered the air, and stained his fingers, which he wiped on the side of his jeans leaving streaks on the black fabric.
“I’m not coming back, if that’s what you’re here—”
“Well, you can definitely shove your resignation. But it isn’t…” Xane passed him the packet of cheesy goodness, then lowered himself into the rocking chair. “Are they alphabetised?” He nodded at the row of empty bottles on the mantlepiece.
