Page 48 of Refrain
Spook shrugged. “Just wondered. You sprang up fast.” He didn’t want to admit that he’d come back to bed specifically to lie in the safety of Xane’s embrace. “I’m not begging to watch or anything like that.”
“Course not,” Xane said, but there wasn’t enough sarcasm in his voice to make it sound as if he really believed that. “Think I might take my phone with me, though.” He started patting down his pockets. Spook knew for a fact the phone was in the kitchen. He’d knocked it into one of Xane’s boots because he couldn’t stand the sight of it. It was too big a reminder of the outside world.
“You better not be thinking of recording hardcore porn to send to your partners in my bathroom.”
“But—”
“No.”
“Soft core,” Xane negotiated.
“Putting a filter on it doesn’t making you wanking for the camera any less explicit.”
“Luthor prefers it—”
“Nope, don’t wanna know.” He threw a pillow in Xane’s direction, prompting him to hop inside the bathroom, and pull to the door as a form of shield.
“Tell you what,” he hollered through the wood. “I’ll make the tiles shine afterwards.”
“You’re a sad man, Xane Geist.”
Xane stuck his head around the door again and shot him a toothy grin. “And I don’t believe for a second you haven’t beat it off a time or two in here yourself.”
Was he just fishing, or had he heard him earlier? “It’s my bathroom,” Spook grouched.
Xane’s beaming smile broadened. “I’m glad to hear that celibacy has been given a thorough boot. There are few enough pleasures in the world. Why the hell not enjoy those you can opt into for free?”
Because they were only free if you discounted the psychological trauma that necessitated them. “Just… just shower.” He slumped back onto the pillows. A few seconds later, the shower spray started up, and the wild pheasants outside began crowing the dawn.
-20-
Spook
Over the next stretch of days, life fell into a kind of routine. They’d work on the album during the day—or leastways while they were awake—and sleep jammed together. In between were sandwiched scenes of general domesticity; eating, cleaning. Xane made the bathroom sparkle like it was freshly installed. After dinner each evening—the actual time varied—Xane would step outside and make calls. He never said who he’d called, or whether it was one person or several, and Spook never asked. It was easier not to think of what lay outside the borders of the bothy, and far better for his mental health to regard his former life as a distant dream, akin to the playtime adventures he’d gone on as a child involving trolls and dragons, and where a gold-coloured curtain hook could make you invisible and a little plywood and love could make a shield that far surpassed the might of anything Captain America had ever owned.
One night, Spook stuck his head around the door—Xane always made his calls in the yard—and Xane smiled across at him and said, “Ash says ‘Hello’.” So, he’d said, “Say hello back.”
“You could tell him yourself.” Xane offered the phone to him, but he’d shaken his head and ducked back inside. Then, he’d wondered if he shouldn’t have done so. After all, the conversation needn’t have been more than those few words. It didn’t need to progress as far as “How are you?”
Not good, but a little better than he’d been.
Or, “Where are you?”
I’d prefer not to say.
Will we see you again?
Probably not.
In any case, maybe Xane had already relayed all that.
He thought about Ash a lot that night and the following day. About how he and Ginny were getting along with married life. A few pertinent questions would have gained him the answers from Xane, but whenever he opened his mouth to ask, he’d always change his mind.
That wasn’t his life anymore.
There was, however, one form of communication he wasn’t struggling with. Nope, not a bit. Music poured out of him the moment his fingers hit the strings each day. Xane was usually responsible for most of Black Halo’s lyrics, but this album was shaping up rather differently. He’d already contributed several whole verses, and a chorus to a different song, and he had an ever-growing scrawl of lyrics/poetry in a notebook Xane had kindly donated to him. It had a rather petulant Little My of Moomins fame on the cover, and the Groke watermarked onto all the internal pages, which were a soothing lilac colour.
It wasn’t a very Xane notebook but fit him rather perfectly. Especially the Groke. He found he empathised rather a lot with her.
