Page 33 of Playing By Ear

Perry said nothing as he found the final bit of adhesive on his cheekbone and peeled it off.

“It was cruel, what I said, not to mention pure pish. I never stopped wanting you.” Jamie pressed his palms together. He had to be honest about the limits of his honesty. “I cannae tell you everything about myself, not straight away. If you can handle that, I’d like to make another go of it.”

Perry squinted at his face, no doubt searching for clues. Jamie took a step forward, then another, and another, until he was close enough to be more than a blur.

“Please,” Jamie whispered. “Can we start again?”

“The dying started with my aunt.”

Perry cocked his head, unsure he’d heard Jamie correctly amidst the pub’s ambient noise. “Sorry, did you say the dying or the lying?”

“Dying. The becoming dead. The lying is a given.”

“Okay.” Perry inched his barstool closer, the better to hear Jamie over the nineties music on the speaker, the puggy machine bloodle-oodle-oooooping in the corner, and the muted laughter of other drinkers. “Sorry about your aunt.”

Jamie touched Perry’s sleeve as he leaned in. “I appreciate that, but everything I’m about to tell you was either before I was born or when I was too wee to remember.”

“All right.” Perry was starving for the truth about this man.

“Anyway, my auntie, she died in her twenties. Leukemia. Then her husband—my dad’s twin brother—died soon after.”

“How awful. What happened to him?”

“Officially, it was cardiac. Died of a broken heart, so they said, because we’re Catholic and suicide is a no-no. I think my dad pulled strings with the doctor.”

“It must have been hard for your father, losing a twin.”

“Aye, and he took in my cousin, raised him as his own.”

Perry rubbed his nose, which was still sore from its clash with his opponent’s elbow. “So you grew up with a sister and a cousin. Older or younger?”

“Both older. My sister by six years and my cousin by twelve.” He sighed. “Also, my mum died.”

Christ. Perry put a hand to his own chest, trying to absorb the enormity of loss. “Jamie, I’m so sorry.”

“I never knew her,” he said matter-of-factly. “I was a baby, about a year old. Sometimes there’s a fuzzy picture of her in my head, but I could’ve built a fake memory based on photos, right?”

“Our minds will do that sometimes.” Perry brushed his hand over Jamie’s arm. “What really matters is how that fuzzy picture of her makes you feel.”

“I don’t feel much.” Jamie took a sip of his beer, then put down the glass with a small thud. “I wish I did. Sometimes.”

“And now your dad, too. The Guthrie clan must be cursed.”

Jamie didn’t respond, and Perry worried he’d offended.

“See, my dad…” Jamie said finally. “I cannae tell you who he is, but Guthrie’s not his surname. I changed mine when I left.”

So there’d be no Googling the man later. “Is your father famous or something?”

“He’s definitely something,” Jamie said with a scoff.

If Jamie’s talents were inherited, his father could be a well-known musician. Or a footballer?

Again Perry inched his barstool over to hear better. Behind him a man and woman were having an escalating argument about the upcoming Brexit vote.

But the noisy patrons were mostly an excuse to get closer to Jamie, to see his soft blue eyes even with the pain within, to smell his freshly shampooed hair, to crush any doubt that Perry still longed for this man.

“His illness hasn’t been announced publicly yet,” Jamie continued. “If it got out he was soon expiring, the situation could get…difficult.”