Page 14 of Reckless

On my way back home, I stopped and collected my tomatoes from Tall Tom.

I had no more appointments for the day, and nobody turned up. So I sat in my front garden with a book and tried to read instead of becoming distracted by the incredible views of the harbour. I wasn’t mad when I inevitably failed. I could spend hours like this, soaking up the sunlight, filling my lungs with salt air, and listening to the cries of the gulls. It was beautiful.

When the shadows began to grow, I went inside and caught up on emails, browsed hammock chairs online, and then made myself dinner. After dinner I settled down in front of the TV with a glass of red wine and looked for a movie to watch, or a new series to get sucked into. I wasn’t used to having to seek out things to fill my spare time—I wasn’t used to having spare time at all. Maybe I’d get bored of it some day, but for now it felt like a luxury.

Halfway through a ridiculous movie that seemed to be an endless collection of car chases and shootouts with no actual plot, I heard a knock at the door. I set my half-finished glass of wine aside and went to answer it, my heart beating a little faster with that familiar burst of adrenaline every trauma doctor secretly loved—when you knew something was coming, but you didn’t know yet if it was going to be a broken toe or a code blue or any of a million things in between.

I pulled open the door, not knowing what to expect.

“Can I come in?” Robbie Finch asked, his gaze down, his fists jammed into the pockets of his jeans.

I stepped aside to let him through.

And I still didn’t know what to expect.

Chapter 5

ROBBIE

The first time I stepped off Young Harry Barnes’s boat in Newcastle with the intention of seeking out some guy who’d fuck me hard, I felt like a spy on an undercover mission: brave and fearless and untouchable because nobody back on the island would ever know. Now, standing on Alastair Jones’s front doorstep, where anyone might see me, I felt more reckless than I ever had going off with strangers. I didn’t know what I was doing here. I didn’t know what was going to happen. All I knew was that the storm had been building up in me again—that burning need to do something before I tore my own skin off with frustration—and Alastair could make it break.

Usually I got by month to month, but he’d come and ruined it all—this tall, lanky bastard who’d touched a match to the fuse when I hadn’t reeled it out far enough yet to stand clear of the explosion. Usually I could wait, though I got short and snappish in the days before a trip to the mainland, but Alastair, with his quiet voice and his knowing gaze and all his fucking questions, had shattered my equilibrium into a million pieces.

He opened the door and didn’t even have the decency to look surprised I was there. He was wearing khaki chinos and a polo shirt and boat shoes. Except for the tea towel slung over his shoulder, he looked like the sort of people you sometimes saw on the mainland, walking around trying to get you to sign up to new phone plans, or solar power schemes, or charities. He didn’t look like the sort of guy I ever glanced at twice, except here I was, because there was something compelling about Alastair Jones and that quiet, certain voice of his, and I wanted to find out exactly what it could make me do.

“Come in,” he said, and held the door open for me.

I slipped past him into the old mill house, fighting the urge to fidget.

The place looked different at night. The door to the waiting room and clinic was closed, and no light shone from underneath it. The glow of a television came from the living room, and the kitchen light was on. So was an upstairs light; a golden glow filled the narrow stairwell.

“Tea?” Alastair asked.

I looked curiously into the living room as we passed it; the door had been closed the last time I’d been here. New furniture, the sort you bought in flat packs and assembled yourself, sat enclosed by the old stone walls of the mill. A bookshelf, an entertainment unit for the television, and a coffee table in front of a bright blue couch. There was art on the walls. Some framed ad or movie poster in black and white, with the words in French.

A half-finished glass of red wine sat on the coffee table. I wondered if it was French too.

In the kitchen, Alastair filled the electric jug and switched it on. Then he turned to face me.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I said, even though he hadn’t asked. I just felt like I had to say something to fill the quiet because for once, keeping my mouth shut and my head down wouldn’t cut it. Seemed like Alastair might be the kind of man who demanded more from me than silence. This whole thing, whatever the fuck it was, was probably doomed to failure if that was the case. Was probably doomed to failure anyway.

Alastair tilted his head. “Well, I hope that’s something I can help you figure out.”

My heart beat faster. I lifted my shoulders in a hunch, like I could disappear into the space between them. Of course he saw it. Saw exactly what I was trying to do.

“Take your hands out of your pockets, please,” he said. And then, when I did: “Thank you. Did you want tea now, or would you rather go upstairs?”

“ I want—” I had to fight not to jam my hands in my pockets again. Had to force the words to come. “I want you to stop asking bloody questions all the time, and just do something.”

“Alright,” he said, his voice as calm as always. He flicked the jug off. “Let’s go upstairs.”

I felt that same thrill in my gut that I got when some guy was about to be rough—anticipation and fear all twisted up so tight together that it was impossible to pull them apart, until my body had learned that it didn’t matter as long as they both set off those warnings that lit up all my nerve endings. Except this time, I wasn’t afraid of how much it might hurt, or that maybe I’d picked a guy who’d take it too far. This time I was afraid because Alastair had said he didn’t have to rough me up to get me to submit, so I had no fucking idea what was going to happen, and I was lightheaded with that uncertainty as I climbed the stairs.

“First on the right,” he said, following me up.

His bedroom was furnished from the same IKEA catalogue as the living room; all clean lines and wood in shades of sand and sunlight. There was a thick green rug made of knotted fabric; a bold, chunky splash of colour against the old, dark floorboards. There were two sets of windows in the room, overlooking the harbour on one side and his garden on the other. The windows facing the harbour were open; I could hear the faint sounds of the waves washing up against the harbour wall, even though it was too dark to see them. There was no moon tonight.

Alastair moved in front of me to close the windows and pull the curtains shut. “Take your clothes off for me, Robbie.”