Page 54 of Reckless

I gave Gerty another scratch and followed him inside.

The kitchen was bright with sunlight and smelled like hot tea. I remembered what I’d thought earlier, about how I didn’t know if he was inviting me here for tea or something else. Seemed like it was just tea, which made sense, since the clinic would be opening soon.

He made me tea. I liked that I didn’t have to remind him how I took it. Probably would have taken it any way he gave it to me, just to prove something—to him or to me, I wasn’t sure—but Alastair remembered.

“Was thinking about my dad,” I blurted when he held the tea out to me.

He raised his eyebrows.

I curled my fingers around the mug. “I don’t know why I go to Newcastle. Maybe it’s because of him, or maybe it’s not. I like to hurt but not—not like that.”

“Not in ways you can’t control,” he said. “Not with people you don’t trust.”

“Didn’t know there was any other way of doing it.”

The skin at the corner of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “Well, now you do.”

“Now I do,” I said. “And I do. Trust you, I mean.”

“I’m glad,” he said softly, and my face burned. “I’ve done some thinking too.”

I studied my mug of tea.

“Yesterday, do you remember how I said I wasn’t looking for a replacement for Neal?”

I nodded, still not looking up.

“Well, that’s true, but I think I should have expanded on it a little more.” He paused for long enough that I broke and met his gaze. “I like you. You, specifically, and not because you’re different from Neal. I like you because you’re you. Do you understand?”

“I’m nothing special.”

Alastair looked at me with his head on an angle. He set his tea down and reached for mine. I relinquished it without a fight, and he put it on the table. Then he put his hand under my chin so I couldn’t duck my head and said, “You’re very wrong about that, Robbie.”

I felt as naked now as I ever had with him. Naked, like he’d not only stripped away all my clothes, but like he’d peeled back my skin too, and was staring right into the parts of me that were deeper than flesh and bone. The parts that nobody else had ever seen. And it was excruciating, but it was also wonderful, and my eyes grew hot, and so did my skin, and I couldn’t have looked away from his searching gaze for anything in the world.

Alastair moved his hand so that it cupped my jaw, and I leaned into him like Gerty did with me when I found the right spot. Alastair smiled again, as softly as always, and murmured, “There you are.”

Here I was.

I closed my eyes at last, and not because I couldn’t bear Alastair’s scrutiny any longer, but because he was leaning towards me for a kiss. So my eyes closed and our mouths met, and I wasn’t sure if the shuddering breath I swallowed was his or mine. There was no scorching heat in it. Just warmth, the sort of deep, enduring warmth of sunlight on your shoulders on a summer’s day. The sort of warmth that filled you slowly, slipping into parts of you that you didn’t even know were cold until they weren’t anymore.

Alastair slid his hand from my jaw to my throat and tightened his grip. Not too hard, just steady, and I leaned into that too. His other hand settled on the small of my back, urging me closer against him until there was no space left between us at all. My hands found his hips. Behind my eyelids, hot tears welled out of nowhere.

When the kiss ended, Alastair drew back slowly and I blinked my eyes open.

“Okay?” he asked me.

I blinked the tears away and nodded. Didn’t look away, which made his faint smile reappear.

He reached out and tugged gently at my curls, then tucked one behind my ear. “I would very much like to cook dinner for you tonight,” he said. “And I’d like it if you stayed over again.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” he echoed, his smile growing.

And maybe that moment would have lasted longer—would have lasted all day if I’d had any say in it—but a clattering from the front door, a thump, and a “Fuck me!” announced that Button John had turned up and tripped his way inside the place.

In the days before I went to Newcastle, the itch under my skin typically got so bad that I could hardly sit still. It felt a little like that today as I worked, except it wasn’t the mainland and some stranger I was thinking of—it was the village and Alastair. And, just like with a stranger, I didn’t know what he was planning to do with me, but the anticipation didn’t come wrapped up with sharp barbs of guilt and anxiety. I trusted Alastair. I didn’t have to worry that I’d ever come limping home from his place using a shirt as a makeshift bandage like the last time I’d got off the barge. Didn’t have to worry that I’d make Kat worry.