by H G Lynch
When I didn’t reply, Angus said, “Islay? What happened? What did he do?”
I groaned internally. Quietly, I muttered, “He didn’t show up.”
There was silence on the other end for a moment, and then, “Fuck! That asshole! I warned him!”
Over the phone, I heard the squeak of bedsprings, as if Angus was getting up, and then the squeal his bedroom door always made. I winced. “Angus, it’s okay. Please, don’t say anything. Don’t give him the satisfaction—”
But it was too late. I could hear Angus banging on his brother’s door. Then Ruairidh’s voice, muffled, as if he’d been sleeping and was ticked off at being woken.
“What do you want, Angus?”
“I told you not to screw with her!” Angus raged, no longer paying attention to me on the phone, though I could tell from his volume he still had it pressed to his ear.
“What the fuck are you talking about? I didn’t do anything to your girlfriend. I didn’t even meet her.”
“That’s the point, you bastard!”
Shit. I’d never heard Angus so angry before. It was a little scary. He was practically screaming, and I knew he would wake his Mum, and then they’d both be in trouble. “Angus, please, forget about it. Come on, go back to your room and we’ll talk. Forget your brother.”
He didn’t seem to hear me. “You’re a selfish dick, you know that Ruairidh? What were you doing while you were meant to be meeting Islay? Oh, wait, don’t tell me. I already know! Wait until I tell Mum. She’s going to flip her lid, Ru!”
There was a shuffling sound, and then a bang, and Ruairidh’s voice, a low growl. “You tell her, and I swear to god, Angus, I’ll break your jaw.”
Even through the phone, even though the threat wasn’t directed at me, I shivered at that cold, flat voice. I could picture Ruairidh holding his brother against the wall—I guessed that’s what the shuffling and the bang were about.
For a moment there was quiet. Just the sound of Angus’s heavy breathing.
Then Ruairidh spoke. “Is that her on the phone? Hey, Islay. How you doin’?”
“Don’t fucking talk to her,” Angus spat. More shuffling, and then the slam of a bedroom door. A creak of bed springs, and I guessed Angus was back in his room. He swore under his breath, and I chewed my lip, waiting for him to calm down before I spoke.
“Hey, Angus?” I said softly.
“Yeah?” His voice was rough.
“Thank you . . . for sticking up for me.”
I could feel his smile through the phone. “What are best friends for?”
“Apparently, they’re for arguing with their asshole brothers in the middle of the night.”
He laughed, but it sounded strained. Then he sighed, at the same time I did, and we were silent for a long time, just listening to each other breathing on opposite sides of the line, each in our own rooms, in our own houses. We lived only two streets apart, but right then, it felt like two miles.
Eventually, my eyes started to blur, and my lids became too heavy to keep them open any longer. “Angus?” I murmured.
“Yeah, Iz?”
“I think I’m going to go to sleep now.”
“Okay.”
But neither of us hung up, and after another few minutes, Angus said, “You want to come over on Saturday? You can bring Peter, Mum would be happy to look after him for a few hours.”
I smiled. “Sure.”
“Okay. Good. Well . . . you really should sleep now, Iz. It’s late.”
As I glanced at the clock on my nightstand, I saw he was right. It was almost one in the morning, and we had class the next day. “Goodnight, Angus.”
“Night, Iz.”
We hesitated another second, and then Angus finally hung up first. Sighing, I rolled over and put my phone back on the nightstand. Then I shoved all my papers and my textbook back into my bag and chucked it into the corner. I’d finish my homework the next morning.
Wearily, I stripped out of my clothes and pulled on the oversized t-shirt I slept in and crawled into my bed. With a jaw-cracking yawn, I switched off the bedside lamp, and the room plunged into beautiful, peaceful darkness. I heard footsteps on the staircase outside my room as Dad came up to get ready for bed. Peter was silent, so I guessed he was sleeping already.
There was a light rap on my door, and I mumbled. The door opened a crack, and Dad popped his head in, a wedge of light spilling from the hallway onto my indigo carpet.
“You awake, Iz?” Dad whispered.
I murmured intelligibly. He stepped into the room, carrying a limp, Peter-sized lump against his hip. I couldn’t see his face in the backlit doorway, but I could tell from the slump of his shoulders that he was as exhausted as I was.
He came to the bed and stood over me for a second. I tilted my head, squinting at him. “Yeah, Dad?”
He shook his head. “Nothing, honey. Thank you for looking after Peter today. You’re an angel.”
I smiled tiredly. “Yeah, I keep my halo right next to the nappies and the baby wipes.”
He chuckled softly, and my heart soared. Just being able to make my Dad smile, even for a moment, was well worth all the stress I went through every day.
Carefully, he shifted Peter around so as not to wake him as he bent and kissed me on the forehead. “I love you, honey.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
He closed the door on his way out, and I closed my eyes. I fell asleep with a smile on my face.
Chapter Ten
** Islay **
“Hey, Islay. The boys are out back,” Angus’s Mum said, motioning me into the house.
I liked Layla, and I was always a little jealous of how beautiful she was. Even after two kids and her husband’s death, she was movie-star pretty, with waves of chestnut hair and the same long-lashed blue eyes as Angus. She was wearing a figure-hugging grey jumper and a pair of loose jeans. She was barefoot, as usual.
“And how’s my favourite little man?” Layla cooed at Peter, lifting him from my arms.
Peter smiled and giggled, tugging on a lock of Layla’s hair. I grinned. Peter loved Layla the same way he adored Angus.
I set Peter’s travel bag full of nappies, his changing mat, his bottle, and some baby formula, down on the sofa. “Everything’s in there, but if he needs changed or he gets cranky, let me know and I’ll—”
“I have done this before, Islay. I assure you, Ruairidh was a terror as a baby, so I’m sure I can take care of Peter for a few hours. You just go and have fun. Relax for once, sweetie.”
I blushed and nodded. Rocking Peter on her hip, she shooed me out the back door into the garden, and I let out a sigh of relief as the warm sun hit my face. Then I spotted Ruairidh in the middle of the garden, shirtless, sweaty, and swinging an honest-to-god long-sword. My mouth dropped open, not just because I’d never seen a sword outside of a museum and that thing looked wicked sharp, but also because, holy hell, Ruairidh was ripped.
Staring, unable to look away, I watched him move, smooth and strong as a leopard, the sword whistling as it cut the air. Sweat stuck his black hair to his temples and rolled in drops over the thick, shifting muscles of his back. He was so focused that he didn’t even notice me as he spun, lashing out with the blade again, the metal flashing in the sunlight. His biceps and triceps bulged with every swing, his solidly defined abs tensing with his twisting movements. I could imagine the way those abs would flex as he thrust his other sword inside me.
“He’s just showing off ‘cause he knows you’re watching.”
I jumped, blushing guiltily as Angus caught me staring. I may have even been drooling. Clearing my throat, I glanced at Angus, who was glaring at his brother as if he wanted to take that sword and shove it somewhere highly inappropriate. The sun had brought out Angus’s freckles, and the bronze streaks in his hair shone. Aside from the glare, he looked almost angelic. He belonged in the sunlight the way that his brother suited the shadows.
“When you said he had a sword, I th
ought you meant like a foil for fencing. I didn’t know you meant, you know, an actual sword,” I muttered.
Angus shook his head. “It was a birthday present from Dad when he was nine. He loves that blade more than anything in the world.” There was sadness under his anger, and I heard the unspoken words. Even more than his brother.
I put my hand on Angus’s shoulder, feeling the warmth of his t-shirt. “I know you’re angry at him, but maybe if you just gave him a chance—”
“Gave who a chance?”
I jumped again, whipping my head around. Ruairidh was standing three feet away, next to the patio table, rubbing a towel over his chest. His sword lay on the table, glimmering in the sunlight, deadly and beautiful—like him. He grinned at Angus and me, cocky and mocking as if he knew we’d been talking about him. He flicked his dark green eyes from his brother, to me, and his smile widened.
“Hey, Islay. What’s up?”
I glared at him, trying not to let my eyes stray to his chest or the trail of dark hair leading from his navel to his waistband, but it was almost as difficult to hold his intense green eyes. “You bailed on tutoring the other day.”
He shrugged, unrepentant. “I had better things to do.”
Angus tensed, but I just forced a mocking smile to match Ruairidh’s.
“Well, since you’re so busy during the week, we can arrange to have your tutoring sessions here, on the weekends.”
That wiped the smile of his face, and I grinned, triumphant. Angus snickered next to me, and I flinched in surprise. I could’ve sworn he was standing on my other side a second before.
Ruairidh scowled and slung the towel over his shoulder. “You know what? I’ve got more important things to worry about than some stupid Maths test, and I’m not—”
“Yes, you are,” Angus cut in, sounding as smug as the cat that ate the canary. “Otherwise, you don’t get this back.” He held up Ruairidh’s sword in one hand.
I barked a laugh. I hadn’t even seen him move to get it—sneaky.
From Ruairidh’s thunderous expression, he hadn’t noticed either. He made a move to grab the sword, but Angus stepped back and levelled the point at him.
He cocked his head, grinning. “Nuh-uh. You’re not the only one Dad taught to use a blade, remember? You do the tutoring sessions with Islay, here, every Saturday, or I tell Mum where you went instead of the library the other day.”
Gritting his teeth, Ruairidh growled, his expression and his bunched muscles scary enough to make take a step back. Then he spat, “Fine! Now give me my sword back!”
Angus shook his head. “Nope. I’m keeping this for a while, until you prove you’re going to keep your word.”
I thought Ruairidh might seriously take a swing at his brother, even with the sword between them. Instead, he let out a long breath and stepped back, a thin smile curling his lips. “Whatever. Why don’t you go and practise with it a bit? I’m sure you’re rusty by now, and you can prove to your girlfriend you’re just as much a man as I am.”
He jerked his chin at me, and I blinked. Angus blushed, and Ruairidh grinned wide enough to show his white teeth, his eyes latching on me.
“Of course, I don’t need a blade to prove I’m a man,” he added in a meaningful tone, raising one eyebrow. I gulped, feeling all hot and bothered.
Angus swore at him, telling him where he could shove his manly sword, and Ruairidh walked off into the house laughing. Once he was gone, I turned to Angus, who was refusing to look at me, tilting the blade in his hand to catch the sun.
“Angus? Did he just call me your girlfriend?”
He bowed his head, blushing more. “Yeah, well, I kind of told him . . . you know, that you were. I just didn’t want him thinking you were . . . I didn’t want him to . . . .”
Smiling at his sudden shyness and stuttering, I said, “You could have just asked me, you know?”
His head snapped up and he stared at me. “What?”
“You could have asked me to pretend to be your girlfriend. If you just wanted him to stay away from me, I’d play along.” I chewed my lip, half-hoping he would say that he didn’t want me to pretend. That he wanted me to be his girlfriend for real.
But all he said was, “Oh. Okay.”
He looked away again, and I tried to hide my disappointment.
** Ruairidh **
I stalked into the kitchen, my bare feet tracking grass onto the cool tiles as I went to the sink and filled a glass with cold water. I’d been practising with the sword for over an hour, and my arms and back ached, I was slick with sweat, but I felt good. Even with that little tiff with my brother outside, and him stealing my blade, I felt less stressed than I had all week.
Mum came into the kitchen, bouncing a baby on her hip, and I did a double take, almost spitting out the water I was drinking. Choking, I wiped my chin. “What the hell is that?”
Mum gave me a hard look. “It’s a baby, Ruairidh. You used to be one, once upon a time.”
I snorted, eyeing the bundle of pink flesh and tufts of fair hair. The kid blinked back at me, its little mouth forming a tiny O, as if I’d surprised it. Yeah, you and me both, kid, I thought. “Okay, so what is it doing here? Don’t tell me Angus got some girl pregnant, and she just dropped the thing off?”
She gave me another of those hard looks, which made my sarcasm wither slightly. “This is Islay’s little brother, Peter. I agreed to take care of him while she and Angus hang out.”
I frowned, confused. “And she couldn’t have left it with her own mother?”
“Her mother is gone. Peter is her half-brother, and her stepmother divorced her father almost a year ago. Islay’s dad works a lot, so she has to take care of Peter. She’s a very responsible girl, but she should be able to have fun now and again. That’s why I agreed to look after her brother for a while.”
“Oh.” Now I felt like an uber-dick. “I didn’t know . . . I mean, Angus never mentioned . . .” I shut up, shaking my head. Of course he didn’t mention anything about Islay to me. Why would he?
The doorbell suddenly rang, and Mum turned. “Oh, that’ll be the delivery of pot-soil I’ve been waiting on. I should go and show them where to put the bags. Ru, can you hold the baby for a minute?”
I spluttered, shocked she would even consider leaving me alone with a baby. “Uh, I really don’t think—”
“Thanks, Ru,” she said, ignoring my protests and dumping the baby in my arms.
I held him awkwardly, staring at the kid with wide eyes, and he stared back. Unsure what to do, I tried talking to the thing. “Uh, hey, Peter.”
He blinked big baby blues at me, his chubby fists curled against my pecs. He looked as confused by his presence in my arms as I was. Then he reached up one tiny hand and prodded my lip-ring. I snorted.
“Okay then, kid. You like piercings? You gonna be a punk rocker when you grow up?”
He prodded my lip again curiously, and then let out a shrill squeal of delight. I grinned as he beat his little palms against my chest in excitement. He reached for my lip-ring again and tugged on it. I winced.
“Ouch. Easy, kid,” I muttered. I shifted him around to keep him from grabbing my lip again, and he squirmed, tugging on the stud in my ear instead. Making a face, I grabbed the kid’s ankle and dangled him upside-down away from me. “No more grabbing, okay?”
The baby hung upside-down, staring with huge eyes, his face compressed. I swore, sure the kid was about to burst into tears. What had Mum been thinking, leaving me with the kid? Some full-grown men were scared of me. Of course I was would terrify a baby.
Instead of breaking out the waterworks, the kid burst out with high-pitched cackling, as if he was on the world’s best rollercoaster. I let out a sigh of relief and laughed with him, taking his other leg and swinging him back and forth a bit. He shrilled happily, his hands clenching and unclenching as is plump little face turned red with a blood-rush.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Islay’s whip-ha
rd voice made me jump so badly, I almost dropped the baby. Quickly, I righted him and held him out to her. “Mum had to get the door, so she left him with me. Please, take him.”
Making a sound of disgust, she reached out to take the kid, but Peter whined and clamped himself onto my arm. I frowned. “Um, hang on,” I muttered, pulling the kid back to my chest to readjust him and loosen his grip, but as soon as he got close enough, he grabbed for my lip-ring again. I lifted him up to eye-level and scowled at him.
“What did I tell you, little man? No more grabbing.”
The baby made a scowly face right back at me, as if he didn’t appreciate me setting him rules, and I grinned. “You’re a little troublemaker, aren’t you?” I chuckled.
He squealed, pounding my chest again. Then he lurched forward and wrapped his short arms around my neck, blowing raspberries against my neck. I cringed at the baby drool, but Islay laughed. I glanced at her, and she grinned at me.
“He likes you. He normally only gives raspberry kisses to Angus.”
I blinked and felt my face heat with a stupid blush. Why? Because some drooling kid liked me enough to drool on me? Or because of the way Islay was smiling at me—actually fucking smiling. At me.
Clearing my throat, I held out one hand helplessly, the other under the baby’s butt, holding him up. “Um, can you please . . . remove him? I think your zombie baby is trying to chew through my jugular.”
Islay laughed and reached for her baby brother, her knuckles skimming my chest as she slid them under the baby, and I jolted at her touch. She didn’t seem to notice, too busy arranging the baby in her own arms, though the kid didn’t seem happy about it. He held his hands out to me, making gripping motions.
Islay frowned at him. “Really? You want back to Ruairidh?”
Peter squeaked, leaning in Islay’s arms toward me. Islay adjusted him again and said, “I’m starting to wonder about your taste, baby bro.” Then she turned and walked off with the kid into the garden, leaving me standing alone in the kitchen, which suddenly felt very cold. I still had baby drool on my neck, and the fuzzy feeling I’d gotten from her smile was replaced with a chill. I glared at the floor. Well, what did I expect exactly? I was still her boyfriend’s evil big brother.
