Xane had his eyebrow cocked.
“What?” Had he missed a question?
“Are we? Shagging?”
Oh, guess he had missed that. They could. He could reach out and they could do that. Luthor wouldn’t care. He might turn over, watch, get a second wind, join in. He took a breath, but then shook his head. The arousal he felt, he preferred to hold onto rather than exhaust. “I actually think I’m going to get up.”
“Up?”
He hitched his head off the pillow, then swung his legs around toward the floor. Xane’s expression became unusually guarded, and not, he thought, because he was being rejected.
“Can I… Is it okay if I borrow your phone?” He knew what he had to do. It was burning like a star in his mind.
Another flicker of something crossed Xane’s silvery irises. Concern?
“Sure. It’s next door. You know the code.”
“Thanks.”
Not bothering with clothes, he headed for the door, looking back only when he reached it. Xane had rolled over and cosied up to his boyfriend’s back. He was clearly murmuring sweet nothings.
“Christ, you’re not human,” Luthor grumbled, but Spook had no doubt they’d be entangled again within minutes.
-31-
Spook
Back in the kitchen, he killed the lights, all except the gloomy lamp in the corner with a fringed shade. Xane’s phone remained on the island. Spook perched on the edge of the rocking chair with it in his hands, where he turned it over and over like he was lathering soap. Really, indecision was biting him hard. No one was forcing his hand. He didn’t have to do this. Yet, deep down, he knew for his own sense of worth he had to. His grandma had always taught him that if you wanted to be one of the good guys, then you had to treat others with respect. He believed that, even if he’d abandoned some of her other notions, like the ones about unconditional love.
That didn’t exist. Love…it always came with strings attached.
Months of solitary living had so distorted his sense of reality that he didn’t once consider the time before dialling. Only when she eventually answered, and her voice greeted him hazy with sleep did he glance at the clock.
“I’m sorry. I should have thought.” He’d obviously woken her. “This isn’t a good time.”
“No, it’s,” —he could imagine her so clearly, hair like burnished copper, eyes sleepy, mouth soft, the pillow dewy from her breath— “Oh my God, Spook. You called back. I… I didn’t think you would.”
“I wasn’t sure I would either—”
“But you have.”
He had. God help him, fool that he was. “I owed you that much.” It’d been cruel of him to do otherwise. She was tenacious, not the sort to give up even when the odds were stacked. He’d taken the coward’s way out by avoiding her. Banked on time doing the work for him. He had to stop doing that. In any case, all he’d really been doing was deceiving himself. Cutting someone out of your life wasn’t the same as forgetting them. She was a constant niggle in his brain. He knew he ought to do the right thing and let her go completely, be honest with her about what page he was on in terms of life and what he could reasonably commit to.
It’d be misleading to let her imagine that was her.
“I know it’s been rough for you, Spook. I don’t blame you for anything. I’m just—just so glad to hear from you.”
God, it simultaneously made his heart sing and choked him up to hear her voice. He had loved what they’d built. Moments of it came flashing back to him then in vividly bright pops of colour. Monte Carlo. His London flat. Her bent double over the table in the tour bus, hands cuffed.
“Stop, Alle. Wait up. I didn’t call to build bridges. We can’t… There’s no going back, to how it was. Too much… It can’t ever… We can’t be—”
“Don’t you dare tell me we’re done, Spook Mortensen.”
Oh, but she was full of ire. He could hear the emotion welling behind her words, rising along with the tide of her anger. It made him smile.
“Don’t you fucking dare. I’ve waited. I’ve never given up on you. Don’t be so discourteous as to give up on me.”
“It’s not that…but maybe we need to be realistic.” They’d been doomed from the start. He’d known it, but he’d allowed her to convince him otherwise, and that had proven to be a massive mistake. The resulting fallout had brought them to this place. He couldn’t rid himself of the consequences, and it was unrealistic of her to imagine they could sweep them under the carpet and pick up again where they’d left off as if nothing had befallen them.
