“That’s super hygienic,” Xane observed, hunkering down beside him on the sand.
“Fuck off. You fucking traitor.”
Xane caught his left wrist, clasping it tightly at first, before slackening his hold. Slowly, he turned Spook’s hand palm up, then pushed up his sleeve to the elbow, exposing the cuts. None of them were deep, and while they weren’t regimented, there was a pattern to them. Not all of them were fresh either. “Wanna talk about it?”
“Not really.”
Spook met his gaze with cold eyes and a petulant mouth.
“Okay.” He planted a kiss over the pulse point in Spook’s wrist. “You gonna let me clean these up?”
“Maybe later.” Down came the sleeve again, and Spook folded up into a defensive huddle, his knees tucked against his chest. It was a pose Xane had become all too familiar with. “I suppose she’s here.”
“Mmhm,” Xane confirmed. While he hadn’t yet set eyes on Alle Hutton, every member of the band had messaged him at least twice now, once to let him know she’d arrived, the second to giddy him up. “Here and growing predictably antsy.” He was surprised she hadn’t blown up his phone too, until he recalled that he hadn’t actually passed her his new number. Maybe that was gittish of him, but it was down to self-preservation. No one ever talked about how hard it was to stand by someone while they unpacked their trauma and waged persistent battles with their demons. It left you frayed and depleted, all while nursing a hefty load of guilt. The last thing he needed was someone else’s rage and frustrations to deal with. He had boatloads of his own. Not to mention Spook was still pissed off at him, for taking a late-night drunken admission that he wanted to see her as a licence to make that happen.
Spook wrapped his arms tight around his legs. “I know why you’re here, and I’m not going over there.”
“Yeah, why’s that?”
That earned him a dirty look. Deserved, probably. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know the reasons, but sometimes reciting the script was all you could do. And maybe, if you were lucky, a couple of lines got improvised resulting in a different outcome to the usual one.
“Can’t.”
“She’s going to be producing the album, Spook. I think you might at least manage a hello.” The material they had for the album was already terrific, but it needed an engineer to fine-tune it ready for the world.
“You could have hired anyone. It didn’t need to be her.”
“It was always going to be her. Don’t pretend like that’s a surprise. Besides, you’ve been talking to her for months. Why’s it suddenly so fucking difficult to say hello?”
“You know why. Face to face is… it’s different. It just is. And it’s hardly sudden. I told you from day one that I didn’t want to see her. And no, it wasn’t a given it was going to be her.”
“Spook…” Xane dug his fingers into the corners of his eyes, then swiped downwards around the sockets. God, he was tired. Tired of circling the vortex of Spook’s fears, of waking three times a night cold with sweat and his heart so heavy it sat in his chest like an iron weight. Thank God for Luthor, or he didn’t know how he’d have held it together. Except, who was he kidding, he was a goddamned mess. The only thing keeping things afloat was the music. They were composing the best damn music of their lives.
Did that make all the heartache worth it? Jury was still out, and his guts really weren’t certain. He’d rather have Spook happy and whole than birth any number of masterpieces. Also, now that he knew about those cuts, he really wanted to get some antiseptic on them.
He was not going to think about the additional layers of stress having Allegra Hutton here would no doubt cause. It had to be done. So, he’d done it.
“Let’s walk.” He briefly curled his hand over Spook’s bicep as a nudge to get him on his feet.
“I’m not going over there.”
“I said let’s walk, not let’s go over there.”
Of course, this was an island. It didn’t matter which direction they set out in, eventually, they’d wind up there.
“I thought you were ready,” Xane remarked after they’d been ambling in silence for a couple of minutes along the island’s southern coast.
“Well, I’m not.”
They were fast approaching the shadow of the fort. He could already hear Ric’s dogs’ welcoming bark. He tended to avoid this stretch of the coast. It was too tied up in memories of Steve, and the band assembling to tell him their drummer, his childhood friend, the man he loved, was dead. How unreal was it that years had somehow slid past since then? Now he was here trying to keep another man from sliding into a gloom so deep he’d make more than delicate nicks in his skin.
“How long have you been cutting yourself?”
All he got in response was a shrug.
Fair enough. “Why are you cutting yourself?”
“It feels good.”
