“And I’ll see if I can make a fire,” Nally said, marching across the cottage’s main room to the hearth where, fortunately, plenty of wood and kindling was stacked.
It wasn’t the best way to start what was supposed to be a few days of sanctuary for Jude and Nally. But one thing was certain. They weren’t just far out of Quentin’s reach, they were well and truly trapped together with no way of avoiding the big issues between them and what they might mean for the future. Whether they liked it or not, the two of them were going to have to have a serious talk about where they stood with each other in the next few days. It was what needed to happen one way or another. Jude just wasn’t sure if their friendship would survive that talk and the island.
ELEVEN
The island was supposedto make Nally feel safer and more secure about everything. It was certainly far enough from any sort of civilization that there was no way Quentin would find him. Even if Quentin had followed them out of London or somehow tracked them to Oban, he wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint exactly where Jude’s family’s friend Connor had taken them. There were any number of islands that could be reached by a few hours’ boat trip.
They’d arrived later in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day on the absolutely necessary tasks of lighting a fire and getting the generator working, so Nally was able to completely avoid all the reasons why he continued to feel like everything in his life was balanced like a juggler spinning plates.
“I thought a generator would provide more power than this,” he commented absently once they had all of their supplies unpacked, the tiny fridge stocked, and a fire blazing both in the hearth and in the smaller stove. “It doesn’t do much to light the place or lift the gloom.”
“It’s Scotland,” Jude said, coming to stand next to Nally and shrugging as he took in the place as well. “It’s supposed to be gloomy.”
Nally cracked a smile and was tempted to laugh, but it felt wrong. They were there in Scotland for serious reasons. They needed to remain grave and face their upside-down world like adults.
But that was a major part of the problem. They were adults. They weren’t kids anymore. Their friendship was racing toward an adult precipice, and Nally didn’t feel like he could do anything about it.
Well, he could do one thing. He could avoid the ever-loving hell out of the conversation he knew they had to have.
“Want to try to cook something on the old-fashioned stove?” he asked, turning away from Jude and marching to the corner of the cabin with the old wood-burner.
“Yeah,” Jude said, his tone deliberately cheery. To the point where it felt false. “Let me just set up my phone so I can film the whole debacle.”
That also made Nally laugh, and then feel guilty for laughing. Everything within him wanted so badly to believe that things with him and Jude were perfectly normal. They were the same mates they’d always been, and as they started pulling out pots and pans that needed washing in the water they’d brought in from the rain buckets since the shower wasn’t working, then figuring out how to heat up canned soup and water for tea on the feeble heat of the wood stove, they laughed and nudged each other like nothing was wrong.
“I don’t know how people did it in ancient times,” Jude said as they sat across the small, wobbly table from each other, eating tepid soup and drinking terrible tea. “I would have starved.”
“The women of the past definitely deserve more credit than they’re given,” Nally said, staring into his unappetizing soup.“But something tells me their mastery of feeding people began with knowing how to get a stove like that hot enough to cook real food.”
“I think they must have tended fires and kept things boiling hot all day long,” Jude said with a nod. “When you think about it, women have always been the stronger sex.”
“And to think that manosphere men sneer at queer men by implying we’re chicks with dicks. We don’t come close.”
Jude nearly snorted soup out of his nose as he laughed. That set Nally off, and by the time they finished their pitiful meal, they were both in a reasonably good mood again. Nally clung to the hope that things would always return to normal between them, no matter what happened, as they cleaned up from supper and secured the windows and door against the rain that had started to pelt down while they ate.
“You realize there’s only one bed,” Jude commented as they finished cleaning and dragged themselves into the closet of a bedroom, which they’d cleaned and tidied earlier.
Nally hummed as they stood staring at it. “It’s a classic ‘two guys trapped in a remote cabin together’ cliché.”
A beat of silence fell as they continued to stare at the bed, then Jude burst into laughter that made Nally jump and said, “We’re being stupid. We’re letting things get between us that absolutely shouldn’t.”
“You’re right,” Nally said, exhaling like he was relieved and the underlying tension between them had suddenly evaporated, which it absolutely hadn’t. “We’ve shared a bed a hundred times before and we can do it again here.”
His words were half observation, half challenge. Jude nodded at him like he agreed, and the two of them started stripping down and preparing for the long, cold, rainy night. They took turns running outside to the outhouse, brushing their teeth and rinsing with bottled water they’d brought with them,and checking one last time to make sure everything was secure. Nally was reasonably certain all the faffing was to avoid the inevitable.
The inevitable came, however, as they slipped into the oddly-shaped, lumpy, slightly damp bed and pulled layers of blankets and quilts over them.
“I’m so tired I’ll probably sleep until next Wednesday,” Jude sighed as he settled on his side, facing away from Nally.
“Me, too,” Nally said, turning to lie facing the wall, which smelled of must and damp wood. “That rain will help us both fall asleep.”
“It will,” Jude agreed.
For a moment, silence fell between them. Nally tried to focus on the sound of the rain, which really was nice, and a drip somewhere in the cabin, which was more of a worry. All he could really hear, though, was the sound of Jude breathing. The part of him that warmed up first was his back and butt, which were so close to, but not quite touching, Jude’s.
He wanted Jude so desperately. Sex, yes, but he wanted to wrap himself up in his friend and cuddle when nights were cold and life was difficult, like it was. He wanted to keep laughing all that time, not stiltedly or with a feeling that he shouldn’t, but freely and joyfully because the two of them meant everything to each other. He wanted all that, but he didn’t want to watch it all slip through his fingers in a repeat of Timothy.
“Bollocks to this,” Jude grumbled after maybe ten minutes of stiff agony between the two of them. Jude flipped over and reached for Nally, tugging him roughly into spooning.
