He walked over to where Jake was standing, talking to Keren and Patsy. Jake’s expression grew dark as Scott approached and he figured he wasn’t giving off the most positive vibes.
“You got a minute?” Scott didn’t look at Keren. She wouldn’t want him confronting Jake if she knew what it was about, and that bothered him. Her opinion mattered; it always had.
“Always.” Jake sounded nervous.
“Let’s take a walk.”
“Isn’t that what the mob says before someone ends up with a horse’s head on their pillow?”
“You watch too many movies.”
They walked in silence around the back of the distillery, the ivy creeping up the metal fire escape at the rear of the building, the slow running river just a few feet away. They’d fished here as kids and paddled. As teenagers, they’d laid by the banks in the sun, the girls wearing bikinis and the boys trying to look buff without t-shirts on. The place hadn’t changed much.
“You lied.”
Jake stopped walking, turning to look at him. “I know.” There was no bullshit.
“You liked her too.”
Jake nodded. “Fuck, Scott. I thought this was all in the fucking past. I really liked her at the time, more than any girl I’d met but she’d told me – really kindly – that she wasn’t interested.”
“So why did you tell me she wasn’t interested – actually, why did you give me a fuck load of bullshit about what she called me?” Scott rarely lost his temper. He almost didn’t have one and it took a hell of a lot to get it to rise but it was not bubbling enough to spill over.
“Because she would’ve said yes. I saw her looking at you that Christmas and I could tell she liked you.”
“So basically because you couldn’t have her, no one else could?”
Jake nodded. “Pretty much. I’m sorry, man. But I was pissed that she wasn’t interested in me. Rayah told me as much and it stung.”
“Because you’d never had a girl turn you down. Do you realise that’s why we’ve spent more than a decade not speaking to each other?” Scott’s hand was turned into a hard fist.
“I thought it might have something to do with it, but for fuck’s sake, Scotty, I was nineteen. I didn’t have a magical crystal ball. I figured you’d speak to her yourself rather than taking my bullshit words for it. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Keren call anyone a bad name, apart from you.”
Jake looked up at just the wrong moment. Scott’s fist clattered against Jake’s jaw, knocking him down to the ground, the river the only witness.
“What the fuck?” Jake got back to his feet, eyes alight with fire. “Fucking dick!” He hit back, Scott blocking him and the red mist covered him like a blanket, muffling any rationality.
It had been years since they’d fought, and back then they’d been kids, probably still teenagers, without the power and muscle that they both now possessed.
Scott felt Jake’s fist connect with the side of his face and then a flash of pain in his hand as he applied his own right hook.
“That’ll do!” The voice was Rayah’s, the small hands that had a surprising amount of power were hers too. “I’ll fucking push you both in the river if you carry on. Stop!”
Scott felt himself being pulled backwards and then pretty much thrown a few feet as he was momentarily off-balance.
“What was all that about, son?”
He saw his dad and felt fourteen. Grown men didn’t have fights with their cousin. Shit. He’d fucked up.
“An old score to settle.” But he wasn’t sorry. Jake shouldn’t have lied. He should’ve manned up, spoken to Keren or said fuck all.
“You going to go back over there and hit him again?” Scott’s dad said. “Because if you are, half of Severton are going to be watching and speculating why. Including Keren, who really doesn’t look too impressed.”
“I’m walking away. Just don’t expect me to speak to him.”
His dad gave him a shallow nod. “Go speak with Keren. Maybe she can talk some sense into you.”
Scott didn’t respond. Instead he headed down the river, away from the distillery to a thicket of trees. This had been another place they’d come to as kids, making rope swings and dens, then when they were older, nipping off with girls for a kiss and a feel. He’d been here with Keren loads of times, just to talk or to sit on the swing. The swing was still there, hanging from an old oak.
