We were unsupervised.
“I can’t believe he’s stuck in a suit right now and we’re doing this,” Cal laughed, adjusting his woolen scarf against the biting wind. His cheeks were flushed pink from the cold, making his eyes look even brighter.
We were walking down the Royal Mile, the historic heart of the city. The cobblestones were slick with a light morning mist, and the sky was a blanket of moody gray, but I had never seen anything more beautiful.
“Better him than us,” I said, shoving my hands deep into my coat pockets. “If I had to answer one more question about my dad’s legacy, I was going to jump out a window.”
Cal bumped his shoulder against mine, a solid, warm weight. “Hey, look around. Nobody knows who the hell we are.”
I stopped and looked. He was right.
Inthe States, especially in wrestling towns, heads turned. Phones came out. Whispers followed us.That’s the Reed kid. That’s Deadlock.We were rivals, we were stars, we were public property.
Here? We were just two Americans in heavy coats walking through a city that was older than our entire country. The tourists were looking at the castle looming on the hill, not us. The locals were rushing to work, ignoring us completely.
For the first time in my life, I felt invisible. And it was intoxicating.
We turned down a narrow, winding alleyway that cut through the city, flanked by high stone walls that blocked out the noise of the main street. It was quiet here, intimate. The smell of damp moss and history filled the air.
Cal stopped. He looked around, checking the empty alley, checking the windows above.Coast clear.
Then, he reached out and took my hand.
It wasn’t a secret squeeze. It wasn’t a hidden touch under a table or a brush of knuckles in a crowded elevator. He interlaced our fingers, his palm warm against the chill of the Scottish air, and he held on.
I froze for a second, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. My instinct was to pull away, to scan the perimeter, to protect the secret. I waited for the shout, for the camera shutter, for the world to crash in.
Nothing happened. Just the sound of distant bagpipes and the wind whistling through the stone archway.
I squeezed back.
Cal grinned, swinging our hands between us like we were kids skipping school. “We could get used to this,” he said softly, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Yeah,” I whispered, feeling a warmth spread through my chest that had nothing to do with the wool coat. “We really could.”
He tugged me closer, pulling me into the shadow of an archway. He leaned in, his nose brushing mine, his breath warm against my cold skin.
“Hi,” he whispered.
“Hi,” I breathed back.
Hekissed me. Right there. In the middle of the day. In the middle of a city. It was soft, sweet, and terrifyingly open. Anyone could have walked by. Anyone could have seen. But for once, neither of us pulled away. We lingered in it, tasting the rain and the freedom.
We ended up in a pub that looked like it had been standing since the 1700s. It was dark, smelling of peat smoke and roasted meat. We sat in a corner booth, safe in the shadows. Since neither of us drank, we ordered Cokes and enough food to feed an army, fish and chips, meat pies, sticky toffee pudding.
“You know,” Cal said, dipping a fry into vinegar. “My bio parents are actually from here. Well, originally.”
I looked up, surprised. “What? Scotland?”
Cal nodded. “Both of them were from just outside Glasgow. They moved to the States a few years before I was born.”
I stared at him, analyzing his face in the dim light. I knew the ugly parts of his story, but I didn’t know this part.
“I knew about your folks,” I said quietly. “But I didn’t know about the Scotland part.”
“You didn’t catch that?” Cal teased, kicking my foot under the table playfully. “Usually the name gives it away. Callum Kincaid? It’s not exactly subtle.”
“I mean, I didn’t really think about it,” I admitted, swirling my soda. “But I see it now.”
