Page 5

“Alright.” He holds his hands up in defeat. “I’m going to start clearing the hay out of the barn, don’t kill one another.” Bailey jumps off the bed and leaves the room.

There’s a breath of silence before Richard turns back to me, eyes full of concern. “Are you still having nightmares?”

I look away, kicking him back from the bed so I can swing my legs free from their duvet prison. I don’t answer his question, not feeling like explaining why two fully grown men are sharing a bed platonically. “Have you seen Jake yet?”

“He was up an hour ago. I left him at the farmhouse with Isla.”

“Give me a minute to shower and get dressed.” I stretch my arms to the low ceiling and look out the window. The sun’s shining over fields of sheep, bordered with short stone walls. There’s a permanent stench of manure in the air that assaults my nose.

I turn back to Richard. “I’m guessing you’re not going to let me have breakfast first?”

“Should have woken up before ten if you wanted breakfast. Theo probably has cereal lying around if you’re quick.”

Looking for a towel and boxers, I rifle through my suitcase sitting on an old cedarwood chest. Beneath the smell of sheep shit, there’s a distinct smell of woodsmoke and a cologne I don’t recognise. “It’s weird staying in a stranger’s home. Seeing a man’s house before meeting him feels intrusive.”

“He’s not a stranger, he’s Isla’s cousin, and he was nice enough to go and stay with his grandparents so you could all have your own bedrooms—which clearly wasn’t necessary, seeing as you and Bailey are attached at the hip.”

“Well, I haven’t met him, so he’s still a stranger. Now bugger off downstairs so I can get ready in peace.”

“Are you alright? You seem a little more distracted than usual,” Richard asks as we walk up the path to the farmhouse.

“I’m not distracted. I’m fucking tired because some lunatic woke me up after I had an eight-hour drive and not much sleep⁠—”

A deep voice with a Scottish accent cuts me off. “Hey! What the hell has got into you?”

Richard and I pause on the doorstep, then backtrack around the side of the house. A dark-haired man stands outside a barn, tall and broad, shaking another man by the shoulders. He lets go, then points to the fields. “Go cool off.”

The shorter of the two men storms off, and as Richard and I get closer, I finally recognise Mr Tall, Dark and Gruff.

I haven’t seen my brother’s best friend Robbie since I was eighteen. He had shorter hair and less muscle nine years ago. Back then, he was a lanky twenty-three-year-old with a floppy fringe and a stupid piercing through his bottom lip.

“What happened?” Richard asks.

Robbie opens his mouth to speak, but his deep blue eyes land on me and his mouth curls up on one side.

And would you look at that? The piercing’s still there.

I hold his gaze, keeping my face as impassive as I can.

“Hello?” Richard waves his hand in Robbie’s face.

He drags his eyes from me back to my brother. “There’s been a fight. I have no idea how it started, but I had to drag Theo off Bailey.”

“What?” I look past Robbie towards the open barn door, my heart thumping in my chest.

“He’s fine, he’s⁠—”

I don’t wait to hear the rest. I run into the barn and find Bailey sitting on the floor, face bruised and grazed, with a red mark on his neck. My blood boils. “What the hell happened?”

Bailey groans, rolling his eyes when he sees me.

“Did that piece of shit hit you?” I demand.

He starts to get up, and an older man with red hair and tattooed arms puts a hand under Bailey’s arm to help him.

“It’s fine, it was just a misunderstanding,” Bailey says quietly.

“Excuse me? He hit you. More than once, by the looks of it.” I turn to glare in the direction Theo would have gone. “I’ll go find him and see how many times he can misunderstand my fist finding his face.”