“Tell me I’ll get used to this?” Nick put the wrapped loaf into the oven and shut the door.
“You could get a new one,” John offered. “Preferably before you burn off your eyebrows.” He couldn’t see anything that Nick needed help with, so he sat down at the table. “You haven’t said if you’ll be coming on Friday night? You don’t have to, but I suppose my mother’s right; it’s a good way of meeting everyone.”
He’d thought about it on the way over and decided that his initial reaction of panic had been shortsighted. It
was
a good idea. Nick could tell people about himself once, in a setting where people, although interested, wouldn’t be paying as much attention as usual, and they’d go home thinking they knew all about him and be satisfied with that.
And he’d do his best to let Nick handle it on his own and sit with Sheila and Michael, or his family, and try not to let his gaze go to Nick too often. He’d stay sober too, so that he could drive them back, because by the end of the night he wouldn’t want a five-mile walk to stand between him and Nick’s bed.
“I’ll come if you don’t think it’ll be too weird.” Nick went over to the refrigerator and took out two bottled beers. He held one up. “Do you want one?”
John nodded, and Nick walked over to the table and handed one of the bottles to him, then sat down, slouching in the chair slightly.
“I think I’m going to have to make arrangements to get my groceries delivered. You were right about it being too far to walk, for more than a couple of things, anyway.”
“George will do it, but he’ll charge you for it,” John warned him. “If you like, we can take the ferry over to
Nick drank some of his beer and nodded. “That’d be great.” He touched the bottom of the beer bottle to the table and then lifted it up, looking at the small ring of damp left behind on the wood. He rubbed at it with his fingers. “Are you going to end up pissed off at me for taking advantage of you? That’s what Sinclair should have been worried about, not the other way around.”
“What?” John was honestly thrown by the question. “You haven’t asked me for anything; I’ve offered. How is that taking advantage of me?” He shook his head. “You worry too much.”
“Probably.” Nick offered him a wry smile, rolling the bottom of his beer bottle on the table and making a swirled pattern of circles. “The bread’ll only take about fifteen minutes.” He glanced back at the range. “I feel like I’ve been hungry since I got here. All the fresh air, maybe. Or the stress of being somewhere new?”
“If fresh air makes you hungry, you’ll be getting plenty of it tomorrow. Assuming you still want to climb Ben Dearg, that is? The weather forecast is good.” John had given some thought to a route they could take that, although longer, avoided any actual climbing for the sake of Nick’s injured wrist. “And as for the stress, well, I can’t argue with you there. I’m feeling more than a little of it myself.”
Nick didn’t move, but somehow he seemed to exude sympathy as if he’d leaned forward and touched John. “I’m sorry. Me turning up here isn’t the easiest thing for you.”
Setting his beer down on the table, John stood up and walked around to Nick, who turned his head to glance up at him in surprise.
Which made it very easy to kiss him; a firm kiss that didn’t last long enough for the beer-chilled lips under his to warm and part, although Nick didn’t pull away.
“Stop it.” John straightened and gave Nick a direct look. “You don’t have to apologize for anything you’ve done to me, and I’ve no regrets at all about you coming here.” John leaned against the table, which was solid oak and didn’t move, and reached across it for his beer bottle. “Here’s to us.” He clinked it gently against Nick’s bottle. “Will you drink to that?”
Nick still had that wide-eyed look about him, startled but not displeased. He nodded. “Yes.” He didn’t sound quite like himself, as if he was a bit overcome, and John had to wonder about his life that a simple declaration like that could overwhelm him.
“You’re not to be thinking all the stress in my life came with you stepping off the ferry. It didn’t. And you stepping back onto it and sailing off into the sunset wouldn’t do a damn thing but make me so miserable there’d be no living with me.” John took a long swallow of his beer. “I tried to tell her today.” He avoided Nick’s eyes. “She was going on about grandchildren of all things and I just couldn’t bear it.” He picked at the label on the bottle, peeling it back. “So I came as close as I ever had to telling her and she just --” John shook his head. “It didn’t register with her at all. Oh, she got the part where I’m not hankering after Sheila; that suited her, so she was listening to that, but the rest of it? No. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Nick stood up and pushed his chair to the side to make room so that he could lean against the table beside John. “You tried; that’s something. Maybe she did hear you, but she just needed some time to let it sink in. To accept it.”
“Maybe. Or maybe I was breaking it to her so gently it didn’t break at all.” John sighed. “It wasn’t the right time anyway. Not just before her birthday. It’s the first one since Dad died, and for all that she’s excited she’s going to be missing him on Friday.”
“There’s no hurry,” Nick agreed. He slipped his arm around John’s waist and leaned in to kiss his ear, doing something a bit more distracting with his tongue than John had been prepared for but which was in no way unwelcome.
John closed his eyes and felt his body go from being aware that Nick was close enough to kiss, in a pleasantly low-key way, to being aroused to the point of wanting to fuck him over the sturdy table because it was the closest flat surface. It was a shift that Nick seemed able to trigger without doing much at all really. Breathing shallowly, he reminded himself that he’d only just got there, they were both hungry, and by the smell of it the garlic bread needed to come out of the oven.
It didn’t work.
“Stop that.” Even as he spoke, he was tugging Nick closer and running his hand eagerly over Nick’s backside. “You need to ... need to ...” Nick was biting on his earlobe, and John could feel a warm tingle race through his body. “God, Nick --” He turned his head and found Nick’s neck with his mouth. “Bread is burning,” he mumbled, sucking gently at the smooth skin. “Unless you like it extra-crispy.”
“It’s not burning,” Nick barely whispered into his ear. There was a brief pause. “Yeah, okay, maybe it is,” and the two of them detangled themselves.
John leaned back against the table and watched Nick’s backside as he bent over to retrieve the bread, which didn’t do much to take the edge off, that was certain.
The bread, unwrapped, wasn’t more than slightly dark brown. Nick gestured at John. “Sit down.”
John did, but that didn’t stop him watching Nick with a great deal of pleasure as the man served up the food and put it on the table.
“I should have thought about the garlic,” Nick apologized as he sat. “But I guess if we’re both eating it, it shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
“The way I’m feeling right now, you could eat raw fish and it wouldn’t put me off kissing you.” It was no more than the truth. “And yes, I know some people do, but the closest you’ll get to sushi up here is smoked salmon, which isn’t quite the same.”
“I don’t think it’s sushi if it’s smoked.” Nick tore off a slice of garlic bread and dropped it directly into his bowl of soup, where it immediately began to absorb liquid and sink, and then poked it with his spoon. “I like sushi, actually.”
“Somehow I thought you might.” John spooned up some soup. “I’m saddened but not surprised.”
Nick laughed. “Have you ever had any?”
John took a piece of bread and clucked his tongue reprovingly. “I’m wounded that you think I’d judge something I hadn’t tried. I’ve had it. Didn’t like it. As you’ll find out for yourself, Stella’s fond of theme nights. The fact that barely anyone shows up for them doesn’t seem to put her off. Japanese night was last May. You just missed the
Nick was looking at John with an expression he was quite sure was amusement despite the fact that Nick had just put nearly an entire piece of bread into his mouth and was chewing. He swallowed and spoke. “Just let me know. Whatever it takes to make it up to you.”
“Whatever it takes?” John fished out a piece of chicken from his bowl and looked over at Nick. “Insult me again.”
“Um ...” Nick looked at him thoughtfully for several long moments, then dropped his gaze to his bowl and spooned up some soup. “Sorry; I can’t think of anything.”
“Really?” John contemplated that for a moment, feeling pleased, even if they were just joking, and then shrugged. “Well, we have only just met.”
“I could make something up?” Nick offered. “I don’t like the way you dress, you’re funny-looking ... your mother smells of elderberries?”
“That makes four insults.” John nodded, finding that he couldn’t hold back his grin any longer. “And four whatever-it-takes. That’s enough to be going on with.” He took another piece of bread and dunked it in his soup. “This soup is really good.”
Nick didn’t seem to have any complaints about it himself, if the way he was eating was any indication. “Good. I’ve done more cooking in the past couple of days than I have in years. I kind of like it, though. I asked Sinclair -- sorry, I just forget his first name. Is it polite to call a minister by his first name? -- anyway, I asked him if he knew anyone that might be willing to show me how to cook. He seemed to think that was a pretty strange thing to want to do.”
“You can call him what you like to me, but you’d better say ‘Mr. Sinclair’ to his face.” John’s mild dislike of the minister deepened. “He’s a traditional sort of man; thinks God created woman to do cooking and cleaning and such. I doubt he’s ever made himself more than a piece of toast in his life. Ignore him.” A thought occurred to him. “Stella. You ask her. She’s too busy to teach you herself, but she might know someone. Katy, who works in her kitchen, could come here and give you a crash course or something Or you could get a book. It can’t be that hard to follow instructions and that’s all a recipe is.”
“I just thought it would be easier to learn hands-on.” Nick used the side of his spoon to cut the piece of bread he’d dropped into his soup earlier. “There are a couple of books in one of the cupboards, but I think they’re from the late eighteen hundreds or something. I didn’t even know what some of the ingredients were.”
John raised his eyebrows. “Oh, aye? Neeps and tatties, cullen skink and the like? Show them to Stella and she’ll be all for doing an authentic Scottish night, and you’ll get to taste haggis for the first time.” He gave Nick a challenging look. “Or does a stuffed sheep’s stomach not sound appealing then?”
It wasn’t something John was particularly fond of, although he’d had it once or twice, but he enjoyed watching the fascinated look of horror creep over a tourist’s face when they found out how it was made.
“Not really.” Nick gave him a bland look. “Actually, it sounds worse than raw fish, but I’ll try it if you think I’d like it. Is it any good?”
John kicked him under the table. “Spoilsport,” he said without rancor. “You’re supposed to go pale and then turn an interesting shade of green. It’s not bad, but I’d rather have another bowl of this soup, if there’s any going.”
“There’s plenty.” Nick stood up and snagged John’s bowl, taking it over to the range. “Oh, and it would help if I actually turned the burner off before going away and ignoring it. This would be why I could use actual cooking lessons and not just a book.” He ladled some more soup into the bowl. “Will everyone else think it’s weird I want to learn how to cook, or is that just Sinclair’s thing?”
“Why do you care? And no, I can’t see why they would. Your uncle looked after himself just fine until he got too poorly; cooked and cleaned, and so do I.” John considered what he’d just said. “Well, more or less. My mother’s been known to comment on the state of the kitchen floor from time to time, but if she thinks I’m mopping it up when I’m in off the boat, bone-tired and soaking-wet ... well, I’m not, then.”
“I don’t see the point of cleaning unless it’s going to make a pretty big difference.” Nick set John’s bowl in front of him again and sat back down. “You could get someone in to that kind of stuff, though, if you wanted to?” It was definitely a question.
“Can’t afford it.” John grinned, trying to picture his sisters’ faces if they found out he’d paid someone to clean his bathroom. “But if you can, and you really don’t want to be bothered, aye, there’s a cleaning service on the island. Mother and daughter team. They mostly do the holiday cottages, but that’s more in the summer.”
“I don’t know. I might not like people traipsing through here all the time. I kind of like my privacy.” Nick finished his beer. “But maybe a couple of times a year, just to keep the worst of the filth under control.”
“Sounds like a plan. It probably isn’t worth getting them in before you tear the place up though, and speaking of which, Niall and his brother said they’d come over on Monday, if that suits you.”
John had had to have a quiet word with Niall, as he’d been planning to charge Nick over the odds on the grounds that he was an American and could afford it, but he wasn’t going to mention that.
Nick groaned. “Oh, God, they’re going to have to rip the walls open and stuff, aren’t they. That should be fun.” He stood up and went over to the refrigerator. “You want another beer?”
“Thanks. You -- maybe by then, if -- well, maybe you could stay at my place if it gets too bad. With the dust and the noise, I mean.”
John finished what was left of his first beer just to give him something to do that wasn’t looking anxiously at Nick to see how he’d react to that idea.
Because he’d been thinking about what they’d discussed, he really had. The idea of being able to be with Nick whenever the hell he wanted without worrying, of being able to speak without guarding his tongue -- well, it was what he wanted, no doubt about it.