July - Chapter Six

“That’s sounding pretty good.”

Jeremy stopped playing and turned to the doorway. His mom was standing there, looking at him with something far too close to pride. He grinned at her. “Thanks.”

“What piece?”

“It’s Brahms. Sonata in E-Flat Major.”

“Well, it’s beautiful.” She leaned against the doorframe, mug of coffee in hand. “Got any plans for today?”

It was Saturday. The day stretched before them, big as a yawn, and Jeremy shrugged. “Don’t know yet. Maybe.”

“You should try to go out.” Rochelle nodded at the sitting room window, where sunshine was streaming in. “Make the most of it.”

“I will,” he assured her, and he wasn’t lying. Colin had said something the day before about an idea, a plan, a thought he had been cooking up over the past few days.

Colin. Now that was complicated. Touchy.

Rochelle, with her keen, almost-spooky ability to read his mind, looked at him and said, “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Colin.”

Yup. Message received. Jeremy traded his clarinet for Mozart, who flopped belly-up in his arms, and said, “I thought you wanted me to make friends.”

Rochelle had to smile at that. “You’re not wrong.” She reached out and rubbed Mozart’s back paw. “I just want you to tread carefully.”

“I am. Treading, I mean.”

His mom gave him this look of apprehension, mingled with concern. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Jeremy swallowed, feeling a sudden swell of emotion. Ridiculous.

“I’m not going to get hurt, Mom. Not by him.”

By now, Jeremy knew far too much about cows. And sheep. And maybe even chickens.

Over the past ten days, the remainder of his first two weeks in Scotland, he and Colin had fallen into a routine. Mornings were reserved for Jeremy alone; he spent the time reading, practicing and, in Colin’s words, “Sleeping like a goddamned sloth, Jesus Christ.” Colin had some funny ideas about sleep, but Jeremy supposed, that made sense if you had to be up at the literal ass-crack of dawn every day of your life. Jeremy called him a sleep bigot. Colin called him something not fit for polite company.

Jeremy had this thought, about halfway through their third farm visit on a particularly wet Thursday, that maybe his and Colin’s friendship was transactional, more than anything else. He helped Colin with his errands, Colin made sure that Jeremy didn’t wallow in solitude, yadda yadda yadda — but every day still ended in a quiet moment at the top of the cliff, passing the Thermos of steaming tea back and forth. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they didn’t talk at all, sometimes Jeremy talked and Colin said nothing, sometimes Colin talked and Jeremy snarked and laughed when Colin’s ears went red with frustration.

If Jeremy were being honest, he couldn’t tell if Colin really was just performing the friendship out of pity, but Jeremy was raised by a historian, so he knew how to argue the opposite; Colin didn’t need to keep him around, and he wasn’t indulgent by nature, so it was possible he enjoyed Jeremy’s company. His friendship.

Friend. Sometimes, but not always, the word caught at Jeremy’s skin and dug under like a splinter. In all honesty, a part of him couldn’t believe that Colin wanted to be friends with him, the weird new kid with the clarinet.

The other part of him, the part that loved the word maybe, would raise its head whenever Jeremy caught Colin looking at him for a beat too long, or resting a hand on his shoulder for a moment (or three) longer than necessary. Or when their banter, as surface-level as it might feel, got too edgy to be playful, seemed to dance around possibility. Or when Colin, who apparently had very few boundaries, would change shirts out in the open, stripping with the easy confidence of somebody built like a brick house.

Sometimes, he would flash Jeremy a grin, and he would blush in equal parts attraction and frustration, staring at that goddamn tattoo with defiance. He bristled at the unfairness of it all, wishing that just once, he could unsettle Colin, make him blush, give him a taste of his own medicine.

Then, occasionally — and Jeremy hated himself when it happened — he stopped missing Jo. He knew it was because of Colin and Aggie, because he was spending less time alone and less time thinking about D.C. and everything he’d left behind. So he made a point of Snapchatting her more often than not, of making plans to FaceTime and watch Game of Thrones together at least once a week. A week after his arrival, he even sat down and sketched out a semi-serious map of the cottage and the town, and he stuck it in the mail with a grin — Jo loved getting snail mail, even when it was junk. He was still getting used to spending so much time alone, and it was nice to remember that she was on the other side of the phone, deep in a physics lab but always ready to talk.

Because even though Scotland was looking up, sometimes it still felt bleak, like the stones and moss and tides would rear back and swallow him whole.

Anyway. Sheep, chickens, cows. Jeremy knew which cream to grab for a hotspot, which for a minor scrape. He met all the island’s main farmers, and marveled at Colin’s ability to remember names, details — who was due for a shear and who needed their coop repaired. Colin carried himself through the work with a natural ease that was intimidating — Jeremy just did his best to keep up. He knew how Colin liked to keep his bandages sorted — by size, then by thickness — and he was learning Colin’s signals, the small gestures and grunts that meant gloves or stethoscope. Really, Jeremy thought, it’s like being stuck in some ancient Agatha Christie thriller. He’s the Sherlock Holmes, I’m the bumbling Watson. And we don’t solve crimes, unless you could count barbed wire as the villain.

Several times, in the afternoons after things had slowed down and the tea had been drunk, they went to Aggie’s ice cream shop as a before-dinner dessert. The weather hadn’t been great, but that didn’t seem to deter the locals, who, in Aggie’s words, would eat ice cream like the very state of summer depended on it. Jeremy was beginning to understand how her father could turn a profit, even if it was seasonal.

Aggie was funny, too. And nice. She had a touch of Colin’s brittle humor and a competitive streak a mile wide, as Jeremy learned when Colin challenged her to see who could finish a Hot Tin Roof the fastest.

It was intoxicating, being around them — they told him countless stories about people on the island, about endless summers spent in the forest, on the beach, in the town, looking after animals and watching the farmers age. The days seemed to stretch around them, bending to their will as they squeezed every drop they could out of the endless sun and rain. They reeled Jeremy in with their humor, their kindness, their insistence at including him in absolutely everything.

The Hot Tin Roof thing had ended in a series of yells from both Aggie and Colin as they each suffered a crippling brain freeze, Aggie running inside to stick her mouth under the tap and gulp water like a man dying of thirst. When she’d finally surfaced, a chunk of peanut stuck to her cheek and a streak of ice cream across her chin, she’d laughed herself breathless and said, “I won!”

Colin had pouted for half an hour after that.

Speak of the Devil. Jeremy’s phone buzzed with a Snapchat, which he opened to see a photo of the road from the cab of Colin’s truck with the caption, ‘be there in 10, pack a change of clothes.’

“Marching orders,” Jeremy muttered. He took off his headphones and nudged Mozart away, standing up from the couch. He’d finished practicing an hour before, Rochelle leaving him to listen to some more Brahms as she buried herself in a pile of papers and some old book or three. Mozart hopped down to the floor and looked up at him, letting out a plaintive meow.

“Chill,” he told her. She gave him a thoroughly unamused glare, but followed him upstairs just the same.

Under torture, he would admit that he loved having a cat. Mozart stuck to his side most of the day and even at night, and he loved feeling her small warm body curled up next to his side. Even though she would usually wake him up by licking his chin and breathing in his face, which was not, y’know, great.

As their first two weeks rolled past, his mom had gone into full nesting-mode — they could practically build a city out of Prime boxes — and had spared no expense when it came to Mozart, surprising Jermey and even herself.

Mozart now had a proper litter box, which they kept in the little sunroom off the side of the kitchen (thankfully, now devoid of boxes of books), at least a dozen toys, and Rochelle had gotten the chief’s permission to put in two cat flaps, one in the back door, and one in the sunroom. After several tense encounters, Mozart had made it very clear that she was an indoor-outdoor cat, and after some persuasion, had agreed to wear a little black leather collar with a gold buckle, which was now twinkling in the sunlight coming in from Jeremy’s bedroom window. She even ate her meals at the same time as they did, and they had set up a small dining area for her under the poster of Paul. Honestly, he thought, a cat has never had it so good.

And, she had recovered well from her little operation. Jeremy smiled as she gave him a flash of her shaved belly from her perch on his bed. At first, they had been alarmed by how much she was trying to do, but Colin had kept a close eye on her and assured them both that there was nothing wrong, and that they should trust Mozart to know her own boundaries. The plastic cone had completely disappeared, and neither Jeremy nor his mom had been able to find it.

“Change of clothes,” Jeremy muttered, his ears burning as he threw a pair of jeans, a shirt, a hoodie, and a pair of boxer briefs into a backpack, followed by a pack of cards and a Mars bar. What could they possibly be doing that required fresh clothes?

“You’ll find out,” Colin said as Jeremy approached the truck. The rumble of the old engine was easy to hear above the ocean, so Jeremy had taken to beating Colin to the front door. Most of the time, Colin just waited in the cab, unless he wanted to swipe a biscuit from the pantry. He jerked his head towards the house and said, “She’s coming with?”

Jeremy frowned and turned, and sure enough, Mozart was right behind him, her tail held high. “I guess so.” He squinted at Colin through the sunlight. “Is that a problem?”

“Nah.”

Once Jeremy was in the truck, Mozart sprawling across his lap, Colin pulled away from the cottage and, to Jeremy’s surprise, turned them back towards town.

“Don’t worry,” Colin said. “It’ll make sense soon.”

They drove along the coast but, instead of turning into Dunsegall, continued on, going past the harbor and further east along the southern shore than Jeremy had been before. Soon, there was a road to the left, due north, and Colin took it, driving them up into the hills. Mozart raised her head, taking a long sniff.

“You’re not going to take me to some remote cliffside to murder me, are you?”

Colin shook his head. “You really are morbid.”

“I prefer the term, ‘exceptionally imaginative.’”

“And a prat.” Colin almost smiled. “Have a good practice?”

“Yes. There’s this one section that’s giving me some trouble, but apart from that.” Jeremy gave him the side-eye; normally, Colin didn’t ask stuff like that. “What have you been up to in the past twelve hours?” Too late, he was struck by just how recently they had parted.

“Fixing the coop.” And now that Jeremy was looking for it, there was a layer of sawdust on Colin’s battered old jeans, a scrape on his forearm, a splotch of white paint on his elbow. “It’s not perfect, but it’s better.”

Jeremy thought for a moment. “What do you do with the eggs?”

“Sorry?” Colin took another right, and suddenly, they were surrounded by wheat fields.

“The eggs. From all your chickens.”

Colin shrugged, another one of his fidgety movements. “Use them. Sell the spares to the shop in town.”

“You must eat eggs every morning.”

Colin didn’t react, but his ears went red. “Right.”

How interesting. Jeremy shifted, turned to look at him properly. Colin was definitely uncomfortable, and Jeremy fought a surge of glee. “Col, what aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing.” But his ears got redder, even as his face remained impassive.

“Colin!” Jeremy grinned. “Are you egging people’s houses? Being a delinquent?”

“No,” Colin said, short and sharp. He shifted the gear with more force than necessary. “I… bake. With the eggs.”

No way. “Bake what?”

“Cakes and things.” Colin still wasn’t making eye contact.

“Why are you embarrassed?”

“I’m not.” Colin tapped a quick rhythm on the steering wheel. “It’s recent. That’s all.”

“Col, there’s no shame in baking.” Jeremy was grinning, in spite of himself. “When do I get to try one of your cakes?”

“Never.”

“Awww!” Jeremy put on a show of pouting. “Why not?!”

Colin cleared his throat. “They’re not very good.”

“I think you’re just saying that. And I think you’re being unfair.”

“Unfair?” Colin’s voice rose a pitch.

“Yes. To the cakes.”

Colin shook his head.

“I should be a test subject,” Jeremy went on. “With the cakes.”

“If you don’t shut up,” Colin growled, “I will throw you out of this truck myself.”

Jeremy smirked but obeyed.

A few minutes later, Colin turned onto a gravel road, taking them up through a small copse. When the trees broke, a massive house came into view, all sprawling brick and shining windows. Luscious gardens spilled across a wide front lawn, through which the gravel arced to form a parking circle. They continued down the driveway, pulling to a stop in front of the large stone entryway, and Jeremy couldn’t help gaping. Who in the hell lived here?

As if by magic request, Aggie materialized around the corner of the house, barefoot and wearing a bikini top and a pair of baggy denim shorts, accompanied by a massive Dalmatian. She waved, the dog barked, and Colin grinned as he killed the engine.

“This is Aggie’s house?” Jeremy said, still in shock.

“Aye.” Colin reached across him to the glove compartment and pulled out a pair of Ray Bans. He put them on and flashed Jeremy a smirk.

Jeremy ignored this development and said, “You didn’t say she was rich.”

“Well, when she’s not making pottery, her mum’s busy being a famous architect.” Colin gestured to the house. “Hence the… well, everything.”

Explains why they can live off the earnings of a small ice-cream shop, Jeremy thought, getting out of the cab. Mozart followed him, but after one look at the Dalmatian, darted around to the opposite side of the house and snuck into the garden.

“Greetings, nerds.” Aggie grinned at both of them as they approached. “How are we?”

“Confused,” said Jeremy. Colin took a knee and went eye-to-eye with the Dalmatian, who gave him an enormous lick across the face. “I didn’t realize you were a member of the aristocracy.”

“Oh, yes.” Aggie smirked. “Did I mention you’ve got to bow to me?”

“Ah, well, I’ve thrown out my back, so—”

“I’ll forgive you, just this once.” Aggie led them back to the front of the house. “Come on, I’ll take you through.”

The front door swung open to reveal a wide entryway with a dark stone floor, a staircase yawning opposite them. Rooms appeared to the left and right, but Jeremy only got a brief glance as they continued on to the back corner of the house, beyond the staircase. The décor was simple and elegant, a mix of old farmstead and townhouse, with an occasional flash of demonstrative occupancy — an open book lying face-down, an abandoned mug of tea, a pile of unopened mail. By Colin’s side, the Dalmatian was panting happily.

The kitchen was open and bright, warm with the scent wafting from the pile of freshly-baked scones sitting on the sideboard. Aggie went over to the massive, shiny metal fridge. “Want anything to drink?”

“Ginger beer?” said Colin, then caught the bottle Aggie threw to him, popped the cap, and took a swig.

They both drank the stuff like water, but had yet to convince Jeremy to try any. At some point, Aggie had stopped asking, which he found quite suspicious. He was waiting for the moment she would pin him down and empty a bottle of ginger beer on his face, because, well, that was Aggie’s style.

She waved a hand at her dog. “That’s Baggins, by the way.”

Baggins, who was staring up at Colin, twitched at the sound of his name. “Borf!”

“That’s right, big man.” Colin patted the dog, then swiped a scone and bit it in half.

“Baggins isn’t very clever,” Aggie stage-whispered. “But we love him all the same.”

Jeremy nodded. “My mom says the same thing about me.”

Aggie snorted and headed back to the doorway. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Just outside the kitchen, beside a large pair of French doors that opened onto a wide brick patio, was another door, small and inlaid with glass. Beyond, Jeremy could see a wide, sunlit hallway lined with windows that, once they were walking down it, carried a distinctive smell of—

“Oh,” he said, staring at the room in front of them.

It was a pool house, and it was massive. The walls and ceiling were all glass, interrupted by arches of sloping white stone. Sunshine spilled in, making the surface of the water glitter, and the air was pleasantly humid. A door in the wall facing the back gardens was propped open, and the scent of trees and bougainvillea wafted into the room. As Jeremy looked out over the wide lawn, he noticed Mozart lying in the shade of a large bush, busy washing her face.

The pool itself was pretty large, and it wasn’t like any pool he had ever seen before — the sides and bottom were covered in blue and white tiles, swirled in intricate designs.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” said Aggie, following his gaze. “It’s original, probably from the late nineteenth century, or so my mum says. We restored this whole place,” she added. “My mum found it by accident and made it her pet project.”

“Wow,” said Jeremy, because that was all he could think to say. Baggins was sniffing the perimeter of the room with a comical degree of dedication.

“Right.” Colin stepped in front of them, pushing his sunglasses up his forehead and giving Jeremy a serious look. “Jer, I realize we’re ambushing you, but Aggie and I think it’s high time you learned how to swim.”

“Really?” Jeremy shot back. “I couldn’t tell from the way you told me to pack a change of clothes and tricked me into coming here.” Because, looking back, it did make sense.

“We thought this would be better than learning in the ocean,” Colin continued, ignoring Jeremy’s reply. “And, Eggie is one of the best swimmers I know.”

“We’ll start slow,” Aggie chimed in. “All in the shallow end, and you don’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

Jeremy glared at Colin, wondering if he had told Aggie about the nightmares. Then, Colin gave a tiny shake of his head, his gaze softening somewhat. Maybe he hadn’t.

“You can borrow a pair of my brother’s swim trunks,” said Aggie, going over to one of the lounge chairs scattered around the pool and rummaging through an unidentifiable pile of stuff. “And, for when we move to the deeper end—!” She held up a pair of neon orange inflatable arm floaties, unable to hide her glee.

“I hate you both,” said Jeremy, but he grinned.

Colin smirked and clapped him on the back. “I think that’s a yes!”

Jeremy sighed and shifted on the lounger. Above him, the sun blazed bright and hot, warming him to the edges of his body. He felt tired, but pleasantly so, worn out and happy.

Beside him, Aggie sighed as well, rolling over so the sun would hit her back. “I could stay here forever.”

“Me, too,” said Jeremy.

“Cancer!” came Colin’s shout from the shaded area just outside the pool house. “Two words — skin cancer!”

Aggie took off her slide and threw it in his direction. “Shut up!”

“Aggie,” said Jeremy, “not that I really mind, but where are your parents?” They hadn’t appeared at all, which, in Jeremy’s experience, wasn’t typical when your teenage daughter had two friends over.

“At the shop,” she replied. “Mum tries to go in on the weekends, even though she’s useless at scooping ice cream.”

“Really?” Jeremy tried to picture an award-winning architect having trouble doing anything, and couldn’t. “It’s ice cream.”

“She’s funny like that.” Aggie took a pull off her — second? third? — bottle of ginger beer. “She can’t cook for shit, either. She says that’s why she married my dad.”

He grinned. “What romance.”

Aggie chuckled, then reached over and punched his arm, a gesture reminiscent of Colin. “Hey, you did really well today. For your first time.”

“I wanted it to be special for both of us.”

“Gross.”

Truthfully, the lesson had gone much better than he’d expected it to.

At first, Aggie had kept him out of the water, made him lie on his stomach by the pool and practice the crawl — “Freestyle,” he’d grumbled, which Aggie ignored — and breaststroke until he felt comfortable. When he did migrate to the water, Aggie and Colin stuck close to him, and Aggie kept him in the shallow end. After several laughable attempts, she taught him how to float, and then spent a while coaching him through doing the crawl across the width of the pool. Being in the water was a lot easier when you could touch solid ground with your feet.

It was fun, the swimming, once he got used to it, and it was a welcome distraction from what Colin looked like in a swimsuit, because Jesus Christ was that testing Jeremy’s sanity. Over the past two weeks, he’d gotten better at ignoring Colin’s looks and general swoon-inducing powers, but still. He was only human.

So. The swimming had gone pretty well, and he hadn’t freaked out or anything. This — his lack of freak-outage — was perhaps more surprising than anything, and he could tell that Colin was just as relieved as he was.

The borrowed swimming trunks, though. Man, were they shorter than he’d thought — a European thing, he guessed. Aggie had wolf-whistled when he emerged from the changing room, blushing from the attention and the amount of air hitting his thighs. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to make eye contact with Colin, even as Aggie hollered, “Jeremy lookin’ like a snack!”

Now, he fidgeted. The swimsuit was still damp, and it wasn’t helping him feel any less exposed. The sun beat into his skin like a spotlight, searching and relentless, a great big flashlight hanging from the sky.

“What’s that?” Aggie’s voice cut in on his musings. “Is that you humming?”

“Huh?” Jeremy opened his eyes. “Yeah, I guess I was.”

“Dork,” she said. “What song?”

“Parliament,” he said. “ ‘Flashlight.’ ” He looked over at the pool house and noticed that Colin’s lounger was empty. “Where’d he go?”

“To get food, probably.”

A light tap on his arm drew his attention, and he turned to see Mozart, on her hind legs and staring at him expectantly. As he looked at her, she let out a pointed meow.

“Come on, then,” he said, patting his stomach. She jumped up, sniffed around, then lay down.

“Is that your cat?” said Aggie, incredulous. “Has it been here this whole time?”

“Mozart, Aggie, Aggie, Mozart.” Jeremy threaded his fingers through Mozart’s fur and got a rumbling purr in response. She was warm from the sun and there was some dirt scattered through her coat. “She likes coming places with me.”

“I’ll say.” But Aggie sat up and reached across, holding out a hand for Mozart to sniff. Mozart gave her a head bump, and Aggie started scratching her chin.

“She’s very spoiled,” Jeremy said. “But at least I don’t have to feed her caviar.”

“She’s so sweet!” Aggie continued to pet Mozart, who was turning into a puddle from all the attention. “She’s the one you rescued, right? When Colin found you by the cliffs?”

“Yeah. My mom and I decided to keep her.”

“So it’s just you two, then? You and your mum,” Aggie clarified at Jeremy’s frown.

“Yes,” he said. He leaned back in his lounger, feeling prickly because he could practically hear what she was thinking. For all the time they’d spent together in the past few weeks, Aggie had never asked such a personal question — he’d assumed it wasn’t her style, or that Colin was telling her everything she wanted to know. Now, he wasn’t sure what to think. “And before you ask, I’m adopted, and my mom never married.”

“Got it.” Aggie nodded. “That’s pretty cool. You get her all to yourself.”

Jeremy blinked; he hadn’t been expecting that. He looked at Aggie, and thought about what it must have been like to grow up in a huge house with a busy mom, an overworked dad, and a younger brother with a talent for getting into trouble (or so Colin said). Lonely, he thought.

“So you and Colin have been friends for a long time?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him. Maybe she would tell him something about Colin’s family, which Colin never discussed.

“For as long as I can remember.” Aggie smiled.

“Has he always been such…” Jeremy searched for the right word.

“A smart-arse?” Aggie supplied, then nodded. “Always. Although I think he might have met his match.” She gave him a pointed look, eyes twinkling, and Jeremy blushed. “It can be exhausting,” she continued, much to his relief, and lay back down on her lounger, “but he’s loyal to a tee. He sticks by the people that he cares about.”

Thankfully, Colin chose that moment to reappear. He was carrying a huge ham sandwich and an equally large bag of chips, which he tossed to the ground before sitting down beside Jeremy’s lounger. “Top-notch ham, Eggie,” he said, mouth half-full. In the sunlight, his pale skin gleamed, and the sharp lines of his tattoo curled over his shoulder like a snake.

“I’ll tell the chef. Jeremy,” she poked him, “pass the crisps?”

He obeyed, but not before taking a handful for himself.

“I see the Duchess has decided to join us,” said Colin, reaching out and giving Mozart a pat. “Has she been behaving?”

“Yes, and she will as long as Baggins keeps his distance.” Jeremy looked around for the dog in question, who, he discovered, was napping under a nearby oak.

“Ah, he could do with a swipe.” Colin broke off a small chunk of ham and held it out in front of Mozart’s muzzle. “Here you are, love.”

Once again, Jeremy felt a heated blush sweep across his cheeks, and as Mozart guzzled up the ham, he couldn’t help but think, wildly and weirdly, that if Mozart weren’t there, Colin’s hand would be on his stomach, fingers dancing across his skin.

Jesus Christ. Jeremy’s mouth was dry. Get it together, idiot.

After that, the conversation switched to a very important topic — what they were going to do for the rest of the day. It was already past four o’clock, the weather showed no signs of worsening, and the night seemed to open before them like a book.

“We could go into town,” Colin was saying, chomping on the last corner of his sandwich.

Aggie groaned. “No, it’ll be full of families and screaming kids.”

“Tell me how you really feel,” Jeremy quipped, reaching for more chips. Crisps?

“Listen.” Aggie stuck her foot in the air, not unlike a commanding general. “We’ve got the firepit, some fresh sausages, plus the two bottles of wine that I managed to stash under my bed. And,” she added, wiggling her foot, “my family won’t be back ’til past closing.”

“That settles it, then!” Colin spread his arms wide. “We’ll have a bit of a cookout, bit of a booze, we’ll share secrets and wake up thoroughly embarrassed tomorrow morning.” He grinned at both of them. “All right?”

Jeremy liked wine. He really, really liked wine.

Aggie was giggling and pointing at Colin. “You’ve gone full tomato mode!”

It’s true. Colin was very red. “But this tomato can still drink you under the table, my dear.” And he proved it, draining his glass.

“Whose turn was it?” Aggie said.

Around them, the crickets cackled in the fading purple of the garden, and the fire snapped in the shallow pit. They were sitting on the porch, just outside the house, with Baggins sprawling on the ground and Mozart happily curled up by Jeremy’s leg. Jeremy looked at Aggie, then at Colin, at how they glowed in the flickering orange light, smiling and loose with alcohol, and he felt something settle inside him. Friends. It had always been him and Jo against the world, but this night — this summer — felt heavy with promise.

“Mine,” said Colin, pouring himself another glass. He cast his gaze around the fire, all drama and a wide smirk, then said, “Never have I ever… eaten a mango.”

Both Jeremy and Aggie groaned, each taking a sip of wine. “This is so bullshit,” Aggie said, “it’s not my fault my mum went through a dried fruit phase.” She sighed loudly. “Never have I ever gone skinny dipping.”

Colin smirked and took a drink. Jeremy tried not to explode on the spot.

Aggie, meanwhile, was giggling again. “I don’t want to know, Colin.”

“Your loss,” said Colin, slouching lower in his chair.

Jeremy slumped, trying to think of a good one, and gave Mozart a pet. “All right, never have I ever… been to the Highland Games.”

Another round of groans as Colin and Aggie each took a drink.

Aggie hiccuped. “I think I’m losing.”

“Depends how you define losing,” Colin said, who seemed perfectly happy to crawl into his wine glass. “Never have I ever danced around my room in a feather boa singing My Fair Lady.”

“Oh, fuck you.” Aggie took a drink then dropped her head into her hands. “Never have I ever delivered a calf.”

“I don’t think that counts, love, the cow’s the one delivering, not me,” said Colin, then he ducked to avoid the chunk of grilled sausage Aggie threw at his head. “Temper!”

It continued like this, and Jeremy began to think, through a wine-soaked haze, that Aggie and Colin were actually pretty tame—

Aggie suddenly sat up. She had been lying on the ground, groaning that she couldn’t think of any more, but now she looked Colin dead in the face with a massive grin and said, “Never have I ever had sex.”

Colin swore loudly, then took a grudging drink while Aggie cheered.

Jeremy once again felt heat sweep across his face. Now that was something he definitely never needed to know. Never ever. And if his stomach dropped a little in disappointment, well, what did it matter.

“Looks like Jeremy and I are still on the virginity bus,” Aggie said, and she leaned over to knock her wineglass against Jeremy’s. “Cheers to that, mate. This island’s too bloody small. Got to be careful, it’s practically incest.”

“Doesn’t seem to have stopped him, though,” Jeremy said, before he knew he was saying it.

Colin looked at him across the fire. Half of his hair was sticking up and his eyes seemed almost yellow in the dusk, bright hard gems shining through the flames. “It was in Glasgow. Not that it’s any of your business.”

Jeremy felt a flare of outrage, and before Aggie could jump in, Jeremy opened his mouth and said, “Never have I ever kissed a girl.”

The silence around the fire was palpable. Colin slowly raised his glass and took a sip of wine, staring at Jeremy, his expression unreadable. Jeremy stared back, defiant.

But Aggie distracted them both as she took a drink from her own glass. “What?” she said to Colin, who was clearly surprised. “I’m not that boring. Besides, it was during term. We skived off one night and went to a club.” Like Colin, she went to a boarding school in Glasgow.

“But,” Colin said. He twitched, as if to rid his ears of water. “But.”

Aggie rolled her eyes. “What’s wrong with trying?” Another piece of sausage went flying past Colin’s head. “Anyway,” she continued, turning and smiling at Jeremy, “I think it’s sweet you haven’t kissed anyone yet.”

“I never said I hadn’t kissed anyone,” said Jeremy, whose mouth clearly had a mind of its own. His face was still hot, but he felt calm, oddly settled. He looked at Colin and said, “Your turn.”

It took a moment, then Colin said, “Never have I ever kissed a boy.”

Jeremy raised his glass and drained the rest of the wine, his mind awash with sudden memories — the heat of Trevor’s mouth, the sound he had made when Jeremy slid a hand under his shirt. It felt like another lifetime, those hurried moments in the back of the plane, and before that, the hidden fumblings with random faceless boys at the parties Jo had dragged him to.

Looking back, the memories played and flickered like a film reel, something Jeremy could watch but not feel. He knew — perhaps had always known — how empty it all had been, and he knew how much it hurt now, to be sitting across and yet miles apart from someone he genuinely liked, unable to change anything.

Aggie threw the rest of her wine into the grass, and with a furtive glance at Colin, who was staring at his feet, she sat up and said, “That’s the end of the wine, then. Let’s call it a night before the parents come home and find us utterly shnozzled.”

Jeremy flashed her a smile, trying to calm himself. “Sounds like a plan.”

They cleaned up quickly, Mozart watching them from her perch on Jeremy’s chair. Colin stayed quiet, and between one moment and the next, when Jeremy and Aggie were busy putting the fire out, he disappeared.

Jeremy noticed and didn’t say anything, but then Aggie noticed him not noticing and shook her head. “He’s probably passed out on my couch,” she said. “The boy sleeps like a rock once he’s got enough booze in him.” She looked at Jeremy then. “I think you frighten him.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes and gave Mozart the last scrap of sausage.

Aggie swatted at him. “Stop being an arse, you know what I mean.”

“Do I?” Jeremy countered, feeling his temper flare again. Jesus, what a night. “You tell me I scare him, and he flips out when I talk about kissing guys.”

Aggie groaned and rubbed her face. “I have had too much wine to be having this conversation with you.” She turned and looked him dead in the eye, though the effect was dampened by the way she wobbled. “Jeremy, whatever Colin is, he isn’t a homophobe. I know we live in a pretty traditional place, but it’s way better than it used to be. Just look at Irene!”

Jeremy frowned. What did Irene have to do with anything? “What about her?”

Aggie frowned back. “You didn’t know?” At his look of confusion, she barreled on: “Irene isn’t the black sheep of her family because she spent too much or drank too much, that’s what her siblings did. When she was a teenager, her parents caught her and her girlfriend at the time and threw a fit of substantial proportions.

“So Irene left for Glasgow and said she’d never come back. And she wouldn’t have, if her uncle hadn’t left her his farm. Here we are now, fifteen years later, she’s moved back, and she brought her partner with her, saying Fuck it if it pissed anyone off. Her parents are half-dead and she doesn’t talk to her family much, last I heard, but at least she’s here, and she’s not exactly a pariah. I mean, yeah, she keeps to herself and all, but people around here care more about her head of sheep than who she gets into bed with at night.”

The pieces were sliding into place. This explained Irene’s wariness, and Colin’s oddly protective tendency around her. “Oh,” said Jeremy.

“Yeah, so I wouldn’t call Colin homophobic. If anything, he’s the opposite.”

Jeremy stared at her. “What does that mean?”

“Look, when I said that I think you frighten him, I didn’t mean that it was because you love dick. I meant…” Aggie’s brow scrunched as she tried to find the words. “You are who you are, you don’t hide any part of yourself. I think Colin envies that.”

“Huh.” Jeremy’s thoughts spiralled inwards, creating more questions than he’d had before.

Aggie shook her head and muttered something about idiotic boys who needed to pull their heads out of their asses. “Come on,” she said then, handing Jeremy a stack of plates. “Let’s get these to the kitchen and go the fuck to bed.” She turned and went inside, Baggins following her.

Jeremy put his head back and stared up into a sky of fading purple, then he went into the house of the award-winning architect, Mozart by his side.

When Jeremy blinked awake some hours later, it was to find a tall, bald man at the foot of Aggie’s bed, looking sheepish with a tray of mugs in hand.

“Sorry,” the man whispered, freezing where he stood. “Didn’t mean to wake you.” He blinked at Jeremy, who suddenly realized why his face seemed so familiar. The eyes.

“Sir,” croaked Jeremy, “do you make a habit of sneaking into your daughter’s room?”

Aggie’s dad grinned. “Only when it’s late morning and the room is full of hungover teenagers. Happy Sunday,” he added, holding out one of the mugs.

“Thanks.” Jeremy took it and was thrilled to find it full of hot tea. It wasn’t coffee, but at least it was caffeine.

A loud, pointed groan from somewhere to his left. “Not hungover.” Aggie’s face was underneath two pillows; all Jeremy could see was a chunk of her hair.

Her dad raised an eyebrow and went to the couch at the foot of the bed, where Colin was snoring. He tapped Colin on the head and, once the boy showed some signs of life, passed along the second mug. “Sure thing, sweetheart.”

“Just very, very, tired.” Aggie surfaced and glared at her father. “I don’t appreciate this invasion of my privacy.” But she took the last mug all the same.

“Noted. There’s still some breakfast left, if anyone’s interested.” Aggie’s dad shot them a smile and left the room, whistling.

“We need to work on our sneak factor,” Aggie said, grimacing into her mug.

“You think?” Jeremy replied, half of his tea already gone.

Aggie shook her head and scooted down the bed, prodding Colin with her foot. “Oi. Don’t go back to sleep.”

“Wasn’t,” Colin mumbled, but his eyes were closed, and it took a good deal more prodding to get him to sit up. Jeremy, in the part of his brain that wasn’t thumping, felt some amusement — apparently, Colin could sleep in, provided you dosed him with alcohol. And if he couldn’t help but smile at the pillow crease on Colin’s cheek, well. What did it matter.

“Come on.” Aggie yawned but stood up all the same. “Time to face the music.”

Downstairs, Aggie’s mom was sitting at the kitchen table, already dressed and sketching on a pad of paper. She looked up at them as they came traipsing into the room and smiled. “The Three Musketeers. Have a fun night?”

Aggie hummed, already heading for the pile of leftover bacon on the sideboard. “Mum, this is Jeremy. Jeremy, mum.”

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” said Jeremy, offering his hand.

She seemed surprised, but she shook it. “Call me Cath, and my husband’s David,” she said, then appeared to size him up. “The famous Jeremy. You’ve been the talk of the town ever since you arrived.”

His stomach dropped, and Aggie must have seen it in his face because she put an arm around his shoulders and steered him towards the bacon. “Don’t frighten him, mum.”

“Well, now that you’re all awake, can someone explain the cat we seem to have acquired overnight?” Cath gave them a pointed look, then shifted her gaze to the top of the fridge, where, Jeremy noticed, Mozart was perched like a gargoyle.

“Right,” he said, blushing. “She’s mine. Sorry about that.”

“It’s not a problem.” Aggie’s mum smiled. “I rather think Baggins learned an important lesson today when he tried to say good morning to her.”

“Bound to happen at some point,” said Aggie, pushing a plate full of bacon and toast into Jeremy’s hands. She sat at the table and started talking to her mum about how things had gone at the shop the night before.

Colin, meanwhile, was leaning against the counter, staring down into his tea and steadily working through piece after piece of bacon. He seemed to be brooding, and Jeremy joined him, last night’s conversation still echoing in his mind.

“Conspiracy theory,” said Jeremy, his voice low, “Baggins is part of a shadowy spy network, and Mozart has been put in the field to neutralize him. Discuss.”

Colin frowned, then grunted.

“Eloquent.” Jeremy started in on his own food and tried to keep one eye on Colin’s face.

Still, he said nothing.

“This is incredible,” Jeremy said through a piece of toast. “I’ve never seen you so non-functional in the morning. Maybe I should take a photo, commemorate the occasion, the one rare moment when Colin isn’t a morning person. It’ll be a collector’s item, make me a fortune. I can retire to Costa Rica, buy a beach house and a metal detector, become one of those weird beachcombers looking to make bank on pirate treasure.”

“Costa Rica?” said Colin, his eyes unfocused.

“I’ve heard it’s nice.” Jeremy chewed through another piece of bacon. “Who knows, I’ll probably get eaten by a shark, and Jo will throw me a gigantic funeral, it’ll be the event of the century, you’ll come and weep by my coffin and—”

Colin lifted a hand and covered Jeremy’s face, shutting him up. After a few seconds of silence, he said, “Much better.”