August - Chapter Three

Tomorrow came much sooner than Jeremy would’ve liked. For the second time since arriving in Scotland, he woke to the thump of his bedroom door hitting the spare chair. “Get up,” a very rough, very familiar voice grunted.

“Wuzzgunon?” Jeremy blinked, his ceiling blurry and bathed in pale yellow light. Dread seeped into his stomach, because he’d never seen his ceiling look like that, which could only mean one thing. “What time is it?”

“Quarter past seven,” Colin replied, digging through the dresser, which, what.

“You—you—” Jeremy shoved his head under the pillow. “Colin, I swear to God, I will call the police—”

“You could,” said Colin. “But they’re all at the general store, so.”

Thoughts creaked and ground together in Jeremy’s brain. It took a few moments, but he caught up. “The store?” he said, peeking around the edge of his pillow.

“Aye.” Colin’s expression was doing something very odd. He was clearly angry, but there was something else, too. Amusement? Whatever. It was too early for this sort of thing. “Good morning,” he said to Mozart, who had padded to the edge of the bed, mewing.

“Traitor,” growled Jeremy.

“She’s just pleased to see someone awake before noon,” Colin said, giving her the chin scratches he knew she liked best. Jeremy could feel her purring through the blanket. “Get up,” he added, then there was another thump and Jeremy felt something hit his leg.

The something was a pile of clothes. He scowled at it, wishing he had heat ray vision. “I didn’t say you could go through my stuff.”

“Aggie needs us,” Colin replied, ignoring him completely. Mozart jumped on top of the dresser, still purring. “Didn’t you get her call?”

Jeremy made a sound somewhere between a word and a groan. “Don’t know where my phone is.” He sat up, giving in. “Besides, you know I’m a heavy sleeper.”

“Among other things.” Colin took this as an invitation to rip the blanket off the bed. “Ah, found it,” he said, tugging Jeremy’s phone out from the gap between the sheet and the frame. “Seven missed calls and twelve new texts.”

Jeremy curled up like a pill bug. “I hate you so much.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Colin with a quick smile, tossing Jeremy’s phone next to his pillow. He looked far too good, far too bright and cheerful, for this time of day.

Jeremy swallowed everything he wanted to say and instead said, “Okay, fine. Give me two minutes.” He stood up, belatedly wishing he’d worn something other than just an old pair of gym shorts to bed.

Colin definitely noticed as well, and he took Jeremy in with a smirk. “I’ll leave you to it,” he said, and sauntered out of the room.

Jeremy sighed and reached for the fresh clothes. “You and I are going to have a talk later,” he said to Mozart, who just blinked at him.

When he got downstairs, he found his mom and Colin in the kitchen, chatting away.

“Well?” snapped Jeremy. Every bone in his body wanted to drag itself back to bed. “You woke me up in an ungodly fashion and made me get dressed. Are we going somewhere, or what?”

“I warned you,” his mom said to Colin, reaching for a shiny metal canister. “He’s not himself if you wake him up before ten.”

“On the contrary,” said Colin, looking Jeremy up and down. “I think this is exactly who he is. Do you need Oreos this time?” he added.

“No,” Jeremy growled.

“Oreos?” Rochelle shook her head. “Never mind, don’t want to know. Here.” She pushed the canister into Jeremy’s hands, and he realized it was actually a thermos. “I made it strong. Please don’t drink it all at once, you’re too young for a caffeine addiction.”

“Too late,” said Jeremy, unscrewing the lid and taking a large gulp. The coffee was black, but smooth instead of bitter, and it burned his tongue. He didn’t care, and took another gulp.

“Fantastic,” said Colin, rolling his eyes. “Come on, Yankee.” He pulled Jeremy in the direction of the front door. “Eggie waits for no man. Have a good day, Ms. Lefebre!”

“You too, boys!” Rochelle grinned at them and waved. “Jer, please text me!”

Once they were in the truck, Jeremy stared out the window and again wished for heat ray vision. His hair fluttered against his forehead, a sure sign that the day was going to be terrible.

“Are you going to be like this all day?” Colin wanted to know, getting them on the main road.

Jeremy grunted and took another swig of coffee. He was beyond human speech at this point.

“I don’t get how you made it through school,” said Colin. Again, amusement and anger played tug-of-war on his face. “Didn’t you have to be up early like the rest of us?’

“I made do,” Jeremy replied. “Jo helped. Usually with Dunkin’ Donuts.”

“Right. Jo.” Colin cleared his throat. “You had donuts every day?”

“No.” This was not helping his mood. What he would do for a large Dunkin’ double hazelnut iced latté. “They make coffee. I say coffee, really it’s liquid crack. Easily the number one thing I miss most about America.”

“Your mum really wasn’t kidding about the caffeine addiction,” Colin observed.

“She doesn’t know the half of it. That goddamn corporation pocketed at least two thirds of my allowance. They own me, body and soul.” He didn’t mention that back when he’d gotten his new phone, he’d started downloading the Dunkin’ Donuts app and almost cried when he’d realized there was no point to it.

“Better that than Starbucks, I guess.” Colin glanced at him. “Maybe that’s why you stay up so late and sleep so late — all the coffee.”

“Col,” said Jeremy, taking another chug, “I’m an enigma. I defy explanation. Now please tell me why you kidnapped me at this depraved hour.”

Colin’s face flickered, getting all grim and serious. “The general shop was broken into again last night,” he said. “Someone jimmied the lock, got in, and got back out without tripping the alarm. Everyone’s freaked. But mostly, Patrick’s calling for blood.”

Jeremy’s stomach swooped, and it had nothing to do with the coffee. Suddenly, he felt much more awake. “Fuck. Winston.”

“Yeah.” Colin nodded. “Aggie’s really on-edge. Called in an all-hands-on-deck as soon as she heard, so here we are.”

“Right,” said Jeremy. “All hands on deck.” He had no idea when he’d earned emergency-level status in this friend group, and it made him feel too many kinds of warm and fuzzy on the inside. He brushed his cheek, and wasn’t surprised to find it hot. “Explain something to me,” he said next, hoping to keep Colin distracted. “I get that Dunsegall is a small place, but crime can’t be totally unheard of. Why are people freaking out this much?”

“Because this hardly ever happens,” said Colin, fidgeting once again. “Really, Yankee. It’s basically impossible. I can’t even remember the last time we had something like this going on. And, it would be different if it were just a one-time thing, but it isn’t. Now that someone’s gotten past the alarm, Patrick’s convinced it’s an inside job.”

“Which doesn’t help Winston’s case.” Jeremy winced. “Shit. Shit.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Colin’s voice was steady, gritty. Jeremy refused to admit how attractive it was. “And you’ll see that when it comes to property in this town, people don’t listen to reason.”

He turned at the main intersection, up the road to the general store. When Jeremy saw what awaited them, he gaped.

“Good God,” said Jeremy. “You people need to watch more TV.”

Because what looked like half the population of Dunsegall was crowded around the general store, held back by a line of police tape and a few uniformed officers who looked completely out of their depth. Jeremy was reminded of a cluster of chickens, smothered and clucking amongst themselves, pecking at whatever they could find. Everyone turned at the sound of Colin’s truck — Jeremy imagined it was sense memory for most of them — and quickly turned back when they saw that the new arrival was nothing interesting.

“Really?” Jeremy found himself saying. “These people had nothing better to do on a Tuesday morning than—”

“Yup,” said Colin, easing into an empty bit of road — parking rules didn’t appear to matter when the police had shut down half the street — and killing the engine. “Keep your wits sharp, Yankee.”

As soon as their feet hit the pavement, Aggie appeared, pushing through a cluster of women trading gossip. “S’cuse me,” Jeremy heard her say, and he noticed that she looked pinched around the edges, like she’d been wrung out. “Morning, boys,” she said, trying to be energetic. “Thanks for—”

“Aye.” Colin stepped closer to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and giving her a squeeze. “Been here long?”

“Got here about a quarter of an hour after the police,” she replied, leaning into him for a moment. Jeremy tried not to stare; they weren’t normally affectionate that way, and it was sort of sweet, in spite of everything. His half-awake brain reminded him that a week ago, seeing that would’ve given him a spike of jealousy. How times change, he thought, then tuned back in to what Aggie was saying. “Dad’s really on edge. He’s worried it’s going to turn into a witch hunt.”

“It won’t,” said Colin, with the sure conviction of someone who still believed that people would behave reasonably in situations like this. “Now that it’s happened again, they’re definitely going to be able to figure out who did it.”

Jeremy didn’t have the heart to correct him. Instead, he took another swig of coffee, squinting at the sun.

Aggie rehashed everything Colin had already told him — lock jimmied, security bypassed, nothing caught on CCTV. “It’s really, really weird,” she said. They were leaning up against the side of the truck now, watching the store and the crowd in front of it. “Whoever it was didn’t even touch the register. I almost wish they’d taken the cash — it would make more sense, and it would make Patrick less paranoid, Jesus Christ.”

Jeremy’s brain wheezed and chugged again, a little faster now from the coffee. “What’d they take, then, if not the money?”

“Food.” Aggie shook her head. “There aren’t even homeless people on the island, and the church groups do soup kitchens and food drives. Who would need to steal bread?”

“Okay,” said Jeremy. “I get why Patrick feels like this is personal.”

Colin hummed. He was still frowning. “He’ll be closing the shop again, at least until the police finish processing it. But it can’t stay closed, he’ll lose income.” He scuffed his shoe on the road. “Wonder if he’s got insurance.”

Aggie looked at him and almost smiled. “Our solicitor asked the same thing.”

Why, Jeremy wanted to ask, then his brain wheezed some more and caught up. “I guess that makes sense,” he said. “Of all the kinds of fraud to choose from—”

“Exactly.” Aggie dug an elbow into his side. “But don’t let’s go yelling about it. Mum says discretion is everything.”

They were silent for a moment, stewing in the general awfulness of the situation.

“How is he?” Jeremy asked. “Winston.”

Aggie shrugged. “Fine, I suppose. He knows what people are saying about him, but he’s got a thicker skin than you’d think. Mum kept him home. She didn’t want anyone seeing him near this place.”

“That’s,” said Colin, then shook his head. “None of this is fair. He should be able to come to town, same as the rest of us.”

“You and I both know that we aren’t held to the same standard, Col,” said Aggie. “People like you get a lot more free passes than people like me and Jeremy.”

“I know.” Colin kicked at a loose stone. He was about ten seconds off from a proper brood, Jeremy could tell. “Doesn’t mean I like sitting by and letting it happen.”

“We should do something,” Jeremy found himself saying.

Both Aggie and Colin turned to stare at him. “What?” said Colin.

Jeremy fought off a blush. “Not about this,” he said, gesturing at the crowd. “But we should, y’know. Do something fun. To take our minds off of everything.”

Aggie squinted, considering. “Like what, Jer?”

He grinned. “Am I in charge of fun, now? Seems like a mistake.”

“It’s not a bad idea,” said Colin, which was sort of surprising. “Summer won’t last forever.”

“Well, we just had a ceilidh,” said Aggie. “Next one won’t be for a while.”

“I didn’t mean organized fun,” said Jeremy. “Just something, I dunno. Different. If I asked you where you’d go to let off steam, what would you say?”

“Pub,” said Aggie, just as Colin said, “Outer Rolls,” which made Aggie scoff.

Jeremy blinked at both of them. “Okay, those are very different answers. Also, Col, what in God’s name is an Outer Roll? It sounds like a baked good. Is it a baked good?”

“They’re hills, at the northern end of the island,” said Aggie. “He wants to go hiking.”

Only Colin would find exercise relaxing. “Gross,” said Jeremy. “But I guess we can do both, to keep things fair.”

Colin smiled, and it did stupid things to Jeremy’s insides. Aggie just smirked, all pleased with herself. It made a nice change from how sad she’d looked just a few minutes before.

“Quick follow-up,” said Jeremy. “What’s the point in going to the pub if we can’t drink?”

“Ah, but we can,” said Aggie, like an evil mastermind. “We can drink beer since we’re over sixteen. Also, Graham and I have an understanding. He’s one of the bartenders,” she added, at the confusion evident on Jeremy’s face.

“Do I want to know?”

Aggie shrugged. “I don’t charge him for ice cream, he doesn’t charge me for booze. Works out quite nicely.”

“Huh. Guess I’d better learn to like beer.”

Aggie clapped him on the shoulder. “I can help with that. We could do pub on Friday, hike on Saturday?”

“Sunday,” said Colin. “I’m helping in the surgery on Saturday. Think you could skip church?”

“Yup,” said Aggie. “Not a problem. Who’s up for surgery?”

“Gus is having a few teeth out.”

“Aw.” Aggie smiled. “Little Gussie.”

“I hope to God y’all are talking about an animal,” said Jeremy, fumbling for his thermos.

“Gus is a very prolific Boston Terrier,” said Aggie. “Owned by the Hartmans, who run the bookshop. Gus knows everybody — if it moves, he has to snort on it.”

“Lovely,” Jeremy replied, sucking down some more coffee.

“You kind of look like a hamster when you do that,” Aggie said, peering at him sideways. “Is that a mistake, or on purpose?”

“Aggie,” said Colin, but not in reproach. He was frowning at the store, tensed like a hound ready to give chase, and a moment later, Jeremy heard it, too.

“—I don’t care what you say, you need to get that son of yours under control—”

“—Patrick, I will not have this conversation with you in public. Please calm down—”

“Calm down?!” Patrick roared, loud enough that half the crowd turned to watch. The two men were standing in front of the store, and Patrick was nearly purple from anger, jabbing a finger in Aggie’s dad’s face. David was as cool as a statue, his jaw set and his mouth firm, watching as Patrick drove himself into a frenzy. “My store’s been broken into twice in the past month while your boy marches around this village like he owns the place! I told you before, this isn’t a game, and he cannot treat my livelihood like some kind of joke—”

“Patrick,” said David, raising his voice a little, “I’d like to remind you that as yet, there is no evidence incriminating my son, and that he’s a minor. The things you’re saying could be treated as libel.”

“Is that a threat?!” Patrick’s eyes practically popped out of his head. “You’ll stand there and threaten me on my own property?! You filthy bastard—” He spat on the ground, and the crowd gave a collective gasp.

Silence fell. David looked at Patrick, impassive, showing very little of the revulsion and anger that Jeremy felt rising in his own gut. The two men stood there, staring at each other, while the rest of the crowd stared at them.

After what seemed like a small eternity, David stepped away, scanning the faces in front of him. “Aggie?” he called out, his voice steady in spite of it all. “We’re going.”

Jeremy fumbled for Aggie’s hand and gave it a squeeze. She squeezed back. “See you later, boys,” she murmured, and stepped away, heading towards her Jeep, which was parked at the end of the road. Colin followed, close enough that no one tried to approach her, and Jeremy slumped against the truck, his heart pounding a little more than he’d care to admit.

Patrick stood there for a minute, looking like an utter fool. He was calming down, Jeremy noticed, some of the fight going out of him. A moment later, he turned and slunk back into the store, and Jeremy let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. The crowd broke apart, and a few people started to leave — clearly, they’d gotten the drama they’d come for.

“Well,” Jeremy said to Colin, once he was back in earshot. “That was horrible.”

Colin nodded, his jaw tight and his face ruddy. Jeremy didn’t have much experience with Colin’s temper, apart from the line they’d danced up until the ceilidh, but now he realized that Colin’s anger went inward, settling and stewing instead of exploding.

“Let’s go,” said Colin, his voice gruff.

“Yup.” Jeremy climbed into the cab. It was barely past eight.

Colin started the engine and turned them around, silent and glaring through the windshield. Good thing he doesn’t have heat ray vision, thought Jeremy, trying to watch Colin without it looking like he was watching Colin.

“What now?” Jeremy found himself asking. They were paused at the mouth of the road, and Colin hadn’t put on his turn signal.

Colin shook his head, then turned left, taking them further into town.

“Okay,” said Jeremy.

A minute later, Colin pulled to a stop in front of the bakery, which was open and full of gleaming, warm light. “Need a sarnie,” Colin grunted, killing the engine again.

“Okay,” Jeremy said again, following him out of the truck and into the bakery. There were two petite and jolly-faced people behind the counter — the owners, Jeremy assumed — and he instantly liked them just because they hadn’t been a part of the crowd outside the general store.

Their names were Connie and Joseph Miller, and they knew Colin, obviously. They asked Colin about the farm before he gave his order, and Jeremy was thrown by how normal it all was. It was almost surreal, after walking away from what had felt like the scene of a movie.

“Couple of bacon sarnies, two Scotch eggs, and two chocolate croissants for this one.” Colin nodded at Jeremy, who felt another disturbing flutter below his stomach. “Oh,” Colin added, “and lots of coffee.”

You’re my favorite, Jeremy thought, as the Millers started bagging their food.

They ate at the top of Colin’s secret cliff, sitting on the rocks instead of in the truck. It was a beautiful day, bright and warm and blue, and the sea sparkled up at them. Neither of them talked much — both were lost in thought, replaying the events of the morning, sipping at the two gigantic cups of coffee.

Jeremy polished off his Scotch egg, which was incredible, if odd, and made him wonder what other Scottish delicacies he’d been missing for the past month. He still wasn’t going to eat haggis, though. He moved on to a chocolate croissant.

“I don’t understand,” said Colin, “how Patrick could speak to Aggie’s dad like that.”

Ah. Jeremy glanced at him, and noticed the tight line of Colin’s jaw, the thin grimace of his eyes as he stared out at the horizon. “What do you mean?” he said.

Colin shook his head. “They’ve known each other for twenty years. Aggie and I used to walk to the shop almost every day after school. They live in the same town, drink at the same pub, have the same friends. And today, Patrick talks to him like—” He broke off, clearly at a loss.

“I know,” said Jeremy. “But he’s convinced himself that what he thinks of Winston is true, even though it isn’t. People get mean when their version of reality is questioned, and then it doesn’t matter how nice they were before, because all you see is this very real, very honest side of them that you can’t ignore, no matter what you do. He’s going off like he is because he’s scared, and, y’know, probably a little bit racist.”

Colin turned to look at him, his gaze uncertain but open. “Really? You think?”

“Yeah.” Jeremy nodded. “I know this place is supposedly nicer than most, but I do think that race is a factor in all this. It usually is.”

“Shit,” Colin breathed, his voice slipping beneath the sound of the waves, the wind in the grass, the chirrup of crickets. It was sort of peaceful, calm, in spite of everything.

If Jeremy closed his eyes, maybe they could stay there forever.

Shortly before noon on Thursday, Jeremy found himself staring up at the neat, painstaking stonework of Dunsegall castle and absently wishing for a suit of armor.

“Fucking medieval shit,” he grumbled, heading for the side door.

It was sort of remarkable that he had avoided coming to the castle before today. If he were being honest, it was more purposeful than not — the castle was his mom’s turf, and he didn’t want to mess with that. Besides, he’d seen enough of the collection on her laptop screen to know exactly what he was (or wasn’t) missing. But, even he had to admit, given the whole spooky-secret-book and everything, that maybe a visit would do him some good, and might answer some questions he didn’t know he had.

Well, that and his mom had left her phone at home.

The side door, which was the entrance used by the family and its employees, was a very normal white door that looked completely out of place next to twelfth-century stone and twentieth-century moss. There was no one around, but Jeremy felt a prickle of… something crackle down his spine. He shivered, glancing behind him at the half-full parking lot, at the edge of the castle’s grounds, and reached for the handle.

Inside, it all looked weirdly normal. He was in a long, panelled hallway lined with a carpet that was definitely installed in the seventies, and at one end of it, where the hallway banked into a corner, was a suit of armor. Right across from him was a small mudroom, with two neat lines of wellies, as many coats, and two dozen umbrellas.

“Cool,” said Jeremy, turning left, in the direction opposite to the suit of armor. Turning right would’ve taken him to the ground floor of the family’s private living space, and he wanted to at least meet Robert MacLewan before stumbling into his TV room.

He took another left at the corner, and found himself smack-dab in the atrium of the castle. Now, the panelling went up to the ceiling, where a metal chandelier that was definitely meant to have real candles impaled on its spikey bits hung from the ceiling. Across from the main entrance was a grand staircase, which split into two separate staircases, wrapping around and behind, leading to sweeping archways, gigantic paintings of people hunting and wearing wigs, more suits of armor, and more tapestries than he’d expected. From deeper in the castle came the steady hubbub of visitors — his mom hadn’t been kidding, they were definitely busy.

It smelled old, like damp stone, dust, and wood ash. He turned away from the staircase and headed down another little hallway, stepping over the velvet rope that was meant to cordon it off. This hallway was plain, unremarkable, clearly once used by servants, and before long, a small wooden door appeared, tucked into the clean white wall. The door was cracked, and fell open when he knocked.

“Jer!”

The sounds of Nina Simone came threading out to meet him, and he looked around at his mom’s office. It was bigger than he’d imagined, the walls lined with bookshelves, a brilliant Persian rug cushioning the floor, a set of long, narrow windows looking out at the front drive. It smelled warm and vibrant — coconut and gardenias, he guessed, since that had been her old go-to in her previous office. Her desk faced the door, her PC looking very out of place amidst all the old wood and upholstery. Behind it was a large table with a bank of scanners and other bits of tech that meant little to him, but he knew they had helped her learn what she could about the mysterious book and the cross. Next to the scanners were a large tapestry, folded up, a small painting, and a shiny brass sextant with mother-of-pearl laid into the frame.

He caught a whiff of coffee and noticed the piles of notebooks and papers on his mom’s desk. “Still alive, then?”

“Yes, hello.” She swept in, gave him a kiss on the cheek. She had a pen tucked behind her ear. “Thank you so much for walking over, I really am too busy—”

“No problem,” he replied, handing over her phone. She’d gotten six emails in the past hour and he was all too glad to get rid of the buzzing in his pocket. “How’s it going?”

“I’ve got a phone call with the BBC at three, the Guardian at four, a Zoom conference with a bunch of academics at four-thirty, and about six tour groups between now and then. Thank God we got more volunteer tour guides, or I’d really be up a creek. And I need to finish updating the catalog entries on those three artifacts before I put them back.” Rochelle had one eye on her phone as she took a slurp of coffee. “What about you?”

“I am equally busy and important,” Jeremy replied, going over to the windows and leaning against the sill. “Colin’s looking after a dog giving birth and Aggie’s at work. I think we’re going to the beach later.”

“Fun! How did practice go this morning?”

He nodded. “Fine.” What he didn’t mention was that after an hour he’d packed it in and watched YouTube instead.

“Have you decided what you want to do yet, for your audition?”

“Ah,” Jeremy said. “Not yet.”

The ever-looming audition piece, which, in all fairness, Jeremy hadn’t known about until two days before, when he’d gotten home from helping Colin track down a few loose goats. Miranda had told his mom all about the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland, and, well. He’d already done the paper application, and had to decide by tomorrow if he wanted to send in a video or actually go to Glasgow for an audition. He had a video file from his summer program the year before, but a part of him didn’t want to use it — it felt too easy, a cop-out. Besides, that video was of him playing a medley of Gerschwin and Goodman, which wasn’t exactly the best showcase for a spot in a Symphony Orchestra.

I’ll talk it over with Jo, he thought now, glancing out at the forest, the castle’s lawn, the glittering blue beyond. He needed to make a decision by noon the next day.

“Rochelle,” came a rich, smooth voice, “have you heard back from the BBC yet?” Robert MacLewan came into the room, kilt and all, and he barely showed a flicker of surprise when he saw Jeremy standing by the window. “Ah, sorry to interrupt.”

Jeremy blinked at him. Robert was tall and broad, like many other Scottish men, but clean-shaven, with his chestnut hair neatly combed to the side. His expression reminded Jeremy of a rabbit — dark blank eyes, twitchy — but Jeremy had the feeling that something else was lingering just beneath the surface, ready to rear its head. Maybe it was the weak chin — apart from that he was a good-looking man, rugged and plump all at once. Robert’s kilt was in the MacLewan hunting tartan, a hazy blue with thin yellow stripes, giving him a mild, friendly look. It was this, along with the way he carried himself and looked around the room, that made Jeremy realize that every part of his appearance was immaculate, neatly trimmed, ready for whatever came at it.

“Hi,” said Jeremy, just as his mom said, “No need to apologize, Robert, Jeremy won’t be staying long. Jeremy, this is Chief Robert MacLewan.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” said Robert, offering his hand. His grasp was warm, dry, a little tight. “It’s nice to finally put a face to the name.”

“Hell of a place you’ve got here,” said Jeremy, which, what. When did he turn into a suburban dad? “It’s pretty incredible that all this stuff survived for so long.”

“Yes,” said Robert, with a little smile. “We’re very fortunate here on Rowe. Now, is it all right if I borrow your mother?”

“Sure,” said Jeremy, glancing at Rochelle.

She nodded. “Jer, I’ll see you at dinner, okay?”

“Yup. Bye, mom! Nice meeting you, Chief MacLewan.” He fled, scooting out of the room as quickly as possible. So much for trying to nose around the castle.

It wasn’t until Jeremy was halfway home that he started thinking. He usually didn’t get so flustered when meeting new people, let alone his mom’s boss. But something about Robert MacLewan just didn’t sit right with him.

He pulled what he guessed was becoming his bike out of the sunroom and pedaled into town, the mild summer air tousling his hair and promising a beautiful, long day. His stomach growled as he coasted along High Street, and he was just wondering what flavors were available at Sweet Ray’s when he saw Aggie out in front of the shop. Confused, Jeremy eased to a stop, then he saw what she was doing, and his stomach turned over.

She was cleaning dried egg off of the front windows. In the middle of the mess were the letters “NIG,” scrawled in some heavy black paint, and while it was clear that Aggie had scrubbed out half the word, it didn’t take much guesswork to figure out what the rest of the letters had been.

The “Closed” sign hung in the door, and he could see the anger practically radiating off of Aggie in waves. He eased off the bike and wheeled it onto the patio in front of the shop, sure that Aggie could hear him.

She had a few large buckets at her feet, filled with soapy water. Jeremy left the bike propped up by one of the tables and joined her at the window, reaching for a brush. “Can I help?”

“Thanks,” said Aggie, working at a particularly stubborn bit of eggshell. The muscles in her arm were flexing almost as much as the ones in her jaw.

They worked in silence for several minutes. Jeremy made steady progress on the “G,” watching as the paint slowly peeled away, turning into sudsy black chips that trickled down the glass like melting ice cream. The scent of old, half-cooked eggs hung in the air, and he tried to focus on the movement of his arm, the heat of the sun, anything that would distract from the hollow void threatening to swallow his stomach whole.

“I don’t know what’s worse,” Aggie said, “the fact that my parents weren’t surprised, or that I was.”

“You couldn’t have known,” said Jeremy, swiping away the last of the “G.” He felt a hot spike of satisfaction at the sight of it disappearing. “None of you could have.”

Aggie sighed through her nose. “At least they were too stupid to use spray paint. That would’ve really been a bitch to get off.”

Jeremy snorted. “I don’t think anyone in this town actually knows how to do vandalism. I feel like I’m in a limited BBC series set in the late Victorian times. Some tea with your egg-and-cress?” He smacked the brush against a clot of egg, sloshing it down the glass.

Aggie sort of laughed, glancing at him. “Was that you trying to do an accent?”

“I think you mean succeeding.” He started in on the “I,” and Aggie followed suit.

“How d’you know what an egg-and-cress is? Have you been watching Downton Abbey or something?”

“No,” said Jeremy, even as he felt his ears get hot. It wasn’t his fault Game of Thrones only had so many episodes and his mom had added BritBox to their Amazon Prime. “Do you guys know who did it?”

“No, but we’ll get some answers soon.” Aggie turned and nodded up at the outer corner of the building. Jeremy followed her gaze and saw a little camera perched about fifteen feet off the ground. Thank God for CCTV, he thought.

“Dad’s filed a police report,” Aggie went on. “They’re pulling the footage today. It was probably kids, no one else would be stupid enough not to cover up the camera. Not that it would do much good if they did, there’s another one there—” She turned, pointing at a street lamp across the road, “there—” another lamp, this one two storefronts down, “and there,” above the adjacent storefront, which sold postcards, travel books, and lots of other tourist junk. “All three of them have an angle on Sweet Ray’s.”

Jeremy mulled this over, dipping his brush into the bucket of suds. “Y’know, I’m starting to think that America should get on this CCTV thing. It would solve a lot more murders.”

“Probably. But you all put so-called privacy above the common good, even at the expense of underserved minorities and marginalized groups, so.” She shrugged, completely unaware that she had just rocked Jeremy’s world.

“Aggie,” he said, “don’t take this the wrong way, but marry me?”

Aggie laughed for real then, splashing suds in his direction. “You wish, Casanova. So, what d’you want to do today? Beach?”

Jeremy glanced at her. “You don’t have to work?”

Aggie shook her head. “Dad wants to keep the shop closed until the weekend, when he can be here during the day. He doesn’t want us working or closing alone right now.”

A shiver trickled down Jeremy’s spine, and he had to remind himself that none of this was new to him. He’d lived in a large American city, been to and watched more than one protest. This was nothing he hadn’t seen before, nothing he hadn’t heard about from his mom, his grandparents, his friends, from their parents, even from some of his teachers.

And why should Dunsegall be different? he thought, scrubbing away the last of the “I.” He watched the bubbles spin and shine in the sunlight, his mind turning like a wheel, then allowed himself to think, It feels different because this isn’t that place. This isn’t a city. This isn’t somewhere where cruelty sits ready, perched and keen. This isn’t how Dunsegall is supposed to be.

“So you went to the castle?” Aggie was saying.

“Yeah. Met Chief MacLewan.” Jeremy splashed a slop of water onto the window, watched it trickle down. “He’s, uh. Nice?”

Aggie gave him a shrewd look. “I know what you mean. Kind of feels like he’s talking to you through a window, right?”

Jeremy nodded. “Couldn’t tell if he was being genuine.”

Aggie shook her head. “His kid’s like that, too. Callum,” she added, at Jeremy’s look. “His son. He’s a year younger than us. His daughter Siobhan’s nice enough, though, if you like girls who have lots of opinions on curling irons and a childhood crush on David Beckham that never really went away.”

“You don’t pull your punches,” said Jeremy, moving on to the “N.” “And, what, you’re telling me you never swooned for Becks?”

“As a football player, yes, but Henry Cavill, Dev Patel, Tom Hardy?” Aggie shook her head. “No contest. Besides, sometimes Becks looks like a balding squirrel when he cuts his hair short.” She sighed loudly, knocking her brush against the window. “I just want to go to the beach.”

“And play soccer,” Jeremy said, sidestepping Aggie’s answering elbow. “Don’t you want some food before you trample us into the dust?” He definitely needed carbs to get through an afternoon of physical activity.

“We can meet Colin at the coffee shop or something.”

Jeremy perked up. “Coffee shop?”

Aggie looked at him, her head tilted to one side. “You’ve never been?”

“Didn’t know there was one.” Jeremy said a silent prayer for his wallet.

“They’ve got really nice little quiche things, I can eat six of them at a time, easy.” Aggie dropped her brush into the bucket, pulling her phone out of her back pocket. “Ugh, where’s Colin?”

“There’s a dog giving birth,” said Jeremy, realizing that for once, he knew where Colin was and Aggie didn’t. This is weird, he thought.

“Oh,” said Aggie, busy texting. “Hope he’s done soon.”

“Yup,” said Jeremy. He could see himself blushing in the reflection of the window. He scraped at the “N,” his neck burning as the paint dissolved, floating to pieces in the sudsy water.

They met Colin at the edge of town less than an hour later, outside a building that, for lack of a better word, looked like a warehouse that had been chewed up and spat out by the twentieth century. Jeremy refused to let himself look at Colin and made himself look up at the sign instead. Morrison’s Distillery and Coffeehouse. “This was just a ploy to get me drunk,” he said aloud.

“Yes, absolutely,” Aggie said, heaving the door open with a grin.

The inside looked like the illicit lovechild of a hipster coffee shop and a speakeasy. There were a few people scattered among the tables, younger and a little more hipster than most of the customers he’d seen at Sweet Ray’s, who looked up at them before going back to their conversations. At one end of the room was a coffee bar, and at the other was an actual bar.

“Excuse me,” he said. “When did I teleport to Brooklyn.”

“Arse,” Colin grumbled, and Jeremy could practically hear Aggie roll her eyes.

“Hey, Rory,” Aggie said to the guy manning the coffee bar, who gave her a cursory nod. “I’ll take a large iced coffee with plenty of cream, two quiches, a chicken and pesto panini, and a raspberry Danish.”

After she paid, Jeremy stepped up and ordered a large cold brew and a panini, thinking that if Aggie could trust the food, so could he. Colin ordered next — a latté, which Jeremy would never have guessed, along with three different paninis, which Jeremy would have guessed — and they stood to the side to wait.

“I’m claiming cruel and unusual punishment,” said Jeremy, leaning against Aggie. “You guys have been keeping this place a secret from me.”

Colin and Aggie traded a glance, which, what. Jeremy gaped at them. “Holy shit,” he said, “I was kidding, but—”

“We didn’t want to encourage your habit,” said Aggie. “You drink almost two pots of coffee a day. And we were busy teaching you how to swim! Or did you forget about that already?”

“Betrayal,” Jeremy hissed, swooning against her. He dodged Aggie’s kick to his shin. “Sickening, devastating, bloody betrayal—”

“We are in public,” said Colin, pained. True enough, a few of the other customers were looking their way.

They left a few minutes later, munching on their paninis. The coffee was very good, Jeremy had to admit as he sipped at his odd concoction. Definitely better than he’d expected from a little spit of an island hours away from the nearest city. The roast tasted a little familiar, and he wondered if maybe the Millers used it for their coffee at the bakery.

Colin led them to his truck, inhaling bites of sundried tomato and mozzarella as he went. He hopped into the cab, and Jeremy and Aggie followed suit on the other side. “Beach, then?”

“Please,” said Aggie, wiggling as she squeezed into the middle seat on the bench. Her shoulder dug into Jeremy’s arm. “So, have you found a new obsession? I go to Morrison’s at least twice a week.”

This explained the empty cups in her car. “It’s a good thing it’s not on my way into town,” said Jeremy. “I only get so much allowance.”

“Thank God,” Colin muttered, starting the engine. “You’re bad enough on what you get from home.”

“I’m feeling nice,” said Jeremy, “so I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Cheers,” said Colin, stuffing the rest of his sandwich into his mouth as he pulled away from the curb. He looked like a proud, grumpy mutt who’d dug something juicy out of the trash, and Jeremy tried very hard not to think it cute.

It was a warm, pleasant day, but not hot. Around them, the beach was steadily filling, children and parents and even a few teenagers taking advantage of the clear sky and the calm water. Once again, Jeremy noticed, it felt like a scene from a movie — too clichéd to be real.

“What’s that?” said Aggie. She was laid out next to him, half-asleep from all the food and the sun. Jeremy and Colin had begged off starting a game of soccer until they’d finished their coffee and digested most of their meal, much to her annoyance. Though she didn’t seem annoyed now.

Jeremy blinked, squinting against the sun. Around his shoulders, the towel was rough, comforting, flat and firm against the sand. “Huh?”

Aggie hummed a brief tune, and he recognized a few bars of Poulenc. “You were humming again. Sounds nice.”

“Oh.” Jeremy swallowed, wondering why he felt embarrassed, of all things. “It’s Francis Poulenc. Sonata for Clarinet.”

“Swot.” She nudged his leg with her foot. “Keep going.”

Jeremy sighed, closing his eyes again. He listened for a moment to the breeze, the waves, the gulls, the faint and distant yells from parents racing after their children. Then, he was in a room, an old diner, neon signs in the windows. He walked up to the jukebox, hearing and feeling the tap of his shoes against the linoleum. He reached for the dial, cranked through the music book, pressed a button, watched the record fall and spin.

“That’s really nice,” Aggie said again, after a minute. “Was it stuck in your head?”

“Yeah,” Jeremy said. Then, “No.”

He heard her laugh, and he cracked open his eyes to see her grinning. Next to her, Colin was watching him from the shade of his umbrella, his expression unreadable. Jeremy decided not to focus on that and instead focused on Aggie. “What’s so funny?”

“You!” She propped herself up on an elbow and tossed a handful of sand over his arm. “Simple questions really get your knickers in a twist.”

“I am not in a twist,” said Jeremy, even as heat crawled up his neck.

“Right,” said Aggie. “Come on, what is it?”

“Eggie,” said Colin, and it almost sounded like a rebuke.

She ignored him, gently tossing another handful of sand over Jeremy’s arm. “It’s only fair,” she said, “since you’ve had a front row seat to my family’s drama.”

Jeremy smiled. “You make a good point. But I’m not sure I’d call it drama.” He fiddled with the edge of his towel. “I’ve got an audition coming up and I need to make a decision about it by tomorrow afternoon.”

Aggie tilted her head to one side, considering him. “What sort of decision?”

“Well, I have to pick what I’m playing. And I have to decide if I want to send in a video or actually go to Glasgow and do it in-person.”

“And?” Aggie prompted. “Why can’t you make up your mind?”

Jeremy felt a funny tremor below his stomach — this was one of the things he loved most about Aggie. Her ability to be direct. “I prefer auditioning in person, so I think I want to go to Glasgow. But I’d have to go alone, and, obviously, I’ve been alone in a city before, but.” He shrugged. “I don’t know, doesn’t really seem worth all the trouble when I could just send in a video.”

Aggie sat up, her face ablaze with glee. “Are you shitting me? It’s a great idea!”

Jeremy blinked at her. “Huh?”

But she was already turning away from him to smack Colin on his calf. “Col, come on, let’s do it! Let’s take him!”

Jeremy’s face flooded with heat, again. “Uh,” he tried to say, “no, that’s okay—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Aggie said to him. “We can make a whole weekend of it! Might as well, it’s already an eight hour round trip, we don’t have to do it all in one day. Come on, it’d be great—you’d get to see the city, find your way around, we can show you all the best bits—”

“And take him to his audition,” Colin reminded her.

“Yeah, yeah, and that,” said Aggie, waving the idea away with her hand. “Col, we could stay with Ainsley, right?”

Jeremy’s heart skipped a beat. Colin’s older sister, who was more of an enigma than she was a real person. He snuck a glance at Colin, who nodded, his face going sort of unreadable again. “Sure,” said Colin. “I can check with her.”

“Perfect.” Aggie turned back to Jeremy. “Can you pick when you go?”

“I think so,” he said, his heart starting to do something absurd. “I just have to tell them when I’m available and then we’ll pick a time.”

“Brill!” She pulled up her phone and began scrolling through something. Her calendar, Jeremy assumed. “Next weekend?”

Now, Jeremy’s heart skipped a beat for an entirely different reason. “Uh, I need more time to practice—”

“I can’t make next weekend, either,” said Colin. “Dad’s got some neuterings lined up, and I promised MacArthur I’d come and look in on his new foals.”

More horses, Jeremy noticed. “Okay,” Aggie said. “Weekend after? That’d give you two more weeks to practice, Jer.”

“Yeah,” said Jeremy, hardly daring to believe that this was actually happening. “I can check with the audition board to see if that works.”

“Now all we need to do is convince our parents to trust us to be alone in the city for forty-eight hours.” Aggie lay back down on her towel, tucking her hands behind her head. “Can’t be too difficult.”

Jeremy glanced at Colin, who, for a split second, looked a little nauseated. Right, he thought, not difficult at all. He lay back and pulled out his phone, already texting his mom.

“Moss,” said Colin the following day, scratching his eyebrow with the eraser-end of his pencil. “Moss, again.”

Now that broke through. Jeremy turned, frowning. “Really?”

“Yes.” Colin wrote a line on his spare paper. The sun was beaming in around him, half-blurred by the white curtains Rochelle had eventually dug out of an old box in the sunroom. His hair played tawny-orange in the light, mussed by the number of times he’d dragged his fingers through it. His freckles, darker now than they’d been at the beginning of summer, reminded Jeremy of a dalmatian, and in the middle of it all, his bright blue eyes, tense with concentration.

Colin was a picture. And, he was sitting in the middle of Jeremy’s bed.

Jeremy tugged his headphones down to his neck. “That’s, what, five or six times now?”

“Six,” Colin confirmed, with a quiet sigh. “How’s yours going?”

“Oh, fine.” Jeremy cleared his throat, fighting the blush he could feel rising along his jaw. “Just working through it, you know.”

“Well,” said Colin, his voice going soft. “Not really.”

Jeremy met his gaze, his heart giving an odd thump. Colin was doing this small, somehow devastating smile, and he looked almost shy.

“You haven’t really explained how it works,” said Colin. “Any of this. I’ve heard you play, obviously, I know what you sound like when you’re playing whatever you want.”

Jeremy smirked. “This isn’t that different.”

Colin ignored him. “What’s that you’re listening to?”

“The accompaniment.” Jeremy paused the track, now that they were really talking. It was Friday afternoon, and he’d received a reply from the Symphony board just a few hours before, asking what he’d be playing for them in two weeks’ time. “Piano, usually. Sometimes other winds or strings. It gives me a feel for the whole piece, where I fit in to all of it. Helps with tempo, breathing technique.” He blinked at Colin. “Sorry, this is pretty—”

“So you have to get accompaniment for each piece you play? The fancy stuff, I mean.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I don’t use it when I’m riffing or doing a pop song. Or jazz, I guess. Not that I really play jazz, it isn’t really—”

“Can I hear it?”

Jeremy let out his breath. Colin clearly wasn’t dropping this, so. “Yeah, sure.” He dug through his desk for a moment and found his trusty Bluetooth speaker. He turned it on, connected his phone. “I’ll go back to the beginning, so you can hear how it starts.”

It was silent for several long moments, but when the music began, pliant and measured, Jeremy stepped away from the desk, picking up his clarinet. Keeping an eye on his sheet music, his fingers began to shift along the instrument, a ghost of movements that would become surer over the next few days. The music continued, flowing and gentle, bending and sliding—

“That’s nice,” said Colin. He’d put aside his translation work and his gaze was sort of fuzzed over, like he was looking somewhere other than the room around them. “What is it?”

“Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A Major, the Larghetto. It’s slower than an Allegro,” he added, at Colin’s confused look. “I picked it because I’m doing an Agitato as my second piece, which is pretty fast. It’s better for me to show range, rather than just doing two pieces at similar tempo.”

“Oh.” Colin kept his gaze on the speaker for another minute, the music filtering out into the otherwise still room. Mozart was fast asleep on the chair, and her ear twitched at hearing her namesake’s composition.

“Can I hear you play?” was the next thing Colin said.

Jeremy heaved a sigh, more dramatic than he needed to be. “Which one?”

Colin nodded at the speaker. “That one.”

“Only the first half. I don’t have the rest of it worked out yet.”

“That’s fine,” Colin said quickly, sitting up a bit.

Jeremy turned back to his desk and sighed again, reaching for his phone, trying not to think about the fact that this was the first time Colin was hearing him play something real, something other than a fussy Gerschwin melody or a weird riff on who knows what. He restarted the music, and brought the clarinet to his mouth.

He played, his eyes glued to the page, feeling his heart sticking in the back of his throat, forcing himself to keep it slow, not to rush, which was his most frequent mistake. Jeremy played, feeling the wood vibrate gently beneath his fingers, feeling warmth in his stomach, feeling the odd melancholy that the long, lingering notes brought to the surface of his mind.

Then he stopped, almost three minutes into the piece. Jeremy cleared his throat, pausing the music. “There. It’ll be better by next week.”

Colin wasn’t saying anything, so Jeremy put down his clarinet and glanced over his shoulder.

“Shit.” Colin had a funny look on his face — surprise, embarrassment. “You’re good, Jer. Really good.”

“Hah,” said Jeremy, trying to ignore the fireworks that just went off in his chest, the blush crawling up his neck. “Stop it. But actually, keep going.”

Colin grinned properly then, scooting to the edge of the bed so his feet hit the floor. “So you like hearing me sing your praises? Bit egotistical, Yankee.”

“Oh, he’s breaking out the big words.” Jeremy couldn’t help himself. He closed the short distance between them and stepped between Colin’s legs, forcing him to look up. Jeremy met Colin’s gaze, his stomach fluttering again at the warmth, the ease, that was radiating up at him. He cupped Colin’s head with his hand, dragged a thumb along Colin’s jaw. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“Yes.” Colin was smug. His hands slid up the back of Jeremy’s legs, rough and firm, before they settled at Jeremy’s hips. “Devastated, actually.”

“I’ll make a note of it.”

When they fell back onto the bed, slow and unrushed and languid in the afternoon light, Jeremy felt his heart squeeze tight at the unfairness of it all, that he’d only had this for a week and he’d never wanted anything more.

“You’re nervous,” said Aggie later that evening, taking Jeremy in with a glance. “You need to stop doing that.”

“Great advice, thanks,” he replied, shoving his glasses up his nose.

Aggie chuckled and thumped him on the back. “It’s only a pub.”

Next to her, Colin snorted, and Jeremy rolled his eyes. “I hadn’t noticed,” he said, glancing around them at the packed room. The Salty Dog was very busy, even for a Friday night.

Graham the bartender — and ice-cream lover, Jeremy added — suddenly appeared, wielding a tray of pints, beer sloshing onto the floor as he went. “Here youse go,” he said, sliding three pints onto the table. “Don’t down it all in one.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Aggie told him, all doe-eyed and precious. Graham rolled his eyes and disappeared back into the crowd, swallowed whole except for the tray, which bobbed like a buoy above the heads of half-drunk patrons.

“I feel like I’m in a TV show,” Jeremy said. He stared at the pint in front of him, and the pint stared back. “Naïve American gets trashed in Scottish pub, is kidnapped by locals and fed to the neighborhood unicorn.”

“For the love of God,” said Aggie, “please drink.”

Jeremy did, wincing only a little at the taste — bitter, but smooth, and a bit frothy. “I forgot you guys drank it warm over here.”

“It can’t be all bad,” Aggie said. A third of her beer was already gone. “We even got you the mild ale instead of the stout. That would’ve been really mean.”

“Too kind,” Jeremy deadpanned. “At least it’s better than the stuff I had at parties.”

“Tell us more about these parties, oh-so-popular-one,” Aggie said.

“Nothing to tell,” Jeremy said. He pushed his finger through the ring of beer his glass had left behind. It smeared across the table, clear and glittering in the low light. In truth, he really didn’t want to talk about this at all. The parties he had been to weren’t exactly the stuff of a high school cliché, apart from the kegs, the dim lighting, the loud music, the people sneaking into bedrooms and closets for a moment alone — he always ended the night by himself in the corner, watching as Jo slid from group to group, laughing and joking with people in a way that he never could. “Tell me more of your boarding school stories,” he said instead.

Aggie sighed in a put-upon sort of way but started talking, and soon he was hearing about the prank she and two others had pulled on the teachers the year before — hiding alarm clocks, set one minute apart, in classrooms all over the school.

“The head teacher’s face,” Aggie wheezed through her laughter. “She’d gone purple! Literally purple! I thought I was going to die from not laughing! And classes were canceled for the rest of the day, we all got to skive off and go into town.”

Jeremy grinned at her. They’d been there a while, and the beer was giving him a little buzz. “Okay, between the chocolate eggs and the alarm clocks, I’m starting to think you’re kind of a terror in the classroom.”

“Putting it mildly,” said Colin. He’d finished his pint, and it had made him loosen up — his elbows were on the table, and he was smiling. “That prank did way too much for your ego, if you ask me. You’re too arrogant, now.”

Aggie stuck out her tongue. “Forgot I was talking to Mr. Head-Boy-teacher’s-pet. I’ll give you a fiver if you don’t write me up.”

“Bribery?” Colin shook his head. “That’s a capital offense, Miss Johnson.”

“I’ll offend you in a minute.”

It was actually really nice, Jeremy found himself thinking, to sit with his friends and drink and hear fragments of conversation from everyone around them. It felt like taking a breath, like a pause that he hadn’t known he’d needed. He could see why adults were so crazy about this. Well, he told himself, staring into the bottom of his empty glass, you can get a beer, so maybe you’re sort of an adult.

A tiny, ridiculous part of himself wanted nothing more than to sit next to Colin, to be within the reach of a hand on his thigh, in the small of his back, close enough that he could feel the warmth of Colin’s body on his own skin. The sight of Colin in his bed earlier that afternoon had unlocked a keen sort of ache in Jeremy’s chest, something he hadn’t imagined ever feeling — attachment, protectiveness, a sudden urge to stamp a label on what they were and call it theirs. This feeling — this deep-seated, aching pang — was ruthless in a way he hadn’t expected. It made him want to throw caution to the wind, to close the gap he and Colin were, even now, so used to building when they were around other people.

But there’s something else, too, Jeremy thought then, before he could stop himself. There’s still distance between us when we’re alone. And he didn’t see that changing anytime soon, because that wasn’t what they were. They were convenient, not destined. Summer love, he thought then, ruefully, and drained his glass.

Then he noticed that Colin had frozen in place, his body locked into his seat. For a fleeting moment, Jeremy felt a sudden wave of hope — maybe Colin was looking at him, having the same sort of thoughts he was having — but then he saw Colin’s face, and knew instantly that his assumption had been wrong.

Colin was staring at something behind Jeremy, his expression blank. Aggie, busy talking to someone near their table, hadn’t noticed. Then Colin swallowed, a muscle ticking in his cheek.

Frowning, Jeremy turned and looked over his own shoulder. Behind them was the bar, running the length of the back wall, and it was packed with people. But there, beyond the groups of people drinking and laughing, a man was sitting on his own at the end of the bar, in the very back corner of the room. He was just past middle-age, his wide, rugged face lined with premature creases, and his receding ginger hair was cropped short. He wore simple clothing, a loose flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows, and his hands were clean. The man was brooding into a large glass of amber liquid — Scotch, Jeremy guessed — with a face like thunder. Everything about him, from the way he was sitting — hunched, caving in on himself — to his hooded gaze sent a clear message — leave me alone.

“Aggie,” said Colin, pushing away his unfinished beer. “Will you be okay to drive?”

“Yeah, I’ve only had one. Why—?” Aggie stopped short when she saw what Colin was looking at. “I’ll be fine,” she said, her voice doing something Jeremy wasn’t sure he’d heard before. It took him a moment to realize it was sympathy.

“Right.” Colin stood up. He wasn’t looking at Jeremy. “I have to go. I’ll see you on Sunday.” And with that, he strode off, heading directly for the back corner, towards the man.

“Okay,” said Jeremy, once Colin was out of earshot. “What the fuck just happened?”

“That,” said Aggie, before taking a sip of Colin’s beer, “is Colin’s dad.”

“Oh.” Jeremy tried not to stare as Colin went up to the man — Colin’s dad, he corrected himself — and started talking. Colin was tense, Jeremy could see it even from across the room, in the line of his shoulders and the corner of his jaw. So was his dad, frowning at the bartop, his hand clenched tight around his glass. “What’s the problem?”

Aggie made a noise in the back of her throat. “Need I remind you Dr. MacGregor is performing surgery tomorrow morning?”

Jeremy felt something weird in the pit of his stomach. “I’m sure one drink wouldn’t—”

“It’s not just one drink,” Aggie cut in. “It never is.”

Jeremy had nothing to say to that. The weirdness grew and bubbled around his stomach, and he pushed away his glass. He tried not to watch as Colin put a hand in the crook of his father’s elbow, gently tugging him off his stool. He tried not to watch as Colin said something, low and urgent, as his father’s face rippled with restrained anger. He tried not to watch as slowly, without stopping, everything began to make sense.

“Are you shitting me?” Jeremy found himself saying, before he knew he was saying it. “That’s what he has to put up with at home? That?”

“Yes,” said Aggie, plain and simple, because that was what it was.

Jeremy looked back at Colin and his dad. Colin was muttering again, trying to be casual about it, standing closer to his father now. Then, suddenly, Dr. MacGregor jerked his arm out of Colin’s grip. Colin stepped back, then Dr. MacGregor shook his head, downed the rest of his drink in one swallow, and stood up.

Colin, clearly relieved, followed him to the exit, not looking over at their table. Once the door closed behind him, Jeremy took a breath.

“And his mom left?” he said, again before he knew he was saying it. “She just left?”

Aggie was looking at him with little emotion, studying him as if he were in a museum exhibit. “Yes,” she said, again plain and simple. “She did. Took Ainsley with her.”

Now that was just— Jeremy stared at her. “What?”

“Ainsley was due to start uni. Colin was about ten.” Aggie stared down into her glass and shook her head. “Helen took Ainsley off to Glasgow and Colin stayed behind.”

Jeremy likewise stared down at the table, trying to let that sink in. “Sorry, she—”

“He was gutted.” Aggie’s voice went brittle, ruthless. “He had trouble sleeping for ages. Still does. It isn’t right. It isn’t right, what happened, but it is what it is. Not for us to know, not for us to judge.” She glanced at Jeremy, tapping a fingernail against her glass. When she spoke again, her voice was softer, a low hum beneath the noise of the people around them. “Maybe don’t let on that you know, yet. It’s not easy for him.”

“Right,” said Jeremy, even as his stomach twisted itself further into knots, because that was all he could say.