Laying a Ghost (37 page)

“It scares me, too,” John admitted. “But I wouldn’t swap it for not loving you, not for a minute.” He threaded his hand through Nick’s hair, tilting his head back and staring at him intently. “Would you? Are you wishing we’d not met?
Are
you? Can you tell me you love me and still wish that?” John shook his head. “No, of course you can’t,” he whispered, pulling Nick closer and kissing him with a new tenderness.

Nick relaxed, hearing the conviction in John’s voice. “You know I don’t.” He hugged John gratefully, and they stood like that for a long time, neither of them willing to let go right away. But eventually, Nick stepped back, smiling. “Scrambled eggs, right?”

As he went to the refrigerator and took out the carton of eggs again he realized that that he felt almost at peace. The gnawing worry that he was used to living with had eased, the sense of being out of control a little less.

He was ... almost content.

More importantly, he could imagine a time when he’d be completely content.

And that was worth almost everything he’d been through.

Chapter Seventeen

“It’s flopping! God, it’s -- do something!”

John gave the fish squirming in the bottom of the boat a cursory glance. “It’s a reflex action. Pick it up and knock its head against the side, if you like.” One look at Nick’s face told him that hadn’t been the right thing to say. Bending down, John grasped the slippery body of the mackerel and took his own advice.

Nick shuddered.

“You’re not going to want to eat it now, are you?” John said resignedly.

“I don’t know.” Nick gave it a dubious look. “Is it going to have all its parts when eating time rolls around?”

“Some of them won’t be there.” John debated whether or not going into details would help and settled for patting Nick’s knee reassuringly with the hand he hadn’t used to pick up the fish.

Which didn’t mean that it was clean, exactly, but it was the best he could do.

“We’re not catching much worth keeping anyway; want to head back in? You can steer if you like until we get into shore; you need to learn how to handle her.”

“I don’t see why.” Nick was grinning. “Jeez, I just took up driving a car again last night and now you want me to learn how to drive a boat? Way to put the pressure on.” Still smiling, he moved over to sit beside John on the rear seat.

“I’ve got every faith in your ability,” John said serenely. “And you couldn’t ask for a nicer day to learn.” He squinted up at the cloudless sky. “You brought the good weather with you, didn’t you? Apart from that first day, it hasn’t rained since you got here.” He started the engine and put Nick’s hand on the tiller. “Hold it, but don’t grab at it. You twist it to make it go faster and the gears are here. Right; off you go; straight ahead and keep an eye out for sharks.”

Nick gave him a skeptical look.

John grinned. “Aye, there are. Basking sharks. But I’m mostly teasing you.”

He waited to make sure that Nick was confident enough with what he was doing and then moved to the middle of the boat, keeping an eye out for anything that would give Nick problems, although there were no rocks or shallows nearby, and there wasn’t another boat in sight.

Even though he couldn’t really say that Nick had taken to fishing, he seemed to be enjoying being out on the sea, which was the main thing. It was where John spent a lot of his time, and although he didn’t expect Nick to be at his side every minute, the idea that if he went out on his boat, he went alone, wasn’t a comfortable one.

With the noise of the engine making talking difficult, he lapsed into silence, occasionally glancing back and getting a grin from Nick, who seemed to have succumbed to the exhilaration of skimming over the glass-clear water and had increased his speed to the point where a fine spray of sea water was arcing on either side of the prow, dazzlingly bright in the sun.

They’d woken early that morning -- and got up late, the intervening time being taken up with the slow, leisurely lovemaking John thought he could very easily get used to and a lot of talk about absolutely nothing, which had done more to relax John than Nick’s hand teasing him for what felt like hours before he’d finally relented and got John off with five hard, merciless jerks of his wrist, leaving him gasping like that fish.

Without discussing it, they’d avoided Nick’s house and headed out to sea with the mellow clangor of the church bell fading behind them, replaced by the soulful cries of the gulls and the thrum of the engine.

And if they were heading back to deal with everything that they’d deliberately not thought of for the last twelve hours, at least they were going to be dealing with it together. There was a comfort to be had in that, and John felt oddly peaceful as he took over from Nick and brought them safely up to the jetty.

Stepping out of the boat and finding Michael waiting for them, sitting on a lobster trap with his hands busy unraveling a piece of net, shattered that fragile peace in an instant.

Nick must have seen something about Michael that John didn’t, or at least that John didn’t want to see just then, because he put a hand on John’s lower back after they’d got out of the boat. “Give him a chance, okay? He’s been your friend for a long time.”

“He had his chance yesterday.” John stared across at the silently waiting figure. “And I don’t think he wants another. Probably come to tell me to keep my distance from Sheila and the kids or something. In which case, I bloody well
will
thump him.”

“Do you want me to give you two some time alone?” Nick asked, hanging back and looking as uncertain as John felt.

John turned to him and couldn’t help smiling. Nick had the rods and the tackle box in one hand -- he’d refused to carry the fish, which were still twitching, and John had those in a plastic bag -- and a smudge of oil on his cheek that made him look years younger somehow. “Aye, maybe. If we get to fighting, I’d as soon you not watch me get beaten to a pulp.” He took the car keys out of his pocket and passed them to Nick. “Here. You go and put all that in the car, will you? I’ll not be long.”

“Okay.” Nick hesitated, then turned and started up the beach to the right to where the car was parked.

John sighed and looked at Michael, who stood up and headed toward him, glancing from the ground up to John’s face and back down again in a way that wasn’t like him. Well, that was good, at least -- it meant the man wasn’t looking for a fight.

Then Michael got close enough for John to see his face clearly for the first time and a concern too long-standing to be forgotten overnight had him closing the gap between them in long strides. “Michael? What in God’s name happened to you, man?”

He gripped Michael’s arms, staring anxiously at a cut and bruised face with one eye all but shut. No, Michael wouldn’t be looking for a fight today, but John wanted to know who’d started the one that had left Michael this marked up. And it would’ve been more than one man he’d have been up against; he’d seen Michael fight before but never finish as anything but the winner, and usually with no more than scraped knuckles or a bloody nose.

Michael winced away from the hand John couldn’t help but reach toward his face. “Och, don’t touch me. I’ve had Sheila holding ice packs to my eye half the night, and it still hurts like fire.” His good eye searched John’s. “What the bloody hell do you
think
happened?”

“How the fuck should I know?” John’s resentment rose again. “I left, remember? I don’t know who you and your friends went after once I wasn’t around; I’m just glad they hit back. It’s what I should’ve done to you myself, but I’d had a bellyful of that place by then.” He drew himself up and jabbed his finger into Michael’s chest. “I can tell you something, though -- you’ll not be laughing at me again without me blacking your other eye, by God, you won’t.”

He was trembling with the force of his emotion, his hands curled into fists because this was
Michael,
dammit,
Michael,
and the last time they’d fought, it’d been over a comic they’d both wanted and they’d made up a week later and cut their fingers with John’s penknife, swearing in blood that they’d never --

“I didn’t know you,” John said quietly. “I just didn’t know you.” He turned and spat into the sand and met Michael’s gaze squarely as he wiped his mouth. “I bloody well do now.”

The heel of Michael’s hand shot out and shoved at John’s shoulder, pushing him back a step. “Bastard,” Michael hissed as John stared at him in shock. “Said it yourself, didn’t you?
You left.
But let me ask you this: Before you did, did you see me laughing? At
all?
I can answer that for you, you know ...
no
. Some of those other blokes were, yeah, and about two minutes after you left, I took them to task for it.” Michael looked a bit rueful then, brushing the backs of his knuckles across his mouth. “About two minutes after that, there were about four of them thumping me.”

“You -- you looked at me and you were smiling -- and I’d been sitting there listening to them go on about me, and I thought --” John ran out of ways to excuse himself and settled for a quiet, heartfelt, “Oh,
fuck.
”

Michael snorted and John went on, “I’m sorry, Michael. Sorry I doubted you and sorry you got hurt on my account.” He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, glancing up apologetically at Michael’s ruined face. The sight of it didn’t bother him that much; he’d have taken worse for Michael and not regretted doing it, and he knew --
now
he knew -- that the same held good for Michael. “Yesterday was ... not a good day, you know? Thinking I’d lost you on top of my mother and -- well, let’s just say it did more than the whiskey to get me fighting mad.”

“Aye.” Michael nodded. “So she knows, then?”

“And not because I told her, although believe me I tried.” John sighed. “She turned up at Nick’s house yesterday morning and caught us in the middle of ... well, it could have been worse, I suppose.” At least they hadn’t been doing much more than kissing. If she’d turned up at his own place last night she’d have got an eyeful of more.

“She’s not an unreasonable woman, but it’s still a bit hard to take.” Michael jerked his head. “Sent your Nick off to the car, I see. Worried that I’d thump him?”

John gave him a sidelong look and saw the traces of a smile. “Aye. I was petrified, but then I recalled what Sheila told you she’d do if you laid a finger on him and stopped worrying.” He cleared his throat. “And did Geordie ban you then?” he asked.

Michael nodded and gestured in the direction of the car and they started walking slowly across the hard-packed sand. “Me and all the other blokes. You know him, though; won’t be more than a week before he’s forgotten that we’re not meant to be in there, and he likes the business too much to keep us away in any case.”

John nodded, scuffing at the sand with his foot. “It was Moira. Stupid cow took a fancy to Nick, and then caught us outside --”

“Christ, can you two not keep your hands off each other when there’s people about?” Michael demanded, sounding genuinely annoyed. “Last I heard, you were wanting to keep it quiet, but you’ve only yourself to blame for it getting out, the way you’ve been carrying on.”

“It wasn’t like that!” John said indignantly. “What, do you think I left my own mother’s birthday party for a quick shag in an alley with a man I was planning on spending the night with anyway? You know me better than that! Nick was upset over something, something bad, and I was trying to calm him down.”

“Upset over what? Does he want you to do something you don’t want to? If he’s manipulating you --”

“He’s not. He wouldn’t.” John tried not to get angry over what Michael was thinking, tried to remind himself that it was because Michael was his friend and didn’t want to see him hurt. “No, it was ...”

He trailed off, feeling that it wasn’t fair to tell Nick’s secrets. Nick was sitting on the boot of the car, hands resting in the empty air between his knees and looking out to sea, but as they began to get closer he turned and looked at them.

The wind was ruffling his dark hair and he had a small, anxious frown on his face. John felt his throat constrict with frustrated anger and love because he didn’t want Nick looking like that. He wanted him happy, with those green eyes of his lit up with it and his mouth curved in a smile.

He swung around and put his hand on Michael’s arm, halting him. “What have people being saying about him?” Michael opened his mouth to reply and John shook his head impatiently, guessing what he was about to say. “Besides that. Besides being gay and damned to hell for seducing and corrupting me.
Sandy
. Has he been talking?”

Michael looked confused. “No. Nothing that I’ve heard, at any rate. It went round that Nick had too much to drink the other night and got sick, but now I think people figure that was just an excuse for the two of you to ...” He glanced down, embarrassed.

“For the love of God, I’m thirty-one, not some randy seventeen-year-old!” John snapped. “Dirty-minded gits, always willing to think the worst of folk.” He bit his lip, trying to calm down “He’d had one drink, that’s all, and we weren’t planning on leaving early but we had to. And it wasn’t for
that
.” He sighed. “Oh, this is just impossible -- look, will you let me ask him if he’ll tell you what happened? And if he does, will you listen and trust me when I say every word’s the truth? Because there’s more to this than most of you know.”

“All right.” Michael slowed, letting John go on ahead.

As he neared the car, Nick slid down off the boot. “Is everything okay?”

“Aye.” John guessed from Nick’s widening eyes as he looked past John and saw Michael’s face that he’d do a better job than John had at working out what had happened. “Nick -- will you tell him? About why we left and what we did? I’m not asking you to tell the world and I’m past giving a damn what most people think or say but I can’t -- I need him to know. Will you? Please?”

He was close enough now that he could’ve reached out and touched Nick, but he didn’t. Not because of Michael, silently waiting behind them, but because he wanted Nick to be able to say no if he had to, and it’d be easier for him to say that without knowing how much John’s hands were shaking right now.