‘Whatisthis music?’ Murray said after a long moment, just as birds began to caw over swirling astral chords.
Kurt had stopped talking completely now and was just watching him, amused and, it appeared, contented. Murray felt a little like a mouse being played with by the Cheshire Cat. The beer made him not mind it all that much.
‘I haven’t been out for ages,’ Murray threw in, before stopping himself confessing to anything more, like the fact he’d been in broken-hearted hiding for months.
He took a long drink from his bottle and looked around at the people coming in. It was getting busier and the sky loomed pitch black outside. It was almost ten o’clock. Why wasn’t Kurt talking? He was just sitting there, smiling with his eyes.
‘Have you been here before?’ Murray asked, temperature rising.
‘Ja, of course. It’s the only place for miles.’
‘Course.’ Murray nodded, picking at the beer label. He wasn’t going to pry into Kurt’s social life.
‘With the other builders,’ Kurt added quickly. ‘But they are boring, going home to their wives and kids by nine.’
‘Ah.’ A tiny hit of relief softened Murray’s shoulders. ‘They’re both Cairngorms guys. I forgot you’re the only one who doesn’t live here.’
‘Yeah, I think they feel sorry for me, alone at the hotel after work.’
Kurt locked eyes with Murray and the atmosphere around them seemed to pulse as though Kurt was emitting his own aurora of charged sun particles.
‘I don’t think we’re going to catch the northern lights from in here, you know?’ Kurt said.
Murray looked at the black sky beyond the glass, the glossy white of compacted snow on the floodlit slopes. ‘Twenty per cent chance,’ Murray said, weighing up more than the possibility of aurora sighting tonight.
Kurt said nothing, letting him deliberate.
‘You know…?’ Murray ventured at last.
Kurt tipped his head, a blue fire burning behind his eyes.
What did it matter if their spark was more of a happy glow, or their conversation shallower than a paddling pool?
‘You might be right,’ Murray went on. ‘There’s too much reflection on the glass in here to catch the northern lights.’
Kurt’s smile turned up another notch. ‘Take these with us?’ he said, standing, holding his half-finished bottle.
Murray threw his beer back in a long swig. When he reached the last drop, he wiped his mouth and sprang to his feet, decision made. ‘Let’s get some more to carry out.’
* * *
The kiss, when it came, had made something in Murray break loose, like he was going to howl.
On leaving the Ptarmigan, they’d walked along the road lined with streetlights, drinking, laughing at nothing. Kurt kicked his boots on the pavement, his hands shoved deep in his tight jeans pockets. He was acting cute and Murray couldn’t help laughing harder.
Then suddenly they were walking faster. Then, after turning the corner into the grounds of the stuffy old Cairn Dhu Hotel, they broke into a run, Kurt grabbing Murray’s hand, and they’d thrown their empty beer bottles into the big hotel bins and hurtled into the cold shadow at the back of the building where, in an instant, Kurt had him pushed up against a door and breathing hard. Murray could feel the muscles in Kurt’s hard stomach swelling and falling against his soft tummy as they pressed up close, white clouds of breathy vapour in the bitterly cold air around them.
They were in the dank, wintry darkness of the hotel’s back yard with its row of pre-fab rooms that the hotel rented out to seasonal workers. The door at Murray’s back was a rough, raw wood. Murray let his head loll back against it as Kurt brought his mouth down on his in a kiss.
Warmth. Hops and barley. Soft pillow lips.Christ!Murray had needed this more than he’d known.
Kurt said something in Dutch, nestled into his neck, his lips running over tingling goosebumps. Murray didn’t care what it meant; it sounded divine.
There was the sound of a key pulled from Kurt’s jeans pocket. Then the key was in the lock and Kurt’s hands were taking Murray’s in his, lacing their fingers, and Murray was absolutely sure he actually whimpered at the shadowy sight of Kurt kissing across their hatched knuckles, the sensations of his nervous system crackling like fireworks almost too much for him and yet… what was that?
Kurt had pulled back too. ‘Are you… whining?’ Kurt said.
Murray strained his ears. ‘I’m sure that wasn’tallme,’ he said, trying to make light of whatever was happening, still drowsy with wanting to kiss again. But something was definitely not right.
