‘Unavailable men’ll get you like that,’ Finlay added, and Murray felt the crack at the floodgate.
‘I wasn’t always icked by keen men. I…’ He’d got this far, he had to say the rest. ‘I had a boyfriend in college. Wulf.’
He lifted his eyes to check Finlay was still with him, and not passed out asleep.
‘Good name, Wulf,’ Finlay said, his mug now empty in his hand.
Murray reached for it and put it with his own – still full – mug on the little stand by the bedside.
‘I was head over heels. He used to run the campus sandwich bar. Beautiful he was, sheeny blond hair, the lot. I still can’t look at a prawn marie rose baguette without thinking of him.’
‘Be serious,’ Finlay said, delivering a kick through the blanket aimed at Murray’s thigh.
‘OK, OK. I brought him home to meet my family, came out because of him, spent every second with him, and then, after a semester in his bed, just when I was planning our next steps, he told me he wasn’t interested in me like that, and he never meant it to be a serious thing, and he…’
‘Broke your heart,’ Finlay said.
‘Aye. And you know, I was only twenty-one at the time, and you’d think I’d have got over it sooner, but it stuck with me. I wanted him back. I’d see him around, watch him at parties getting off with someone else, phone him up, tell him I’d be happy just being friends, a total lie, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Finlay said softly.
‘Some nights he’d turn up at my dorm, when he’d missed his last bus or had too much to drink and we’d be back together again for a couple of days, and it took me ages to realise the thing that we used to have was dead and I was beginning to hate myself for loving him the way I did, but Ireallydid.’ Murray glanced at Finlay’s face, open, listening, commiserating. ‘Anyway, after that, I wasn’t going to fall head over heels for anyone. I was Mr Detached, zero feelings, no commitment.’
‘And how did that work out for you?’
Murray snorted a laugh. ‘Terrible.’
‘You cannae help liking someone, if you like them,’ Finlay concluded.
Murray made the obligatory half-arsed joke about having t-shirts printed with that on, and then there was nothing left to say.
‘You’re meant to be having a nap,’ he told Finlay.
Finlay patted the pillow next to his, and without another word, Murray shifted himself into the space beside him, curling on his side, and he listened until Finlay’s breathing pattern changed, before letting himself close his eyes too.
40
Finlay was hiding in the bathroom, looking at his grizzled face in the rusted old mirror that had been hanging on the wall when he moved in, like most of the furnishings had just been here too.
He needed a few minutes to compose himself. He had to figure out what it all meant: the electric buzz at his scalp this morning when Murray had run his fingers through his hair; the way he had practically begged the man to stay a little longer; how he’d managed to put up with his annoying dog around the place. And now he’d let Murray nap on his bed.
He hadn’t been about to deny his guest the only home comfort he had to offer him.
Murray probably had such a nice room down in the mill house. He tried not to picture himself sleeping there, and how that would feel. It was probably all white and soft and carpeted and warm and clean. The idea made him sigh and shudder too.
What was he torturing himself like this for? Murray had a life of his own that he couldn’t ever hope to fit into. He had contracts to look at, options for travel and sunshine and adventure, and there was his puppies to get back to, and the repair shop.
‘You OK in there?’ Murray called, with a rap at the door.
They’d both woken up from their nap at the same time, just a few moments ago.
‘I’ll be oot in a minute,’ Finlay shouted back, far too gruffly. He pictured Murray drawing his neck back, affronted, walking away, shaking his head at Finlay’s rough manners after he’d opened up to him earlier.
He’d always been like this though. No good in company. No good with men. He shook his head at his reflection and attempted, one handed, to apply the lip salve and moisturiser that Murray had forced upon him. Who carried these things around with them except Murray McIntyre?
He smoothed the cocoa butter goop over his weather-roughened lips. It turned out he’d do anything Murray told him to, not something he’d have done for any other man, not that he knew many other men these days.
He’d spent time with men, of course. Back when he lived down at sea level, when he’d been in the city, before he knew the perfect solitude of the hills. He’d even been on the apps, scrolled profiles, chatted some, reached out, responded. Back then, he would shower and dress as well as he could – for a man disinterested in fashion – and he’d go out to meet braw-looking men in bars or at their front doors, and sometimes he’d let them drag him inside their flat and they’d kiss and conspire and give away little bits and pieces about themselves until the night buses were running and it was time to go home.
