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30
As the city burns around us, we play cards.
It’s Danny’s idea, as a way to bring everyone together, and I understand that. More than ever, our individual beliefs and politics are pullingusapart just as much as the country. We’re a microcosm of society, a bitter, bickering collective riddled with oppressive hierarchies and unswayable beliefs. The weight of the world fills the air we breathe.
At the same time, I don’t exactly believe the divisions between us will ever be healed by whist. And I’m right. Because the bickering never ends — the casual snipes, the dark looks between Finlay and Luke, Rory closely watching both of them and sticking up for Luke whenever he can, Danny and I quiet and taking the game seriously, trying to ignore the growing chants from the city beyond these four walls.
I manage to distract everyone from the country being in the midst of its biggest political crisis in years by thrashing them all. Turns out my grandmother’s penchant for whist is as ingrained in me almost as much as her dancing.
Part of me wonders if dancing would be a way to unite them. And if not dancing, then sex.
Because it’s on my mind constantly as I sit around this table, dealing out another hand for the four distracting, distracted boys beside me. They’re so achingly handsome, and if they could all just get over themselves for five minutes, maybe we could all have a good time.
But life right now isn’t about good times. It’s about political calamity. It’s about avoiding disaster, an encroaching dystopia. Shunning its zealous, foolhardy believers. The chanting outside is proof of that, and with every hour, the louder the cries seem to grow.
One by one, we retire to bed. Rory kisses my temple and murmurs, “Perhaps there is something of strategy in your veins,” with a curious glance at my last winning hand.
After a moment, it’s just me and Finlay left. I pack away the cards, trying and failing not to watch Finlay. He’s leaning against the window, his arms crossed over his slashed tee, and he gazes intently at the closed curtains. His black hair is a disheveled mess sticking up at awkward angles, because he’s clutched his hair all evening, either when losing whist or checking his phone. There’s a fierce scowl on his face and yet he’s still the most attractive I’ve ever seen him.
Finlay suits righteous anger. It surrounds him like an official robe, a majestic cloak or a royal gown. He toys, pensive, with a lock of his dark hair and broods silently in the corner.
I busy myself in silence around him, straightening out the furniture, although it’s not my duty or even particularly necessary since the room is already neat. I just don’t want to leave Finlay alone when there seems to be a dark cloud hanging over him.
“I’m, uh…” I begin, holding up the deck of cards and searching for its cardboard box. “Have you seen the contain—”
“Am I a bad person?” Finlay asks suddenly, turning those vivid green eyes on me. It’s like being hit by the warning flash from a lighthouse, a sweeping, shining glare. “Because I didnae think I was. I thought I was right. I thought I was a hunner percent in the right. And noo I just dinnae ken.”
I stare at him, all deer in headlights, not knowing what to say.
But maybe I don’t need to say anything.
Hesitantly, I step toward him. I take one step and another until we meet in front of the securely draped windows. His arms wrap around me automatically, and he draws me close enough to him that I hear the soft thud of his heart.
“I’ve lost a friend tonight, sassenach,” he murmurs into my hair. “I put principles above people, the way I’ve always been taught. And aye, that might be okay for some, maybe some folks can find comfort in theircause du jour, but Luke… Luke was my pal, and he’s never gonnae forgive me for whit I’ve done.”
I reach up, stroking Finlay’s face, the downturned mouth that’s the source of all his sorrow. He doesn’t bat my hand away and instead seems to pull me closer, lets me touch him more. I grow bolder, planting soft kisses along his jaw, along the gentle graze of his stubble, wishing and craving that I could ease his pain.
“I’ve been lookin’ at the news a’ this time, sassenach, and it isnae good. So far the only people they’ve arrested are royalists. The government’s bluffin’. The polis are on the same side as the protesters.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I tell him, my thumb stroking the soft pout of his lower lip. “You can’t know everything, the inner workings of everyone’s minds. You just have to stand up for the truth, and you did that.”
Finlay doesn’t look particularly reassured by my words. “Aye, and maybe that was wrang, tae. My aim’s been wrang all along. The Royal family — they didnae really have any hard power. They just spoke too much when they werenae wanted. Antiro claims tae be standin’ up for the oppressed, for the common folk, yet somehow the polis are at their beck and call. None o’ it makes sense.” He sighs heavily, catching my hand in his and squeezing it gently. “That’s where ye know where the power is, sassenach. The polis, the government, the corrupt institutions. They’ve all sided wi’ Antiro, they’re a’ answerin’ tae them. They’ve successfully made the world hate the Royals when we should be hatin’them. The role o’ the Royal family has always been that o’ a clueless, old-fashioned scapegoat.”
He cups my face, his thumb sweeping across my cheekbone. “And noo Benji’s popped up wi’ a new identity — God, I was such an eager wee prick tae dob in my best friend. Tae that mob oot there.” He buries his face in my hand, holding it tightly in place. “Ye know in London, they’ve brought actual mini guillotines. They think it’s funny, ironic. Whit the fuck is wrang wi’ me? I’m a grass. A pure fuckin’ grass.”
I’m at a loss for what to say. Instead, I continue to stroke his face and outline the sharp angles of his cheeks, the soft shadowy sweep of his long dark eyelashes.
“I knew they saw me as a clown,” Finlay mutters. “But turns oot a clown can fool a lot o’ people. And I’ve filled the biggest shoes in this whole fuckin’ circus.”
He’s so angry with himself, so blinded by self-pity and rage that I end up standing on my tiptoes and slanting his mouth down to meet mine. Anything to bring him to his senses. Only then does Finlay quieten. Only then does he relax out of his stiff, defensive posture, winding his arms around me and groaning against my mouth.
“Whit are we daein’, sassenach?” Finlay murmurs, the hot brush of his lips jolting electricity down my spine. “Ye’re supposed tae be wi’ Rory. No’ me. It’s no’ meant tae be just the two o’ us—”
“I’ll talk to him,” I vow, snaking my arms around his neck and stretching up to kiss him again. If Rory’s so determined to fulfill my fantasies, then he won’t say no to this. I can sense it. Kissing Finlay, touching Finlay… It doesn’t feel wrong, a betrayal of any kind, not when we’re already a triangle of sexual energy. It’s as though the two of us are still playing, splashing together, in that moonlit loch, just without our third to unite us wholly.
Finlay resists for the slightest beat, pulling in the opposite direction — it’s short but I note the tension in his neck as he tugs away from me. His bright green eyes glitter at me like hidden jewels. “I dinnae deserve this. I dinnae deserve you.”
“You’re not a bad guy,” I tell him, lowering his forehead down to meet mine. His serious, furrowed brow kisses mine in a gentle nuzzle, like he wants to believe in my soft, soothing words. I raise my lips against Finlay’s, capturing his mouth in another hot, yearning kiss. “Trust me. I wouldn’t be doingthis to a bad guy.”
