AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“There you go,” Arabella says approvingly as I slowly ascend the stairs. When I open my door in the most mechanical way possible, because at this stage I feel like a robot under someone else’s control, Arabella says in her sweetest voice, “Now — how’s that for someone without a spine? I await your apology for that remark, by the way.”
My apology comes in the form of the door slamming in Arabella’s wide, gloating face.
* * *
It’s the wheezy drone of bagpipes that dominates the Highland Games. Five seconds of a gremlin earnestly murdering “Highland Cathedral”and I soon understand why these instruments are considered tools of war.
Thankfully, there are other, more enjoyable elements of Scottish culture that I’m able to appreciate. The chiefs, for example.Allof them wear impressive majestic-looking kilts in the rich Lochkelvin tartan, and it’s a good job bleachers have been erected for the day because I find my knees buckling at the sight.
“Damn,” Danny mutters under his breath, his eyes tracking the chiefs as they enter the small green enclosure for the games to rowdy cheers and wolf whistles. I laugh. It’s one of the few times that Danny has openly voiced admiration for the chiefs instead of twisted guilt and shame.
We’re connecting, all of us, deeper and tighter, and it’s thrilling.
“How does Luke manage it?” I ask distractedly, my attention caught on the neat fall of his kilt’s pleated hem, and the thick cream-colored socks embracing his calves. “I think he can wear anything and still look like a god.”
Danny glances at me, a grin slowly forming. “Do you know how nice it is to be able to speak like this one-on-one with someone? To chat shit about how hot the chiefs are? It’s not like I can talk to any of the other lads about it.”
It’s never occurred to me before, but I get it now. Danny is just like me, as fascinated with the chiefs, and maybe he out of all of us is growing the most at opening up about it. “It’s not like I can talk to the girls, either,” I remind him. “Their mentality seems to be girls rule, boys drool.”
“I dunno, that seems fair to me,” Danny mumbles, his chin resting in the palm of his hand as he gazes avidly at Rory, and I laugh again. “Like, I always had this wondering…” He lowers his voice slightly so that only I’m able to hear him. “If sexuality is a choice, then explain straight girls, you know? Explain, y’know, boys like me. Because teenage boys are nasty little shits who revel in being bullies. It’s a competition to outdo each other in being the cruelest, and the chiefs were utter wankers to me.” He pauses, releasing a long exhale. “And yet, and yet,” he adds quietly, almost solemnly, “still we look on in awe, wishing we were alongside them. Wishing we were part of the gang.”
“We are now,” I point out, and Danny slides his confused gaze to me, looking like he still doesn’t understand how he managed to pull it off.
He takes my hand in his, grasping it gently. “It’s weird. You unite us. Without you, I don’t think we’d be anything at all.” He looks almost philosophical. “All that feeling, all these emotions… all of it wouldn’t exist, it would have remained unexplored if the right person — you — hadn’t come along to unlock it. It’d just be languishing inside us, latent and thoroughly unrequited.”
Danny makes a good point. The chiefs as a group don’t exist without each other, and Danny and I have helped propel it to the next level. We’re bonded to each other now, and the nights we spend together only enhance our connection. It really is all for one, one for all.
I mull over Danny’s words, watching Baxter stride up to the podium in front of the assembled crowd. I glance among the faces, looking for her power-mad niece, and only realize then that she’s right behind me and Danny. Li’s beside her, because of course.
“Keep your voice down,” I murmur to Danny. “There’s a megalomaniac behind us.”
“A megalomaniac?” Danny asks, his face scrunching up. “Why would there be a dinosaur behind us?”
I stare at him. “That… that’s not…what? A megalomaniac? You know what a megalomaniac is, right?”
Blankly, Danny shakes his head. “I thought it was a dinosaur.”
“It’s—”
“It means power-hungry,” Arabella interjects in a waspish tone, inserting her face between me and Danny. “She’s calling me power-hungry — which is rich, coming from a girl drooling over the chiefs. And Hamilton, if that’s the state of your vocabulary, then standards around here reallymustbe slipping.”
