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“Ye cannae take a gamble on yer weird voodoo,” Finlay says. “Luke’s life could be at stake.”
“Which is why, ultimately, I think you should go. I don’t want to risk that for you.”
Luke lies back on his stripped bed. He looks across to me at the doorway and pats the side of his mattress for me to join him. I do so, lounging between the crook of his shoulder and armpit, as his hand strokes comfortingly down my side.
“Now they’re trying to shove me out,” Luke murmurs to me, calm and wry. “How quickly things change.”
“That’snottrue.” Rory seems offended by the very idea. “But hundreds of people know exactly where you are, because they share a school with you, and those hundreds of people have parents who’dloveto make a name for themselves in the new regime. So perhaps you do need to be alone.”
“But where would you go?” I ask as my fingertips trace the blade of Luke’s cheekbones. “Will we be able to visit?”
Rory sags onto his stripped bed, leaning across the railing at its foot. “I can put you up at the flat in Edinburgh. It’s designed to be the perfect safe house.”
Luke’s relaxed face instantly hardens beneath me. He rises onto his forearms. “I amnotstaying at Oscar Munro’s apartments!” he snaps. “Are you insane?!”
“No one goes in there,” Rory says soothingly. “My father has a portfolio of over a hundred properties. I assure you, it’ll still be the same as when we left.”
“I’d say go tae my maw’s,” Finlay pipes up. “It’s no’ like she’d fuckin’ notice. But she’s Antiro tae the bone.”
Rory sits cross-legged, watching Luke. “Take MacKechnie.”
“MacKechnie has class to teach,” Luke mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose and looking bone-tired again. I kiss his hairline, trying to bring him some comfort as his world spins out of control, as his future is planned for him without his consent. Luke’s fingers delve into my hair, playing with my waves.
“For God’s sake, Luke, be selfish for once in your life!I’llpay him off. We’ll get a new teacher. He’s there foryou.”
Luke’s eyes lock on mine, a warm deep brown that seems to be tuning out Rory. “Maybe I don’t want to leave, after all,” he murmurs as our fingertips meet, his smile soft and gentle and loving.
“Little saint, I say this in the nicest possible way, but your presence isreallynot helping matters.” I’m not sure I’ve heard Rory sound so exasperated before, but I smile back at Luke, snuggling deeper into him. If I just breathe him in, lock him to memory… he’ll never leave…
A knock on the door makes us look up.
Danny strolls in, his hands buried inside his pockets. He isn’t wearing a blazer or a tie, his collar button is undone, and his shirt sleeves are rolled to his elbows. It’s an unusually relaxed style, far from Danny’s norm. He glances around the room, his gaze lingering on the piled boxes. “Do you need a hand?”
“You,” Rory says, staring at him with a strange, uncomprehending expression. Hesitantly, he adds, “Is it true, what you said about your dad? I knew you didn’t have the best relationship — but he speaks to you that way? Really?”
Danny shrugs, a gesture that seems elegant in his new lightlessness. “You know what my dad’s like.”
“Not to that extent.” Rory sounds adamant. “I thought he was a stuffy, old-fashioned bastard, not an outright abusive one. He was never like that when I was at yours.”
Again, Danny shrugs, his gaze sweeping around the room for something to focus on. Eventually, it lands on me and Luke wrapped up in each other’s arms, and his expression softens. “He hides it well and it isn’t pretty,” Danny replies, as calmly as though he were discussing a stranger instead. He balances on the edge of his shoe, a faint stirring of awkwardness reclaiming him as he quietly adds, “I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but it’s the Q-word I’ll always hate most.”
Rory doesn’t look like he knows what to say.
“It is what it is.” Danny’s tone is willfully pragmatic. “Only Jessa knew. Now you all do. Must mean I trust you, or… something.”
Still looking disturbed, Rory shakes his head. “If I’d known the extent of it, I’d never have… I would never have brought him here at Easter.” He bites his lower lip, staring hopelessly at Danny. Eventually, in a heartfelt tone, he whispers, “Fuck, mate, I’m so sorry.”
Rory looks as though these words are inadequate. But it may as well have been a spell because their power seems to unlock something within Danny. He beams brightly at Rory’s apology, no longer achingly cool and casual with erected walls of unfeelingness, but returning to his typical, adorable self, with dimples denting his cheeks and joy dancing in his eyes.
He bounds over to me and Luke on the bed, sliding close to my other side. Luke’s hand meets Danny’s arm as the two wind around my waist. I kiss the soft skin of his cheek.
“You’re really going to leave?” Danny asks Luke, his warm breath tickling my ear.
Luke threads his fingers between Danny’s, their wrists resting on the dip of my hips. “I will see you — all of you — on the other side,” he murmurs, his nose brushing mine. “This madness cannot be permanent. It will not be like this forever. The center cannot hold.”
He speaks it with the gravity of a promise, and I have hope in my heart that his words are prophetic. Luke, for whatever reason, inspires a strange kind of hope, and as the three of us lie tangled together and grasping each other, I have a feeling that his words may turn out to be true.
* * *
