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Nevertheless, we play with the minuscule deck — blackjack, cheat, whist. There is no talk of Luke thereafter, no gentle ribbing to enhance Rory’s mortification. And it’s nice. It’sneeded. It takes our minds off exams and Antiro, the only thing that matters the objective of whatever game we play. It reminds me of playing late into the night at the apartment in Edinburgh, as protests raged all around us. Long, boisterous games of cards, before leaving for bed. Before kissing Finlay in the dark empty living room, him distraught about betraying Luke, the two of us sneaking our hot mouths together, me secretly praying Rory would come downstairs and catch us.
And now look at us. Granted, I have to imagine Luke and Finlay here, playing cards with us. And with them so far out of reach, I have to imagine Finlay pressing hot stolen kisses to me and lighting me up like in those lost summer days.
But I don’t have to imagine for long. Because the very next day, Finlay finally returns.
38
The thing about Finlay is he looks like an impostor.
I don’t see him at first. All I notice on my way down to the dining hall is the large gathering of gremlins obnoxiously blocking the stairway. About seven deep, they’re a noisy cluster, and only when my eyes scan further and further over the gremlins’ bouncing heads for their focal point do I finally understand why the energy in Lochkelvin has rippled and shifted.
Finlay is too big a personality for Lochkelvin to contain without change.
He’s leaning against the banister, both elbows propped on the smooth wooden handrail. His jet-black hair is longer than ever and obscures his eyes. He wears an easy grin, but it’s not just his smile — his whole body is at ease in a way that makes him look older, makes the energy around him crackle, like Lochkelvin is in the presence of a superstar.
My heart — my body — all of me sags with the sweetest, purest rush of relief.
He’s here. He’s home. He’s safe.
The thing that strikes me is not Finlay’s airy confidence, which has manifested in this new aura of coolness, attracting the gremlins and their sycophantic talk almost as much as Rory. It’s the fact that there’s talk at all. It’s an act so absent in these silent Lochkelvin corridors — as much a noted absence as the happy laughter Finlay creates in the gremlins with the tales of his freedom and adventures in Edinburgh with which he regales them. It’s strange how strange it should be. We don’t talk anymore. We don’t meet. We don’t smile. We don’t laugh. We stick in single file and work on our studies.
Finlay has taken the long list of suffocating rules in this castle and tossed them over the banister without even glancing at them.
The gremlins don’t notice me — they never do, they’ve never cared for me outside the most grudging, forced respect — but Finlay does. His eyes are green and sharp on me, as I stare back at him, still half-dazed in wonder and debating whether my mind has conjured a mirage. But instantly, Finlay peels away from the banister and eases — there’s that word again, because everything about his demeanor glitters with it — through the crowd of excited gremlins and, without removing his fierce gaze from me once, stands before me like the most decorated soldier.
“You’re here,” I say dumbly.
“Aye, I believe so,” Finlay agrees with the ghost of a smile. Even his voice — it seems gruffer, more experienced, more serious. The voice of a man, not a sheltered schoolboy like those surrounding him.
“You’re talking.”
“They huvnae cut oot my tongue. No’ yet, anyway.”
“But we’re not allowed to talk,” I say, grasping for the rules and regulations Baxter has beaten into us, clinging onto them like a raft because otherwise I’d have to consider how depressing it is that the threat of Baxter’s punishment has successfully subdued the entire school into obeying her.
“Fuck that.”
The raft seems to disintegrate between my fingers. Two words and I’m sinking into hot, choppy water.
I blink up at him. He’s a stunning ray of sunshine piercing the bleak Lochkelvin gloom. Why the fuck have we been going along with this madness? Why have we never once stood up to Baxter and saidFuck that? Why were we so easy to convince and consent to being treated as inferior?
“Talkin’ isnae the only thing I can dae, sassenach,” he murmurs, and that old nickname — it fuckingthrillsme to hear it again. Heat rockets down every nerve ending. My face flames when he takes my hand in his — and no, my mind screams in self-preserving panic, students aren’t allowed to touch, we aren’t allowed to stand so close — and he lowers his lips to mine.
My mind calms at once. One swipe of his tongue and I cling to his beaten leather jacket, wrapping my arms around him, brushing the silver studs with my fingertips. This. Yes, this. I’ve missed him so much. He holds me tight, crushing me into his chest, as his mouth devours me. I try not to picture the gremlins staring, glaring, probably wishing to replace me. We’re both so tight together, hot and gripping and fierce, clutching, dragging, pulling. Our mouths are pressed so hard and hot against each other that our noses collide. I’m surprised by the lack of blood. There is violence in our embrace, necessary yet loving, as if we can merge into each other and become one, to drag out all the light and heat that’s been missing from our lives for so long, and we revel in it.
“I’ve missed you,” I whisper. Even his skin feels different. Stubble scratches against my cheek, and I trace its soothing roughness as if in meditation.
Finlay says nothing, allowing me to touch his face with hungry fingers. When they reach the corner of his beguiling smirk, he turns his face until my fingers slide down to the curve of his lower lip before leaning forward and nipping below my knuckle. Kissing had been a brutal act of possession, a public claiming to favor him and likely stoking a riot of untapped jealousies in our observers. But stroking lips and soft teasing fingers are such curious, intimate, evensubmissivegestures, as Finlay meets me from the other end of my finger with dark, playful eyes as if bowing to kiss a ring. Finlay seems true to his words:fuck thatappears to be his new motto.
I slide my finger from his mouth, rubbing the gentle indents along my skin. “Have you met Rory? He’ll want to see you.”
“I know,” Finlay agrees, “and I need tae see him. We need tae talk — a’ o’ us.”
“Politics class. After dinner. It’s still ours.”
At this, Finlay raises an eyebrow. “I’d assumed he’d boot us oot after — well, Belly… Turns oot Moncrieff really is a generous auld soul.”
“Guilty, I think is more the accurate term.”
