It’s a change for me, to be so singularly focused on a person for once instead of rugby or the rescues. It feels good, actually, because it keeps unwanted thoughts and urges at bay. Normally, my brain feels scattered, like every neuron is shot through a prism, and instead of light and rainbows, there are different shades of black and grey. Again and again I’m drawn back to the bleak, to somewhere deep and unsettled, and it takes a lot to pull me out, to scatter those thoughts back into the light.
I know what tames that beast on my back, the one that wants me to backslide. But to pay it too much attention is to give it too much power. But with Kayla…I may still be a jittery mess with a raging heart, but at least she’s the cause of it all.
I’m out on another walk with the dogs, trying to teach Emily how to heel. It’s not easy since she’s afraid of every person, car, and object we come across. Sometimes the dogs pick up on my energy when I’m too wound up, for better or worse. I decide to try again some other day. I head back to the flat, when the truth is, I could walk forever and never burn out.
My phone rings. Bram.
“Hello,” I answer.
“Well, well, well,” Bram says. “Aren’t you the man of the hour?”
“That depends what hour.”
“Every hour, it seems,” he says. “Do you want me to tell you my good news first or do you want to tell me your good news?”
I clear my throat, perplexed. “What’s, uh, my good news?”
“Right,” Bram says. “Anyway. Mr. Mulligan, Justines’s father, and I had a meeting this morning.” He pauses and I don’t ask him to continue because I know he will. Always so dramatic. “And he’s agreed to invest.”
I grin, feeling relief on Bram’s behalf. “That’s excellent, mate.”
“I owe you, you know,” he says.
I grumble, feeling uncomfortable with him even saying that. “It was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing,” he says, sounding serious. “This wouldn’t have happened without you.” His tone is adding gravitas to everything. I think I like Bram better when he’s joking.
“Look,” I tell him, running my hand over my chin and pulling the dogs back as we wait at a crosswalk. “I did what I could. You know I like to help out if I can and this happened to work out for me.”
“Too bad Justine didn’t make it worth your while.”
“It’s too bad for Justine that I didn’t make it worth her while,” I say.
He chuckles. “Poor girl. Just like all the others, I suppose. You know, I thought you were used to going around and getting * where you could.”
“People change,” I tell him.
“Aye,” he says. “They do. Or do they?”
I know what he’s getting at. “Well, thanks for letting me know, cousin. It’s a relief that it all worked out.”
“You know, Lachlan, it will be a shame to see you leave.”
“For you? Yeah.”
He lets out a laugh that quickly fades. He exhales heavily. “Would have been nice to get to know you a bit better. Honestly. We never really had the chance, you know, back in the day.”
“Was a shame,” I say. “But I never made it easy on you guys. And then you moved.”
“It’s just funny that she’ll be the one to know you better.”
“She?”
“That would be your good news, right? Kayla. I got the investment, you got the girl.”
I rub my lips together. “I don’t have the girl,” I say deliberately. “And what I do have is just for a short time. Just for a few days, that’s all.”
Bram snorts. “You’re getting laid. You could sound a lot happier.”
I really don’t feel like discussing this with Bram. It’s all sorts of weird, anyway, that he and Linden and Stephanie and Nicola sit around and discuss each other’s business. My mates back in Edinburgh don’t do that.