DAY SIX

 

 

I WOKE up in the middle of the night to the sound of muffled coughing. The bed was empty. I sat up groggily, turned on the bedside lamp, and tried to adjust my eyes to the sudden burst of light. Jamie wasn’t in the room. Then the coughing started again from behind the bathroom door. I got up quickly and pushed the door open.

Jamie sat on the edge of the tub, wrapped in a thin blanket he’d taken from the sofa. He was doubled over, coughing violently. Fucking hell.

“Jamie? What are you doing?”

He shook his head and rubbed at his chest. The coughing finally stopped, and he took a few gasping breaths.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” he rasped.

“So you decided that you’d spend the night in the bathroom? What the hell, Jamie?”

He shrugged.

“Do riti,” I cursed in Slovak.

I grabbed him under his arms and dragged him to the bedroom. I deposited him on the edge of the bed while he continued hacking and convulsing. His hands and feet were cold, which fed my anger further. I got him a glass of water, took a pair of turquoise socks from his open bag, and put them on his feet. Then I sat behind him, adjusting his blanket and massaging his shoulders, hopefully getting him warmer. I didn’t force him to lie down immediately because I knew that a change of position could make the coughing worse.

“What were you thinking? You should be resting and keeping warm and not sitting vigil in the bathroom.”

“Sorry.” He leaned back into me, laying his head on my shoulder. The coughing had calmed down, and he was breathing heavily.

I stroked his arms up and down through the blanket.

“I was worried,” he said hesitantly. “When you were gone. I don’t have your phone number.”

Shit. My attempt to protect myself by keeping away was a failure, for sure. It didn’t matter. There was no way to make the whole situation bearable.

“I just walked around in the city for a bit.”

“You were gone for thirteen hours.”

I exhaled. “I needed some time.”

He tensed in my arms and sat up, turning sideways. I watched his profile in the dim light of the lamp. “I’ve completely monopolized your time for the past few days, and you’ve been great to me. I’m sorry. Of course, you wanted to get out of here.”

Screw this. No way was I letting him think that I had stayed because of some reluctant charity. I kissed his temple, hugging him back to me. “I wanted to be here with you. But we’re leaving tomorrow,” I whispered.

He looked at me then, his big glassy eyes glistening. I don’t know what he saw in my face that made him blink with a sudden wave of pity. Did he feel sorry for me or us? My hand shook a bit when I lifted it to stroke his cheek, jaw, and lips. His eyes flicked between mine, and I stopped fighting it when he kissed me.

We struggled with the blanket for a while before we sank on the bed, tangled together. His grip on my neck was almost painful, his other hand on my lower back, my ass and thigh, pressing me even closer. I dug my fingers into his skin under his T-shirt.

We were both desperate, too frantic, too hungry. He managed to slip my boxers lower and stroked me while I pushed my hand into his underwear, gripping him tight. Our kisses became angry, biting, loud smacking sounds mingling with moans and puffs of breath. I felt like running away from the pain, far from the crushing weight of reality, from the morning to come. After what seemed only a minute, I was so close to orgasm it was embarrassing.

Then all of the sudden Jamie released me and interrupted the kiss. Before I could growl in protest, he pressed his forehead against my breastbone and started coughing again.

Well, fuck.

I’d behaved like a self-centered prick. Again. I tried to calm down and snap the fuck out of the sexual trance. Jamie was obviously in pain, hacking violently, gasping for breath and murmuring broken syllables that sounded like yet another apology.

Despite my blue balls that did hurt, I did my best to comfort him, stroking his back, saying meaningless, vaguely placating words. I felt like such an idiot. I gave up on talking and hugged him.

It took maybe half an hour before he calmed down. Word of advice, when you have pneumonia, any physical exertion is a bad, bad idea. And that includes sex.

Somewhere in between the desperate clutching of Jamie’s body to mine and his exhausting fit of coughing, I lost control over my emotions completely. I blame the subsequent meltdown on the sexual frustration. Mainly. It was pure luck that Jamie was busy choking on his lungs and didn’t notice my growing desperation.

When I felt him fall asleep in my arms, completely drained, needing me for the very last time before he’d leave me in the morning, the floodgates opened. I swallowed the two sobs that tried to rock me, and instead I breathed deeply to keep from waking Jamie. The tears couldn’t be controlled.

I cried like a baby for what seemed like hours, feeling alternately sorry for myself and angry at my weakness. I cried until I was numb and empty and the pillow was wet, and the only thing in the whole world that made a little bit of sense to me was the precious boy sleeping in my embrace.

In the morning, there would be nothing left.

I tried to discipline myself. I did. Because what kind of pathetic loser was I to think like that? When did I become so clingy? Since when did I allow so much drama into my life?

Even after scrambling together all the reason and logic I could find, I still couldn’t help but think that what I felt for Jamie was the only important thing in my life right then. I hadn’t seen my family in years, and the last time I saw my best friend, Kristina, was at a New Year’s party in Berlin almost two years ago, both of us drunk off our asses and high like stratospheric balloons. I was on my way back to a city where I didn’t want to live, a city that killed my first love. I was hoping to fix things that were unfixable, and find things that didn’t exist. My bleakest thought? I didn’t have a purpose. Nothing. Nada. Nič. There was nothing I thought I could fight for, nothing to invest any energy in, nothing I genuinely craved. Except for Jamie.

 

 

ONCE THE tears had dried, I pushed my nose into its favorite place—Jamie’s dark strands of hair—and I started the most insane plotting session. For the first time, I seriously entertained the thought that was on the edge of my mind for the past two days. I could follow Jamie to Edinburgh. I could make Scotland my finish line, Jamie my prize. There was nothing to stop me. Not really. Except for Jamie himself.

What would he think of me if I tried to come there? How could I invite myself? I, the jobless, friendless fuckup, the university dropout with the East-European accent and nihilistic morals, the uniformed clown who’d earned all his money by serving stale coffee in plastic cups. How could I even tell Jamie? I tried to imagine his reaction, his surprise and the second of hesitation, a forced smile maybe, his blue eyes flitting to the left and then to the right, thinking of what to say.

I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t make myself face that kind of rejection.

I was jumping from one idea to another, hitting a wall of fear or denial or restraint at every attempt to cling to this dream. I made the whole circle in my head, through shivering hope, blooming love and insanity, denial, dejection, and despair, only to end up where I came from, where my perseverance lay. Survival.

To survive, to come out of this relatively unscathed, I imagined the worst. Do that next time you feel like you’re going to hit bottom. Imagine how it would feel if you did hit it. Imagine yourself down there. But be specific, go into the most excruciating detail and plan it all out, every single thing. Would you be able to sleep? Would you bother with pajamas or just collapse on the floor facedown? Would you have coffee in the morning? How hot would it feel in your hands? Could you eat or would your stomach protest? Would you stay in bed for the whole day? Go out maybe, run until you’d puke? Punch a bag, weep for a bit, and then have a drink or five? What would you do the next day? The next week, a month later? Try to imagine tangible things, real activities, picture yourself doing those things. Until you realize that you’d survive. You’d have to.

 

 

I GOT up shortly after six. The early morning was dark and confusing. I gave sleeping Jamie a chaste kiss on his forehead without qualms or hesitation. The fight had left me during the night that I’d spent mostly awake, so there wasn’t anything to think about twice.

I was a little drunk with sleep deprivation, and my stomach felt queasy. I stumbled around the studio and let myself into the bathroom. I sat on the lid of the toilet and toyed with my phone. I should book a ticket to Vienna, write yet another message to Kristina, maybe even call my mother. Instead, I stared at the phone and thumbed the messaging app open and closed, again and again.

After a while, I placed the phone on the counter and took a shower. My brain hiccupped and started to buzz ever so carefully. The heat of the shower helped my aching neck and shoulders; the stiffness eased.

I toweled off, brushed my teeth, and shaved. Then I packed my bathroom kit and realized that I didn’t know if I was leaving today, so there had been no point in packing it. I swore and avoided my reflection in the mirror as I stepped out of the bathroom. I was naked, kneeling in front of my suitcase, looking for my last pair of clean boxer briefs when I heard Jamie stir.

I dressed while he stretched on the bed.

“Hi,” I said lamely.

“What time is it?”

“A little after seven.”

“Okay,” he said and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “I should call a cab for nine.”

“Nine thirty is enough,” I said. I pretended to fold random clothing pieces into the suitcase. “You’d only wait there too long. You feel up for the trip?”

“Yes. I’m fine. I just hope I won’t have a coughing fit on the plane. People hate that. More than puking in public, apparently. They look at you like you’re a ticking biological weapon when you’re coughing and sneezing on a plane.”

He was right. People do hate that. I usually hate that.

“You can finally try the benproperine.” Jamie had gotten a prescription for cough-stilling medicine that he should take when the cough was dry and insistent. But he didn’t want it. He claimed that cough medicine made him “loopy.” Even now, he only grunted in response and dragged himself into the bathroom.

After a while, he reemerged and looked more awake than I felt. “Have you booked a flight for today or tomorrow?” he asked.

“I haven’t booked anything yet. I’ll do it after breakfast. I need coffee.”

I was resigned, numb, and calm. It made what happened in the next few minutes very unexpected.

Jamie looked a bit nervous and probably wanted to say something more. I waited him out with my T-shirts in my arms.

“I want to thank you for everything,” he said slowly. I dropped the clothes back into my bag. I so didn’t need to have that talk. “You’ve been amazing to me.”

He looked a little sad. Other than that, he seemed collected, and that made the mess I’d been during the night even messier in my memory. I had cried, for fuck’s sake! It would become one of those embarrassing things that would haunt me at inappropriate times and make my fingers curl into my palm for years to come.

I just nodded, not wanting to respond. I had nothing to say to that.

“I guess I wish we’d met under different circumstances,” he continued hesitantly. His blue eyes seemed oddly expectant.

“Yeah,” I managed in a half whisper and bent to fold those damned T-shirts. Let’s be honest, under different circumstances he wouldn’t even talk to me.

“Yeah,” he repeated and gave an audible sigh. There was a tiny hitch in his breath that made my head snap up, and I let my eyes lock back on his elfin face. Those tense, painful brackets around his mouth reappeared, confusing me.

Jamie gave me a forced lopsided smile and rocked on his heels, staring at his crazy socks. They were bright green with dark blue stripes.

“I guess it wasn’t meant to be,” he mumbled.

At that moment, the air in the room got instantly thicker. I felt my neck grow hot and my hands tremble. I reached my limit. I’d managed for a long time, bottling everything, hiding, and getting ready to let the rest out after we went our separate ways. But what he said, that made me burst. I would have kept it together if he hadn’t said that. It was what my mother used to say. “Everything always turns out as it’s meant to be.” It used to make me livid—the helplessness in the face of God’s mysterious ways. It was that kind of spineless, cowardly nonsense that used to make me slam the door shut as a teenager and sulk for hours. Now I was beside myself.

So I lost it. Again.

“That is bullshit, Jamie! You’re the scientist! You’re the smart one here. Do not feed me this crap! There is no fucking ‘meant to be,’ no fate and deeper meaning to the stuff that happens. There are just choices, coincidence, and consequences. Superstition is for people who can’t handle the reality. I can handle it, though. So be respectful enough and say how it is. If you can’t, just let it go.” My anger was draining, replaced by hurt.

The pain was physical, a cramp right beneath my ribcage, radiating from the very center of my body, from the seemingly empty space between my heart and my stomach. I struggled to breathe through it.

Jamie stared at me. I shook with angst and frustration. He was pale, taken aback, frozen at first. I didn’t dare to move either. He looked at his feet again then toward the window. He blinked slowly, taking a deep breath, and he ground his teeth together and exhaled, running his hand over his mouth. Whatever he was struggling with in his head, I could see it in slow motion reflected in his features. Jamie was getting ready to tell me the truth. I knew that the past few days meant much less to him than to me. Still, to hear him say it…. There were maybe two meters of space between us, and the distance was crushing me. I felt the impending loss like a mass of tasteless black matter filling my insides until I was choking on it, until it was pouring out of every orifice. Remember the pictures of dead pelicans on an oil-soaked beach? I was like one of those birds. Drowning in a black, sticky, toxic mess.

I needed to turn away before I started crying in front of Jamie. I didn’t need another painfully humiliating memory on top of the ever-growing pile.

Right then, Jamie whispered, and I barely heard him. “You’re right. You would….” He swallowed and sighed. Then came a short spasm of hysterical laughter. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this.”

He dragged his palms over his face and looked back at me. With determination and fear. I knew that look. It was the same one he’d given me when he came to my room that first night. It felt like weeks ago.

“What if we make the choice and deal with the consequences?” he blurted.

I sucked in a startled breath. What did he…?

And then it happened. Jamie said the words.

“Come with me to Edinburgh. We don’t have to decide anything. Just come with me, for a few days, maybe a few weeks. You could just treat it as a vacation. Or you could look for a job. Nothing steady, just a temporary gig, if you like. Just…. Shit, I’m babbling. I just… I don’t want to say goodbye. I don’t want to lose this when we haven’t even tried. And I want to try, I mean, if you want to. I haven’t even asked if you want to. I’m sorry. I…. Oh God.” He covered his face with both hands and laughed again.

There was a pause. I don’t remember how long it was.

“Ondro?”

Come with me.

But why? I don’t remember sitting down, but I must have because suddenly I was on the sofa, my hands frozen midair above my thighs. Jamie stared at me, his mouth slightly open. His beautiful blue eyes were glistening.

Why? He couldn’t want that. Could he?

“You want to try?” I repeated dumbly.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

My first instinct was to reassure him, to protect him. To give him whatever he wanted. But what did he want? Did he know what he was asking? Could I say yes? I had to. The alternative was unthinkable. There was no choice. I’d go anywhere he asked.

“I… I’m going to fix this by myself,” I said. “I need to feel like I’m doing something I’m not ashamed of.”

Amazingly, Jamie understood what I meant better than I did. “You will. We’ll split the rent, and you’ll find a job, and if it feels like moving too fast, you could find your own place. Just… I know you wanted to try again in Bratislava. I respect that, I admire you for that. And it’s selfish of me to ask you this. But I had to try. I’ve… I thought about it the whole day yesterday. I would hate myself for saying goodbye without asking you first. It’s just… I need to know. Do you want to? That is the question, isn’t it? If you want to come… with me?”

Of all the luck that could ever happen to me, this was the most glorious thing. So much that my brain couldn’t take it.

“Ondro?”

Jamie was kneeling in front of me. He took my hand in his, and his palm touched my cheek. I felt his thumb under my eye. Was I crying? Shit, I was! Again?

“Yes,” I blurted, not deciding to say it. It took me a while to recover, but then I was crushing Jamie to my chest, kissing his cheek, his neck. “I’d love to. I’ll come with you.”

Jamie giggled into my shoulder. It was the most beautiful sound. We found ourselves on the floor in front of the sofa, Jamie half in my lap, teasing me and tormenting me. I dug my fingers into his hair and untangled the rubber band just like I’d wanted to for the last six days. His hair slipped through my fingers, and I caught his upper lip between mine. The pain I’d felt in my core dissolved into a sluggish ball of warmth that grew and spread through my limbs. We kissed for a long time until Jamie leaned back, pressing one fingertip on my mouth.

“You have to book a ticket, like, right now,” he said, always so practical. I grinned.

 

 

LATER, WHEN I was forced to let go of him, it felt awkward. I moved as if in a dream, unsure of the tangibility of the world around me. Maybe if I’d lean on the dresser, it would disappear with a poof? Maybe Jamie would send me packing after a few weeks. I should find my own place in Edinburgh fast before I destroyed everything by being too clingy.

Jamie started coughing again. It wasn’t violent, but it wouldn’t stop. I forced the medicine on him and called the airlines to see if there were still seats on the plane that day. It was insanely expensive, but I didn’t care.

We were supposed to leave together. I was dazed, the meaning of our agreement an elusive brittle thing I tried to hold with my hands like a soap bubble. The unanswered question was squirming in the back of my skull. Why?

When I finished the call, Jamie was sitting on the bed smiling up at me. I smiled back foolishly. I knelt in front of him and hugged him to me. He slid down and straddled me on the floor. I loved to feel his weight on me. He always looked a little otherworldly with his huge eyes, his fragile beauty, and paleness. But this, his ass and thighs pressing mine into the carpet, the dampness on his palms, it made him real. It soothed me.

“This will sound terribly presumptuous.” He looked away, chewing on his lip. “You said that Bratislava was as good a place as any, and that you wanted a destination.” He hesitated again. He looked back at me, then at our intertwined hands between our stomachs as he played with my fingers. “Maybe we can try to make it a reason, this thing, how it feels right now…. Maybe after some time I can persuade you to make Edinburgh your destination.” He spoke low until he trailed off into silence.

I smiled at his insecurity, knowing how far gone I was for him. I’d tell him soon. Just not yet. I’d only scare him. So I nuzzled his jaw, kissed his cheek. “You can convince me of anything,” I said.

“What the hell did I just say to you? I told you that cough medicine made me loopy,” he complained. I chuckled and kissed him again.

I didn’t ask why; I was terrified that he didn’t know. That it was all just a whim.

 

 

WE PACKED quickly and efficiently, then went downstairs to the hotel’s breakfast buffet. We kept bumping into each other, touching accidentally and not so accidentally. He brushed my elbow and my forearm in the elevator, and we bumped shoulders in the hall. We ate in silence, smiling like fools. I hooked my foot around his under the table, and he chuckled.

Jamie was still tired even though the coughing was less frequent now. Thankfully, the meds had kicked in. He took my hand in the elevator and smiled at me shyly. We held hands all the way back to the studio, and I felt like a teenager playing with labels in my head, imagining meeting his friends, being introduced as Jamie’s boyfriend. Suddenly I was all about labels and possessive pronouns. My boyfriend, my Jamie. I’d let him use it first, though. Part of me was giddy, putting up party balloons in my head. Another part was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I still hadn’t asked why.

 

 

I CALLED a taxi and insisted on dragging our luggage down by myself. Jamie was coerced to stay resting on the bed until the taxi arrived. We found ourselves in the back of the car, holding hands on the seat between us. I watched Jamie’s profile from the corner of my eye. His face was earnest, but his eyes shone, and his knee bounced up and down. Just like me, he couldn’t keep still. I squeezed his hand, and he looked at me, smiling. He looked happy. I dared to think that it was because of me. I made Jamie happy.

At the gate, I bought an overpriced latte while Jamie sat in the corner stuffing himself with gummy bears, of all things. He looked apologetic, so I couldn’t let it go and not tease him for his guilty pleasure.

“There is a jumbo pack of those things in the duty-free shop. Shall I buy them for you while I browse for grown-up food?”

He punched my arm lightly. “Gummy bears are for flying. It’s like a tradition.”

“It seems there won’t be any left when we’re actually flying. Are you sure you don’t want the jumbo?”

He pretended to scowl, and I laughed.

 

 

“KRISTI, I’M not going to make it,” I said, getting an odd sense of déjà vu.

“What?” she mumbled, sounding distracted.

“I’m at the gate. I’m going with Jamie to Edinburgh.” I squeezed my eyes shut and hung my head. I hated disappointing her.

“What?” Sharply now, Kristina’s no-nonsense voice echoed through the line.

“I’m so sorry, Kristi, I miss you so much. You’re my family. But I have to take this chance. He’s… completely and totally amazing. You’ll see. You’re going to meet him. I can’t let this go. He asked me to come with him, and I have to try.”

I was miserable that I wasn’t going to see her, beating myself up. And she laughed. Out loud and merrily.

“That’s amazing, honey. I’m so happy for you! That’s like a fairy tale! Like Pretty Woman!”

I laughed too, short and astonished. “Except she was a hooker, and nothing in the movie even remotely resembles my life?”

“You know what I mean. This is the perfect unlikely happy ending. It never happens in real life.”

“Kristi, calm down. It’s just… just an experiment. We’ll spend some time together, and we’ll see. It’s no Happily Ever After.”

“Not yet.” I could hear the smugness in her voice. There was no talking to her.

Still, her happiness was a little contagious. I felt my face split into a foolish grin.

“I have to go now. I’ll call you from Scotland.”

“You do that. I’m so glad you’re not coming here, Ondro. However much I want to see you, you don’t need this shit. You don’t have to punish yourself. Go, fly away, fall in love, and be happy, okay?”

I watched Jamie as he sat maybe twenty steps away, leaning against the glass wall behind him, hugging the half-empty pack of gummy bears, his eyes closed. “I’ll try,” I rasped, a little choked.

“I love you, Ondro.”

“Love you too. Miss you.”

I pocketed my phone and went back to Jamie. His eyes opened when I approached, and he smiled at me tiredly. I lowered myself next to him and took his hand immediately. His head fell on my shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, she understands.”

“We could go together to Bratislava in the spring. To visit Kristina. And I want to see the city.”

“We could.”

 

 

THE FLIGHT from Basel to Edinburgh took two hours and eleven minutes. The old lady who sat next to us leaned forward and blatantly appraised Jamie.

He slept in my embrace; his body was bent at impossible angles, his knees pressed against the window. The meds had finally knocked him out. I absentmindedly played with the tiny knot of wavy hair at the back of his head. I almost stopped, self-conscious under the woman’s scrutiny. But she was smiling gently and winked at me.

“You’ve found yourself a lovely man,” she whispered, the British accent making her sound like some generic movie character.

“And he’s brilliant too,” I whispered back, and she patted my knee with a papery hand.

If I were a believer in those things, I would have taken her easy acceptance as a sign. As it was, it made me grateful.

 

 

WHEN WE stepped out of the plane, the Scottish rain met my face for the first time, and I took it as a christening. I didn’t believe in much, but suddenly I had faith in this dream. However slim, we had a chance. We could make it. I was happy and restless and felt gross from the flight.

Ginny waited for us in the terminal with a giant black umbrella, her wet blonde hair in a messy ponytail. She was maybe in her early thirties, only a little older than me, dressed casually in jeans and a parka. Her face was small and round, with big brown clever eyes and freckles. She looked both fierce and cute.

Jamie dragged me toward her. I saw her eyes widen as she took in our intertwined hands. I wished for the tiled floor to open under my feet. Instead, the ruckus of the luggage we rolled behind us accompanied our approach like a fanfare.

She gaped for a bit and then frowned at me. Her disapproval was apparent.

“You didn’t tell her?” I asked Jamie through clenched teeth.

“Forgot to update her,” he answered in the same manner.

“Hi, Ginny!” he called enthusiastically, and she scowled even more.

“Hi, Ginny,” I echoed lamely.

She was tiny but scary. Jamie didn’t let go of me when she hugged him.

I offered her my other hand, and she took it reluctantly.

“Andrew, hi. Nice to meet you in person,” I tried.

“Ondro,” Jamie corrected.

“Andrew is okay,” I added.

“No, it isn’t,” he said.

Ginny watched us like a tennis match.

“I’ll call him what I want,” she finally said, and Jamie made a protesting noise that she ignored.

She looked back at me and narrowed her eyes.

“He doesn’t look gay,” she deadpanned.

Only then did Jamie release my hand. He needed both of his so he could drag them down his face and groan.

 

 

GINNY INTERROGATED me all the way to the corner of Cambusnethan Street and Marionville Road, where, on the third floor of a hundred-year-old stone house, Jamie lived. She didn’t pretend to be happy about me following Jamie like the parasite she suspected me to be. I liked her more for it because, in her place, I’d think the same. But Jamie was snappy and annoyed.

They had a talk in the hall while I waited in Jamie’s living room, looking around in a daze. I didn’t worry about Ginny. She’d come around if I managed to prove myself worthy of her approval.

Gazing at Jamie’s posters and books and geeky knickknacks, the determination to do just that grew into a living thing inside my chest. I had a purpose, and it felt divine.

I studied the room, trying to learn as much about Jamie as possible. There was a small book collection in an old, dark, wooden case next to the couch. Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, Tolkien. Then Rimbaud. Huh. There was no TV, just a medium iMac and a shelf of Blu-rays and old DVDs: Iron Man, Avengers, Miyazaki…. And Julio Medem? Red Dwarf and Black Books. I smiled.

On the wall next to the computer screen was a large M. C. Escher print. I went up and down and around those damn stairs on the painting for minutes before I caught up with myself. Then I marveled at the exotic beer bottle assortment on the windowsill.

The door echoed shut, and I heard Jamie’s approaching steps. I imagined hearing the exact same sound tomorrow and the day after that.

“I’m so sorry,” he said when he joined me on the sofa.

I shrugged and continued smiling. My cheeks hurt. I was happy.

“Come here.” I tugged on his hands until he was pressed against my side. I untangled his hair band and let the strands slip through my fingers while I searched his face. It was already so familiar—the crinkles in the corners of his eyes betrayed his amusement long before his lips twitched.

“What?” he asked and laughed briefly, probably at my expression.

I think I love you. “Is there a grocery store close?” I asked.

“Yeah?” Jamie answered, but it sounded like a question.

“Good, then kiss me, and later, we’ll eat, okay? I want to make you dinner.”

He chuckled and kissed me.

With his taste on my tongue and my hand under his T-shirt, I gathered courage. I was here, in Edinburgh, at Jamie’s place, my luggage on the floor. I still hadn’t seen where I was going to sleep. I didn’t know where the closest grocery store was. I didn’t need any visa or work permit; we were in the EU after all. But I had to get a bank account, a job, a Scottish phone number, insurance…. That was not what freaked me out, because I’d done this dance before. Only, this was the first time I desperately wanted not to fuck this up. So finally, I asked.

“Why, Jamie?”

He started and peered at me, frowning. “Why what?”

“Why did you ask me to come?”

He paused, staring at my face, analyzing again. Jamie played everything safe. He wanted to have control, to know things beforehand. All the more reason to doubt his decision to invite me along. It seemed out of character for him. I didn’t know what he saw in my face, but his changed into an expression of surprised hurt. What? “You think we shouldn’t have…?”

Whoa. “No! No, I’m exactly where I want to be.” I was. I took a deep breath. “I’ve been wondering why you took the risk. Because it is risky. You don’t know me, you don’t—”

He caught my hands with both of his, interrupting me. His next words forced a rush of heat in my face. “This is why. Exactly this. Never has anyone taken care of me like you have. Even the first night when you asked me what I wanted….” I squeezed my eyes shut. Pictures of Jamie’s naked body flicked through my brain in a stroboscopic rhythm. The sexual frustration of the past few days accumulated, and I didn’t know what would explode first, my cock or my head. Jamie continued, but his voice got breathy. “Then in the hospital and the hotel. When we slept, you would turn on your side at the same time I did, and you’d hold me. You’d even move your arm so you wouldn’t add weight to my chest. Even in your sleep, you took care of me. Even now, you are only worried about me. Well, what I want now is to give you what you want.”

I think I must have winced because Jamie raised his voice. “Stop that! I met you when I needed you the most. I consider myself lucky, understand?”

I guess I had a thick layer of self-hatred to work through, so no, I didn’t understand. Not really. I opened my mouth to say some white lie, but Jamie intercepted me. He knew me already. He leaned closer, pressed his cheek to mine, and talked into my ear, his breath tickling my jaw and neck.

“I like the way you look at me, intense and focused. You listen when I talk, you remember what I say, and you make me think. You’re independent and sharp but kind as well. You speak like a bazillion languages and have been everywhere, but you never brag about anything. I like the way you smell, in the middle of the night when you’re a little sweaty and the scent of your body wash has almost disappeared. I love the way you touch me, how you find these unguarded moments to kiss my hair or stroke my arm when you think I’m asleep. I love the way you make me want you all the fucking time even when I’m feeling sick and terrible….”

“Jamie,” I warned but I moaned at the same time, so it was highly counterproductive. I fisted his T-shirt at his sides when his mischievous fingers played with the short hair at my nape, sending tingles down my spine. He leaned back so he could look in my face. I hurried to make things right. “We can’t. Not yet. You’re not well enough.”

“I know,” he said and clenched his jaw. “You make me feel brave. Even in bed.”

I groaned, and he laughed shortly, then sighed heavily. He rested his head on my shoulder, and I hugged him tighter. We sat like that for a minute, my mind swirling. There was no time to process all the beautiful things he’d said. My desire for him made my brain foggy.

“You must be exhausted,” I ventured. “I’m just going to buy us something to eat, and meanwhile, you could get into the shower. Just point me in the right direction.”

“There’s Sainsbury’s just five minutes away from here,” he mumbled into my shoulder.

“Great, I’ll fix us something quick. Is there anything you don’t eat?”

“Sheep intestines.”

“Some Scot you are.”

“Do we have plans for tomorrow?” he asked, still grinning.

“Well, you’re staying in bed, no discussion. And I’ll do the laundry I guess.”

“So practical. Where’s the romance?”

“I met a guy six days ago, and now I’d follow him anywhere. There are roses, rainbows, and unicorns all over this couch.” I was trying to make a joke of it, but toward the end, my voice shook.

Jamie, all serious, leaned back and held my face between his hands, looking at me intently.

“It’s going to be great,” he said as if making a promise.

“You don’t know yet,” I whispered. “We don’t know yet. I have to find a job fast or else all your friends will think….”

Jamie pressed his forehead to mine, shutting me up effectively once again. “You’d never know for sure. We could be together for years and still have doubts. But like you said, I’m exactly where I want to be.”

Relief. I felt so much of it that it swamped me. This, I thought, was my destination.