Two months later

“Good morning, lovelies!” Andrew smiled at his phone’s video camera and tried not to shiver in the stiff breeze blowing off the Firth of Forth. “And Happy Thanksgiving to my mates across the Atlantic. Hope you enjoyed your turkey carcasses.”

He carefully angled the camera up, panning across the ruins of MacDuff Castle, its stones gleaming red in the late afternoon sun. “You’re probably wondering why I’ve brought you to this magnificent place. I hinted at it in last week’s vlog. Oh yes oh yes oh yes, there’s someone you need to meet!”

The camera came to rest on Colin, who offered a self-conscious wave, avoiding the camera’s eye.

“Want to try that again,” Andrew said in his off-the-air voice, “and this time pretend you want to be here?”

“I want to be here. I just don’t want to document the whole thing.”

“We won’t document the sex. Just the talking.”

Colin laughed, finally relaxing. He waved again, this time adding a wink and a smile.

“Gorgeous.” Andrew paused the camera. “Let’s go inside the walls where the wind won’t blow against the microphone.”

Colin gave an eager grin, then reached for Andrew’s hand to pull him along. It was a relief to feel Colin’s strength again, after his difficult eight-week recovery. He’d needed two more abdominal reconstructive operations and now possessed thirty percent less intestines than before. His doctors said it would take months to regain his stamina, but he’d vowed to be back on the pitch by New Year’s.

After the stabbing incident, Colin had become a national hero. Not because Andrew was a national treasure worth saving—though Lady Kirkross would disagree—but because Colin had laid down his life for another human. It helped that the human in question was already famous.

More famous than ever, in fact, if Andrew’s social-media followership was any measure. Though he still suffered cyber-harassment—mostly from his former political allies—on the whole, the public seemed to admire his loyalty to Colin and his determination to break down the walls of class division for the sake of love. Seeing Andrew was now an ex-Tory, many Scottish National Party members had pressured him to join them, but after the referendum madness, he’d had enough of politics to last him the rest of…

Well, the rest of this year.

They climbed a grassy bank to sit between two of the sixteenth-century tower’s three remaining walls. From here they could see all the way to the town of Buckhaven in one direction and Wemyss in the other.

“This is so cool.” Colin slid his palm down the crumbling stone wall. “Just think—in a few hundred years, Dunleven will look like this.”

“Maybe not that long.” Andrew sighed. “I hope it’s replaced by something equally grand, like a spaceport.”

“Naw, think of all the tract housing that could fit on those twenty thousand acres.”

“Or think of how I could push you off this cliff and make it look an accident.”

Laughing, Colin put his arm around Andrew and pulled him close. “That’d be a waste of all your grand efforts to keep me alive.”

As they kissed, Andrew thought what a gift it had been to care for this man each day these last two months, and to lie beside him each night. In contrast to his previous stance on cuddling, Andrew now found it hard to sleep without at least a hand or a foot touching his boyfriend, to make sure he was still there.

If Colin had been stolen from him, Andrew would have never forgiven himself. He didn’t know if he’d ever forgive Reggie, despite the bodyguard’s agreement to plead guilty and testify in Jeremy’s trial, scheduled for next year.

A swift, swirling breeze cut into their sanctuary between the castle walls. With a shiver, Colin let go of Andrew and pointed to the phone. “Right, let’s do this.”

With his shoulder still pressed tight to Colin’s, Andrew hit Record. “This is Colin MacDuff. He and I are…” Andrew’s voice trailed off as he tried to find the words to describe what they shared.

“Frequently fucking.” When Andrew punched his arm, Colin said, “What? You paused, so I thought I was to finish your sentence.”

Still recording, Andrew said, “We’ll try again. He and I are—”

“Notorious sodomites.”

“He and I are—”

“Monstrously in love.”

Andrew met Colin’s eyes on the screen, as if they were standing together before a mirror. A warmth flowed through him, a warmth no firth-side wind could diminish.

“Yes,” he whispered, then looked at the camera again. “I was going to say, Colin and I are different in all the obvious ways, that is to say, all the ways which don’t matter.”

“Different can be good, though,” Colin said. “Think of the things we’ve taught each other.” He turned to the camera. “Andrew’s taught me how to reel, and how to eat pasta with just a fork—nae spoon and nae knife.”

Andrew gave an exaggerated shudder. “Definitely no knife. And in return, Colin has taught me to see all of the world.”

“Even the crap parts.”

“Especially the crap parts.” Andrew kissed Colin’s cheek and gazed at him, hoping his adoration would shine through on the video. “Tell them more about yourself.”

“Right.” Colin cleared his throat. “I was a starting forward for Woodstoun Warriors, an all-LGBT football club based in Glasgow. After I recover from getting stabbed in the gut, I will return to the starting eleven. I study business and management at Glasgow Caledonian University, which aye, is a real fucking university.” He glared at Andrew. “I’m taking a wee break this trimester, thanks to all the surgeries. Pretty much my full-time job is recovering from being stabbed. I do not recommend this as a vocation, kids.”

Andrew straightened up, relishing the part coming up. “Talking of jobs, you forgot the most interesting part. Your new source of income?”

“Oh. I’d rather not—”

“Colin is the official spokesman for—”

“Wheesht!” Colin’s face reddened. “I cannae say the company’s name yet, but I’ve got an endorsement deal with a certain luxury condom maker. Apparently they plan to play up my working-class background, so my tagline will be ‘I only splash cash on one thing.’” He gave a wicked smile. “Which is true. Those condoms are a dream. I’d endorse them even if they weren’t paying me.”

“Shhh! Your agent will kill you if she hears that.”

“Then edit it out.”

“Of course.” Andrew winked at the camera. He would not be editing it out.

After a bit more banter, they wrapped up the video. While Colin explored the ruins of his family’s historic seat of power, Andrew took a few more establishing shots of the area. Then he returned to the tower to watch the sunset, which arrived so rapidly this time of year.

From here, the two of them would drive to his brother George’s house for dinner, followed by one final weekend at the Dunleven boathouse, the sale of which had been delayed, but not scrapped, by Andrew’s attempted kidnapping. His family’s estate was still being drawn and quartered to avoid its own demise.

Or more precisely, to stave off that demise. The Sunderlands’ world was crumbling as surely as the stone walls Andrew stood within now.

Part of him thought good riddance. The old traditions made a gay man like him a pariah, or at best irrelevant. Next month would see Scotland’s first same-sex weddings, proving that change was often a good thing. And since the referendum, the Scottish appetite for self-determination had only grown. The hope for a better future—a hope that had succumbed to despair for a mere twenty-four hours—was stronger than ever.

Yet another part of Andrew still treasured the old ways, how they connected him to the past and to something greater than himself. Somehow, by reaching forward whilst reaching back, he would reconcile what he was with who he was. Out, proud, but always and forever Lord Andrew.

With a rustle of loose rocks and soft footsteps, Colin came up behind him. He slid his hands beneath the back of Andrew’s shirt, lifting it up.

“Behave, you.” Andrew shivered at the feel of Colin’s nails and the cool breeze against his skin. “This is a public place.”

“I just want to see your ink.” He stooped to put his eyes near the line of text tattooed along Andrew’s right lat. “Healing nicely. Still sore?”

“No, but it itches like a beast. It’s a good job I can’t reach to scratch it.”

“A trick I learned is to smack the skin a few inches away. It distracts your brain from the itch.”

“Don’t even think about smacking me.”

“I’m not.” Instead Colin pressed his lips to the skin on the other side of Andrew’s spine, opposite the black-ink tattoo that showed, in Andrew’s handwriting, the Green Day lyric following the one on Colin’s back:

This is the dawning of the rest of our lives.

Colin stood up straight and wrapped his arms around Andrew’s waist. “I’ve got this pure weird feeling.”

Andrew stiffened, worried Colin sensed the approach of another debilitating infection. “What sort of feeling?”

Colin settled his chin atop Andrew’s shoulder. “That everything’s gonnae be okay.”

“Ah.” Andrew leaned back, trusting Colin’s newfound strength to hold him. “That’s not very Scottish of you.”

With a soft laugh, Colin pressed his lips to Andrew’s ear. “It is now.”