“I look ridiculous.”

“Pish. You look gorgeous and you know it.”

“But I feel ridiculous.” Evan examined himself in the wardrobe mirror, wondering how his green-and-blue kilt would stand up to Orkney’s gale-force winds. “I should wear something underneath.”

“We’ve discussed this,” Ben said as he threaded the sporran strap through the kilt’s belt loops. “No true Scotsman—”

“What did I tell you about calling Orcadians Scottish?”

“If you wear something under your kilt then I won’t be able to do this.” Ben snaked a hand beneath the hem and reached up to grasp Evan’s arse.

Evan jolted. Ben had been a bit standoffish this morning, so this sudden groping was a surprise. “Your hands are cold.”

“We can solve that.” Abandoning the sporran, Ben straightened up behind Evan, pressing close as he placed one hand on each bare cheek.

Evan watched them in the mirror, feeling a stir from the inconvenient semi-erection he’d sported since Ben had started dressing him. “You look gorgeous too. That’s the suit you wore on our first date.”

“Mm-hm.” Stooping slightly, Ben reached between Evan’s thighs to caress his balls. “How much time have we got?”

“What, before the wedding?”

“Yes. You need fucked in your kilt, and we can’t assume you’ll be sober after the reception.”

Evan felt his face burn—from excitement at Ben’s declaration and from shame at his own behavior. He couldn’t remember what he’d nattered on about here in their bed last night, apart from an apology for being a dick and a clumsy statement about the bright side of the truth about his parents’ divorce.

But Ben wasn’t quite meeting his eyes today, so Evan must have said something disturbing. He hoped it wasn’t I love you, because even though those words were true, he wanted to be sober the first time he uttered them.

Ben led him to the end of the bed. “If it’s the mess you’re worried about, we could both wear condoms. Or you could tell me when you’re near orgasm and I’ll suck you off.”

This was matter-of-fact sex talk, even for Ben. The lack of ceremony unnerved Evan, but after last night, he was desperate to reestablish their bond. “We’ve got half an hour.”

“Perfect.” Ben undid his trousers. “Now bend over so I can lick you.”

Evan’s knees went weak, making it easy to obey. He draped himself over the foot of the bed, turning his head to see their bodies perfectly framed in the wardrobe door mirror. He watched Ben kneel behind him, stroking himself with one hand and using the other to lift Evan’s kilt.

Then both hands were on him, parting his cheeks. And there it was, that long, exquisite, determined tongue, reaching for him, then disappearing from sight at the same moment Evan felt its touch.

“God…” Evan shoved his wrist to his mouth to keep all of Stromness from hearing his cries. A cufflink clinked against his teeth as he bit down on his shirt.

Ben made an appreciative noise, then began a series of long, luxurious strokes interspersed with rapid, tickling touches with the tip of his tongue. Evan writhed beneath Ben’s firm grip, his aching cock pressed against the kilt’s silky lining. Through blurring vision he saw Ben’s face buried between his cheeks, then felt that tongue press within him.

Finally Ben let go, leaving Evan quivering all over. After fetching the lube and a condom, he stood behind Evan and let his trousers drop to the floor. He was otherwise fully clothed; he’d not even removed his glasses, which frankly was a really hot look.

Evan watched Ben slide one slicked-up finger inside his wet hole. Eager for more, he put his knees on the bed and raised his hips.

“That’s right,” Ben said. “Lift up for me.”

Evan obeyed, keeping his head and arms pressed to the mattress. With his arse in the air and his kilt draped forward over his tuxedo jacket, he looked pure slutty in the best way.

When he felt ready, he said, “Now, Ben. Fuck me now,” expecting him to quickly oblige.

Instead Ben froze for a long moment, staring down at him.

“What’s wrong?” Evan asked.

Ben gave a jerky head shake, then took off his suit jacket and laid it carefully over the chair. “Everything’s fine.” But as he put on the condom and lubed it up, his forehead was still lined with tension.

“Undo your bottom shirt buttons,” Evan said. “I want to see your cock.”

Ben did so without replying, then parted his shirt as he shifted forward to bring them together. Evan didn’t watch the place where they joined. Instead he studied Ben’s face, which at first showed no reaction. He moved a bit deeper, murmuring, “All right?”

“Yes.” Evan meant it only in a physical sense. Something about Ben was definitely not all right. His movements were clinically efficient, and he was talking a lot less than normal. But maybe his efficiency was due to the time constraint, and his silence due to the periodic passing of people through the corridor outside their room.

Then Ben moved deeper still, and Evan stopped wondering. He stopped caring that his boyfriend had traded affectionate caresses for a commanding grip. If Ben held some secret resentment, it was manifesting itself in a rock-hard self-assurance.

“Mmmph.” Evan had to press his mouth to the bed to muffle his cries. Holding him in position, Ben drove harder, lighting the first great sparks within him.

Then he quickened his pace, sliding relentlessly over Evan’s prostate. With the duvet between his teeth, Evan checked the mirror to see Ben’s body bucking and releasing, his jaw tight and determined.

Then Ben looked into the mirror. As their eyes met, his rhythm broke, and on his next thrust he slipped out entirely. “Sorry.” He refocused on his cock, carefully putting it back where it belonged.

The next thrust was the deepest yet. Evan gave a shuddering moan he couldn’t suppress.

“Are you close?” Ben asked.

“Not yet. Are you?”

“Oh yeah.”

Evan watched the mirror as Ben’s back arched and his head tilted back. And there it was: that look of pure delight he’d come to crave.

“God…” As Ben went at him faster and faster, his glasses started to slip down his nose from the sweat and rapid motion.

In the end, his orgasm was near silent, his cry stifled by a bitten lip as he ground against Evan, giving him every thick, throbbing inch.

Finally he withdrew carefully and dispensed with the condom. “Turn over and slide down,” he said breathlessly, holding Evan’s kilt out of the way.

Evan obeyed. “It won’t take me long to—och!”

His head slammed back as Ben swallowed him whole. In the mirror, he saw his kilt tossed above his waist, his stockinged legs now angled high. Ben drew back a few inches, rolling Evan’s cock around his mouth, the head bulging visibly against the inside of his cheek. Then he shifted Evan’s arse and plunged his fingers inside, curling them at just the right spot.

“Yes!” Evan hissed, reaching back to grasp a pillow just in time. He shoved it against his face as he came, nearly screaming, in the grasp of Ben’s masterful mouth.

For a few minutes he just lay there on the bed in a daze, listening to Ben washing up and brushing his teeth in the bathroom.

When Ben came back into the room, he examined Evan with a detached gaze, then came over and reached for the kilt buckle. “Let’s take this off so you can clean yourself proper. They say there’s no such thing as too much lube, but I may have proved that wrong. Sorry.”

“Better too much than too little.” Evan stood, relieved to feel not even a pinch of pain. “So I’ll not be walking funny before the entire congregation.”

“Hah. Right?” Ben’s broad grin returned in an instant, making its previous absence even more painfully obvious.

Evan leaned over and kissed him, wishing he knew what Ben had been thinking as they’d fucked. Wishing he knew what to say, now and later, to make it all right.

Throughout the wedding, Ben tried to focus on the happy couple. He pitched in when asked for help or advice but for the most part hung back—God forbid I should try to “fix” anyone, he thought bitterly.

The ceremony went smoothly, apart from a mixup with the unity-sand ritual. Due to a miscommunication and a shared favorite color, Justine and Darren had accidentally ordered the same sand, which meant their souvenir bottle, rather than displaying a distinct pattern of two alternating colors which symbolically blended at the top, ended up a container of…blue sand.

Despite the raucous reception, Ben couldn’t drag his mind away from the events of the last twelve hours. Normally his physical connection to Evan felt almost divine; not so this morning. He’d felt far away from Evan, his trust at an all-time low, but he’d fucked him anyway. It definitely didn’t meet the does-this-act-serve-others-or-myself? standard, a standard Ben treated pretty liberally to begin with.

The whole time Evan was splayed out before him, kilt above his waist, all Ben could think about was what he’d done with that terrorist lad in…wherever he’d disappeared to last year. Had he writhed and moaned in such a way beneath that man, maybe exaggerating his pleasure to manipulate through flattery? Worse, was he doing it even now, in Glasgow, as “Gunnar” the hot Norwegian?

How much of what he and Ben had was even real?

With all these doubts swirling through his mind, sex was the last thing that should have happened this morning. They should have talked instead.

Hopefully it wasn’t too late for another dose of truth.

As the reception wound down, he found Evan chatting to some of his mates from school. “Shall we go for a walk?” Ben asked. “I could do with some fresh air.”

Fear flashed through Evan’s eyes at Ben’s solemn tone, but he said, “I know where there’s a great view. It’s just a peedie stroll.”

After a round of farewells, they found their coats and slipped out the inn’s side door. They walked past the harbor down the seaside road, which twisted back to wind through Stromness, the tarmac changing to rectangular stone slabs laid between cute shops. Like some of the country roads, the street here seemed meant for two-way traffic though it was barely the width of one vehicle.

The claustrophobic lane turned back into a proper road leading out of the town, where sporadic houses sat a mere dozen yards from the water.

“Are we okay?” Evan asked.

Ben stopped. He’d wanted to talk but now found the prospect terrifying. “Of course we’re okay.” He glanced back at the glittering lights of Stromness, where he’d learned a fraction of a very dark truth. “I want to put my feet in the water.”

“It’s freezing.”

“I don’t care.”

“Then let’s go where it’s less rocky.”

They continued in silence for a few minutes before Evan stopped at a rusty gate. Ben followed him down a set of concrete steps. At the bottom they sat to remove their shoes and socks in silence. The tide was high, so they needed to walk only a few yards to reach the water.

“Aaaaaeeeeeee!” Ben said when the ice-cold liquid devoured his feet. “Whose stupid idea was this?”

“I can’t remember.” Evan hissed as he waded deeper, the water lapping just below his kilt. “The past has been obliterated by the pain of the present.”

Ben laughed, his lower lip already trembling. “Whoever steps out first loses.”

“You’re challenging me to a test of physical endurance?”

“That’s daft, isn’t it? Especially since Orcadians are part selkie.”

“Not all of us.” Evan rubbed his own arms. “One time when I was four, I was with my mum over at Dingieshowe Beach, mucking about in one of the rock pools looking for fish. She got distracted chatting to one of her friends or something. Anyway, my foot slipped, and I went under.”

“Oh my God. What happened?”

“I remember hearing my voice all garbled from the water.” He thumped his throat as he cried, “Heeeelp meee” in a cartoonish tone.

“And you got rescued?”

“No. I found my footing again and stood up. Mum never even knew I’d slipped.” Evan stood perfectly motionless now, seemingly oblivious to the chill. “It was probably only a few seconds I was under the water thinking I was drowning. But at the time it seemed an eternity.”

Ben hugged himself, wishing he could wrap his arms around the four-year-old Evan. “Did you ever go back in the water again?”

“Aye, the next day. That summer I taught myself to swim.”

Ben snickered. “Of course you did. A close thing like that teaches you to solve your own problems.”

“Among other things.” Evan put his hands on his hips and gazed across the harbor at the low hills of the East Mainland.

Ben bobbed in place to battle the deep freeze working its way up his body. “It’s not all b-b-bad.” He rubbed his shivering lips. “You learned to be self-sufficient. And you don’t s-sound like you blame your m-mum.”

“I don’t. She was never negligent in general. It was just that one moment. Could happen to anyone.”

“Okay, you win.” Ben dashed out of the water, back to the rough sand, where he hopped up and down to dry his feet in the bitter breeze.

“Your turn.” Evan stayed where he was, rocking from foot to foot. “Tell me a scary story from when you were young. Tell me the scariest one of all.”

“I’ve never had a brush with death—so far, at least.” Ben hurried to rap his knuckles on a piece of driftwood.

Evan smiled at this superstitious act, though he might’ve done the same after such a fate-tempting declaration. “It doesn’t have to be physical danger. What about frightening news, or an exam where it turned out you studied the wrong material?”

“Let me think.” Ben stumbled over the pebbly beach toward the stairs where his shoes and socks lay.

While he waited, Evan did a few calf lifts to keep the blood flowing. The water here was even colder than he’d remembered.

He was suddenly was struck with a memory from last Christmas. He’d been standing on the dock in Stromness gazing out over the wind-ruffled harbor, thinking about how he’d lost Fergus forever, when a sudden obsession had seized him. What would it be like, he’d wondered, to simply walk fully clothed into the water and never come back? To let cold liquid seep into every cell, replacing that eternal pain with an equally eternal numbness?

The impulse had been so fleeting, he’d forgotten it moments later. And of course the pain hadn’t been eternal. It had only felt like it at the time.

“This one night when I was eight,” Ben said now, brushing the sand from his soles, “I overheard my mum on the phone to my dad. He was overseas at the time, as usual. Oh my God, I cannot even feel my toes. Do you think I’ve got frostbite?”

Evan stepped out of the water, his feet too numb to mind the rocks and shells beneath them. “It’s not cold enough for frostbite, but don’t rub your skin. If it warms too fast you could get chilblains.”

“Chilblains,” Ben said with a titter. “Sounds like something out of a Dickens novel. Anyway, we hadn’t seen my dad in ages. It was almost time for him to decide whether to sign up for another overseas tour or come back to the UK.”

“Right.” Evan bent over to dislodge a piece of seaweed caught between his toes.

“They were arguing.” Ben’s voice turned soft. “Mum begged Dad to come home. She said if he didn’t, she would leave him. That we would leave him.”

Evan froze. “What did he say?”

“I don’t know.” He smoothed his sock across his knee. “But he didn’t come home.”

The wind had died, leaving no sound but the lap of water and the swish of seaweed over rocks. “I’m sorry,” Evan said.

Ben sat up straight. “Obviously he came home eventually, on leave. And they’re not divorced. That was my fear, that they’d break up.”

Evan thought his chest would crack in two at the thought of a young Ben overhearing such a terrifying conversation. Worst, he’d seen that his mum’s feelings weren’t his dad’s highest priority, that asking for what you want gets you nothing.

Perching on the lowest stair, he took Ben’s right foot and pressed it against the dry wool of his kilt.

“That feels good.” Ben shook out one of his socks and tugged it back onto his left foot, then slipped his shoe on. “Another scary moment was when my boyfriend at school told me he was going to university in America.”

“That’s awful.”

“The worst part was, he told me in August on exam results day. I was so happy to be accepted to Glasgow Uni, and Rhys said he wouldn’t be joining me because he was going to University of Miami. When I told him I knew that American universities send acceptances in the spring, he admitted he’d known since April.” Ben glared at Evan. “Fucking April.”

Evan sensed there was a message about secrets he was meant to hear. Perhaps this story was a clue to whatever had made Ben so distant today. “Did you break up?”

“Not officially. We pretended to do the long-distance thing, but I never saw him again.” Ben shrugged. “I got over it.”

“Was he your last boyfriend before me?”

“Yeah.” Ben went still for a moment, then pulled his foot away from Evan. “Talking of which, I’ve been thinking, since we’re kind of in a committed relationship—”

“‘Kind of’?”

“—maybe we could stop using condoms? Maybe even tonight?”

Evan felt a mix of relief and apprehension: relief that Ben wasn’t breaking up with him and apprehension because he had to say—

“No.”

“I got tested the week we started dating,” Ben said, “and you said you’d not been with anyone in ages.”

“I could’ve been lying.”

Ben’s jaw dropped. “Were you lying?”

“No, but I could’ve been. People lie about loads of things, especially sex.”

“So you would cheat on me and then lie about it?”

“I’ve already not cheated and lied about that,” Evan said.

“What do you mean, you’ve—oh.” Ben put a hand to his own mouth. “Fergus thought you were unfaithful. You’d been together years, so you weren’t using condoms by the time you left him.”

Evan could barely look at him for the shame welling up inside. “I had to let him believe I’d endangered his health, maybe his life.”

“When in fact you’d done no such thing. Jeezo…” Ben put his head in his hands for a moment, then looked up. “I don’t see what that’s got to do with me. I know monogamy is hard in the long run, and I hope we have a long run. But we need to trust each other now, else why even bother?”

“This is too important to rely on trust.” Evan sat on the stair beside him. “If I had to go away again for my job, wouldn’t you wonder whether I was putting you at risk?”

“Oh God, it’s true.” Ben jumped up and began to pace on the sand, one foot still bare. “It’s really, really true.”

“What, that I sometimes travel for work?”

“That you fuck terrorists out of patriotic duty!”

Evan’s gut felt suddenly exposed to the cold night air. “Where did you hear that?”

“From you, last night.” Ben’s voice was tight and high-pitched. “Saying how you hurt Fergus and then some other lad who was stupid enough to fall into bed with an undercover—”

“Wheesht!” Evan leapt to his feet. “People live near here.”

“Is it true, Evan?” Ben’s volume hadn’t dropped a notch. “Were you some sort of honey bee?”

“You mean ‘honey trap’?”

“Whatever! Just tell me the truth. I don’t care if it’s top secret. I don’t care if telling me is against the law. I just need to know.”

Evan fought to control his breath. He’d been an absolute dunderhead to get drunk last night. What if he’d said something in the pub? Would his father have stopped him in time?

At least now he understood why Ben had been so distant all day.

What could he even say about Belfast? Legally the answer was absolutely nothing, have you lost your mind?!? but Ben already knew enough to imagine the worst. Perhaps if Evan omitted details such as names and places, he could satisfy Ben’s curiosity without jeopardizing national security. It was clear that if he refused to reveal anything, Ben would never trust him again.

Evan wouldn’t let his secrets break another man’s heart. Not this time.

He looked up at the houses on the other side of the road. Their windows were closed, but someone could wander by any moment to walk a dog or smoke a cigarette.

“I’ll tell you,” Evan said, “but not here.”