But instead, I decide to save what I have for him and start making myself at home. I open up his closet to see how much room he has, though it quickly turns into me snooping through his clothes.

His wardrobe is pretty much the same as I’ve seen so far, just more of it. Still, for all his money, you never really see any of it in excess. Maybe a Land Rover is pricey, and this flat sure wasn’t cheap, not in the way it’s so stunningly done up, but Lachlan pretty much lives like everyone else. He’s got a few suits, all obviously tailored to fit his extra broad shoulders, but they aren’t designer labels. His shirts and jeans are mostly from H&M or some shop I don’t recognize. I like that about him, how unpretentious he is.

Since I’m in snooping mode and apparently don’t feel all that guilty about it, I move on to the rest of the room. At first it seems like he keeps everything neat and tidy, but then you realize it’s just that he doesn’t have a lot of stuff.

I move on to the bathroom, out past the hall, the walls painted a vivid blue. I know, I know it’s wrong to creep on people, and it’s especially wrong to want to check out their medicine cabinet. But there are just some things that have me curious. Sometimes it’s the ticks that he has, the ones he probably doesn’t even notice—the clenching of his jaw, the scratching of his arms, that wild widening of his eyes like he’s about to beat down on someone, the little sounds of frustration he makes at any odd time. We all have things like this, but with him…I just want to know more in any way I can.

And to be honest, I want to know more about what I’m getting myself into. I’m just here for three weeks, but I want to know Lachlan as deeply as possible. He seems to have been through so much…but how much more is there? And how deeply do his demons have a hold on him? Are things going to change now that we’re on his turf, or was the Lachlan I saw in San Francisco the one I’m going to get?

I take in a deep breath, nervously peering over my shoulder, as if Lionel is watching and ready to tell on me, and then open the cabinet.

There’s a bar of glycerin soap still in the package. A razor blade, a beard trimmer, one of those old-fashioned looking shaving brushes. Toothbrush, mouthwash, toothpaste. Hydrocortisone cream, anti-bacterial cream, arnica cream. A packet of allergy pills, a packet of muscle relaxers. Ibuprofen. Aspirin.

Then three bottles of prescription pills.

One only has a quarter left in the bottle: Ativan.

I know that one well. It’s for anxiety. That doesn’t surprise me. A lot of people I know are on it, and Lachlan isn’t exactly the calmest dude around. I mean, when he’s intense, he owns it. It nearly takes your breath away.

The second bottle is Percocet. Pain killers. Must be for the tendon injury because the bottle is almost empty.

Then there is Fluoxetine, which I know is Prozac. My mom took hers for a long time, but this bottle has barely been touched. That’s either a good thing or a bad thing. I’ve seen how my mom is on and off the drug, and I’ve heard her complain about how it dulls not just the pain but all the joy in life too. Then again, there were times when she really needed it to get through the day.

I carefully shut the cabinet door, holding my breath, afraid that he’s going to appear in the mirror behind me, like in a thriller movie. But he doesn’t. I’m alone in the bathroom, and Lionel is whining outside the door.

It’s none of my business to ask why he might need anti-depressants, and lord knows that, given his history, or at least what little I know of it, he has more than enough reasons to warrant it. But even so, I’m terribly curious. I want to know and I want to know on his own terms. I want him to trust me enough to open up to me, to let me in and show me around. Show me his fears and the demons on his back. I want to lose myself in his beautiful darkness.

I want my love to be the thing to bring him light.

But in these passing days, in the situation we’re in, I’m not sure that’s possible. I’m not even sure if I’ll ever tell him how I truly feel, because who trusts those words from someone you barely know? It doesn’t matter how much I know it. It doesn’t matter that people fall hopelessly in love all the time, every day. I don’t know if he’ll ever see, really see, just how I feel. And the complicated part is, it’s only going to get worse as the days go on and I fall more and more under his spell.

That evening, I make myself some tea and settle down on the couch, with the comfiest, over-sized cushions ever, Lionel and Emily lying beside me. I flip aimlessly through cable channels, trying to soak up as much local Scotland flavor as I can.

When Lachlan comes home, I realize that I should have gotten off with my vibrator earlier when I had the chance. The poor man is absolutely wrecked, and even though he’s not limping, he’s walking with extra care, as if he’s been hit by a truck.

He tells me not to worry, that he probably gave too much trying to prove himself, and that he’ll be fine. But I enjoy playing nurse anyway. I run a hot bath for him, dumping in some of my body wash for bubbles, and make him soak the aches away.

“Call me if you need anything,” I say to him from the bathroom doorway, enjoying the sight of his hulking, inked body among all the frothy water.

But the way he looks at me makes my blood still in my veins.

It pins me in place.

It’s a look that says he needs me and only me.

Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Lachlan

I have the same dream three nights in a row.

For the first few nights Kayla’s been in Edinburgh, my dreams have been unmemorable. I’ve been sleeping deep, solid, and the night, unlike a lifetime of nights, have passed by in the snap of one’s fingers. I close my eyes, Kayla at my side, and then I’m opening my eyes, and she’s still here.

But by night number four, I’m swept into a wave of terror that resurfaces again and again, pounding me out of slumber and into reality.

Sometimes I wake up gasping for air, which in turn only makes Kayla worry. She questions me with her eyes, imploring me to talk to her, to explain. But I can’t, not yet. Not until I have to. Not until I know she won’t look the other way. The thought of losing face in front of her, the idea of losing her affection, that sweet, hopeful, hungry look in her eyes, is painful.

It’s a dream I’ve had before, and to share it would mean she’d see all the dark in me, the horrible, pathetic person that I once was.

It’s the day that Charlie died.

Of course, in a dream, it’s all skewed and a bit off. Just enough to fuck with you. But it’s the same alley, ironically not too far from the housing projects I grew up in. It’s the same Charlie. It’s the same Rascal, the stray that I would call my own dog until that very day that I never saw him again. It’s like Charlie’s death scared sense into the both of us.

In the dream though, it’s snowing. And unlike reality, we are never alone. There are people lined up along the alley walls in black and red rugby colors. Some of them wave flags that say McGregor number eleven on them. They are completely silent, and that’s the scariest part. They are rooting for me, for us, for our demise, with open, flapping mouths and judgemental eyes, and the only thing I can hear is the falling of snow and Charlie’s raspy breath.

It was only his second time doing heroin. I had been there for his first, but I hadn’t approved, not that first time. I didn’t have a logical, coherent part of my brain left, and yet somehow I knew that heroin was one step too far. As if it weren’t that much worse than meth.

But the second time, well, I got the drugs for him. The first time had gone so well, and he’d been a different man for a while. And isn’t that how it always bloody goes? One won’t hurt you. One makes it all better. Two will be fine.