Page 24 of Dirty Rotten Love

Things are rattling around my head, but they are not all bad things. For instance, Macleod’s invitation is sitting warm in my chest where nobody can see it and nobody can touch it and it is mine and I am keeping it.

I reach for my water.

I am not thinking about the rota.

I’m not.

But that Highlander joke I don’t get is echoing in my skull. There can be only one. And for some reason, I like the sound of it.

Chapter nine

Rory

Tam is either asleep or doing a very convincing impression of it.

I have been lying in my bunk for forty-five minutes conducting a covert assessment of Tam’s sleeping status, and I am still not certain. He is on his back. He is not snoring, which he usually does, which could mean he is in a lighter phase of sleep or could mean he is lying there completely awake and aware that something is happening and is waiting to see what it is, because Tam is perceptive in a way that I find very inconvenient at times like this.

I wait another five minutes.

Tam does not move.

Right. Fine. That is sufficient evidence. I am going.

I sit up with the careful slowness of someone defusing something, every movement considered and deliberate, and the bunk immediately produces a sound like a small explosion. I freeze. Tam does not move. I wait ten seconds and try again and the bunk does it again, louder this time, with what I can only describe as enthusiasm, as if it has been waiting for an opportunity to be as loud as possible and has recognized this as its moment.

I get out of the bunk one limb at a time over the course of approximately three minutes. By the time my feet touch the floor, I have aged significantly. I stand very still and listen.

Tam breathes. Slowly and regularly, and with the deep unconscious rhythm of someone who is either genuinely asleep or a trained professional.

I reach for my jeans.

The zip sounds, in the profound quiet of the cabin at past midnight, like a space rocket blasting into orbit. I do it in stages. Little increments. It takes an eternity. Then I pull on my hoodie, and the fabric makes a sound against my t-shirt that seems deeply unreasonable given that fabric has no business being that loud.

And finally, I stand in the middle of the tiny cabin, fully dressed and breathing very carefully.

Tam has not moved.

I pick up my trainers and carry them to the door and ease the handle down with the focused precision of a man who has done this before, which I have, many times, though usually the stakes were considerably lower and the destination was somewhere less significant than the cabin of my supervisor who has invited me back and who I am absolutely not thinking about in any specific detail right now because I need to be functional.

The door opens. I slip through. I ease it shut behind me.

The corridor is empty and lit with the harsh fluorescent lighting that makes everything look slightly unreal. I put my trainers on and stand up and allow myself one small, quiet exhale of victory.

Right. The corridor between here and MacLeod’s cabin is not long. I know this corridor. I have walked it many times in ‌daylight and once before at night. I know exactly where I am going and all I have to do is walk there without encountering anyone and without doing anything stupid.

I start walking.

My trainers squeak.

Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just a small, rhythmic, completely unavoidable squeak with every left step, the specific sound of rubber soles on the particular grade of metal flooring that this corridor is made of, and I cannot stop it. I try adjusting my weight and my stride and the angle of my foot, but it squeaks regardless. Cheerfully and consistently, announcing my presence to the empty corridor with every step.

I walk faster. The squeaking gets faster. I slow down. The squeaking slows down, but does not stop.

I accept the squeaking and move on.

The first junction I come to is empty. Good. I take the turn and the second corridor stretches ahead of me and I am nearly halfway and everything is fine and this is completely fine and I am a grown adult man of twenty-two visiting another grown adult man in his cabin at midnight and if anyone asks I have a completely reasonable explanation.

I run through the explanations I have prepared.