Scrap Metal by Fox Harper

Author:Fox, Harper [Fox, Harper]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2012-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

This would be a walk of shame I hadn’t had to do for a while—an early-morning dash beneath Harry’s radar from the truck to my room to get changed. He was nowhere to be seen when I bumped the Toyota cautiously into the yard. Thanking God for small mercies, I slithered out and quietly closed the door. I didn’t even have a jacket to throw over the crumpled shame of my torn shirt. I’d left Archie’s flat as soon as I’d woken up sober, and taking one of his seemed a bit of a nerve after the night before.

The hall was cool and dim. Good. Maybe I’d got back at just the right time, after breakfast but before the early feeds. Maybe I hadn’t even been missed.

I was jogging silently up the stairs, and Cam was jogging silently down them, and our near collision on the landing sent both of us springing apart like scared cats. He was dressed ready for work. He grabbed the banister to steady himself. “Jesus, Nic.”

“Hi. Yes. Sorry. Er, good morning.”

“To you too.” He took me in, base to apex, and I was ready for anything to appear in his eyes but a look of pure, unguarded pain. “Are you all right? You didn’t come home.”

“I’m fine. Things got a bit…complicated. Where’s Gruffalo Bill?”

“Off in the barns somewhere. You’d better go get out of your glad rags before he comes back.”

I watched him run down the rest of the stairs and out into the grey dawn. Why didn’t I go after him? Just the brief sight of him in his coveralls had taken my breath, made me want to snatch him into my arms and tell him that whatever he was thinking, it was pretty sure to be wrong. But what then? The last frail shield I had against him would be gone. If I told him why I hadn’t slept with Archie, knowing me I’d tell him why, in words of one syllable, fatal and beyond retraction. Grab his hand and take that running jump with him off the cliff, ready or not…

Shit. I was chilly, exhausted and disproportionately hungover. If Harry hadn’t been waiting behind the door with a rolling pin for me, that meant I’d got away with the night, but I still had one of his uniquely painful days ahead of me. Love, life and probably even death would have to wait on the old man’s schedule. I picked up a telltale button that had dropped onto the carpet, took a deep breath and ran.

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