When Christmas Lights Are Blue by Harper Fox

Author:Harper Fox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: paranormal, christmas, gay romance, ghost story, mm romance, solstice, paramedics, contemporary gay romance
Publisher: Harper Fox

Chapter Four

Karan knelt at my feet. He used the reindeer napkin to dry my tears, then tucked it into his pocket. “I really missed you while you were on suspension. Three whole months, you stupid git. You were lucky not to be fired.”

“How can you have missed me? I was at home the whole time.”

“Something was at home. Not my Robbie.”

No. I’d hardly recognised myself in the creature that sat staring at daytime TV while Karan was out, and night-time TV while he was home. A sob escaped me. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“What I never understood was... if I could deal with it, with Brexit and all the crap that came after it, and being called names and having bricks chucked at me—why couldn’t you?”

“It was all so fucking horrible.” There was no room for anything but honesty in this house. As long as the book lay open on the table, I had to speak out of an undefended heart. “I didn’t understand why you weren’t shrieking and yelling about it too. You seemed to... accept it, and I didn’t get that, Kaz. I still don’t understand.”

“You think I haven’t wept and raged about it too?”

“I don’t know. I never saw you.”

“No. I took it to Vishram. He’s my big brother, and I loved him like the moon and stars while we were growing up. You knew that, didn’t you? That’s why you didn’t tell me what he said to you at Diwali.”

“How could I drag him down like that in your eyes?”

“The Brexit deal changed him. In a way it had nothing to do with us, with immigrants from outside the EU. But hate breeds hate, I suppose, and suddenly you’ve got a country where it’s that bit less safe to have a different-coloured skin. Where you always have to be watching your back. Maybe you and I didn’t take it in properly, Robbie, what with being gay and having to watch our backs anyway. But Vish—I’m scared for him. Scared of him. This is how lads like him end up getting radicalised.”

“You don’t think...”

“I don’t know. He goes to a lot of meetings. My mum says she doesn’t know where he is half the time.”

“Jesus, Karan. Was he serious about the honour-killing thing?”

Karan sat back on his heels. “You took it very seriously indeed.”

“Yes. I did.” I ran my hands over my head. “Why can’t I tell anything but the truth in here?”

“Truth’s not supposed to be a bad thing.”

“Oh, you reckon? I did a lot of thinking while I was suspended, even if I did look like a vegetable from the outside. I thought about the job, and how much it’s changed. How for every callout we get where we can help someone, there’s half a dozen where we can’t. And the paperwork, and the admin, and missing a real emergency because somebody’s made yet another fucking prank call. And getting rocks chucked at us, because...”

“Because Scotsbridge was far from the first time where that happened. You were always so tolerant and patient with stuff like that.

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