Whisky Business by Elliot Fletcher

Author:Elliot Fletcher [Fletcher, Elliot]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-05-15T16:00:00+00:00

17

MAL

Us – James Bay

“Mum’s going to call you,” Callum grunted, his spade slicing through the mound of wet peat and dropping it into the open kiln.

He’d arrived early today. The morning light had still been hazy when I dragged my bleary-eyed arse out of bed to greet him. If he’d been surprised to find me indisposed, he didn’t show it, declaring only that he had no appointments for the day and wanted to be put to work. I didn’t believe him. He was one of only a handful of vets on the entire island that didn’t specialise in livestock—he was busy. I’d dropped by the surgery on a number of occasions and the phone always rang off the hook. I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth when I could use the distraction, though, so I kept my suspicions to myself.

In silence, we worked quickly, Callum familiar with the methods. He worked the wet while I worked the dry, loading it simultaneously into the kiln. This process would flavour and then dry the grain stored in the room above us, giving the whisky its unique smokey taste.

Even as we worked efficiently, a part of me still longed for April’s sunshine presence. The single time she’d helped with the drying, she’d voiced such random questions.

“What would happen if I got locked in there with the grain?”

“You would die, princess,” I’d answered incredulously. It was pretty bloody obvious. At its warmest, the drying room reached around eight degrees celsius.

“Yes. But how?”

She’d been genuinely curious, knowing my interest in anatomy perhaps. So I answered to the best of my ability. She’d only smirked and said, “So cool.”

Little freak. There could be none of that now.

I shovelled harder as the realisation clanged through me, sweating as I broke the already small chunks of dry peat into even smaller pieces. The heat from the fire roared, only stoking the tangle of emotions that coursed through me every time I remembered what happened last night. What I’d done.

April had started it, sort of. It was more like a mutual starting… but I definitely finished it. I was the first to initiate contact, pulling her against me in the bed because I’d been absolutely desperate to touch her in some small way. And seeing her so scared—comforting her had felt good. So fucking right.

Then she kissed me.

I still couldn’t make sense of it in my mind and I’d dissected it from every angle, replaying the moment so many times I could reenact the entire encounter from memory alone. The only reasoning I could come up with: she was upset about Kier and wanted comfort. And I’d shot it all to hell by pouncing on her like a dying man in the desert.

I was in the desert—a sexual desert, if you will. My dry spell was so long it had become my natural climate rather than a lengthy summer. Yet I’d acclimated. Women had come on to me in the past, Jasmine only months ago. I’d said no.

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