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Maggie’s words run through his head over and over, echoes from across the ocean.
“Do you have anyone to talk to?” his sister had asked. ”Any real live human beings? I hate that you took this job.”
Jake isn’t sure he’s happy he took this job but he’s equally sure he wouldn’t have known what the fuck to do with himself back in Brooklyn, with Julia and her friends (his friends, their friends) lurking around every corner.
On the other hand, the job is what finally broke the tenuous grasp they’d had on their marriage. I keep thinking about the two of us in Edinburgh, just the two of us, and I honestly don’t even know what we’d talk about, she’d told him, walking home from dinner, her heels clicking on the sidewalk. It wasn’t that she’d been cold about it - there were tears, plenty, in the weeks after. But in that moment he had a clear picture of the two of them in the old row house his company had rented out in Scotland, big windows that looked over rolling lawns and doorways short enough he’d have to duck through, and Jake was damned if he could figure out what they’d talk about either. It would just be silence, stretching thinner and thinner every day.
So Jake had packed his half of their apartment and Julia had swiftly gotten all the paperwork in order (Just sign here, and here, her lawyer said, over and over), and two months later he was standing alone in his kitchen, in the ringing silence.
Do you have anyone to talk to?
*
Being alone has its perks, Jake supposes. No one to tell you to go to sleep when you’re up in the middle of the night, again. No one to judge when one nightcap becomes two. No one to mention that you sit in the dark sometimes, waiting for the light to come on in the upstairs window of the house across the drive, the one with the climbing vines and the raucous, overgrown garden in the back. No one to see the way you watch him, the man in the window who is up as late as you are most nights, and is always running during the day. Running and running and running, with sweat glistening at his dark hairline, making his shirts stick to his body, his shorts cling to his thighs.
Jake feels like he’s been standing still for so long; he has no idea why his heart is pounding in his chest.
Well, maybe he has an idea.
It doesn’t make it better to know.
*
Jake doesn’t have the guts to speak to the man from the house across the drive, but he watches and watches and watches. The light goes on in the window across the way by eleven some nights, and well after midnight on others. He watches the man sitting by the window with the glow of a screen illuminating his face, or with his legs pulled up, an open book pressed to his thighs. As the weather turns colder, he sometimes wraps himself in a blanket. The small side table next to him is littered with mugs; he drinks from them absently as he watches or reads or just stares out the window. Jake holds his breath on those nights when it seems like the man is turned right toward him; he’s waiting to be caught, but his own bedroom is dark and he holds himself still, and the man doesn’t seem to be looking at anything at all.
Jake watches him enough that it becomes habit, so ingrained that he doesn’t notice that he’s watching in plain sight - on the train platform, in the corner shop, and now, sitting on the public beach, wrapped tight in a hoodie while the locals pretend it’s warm outside. The man jogs by, grey tank top already soaked through with sweat. Jake watches, because that’s what he does. The man turns, body still moving, always moving. “Hello,” he says, his mouth smiling but his eyes not quite sure. “I think you’re following me.”
“Sorry,” Jake says, “just looking at… sorry.” His face is burning; he’s grateful for the beard. “I’m really not following you,” he adds, because hoping for a glimpse isn’t the same as following. Or so he tells himself.
“I dunno, seems like I’ve seen you before. Can’t forget a pretty face like yours,” the man says, his smile growing wider, and Jake can hear the rush of blood through his body, louder than the surf on the sand.
*
Jake is wrestling with his sodden umbrella as he digs through his satchel for his house keys. It’s been five long minutes and they’re clearly not in the bag but he checks again, wishing for a miracle and not a long, damp, expensive ride back to the office.
“Now I really think you are following me.”
Jake’s head whips up and he sees the man - James, he’d said when they’d finally introduced themselves on the beach - standing in the drive of his house.
“This is my house,” Jake tells him, gesturing to the gentrified brownstone. “Or, it’s my company’s house. Either way, I’m locked out so it’s a fucking useless house.”
“That’s a rough one, mate,” the man grins at him. He’s soaked to the skin, rain and sweat all mingled together, water running down his face, his arms, in fat rivulets that don’t seem to bother him at all.
“I was just going to call for a taxi back to the office.” Jake wipes at his own neck where the water had gotten in under the umbrella.
“Come on inside.” James nudges a potted plant out of the way and picks up a single key from beneath it. He unlocks the ancient side door to the house and the hinges protest a little when he pushes it open. “At least you can wait for the car out of the rain.”
Jake should absolutely not go into James’s house but he cannot think of a single, sane excuse not to, so he follows.
It’s warm inside, toastier than Jake’s place where the wind seeps in through the oversized windows. They’re in a small room off the kitchen where James sits on an old wooden chair and pulls his soggy sneakers off. Jake toes out of his own wet shoes, his socks leaving little wet toe prints on the slate floor. There’s a towel hung on a peg on the wall and James scrubs it over his face and his hair before slinging it around his neck. “Come on,” James says, “I’ll make you a cuppa while you wait.”
“You really don’t have to…” But James is already up and moving, puttering around the kitchen, turning on the electric kettle and grabbing mugs from the cabinet.
“Sit,” James tells him, and Jake does. He has his phone in his hands, turning it over and over. He still hasn’t called for a taxi, but now he doesn’t want to be rude and leave before the tea is ready. The kitchen is cozy and lived in with soft covers over the teapots and a collection of silver spoons on the wall. It doesn’t feel much like James, but then Jake doesn’t really know James at all.
This is also the closest Jake has been to James other than their quick chat on the beach the week before and his heart is pounding in the same way it does when they’re both up late at night, Jake sitting in the dark, James restlessly wandering through his house. Through this house.
“So, um,” Jake says because he feels like he has to say something, “have you always lived here?”
“Lord no.” James grins over his shoulder as he spoons loose tea leaves into a strainer. “This is my great-uncle’s place. I’m just borrowing it for a bit so I can be close to… well,” he falters a little. “So I can be in Edinburgh. How long have you been next door?”
“A few months. Thanks,” Jake adds as James places a steaming mug of milky tea in front of him, followed by a little sugar jar.
He watches as James adds a heaping teaspoon of sugar to his own tea before taking a sip and grimacing. James notices him watching and barks out a laugh. “I fucking hate tea,” he says. “But I’ve been warned off coffee after three in the afternoon.”
“Why?” Jake asks, stirring a little sugar into his own mug.
“Can’t sleep,” he says with a shrug.
“Ah,” Jake manages, his cheeks going hot again. He isn’t going to admit he knew that already. Maybe he should give up coffee too, try to sleep through the night instead of staying up too late to watch James putter about the house.
“You’re here on your own?” James asks him.
“Yeah,” Jake replies, resolutely not thinking about Julia. “Just me.”
“Well, if you ever want someone to show you around town, I’m happy to do the tour. In fact,” he adds before Jake can think of a good excuse to not spend a day wandering the city with his gorgeous neighbor, “my mate just opened a pub in Calton that does an insane scotch pie. We should go. Maybe Saturday?”
He says it so matter-of-factly, like it’s a foregone conclusion, and Jake finds himself nodding.
“Excellent, it’s a date,” James smiles at him, slow and hot. Jake feels his stomach swoop.
“I should - taxi,” Jakes stammers out, picking his phone up in thankfully steady hands. It only takes five minutes for a car to arrive outside at the end of James’s drive and Jake manages to make nonsensical small talk until he can flee back out into the rain.
A date. Jesus, what did he just get himself into?
*
Jake feels weightless; not like he’s floating but like he’s buzzing, vibrating at a frequency so high it’s lifting him off his feet like a human hummingbird. He’s anchored to the ground only by James’s hands tight on his hips pulling him closer, closer, closer as they kiss. They haven’t spoken in long minutes, not since they’d drunkenly shared a cab back from the pub, stumbling out into the drive between their houses. Not since James had nodded toward his side door and said ‘nightcap?’ and Jake had followed him in, past the kitchen and into the parlor. Not since James had closed the door with a click, barely audible above Jake’s stuttered breathing.
James didn’t ask to kiss him, he just did, crowding Jake up against the back of the plush sofa in the center of the room. Jake’s grateful that he didn’t ask because he’s not sure he would have known he could say yes to this. Everything about kissing James feels alien and inevitable all at once, like the months of sitting, watching, waiting for James could only have led him here. James takes one hand off his hip and pushes it into Jake’s hair, tugging him closer, his tongue warm and insistent in Jake’s mouth. Jake doesn’t know what to do with his own hands so he just curls them into fists at his sides and sways forward, letting James move him where he wants him with strong arms and nudges of his hips against Jake’s. James is hard in his jeans. Jake is too but it’s a distant thrum, so much less vital in the moment than the feel of James, the taste of him.
Suddenly the hand in Jake’s hair yanks him back just a fraction, their noses brushing. “I want you on your knees,” James tells him, voice steady like he’s telling Jake the weather. The buzz under Jake’s skin skitters through him and then settles like a wash of white noise in his brain. His knees fold under him until they hit the thin carpet with a thud. “Very good,” James tells him, not quite smiling. His hand is still in Jake’s hair and he pulls his head back with one hand while undoing his jeans with the other.
If James were asking, Jake would admit that he’s never done this before. But James doesn’t ask, and so Jake doesn’t tell him. All he does is breathe, and wait, and open his mouth when James slides his cock over Jake’s swollen lips. There’s no finesse to it; James isn’t waiting for Jake to show off any skills, he’s just pressing into the heat of Jake’s mouth until his eyes are watering, until he has to swallow or he’ll choke. His brain is fuzzy, hazy, even as his body is wide-awake, electric sparks tingling their way down his spine whenever James tugs on his hair. His hands are still hanging at his sides; he thinks of resting them on James’s thighs, of sliding them up and under his shirt to touch the warm skin there. But then James won’t be able to put him where he wants him, and Jake wants to be wherever James wants him in that moment, to be whatever James needs him to be. Instead, he concentrates on breathing when he can, on keeping his mouth open and pliant, and when James finally comes, on swallowing as much as he can.
“Fuck, fuck, that’s so fucking good,” James pants above him, and the noise Jake makes as James’s cock slides free is part-gasp, part-moan. “Look at you, Jesus Christ.” James tugs on his hair again and Jake sways, lightheaded. His body is back to that hummingbird thrum and he needs something, but his brain isn’t moving fast enough to clue him in. He’s shaking a little, and James is watching him, eyes dark.
“Please,” Jake says, his voice raspy and threadbare.
“I’ve got you,” James says, dropping to his knees and pulling Jake’s hair until his back is bowed. He paws at the button on Jake’s jeans with his other hand, pushing and pulling until Jake’s dick is in his hand. “I’ve got you,” he says again, jerking him off in sure, dry strokes that turn the electric sparks into wave after wave of sensation.
“Ah!” Jake cries out as James speeds up, and suddenly James is crushing their mouths together again, biting at Jake’s bottom lip and swallowing every sob he’s wringing out of Jake with each twist of his wrist. Jake finally reaches out to hold on to James, his fingers twisting in the hem of James’s shirt, knuckles pressed against warm skin and coarse chest hair as he comes and comes and comes apart.
Jake comes back to himself in pieces, from the tingling of his fingers to the ringing in his ears, then to the fine, dull ache in his knees and his back and his throat. His face is pressed against James’s shoulder where they’re both sprawled gracelessly on the carpet. James is petting his back in wide, slow strokes. Jake tenses, waiting for the question, an “are you good?” or maybe “did you like that?”
“You want some tea?” James finally says, and Jake is so relieved he could cry.
*
“You make any friends yet?” Maggie asks him. It’s Saturday - late afternoon for Jake and brunch time for Maggie - and he can picture her in her reading nook off of her kitchen, a coffee mug in her hand. Jake can hear his nieces in the background, both of them talking too loud until Maggie yells for them to quiet down. Just like their house when they were kids, Maggie and Peter’s house is always loud and raucous and full of life.
“Define ‘friends’,” Jake evades and she sighs.
“Human people you can hang out with in a non-work capacity. Maybe drinking is involved. Also possibly fun!”
Jake eyes dart to the mirror on the wall at the far end of his kitchen. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Hey, my little brother isn’t a friendless loser anymore,” she yells. He can hear Peter yelling his congratulations. “Tell me about them!” she says to Jake. He forces himself to breath normally.
“Just my neighbor,” he tells her. “We’ve gone out for drinks a few times this month.”
“Please tell me he’s an old-school Scot with a fantastic accent and maybe a giant dog.”
“No dog,” Jake tells her, “but yes to the accent.”
“What does he do?”
He runs. He doesn’t sleep. He fucks my mouth until the world falls away then makes me a cup of tea. “He’s a vet.”
“I thought you said no dogs!” He hears her taking a sip from her mug.
“No, Army. Special Forces, or something like that.” James had mentioned in on their first date, how the guy who owns the pub was an old Army buddy. He hasn’t brought it up again but Jake has been trying to put that piece into the puzzle of James, line it up with all the questions he never asks. “He’s not working at the moment,” he says.
“Ah,” she says dryly. “In the ‘milking you for free drinks’ sense or the ‘trust fund baby’ sense?”
“Mags,” he sighs, “Neither of those. He’s just a guy.” It’s not a lie; Jake is honestly not even sure they’re friends. They’ve gone out three times since that first date, and they talk about nothing - about the weather and football and good meals they’ve had in other countries. Jake mentions Julia in passing, just a person he used to sometimes share meals with.
They never talk once they’re back in James’s house - or Jake doesn’t. James uses his words like a surgeon wields scalpels, quick and precise and never hesitating. Jake cuts his gaze back to the mirror and he can see his blush, high and visible on his bare cheeks. Look at that pretty mouth. Bet it’d be even prettier without this, he can hear James’s voice in his head from a few nights ago, can feel the ghost of his fingers scratching through his beard. He runs his fingers over his bare chin, the skin still sensitive from where he’d shaved it all off this morning.
“Yeah, well, at least he’s getting you out of the house,” Maggie says.
“Yeah,” Jake replies, his eyes stuck on his strange, new reflection.
*
“Look at you,” James says when Jake arrives at his door that evening. It sounds like praise.
“Needed a change,” Jake replies. James just shakes his head at the lie but he’s smiling too, small and sharp and just a little feral. He lifts a hand and runs his knuckles over the swell of Jake’s cheek. Jake’s knees feel like jello and he sways forward.
“Get in here,” James growls, and Jake realizes he’s still standing in the drive. His heart is already hammering in his chest. James pushes him against the wall of the entry hall to kiss him, his hands on Jake’s face, pulling him close. Jake can feel the whorls of James’s fingertips, the rough skin of his palms. It’s intensely new; he’s had the beard since his wedding, and the feel of skin-on-skin is a shock to his system. He’s panting as James pulls back and he can’t help but turn his face into James’s hands, rubbing his cheek against his palm like a cat. “Fuck, you’re so -” James starts, but then they’re kissing again and James is pushing him through the kitchen and down the small hall on the other side. “Upstairs,” James says.
Jake has never been upstairs. They’ve only hooked up in the front parlor or, once, when they were both too drunk and horny to wait, against the pantry door. Upstairs feels huge, important, and Jake hesitates for a moment. “Jake,” James says in a tone that’s not an order or a question. It’s quiet enough to be gentle, rough enough to be needful. It feels like a promise. Jake turns and climbs the stairs.
There are only three doors at the top of the stairs. One leads to a large bedroom adorned with fading blue and white wallpaper. Through another he can see a deep porcelain tub. With a hand on the small of his back, James leads him into the third door. It was probably a bedroom at one time, but now it’s a study, books stacked neatly into built-in shelves on the the walls, a dozen knicknacks scattered between them. In the center of the room is a large desk with a heavy wooden chair beside it. Next to the window is a plush chair upholstered in a blue floral pattern, an ipad laying on the matching ottoman. Jake realizes with a start that this is the room he can see from his bed.
At the same moment, James presses against his back. “Did you know,” he says, propping his chin on Jake’s shoulder, “this desk is over two hundred years old.”
“Oh, really.” James is nuzzling against his bare cheek, his own stubble catching on Jake’s skin. Jake leans back and James’s arms come around him.
“Mm-hm,” James says, nonchalant as ever as he slowly, slowly starts unbuttoning Jake’s shirt. “Uncle Simon inherited it from his grandfather, whose own grandfather was the Earl of something-or-other.”
“It’s n-nice,” Jake manages as James reaches the bottom buttons, pulling his shirt open and tugging it back over his shoulders.
“Oak. Sturdy. Don’t make them like this anymore.” James tosses his shirt onto the wooden chair and reaches back around him to pop the button on his jeans and slide the zipper down. “Put your elbows on the desk. Bend over.”
When Jake was a kid, his parents took him to the science museum. In one of the rooms, there was a giant glass sphere with blue light dancing inside of it. When Jake put his hand on it all of the blue light clustered around the shape of his hand on the glass and his whole body tingled, all the way to his toes. His hair stood on end. He feels like that now, like all of the blue light of James is concentrated low in his belly. He’s tingling. The hair on his arms stands up. He takes a single step forward and bends over the desk, resting his elbows on it, then his forearms, then his palms, flat against the wood. “Just like that,” James says with a smile in his voice. “Perfect.” Jake exhales. He’s so hard that James has to reach around again to free his dick from his briefs as he peels his clothes down his thighs. “Look at you,” he says again, his breath hot on Jake’s back.
Jake’s never been fucked, but he’d never done a dozen other things before he and James started this last month. He’s never done so, so many things, he realizes with a start as James spreads his ass open and runs the pad of his thumb over his hole. The blue light zings through his body to meet James’s thumb and Jake arches back into it. “You want this so badly,” James tells him, and Jake does, he does, but all he can do is breathe in and out, eyes focused on the dark wood. “Come on, you can say it,” James goads him and Jake wants to, he wants to say it, but he doesn’t know how. “Jake,” James says, his lips brushing against Jake’s spine, trailing lower and lower. “Let me hear it.”
And suddenly the press of James’s thumb is replaced by the hot, insistent press of his tongue and Jake curls his fingers into the wood to keep from flying apart. “Yes, yes, fuck, yes,” he moans as his forehead drops to the table. “James, oh god, oh god,” he pants as James uses his tongue and his hands together, pushing and pressing, until Jake is shaking all over. He’s got one finger inside Jake, another pressing in to join it, spit-slick but not wet enough. James pulls his fingers free and, while Jake is still taking a breath to protest, reaches his hand around to tug on Jake’s dick.
“You could come just from this, couldn’t you,” James asks him, slicking up his fingers with drops of precum. “Just from my fingers in your arse, you’d come all over this beautiful old desk.”
“Yeah,” Jake says, “yes, please,” he adds for good measure because holy fuck, he’s close but he wants to do it just like that, with James’s fingers inside him.
“Fuck,” James curses. He leans over Jake’s back until he’s nosing at Jake’s hairline. “You’re so fucking lovely,” he whispers just as he’s pushing two fingers back in. Jake takes them with a groan and James fingers him deeper, and deeper, and when he curls his fingers just so the crest of blue light in Jake’s body is so bright that it blinds him, and he just rides the feeling, eyes closed, mouth open, James’s lips pressed to his shoulder as he comes all over himself, and the floor, and the great, old desk.
Distantly, he can feel James pull his fingers out, kissing his shoulder again before standing up. “You’ve made a mess of my uncle’s desk, haven’t you.”
“Mmhmm,” Jake blinks his eyes open. He’s sprawled nearly across the desk by now, his whole upper body resting against it. James enters his peripheral vision, walking around the table with his fingers pulling at his fly.
“Only fair that I get to make a mess of you, isn’t that right?” He stops the other side of the desk with his dick in his hand, flushed almost purple at the tip. It’s inches from Jake’s face. Jake tips his head back and he can see James staring down at him, his blue eyes almost black, lips parted. He slips his fingers into Jake’s hair and tugs his head back another inch until it’s almost painful; Jake opens his mouth without thinking. “Yes,” James says, reverential, and he jerks himself off at an almost punishing speed. The first hot ropes of come hit Jake in the cheek and he turns his face just a fraction to catch the rest on his tongue, his lips, some dripping down his chin. James slides his dick over Jake’s bare cheek, smearing his own come into Jake’s skin.
“Jesus fucking christ,” James stutters out before collapsing into the wooden chair behind him. He keeps one hand in Jake’s hair, fingers scratching lightly over his scalp. Jake closes his eyes again and swallows the taste of him.
*
Jake barely remembers James hauling him off the desk and to his feet, navigating him out of the study and into the bedroom next door. His legs collapse the moment the backs of his thighs hit the bed, and James helps him down the pillow, pulling his shoes off, and then the rest of his clothes. James disappears for a moment but Jake can still smell him - on the pillow, on his own skin - so he just lets himself drift again. He sort of comes to when James wipes down his face with a warm, wet washcloth, then a little more when James runs it down his chest, over his nipples, scrubbing lightly when he reaches his groin. “You don’t have to,” Jake says, his cheeks pinking from embarrassment.
“Shhh,” James tells him. “God, you’re a mess,” he says, but his eyes are twinkling. Jake suddenly needs him closer.
“Kiss me.”
“Messy and demanding,” James tsks, but he’s leaning closer, and Jake sighs. “Fine, but only because you’re so pretty.”
Jake grins against his mouth. “Come on,” he murmurs tugging James closer until he’s bent in half over Jake. “Come on,” Jake says again, and James crawls over him and flops over on his side. He kicks his own jeans off and reaches down to pull a old knit blanket up and over the both of them. Jake curls into the warmth of James’s body and falls asleep between one breath and the next.
*
Jake’s awakened by a deafening yell and a swift kick to his shin. He scrambles back off the bed, tugging the blanket around his bare waist. His heart is beating a mile a minute. When he looks back at the bed, James’s eyes are still closed, but his chest is rising and falling too fast. He lets out another yell, an anguished sound that makes Jake shiver.
Maggie’s youngest had a few long years of night terrors. Jake remembers the exhaustion on Maggie’s face after a bad night. He remembers babysitting with Julia one evening when Peter and Maggie went to the theater and the helplessness they felt when she started screaming. Don’t wake her, Maggie had told them. She sometimes just sleeps right through them, but if you wake her in the middle it’s impossible to get her back down. It had been nearly impossible then, watching his niece thrash on the bed, and it was nearly impossible now, watching James gasp and cry out, his hands in tight fists at his sides.
Jake looks at the clock - it’s just past one in the morning, James’s witching hour. The time of night when the light goes on in the window across the drive. He has a feeling that James doesn’t sleep through these very often. Jake sits down lightly on the edge of the bed and waits. It’s only a few long moments and few more agonizing screams before James’s eyes fly open, wide and wild. When his gaze lands on Jake, his whole body flinches back toward the wall.
“Hey,” Jake says softly. “It’s just me.”
“Fuck,” James manages. He’s shaking all over now, his breathes shallow and unsteady. “Fuck,” he says again, and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes.
“James -”
“You don’t have to stay for this part,” James tells him, his voice rough and brittle. “I didn’t mean to… fuck.” He looks exhausted, defeated. He won’t look at Jake’s face.
“Come on,” Jake reaches out and slowly wraps his hand around James’s wrist.
“Jake -”
“Come on, up,” Jake says gently but firmly, pulling James to a sitting position with one hand while keeping the blanket around his waist with the other. “Up, all the way,” he says, and James just sighs.
“I’m fine.”
“I know, come on anyway,” Jake tells him. James sways into him as he stands, and Jake wraps his arm around James’s waist. He’s still shaking a little, tiny tremors that pass between them. Jake walks them the few steps to the hall, then into the study. He maneuvers James into the comfy chair by the window, grabs an empty mug from the table next to it, and then goes back to turn on the soft light of the standing lamp. “Be right back,” he says, studiously skirting the desk where they’d fucked - what, four hours ago? Jake goes back to the bedroom and pulls on his underwear and his jeans, tucking the blanket under one arm. He goes to the bathroom to fill the mug with cool water. Going back into the study, he tucks the blanket over James’s lap and presses the mug into his hands. “Okay?” he says.
James looks down into the mug for a long moment. “What -” he says, and this time it’s edged with something almost… scared. Jake looks at the scene - the chair, and the blanket, and the mug in his hands, and James looking up at him with a shocked expression. “How do you -”
Jake steps back from him until he hits the opposite wall. “I’m - I can see your window from my bedroom,” he manages, his whole body running hot with mortification. “I’m not spying on you -”
“Oh, you’re not spying on me,” James says, incredulous, and Jake winces.
“I don’t… sleep much. I - your light comes on and I just.”
“You watch me,” James spits out.
Jake’s knees feel like jello. He leans back against the wall and slides until he’s sitting on the bare floor. “I just - I haven’t been alone in -” he takes a deep breath. He can’t look at James so he looks at his knees. “I try to sleep, you know? I get in comfy clothes and turn out the lights and I just…but my brain won’t shut up when I’m alone. Julia and I started dating in college. I haven’t been alone in over a decade. I moved here and I’d forgotten what it’s like when it’s just me and my own thoughts -”
“Julia’s your ex,” James cuts in, and Jake flinches.
“Yeah,” he nods down at his lap. In for a penny, as his dad would say. “Ex-wife. Ten years. We got divorced this summer.”
“Jesus,” James says, and Jake presses his hands over his burning face.
“I’m sorry,” Jake says again, and he doesn’t even know why he’s still sitting there. He should leave. He can see his shirt still tossed haphazardly over the wooden desk chair. Four hours ago everything was blisteringly perfect, the inside of Jake’s head blissfully quiet. Now it’s a riot of voices all reminding him that he was bound to fuck this up. He should leave, but he doesn’t want to.
“Jesus,” James says again, but he’s laughing, a low chuckle that makes Jake lift his head. James is grinning down at the mug in his hands. “I thought I was fucking up a perfectly nice boy, and it turns out you’re a voyeuristic closet case insomniac.”
“James -”
“No, this is better. This is - what a pair we make, huh?” He looks up, toasting Jake ruefully before taking a sip of water. They’re both quiet for a long moment. Jake can feel his heart beating in his palms.
“First few months I was back,” James says, tipping his head back into the cushion and rolling the mug between his hands, “this was scotch. Nothing else worked. Just scotch after scotch until I passed out. Trouble was, it didn’t really stop the dreams, just made it harder to get out of them. So I was a drunk half the time and a screaming maniac the other half. Fucking joy to be around, as you can imagine.” He looks out the window and Jake can see that the light on the dark window just reflects the room back to him, James in his chair and Jake sitting on the floor. “I’m staying in Edinburgh because that’s where my doctors are,” he tells Jake’s reflection. “I’m outpatient now - that’s where I am when you’re off at your fancy job. Sitting in little rooms talking about dreams and meds and memories I’d rather not fucking think about ever again.” He takes another sip of water. “Was inpatient for three months, back in the spring. Sunday visits from my ma, a lot of white walls. All the good drugs, too - better than the scotch.” He glances over at Jake. “Definitely not a thing you tell a nice boy on a first date.”
Jake meets his gaze without flinching. “I’m not a nice boy.”
“No, that’s well established,” James nods, but he’s grinning again, a hot, sharp thing that makes Jake’s stomach flip. “You’re a very good boy, though, aren’t you?”
Jake thumps his head back against the wall with a laugh. “Fuck you.”
“You showed up on my doorstep tonight with that baby face and I thought ‘ah, fuck, I’m definitely gonna break this nice American boy’.”
“I was already broken,” Jake says without thinking, and the smile falters on James’s face. “But it’s been better,” he adds. “With you.”
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing with me?” James asks, his voice sly but his eyes sharp and serious.
“No,” Jake admits. “But I trust you.”
“I just literally kicked you out of bed,” James scoffs, and Jake shrugs and meets his eyes.
“I’m still here.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“What do you think that means?” Jake thinks he knows what it means for him, that he’s unwilling or unable to leave James alone, that he feels safer here than he does in his own empty house.
James sighs. “Jake,” he says, then pauses. When he speaks again, his voice is the low growl that lights up Jake’s nervous center. “I want you to get up, go back into the bedroom, lie down and go the fuck to sleep. Can you do that for me?” he adds, but Jake is already halfway to his feet.
He pauses in the doorway. He wants to ask, but he can’t -
“I’ll be in later, I promise.” James picks up his ipad. “Just going to dial my bullshit brain down a few notches first. And maybe buy some fucking curtains for this room; some weirdo’s been spying on me.”
Jake bites his lip to keep from smiling too wide as he slips into James’s bed and closes his eyes, and falls the fuck to sleep.