Free Laying a Ghost by Jane Davitt, Alexa Snow Page B

attached to the prow of the boat, John hauled it high enough up the beach to be safe for now and ran over to Nick, the remnants of his anger driven out by that anguished, sharp cry of pain, firmly lodged in his head.
    Nick had gotten himself into a sitting position, but was bent forward around his wrist, cradling it in his other hand and rocking back and forth slightly as he cursed a long string of profanities in his flat American accent. His lips were drawn tight, his brow furrowed in pain, and as John got down on his knees next to him he looked up. “Shouldn’t have let me out of the hospital, should they?” Nick said with a gasp of laughter, although it was the least amused laughter John had ever heard and it left him wondering if Nick had been in hospital for more than just his wrist. “Fuck. Oh fuck.” Nick dropped his head down and rocked back and forth some more.
    “Let me see it.” Concern roughened John’s voice; he slipped his arm around Nick’s shoulders without thinking, pulling him closer. Nick curled in on himself, turning slightly so that his head was snug against John’s collarbone but still clutching his injured wrist protectively.
    John sighed and brought his other arm up across their bodies, giving Nick something to rest his injured hand on and waiting for the pain to recede enough that Nick would let him look at it.
    The wind caught a strand of Nick’s dark hair, ruffling it so that it brushed John’s chin, and he sighed again and began to rub his hand gently against Nick’s back, murmuring to him as he did. “Hurts, does it? Aye, it must. You went flying, didn’t you? Thought you’d more sense than that. Do they not have seaweed in
America
then, that you don’t know how slippery it is?”
    Nick went still in his arms and John bent his head and let the wind take Nick’s hair across his lips.
    “I needed to see you,” Nick said after a minute or so, unmoving. It told John something that he needed to know, the way Nick half-lay, nestled against him, allowing an intimacy that most other men wouldn’t. Could it be as simple as that, then? That he’d been right about Nick from the start, but Nick wasn’t the sort of man that could accept himself? Not that it made much difference. It wasn’t as if he knew Nick well enough to discuss something so personal and given his own ingrained discretion, he couldn’t blame Nick for being cautious.
    John continued to rub his back, and Nick sighed and sat up shakily without pulling away. “Well, I’m here, but whatever you want to say can wait until I’ve seen what you’ve done to yourself.”
    Nick moved his right hand away, leaving his left hand lying across John’s forearm. It was swelling at the wrist but there was nothing to make John think that it was broken, judging by the way Nick was able to rotate it gingerly. Had to have hurt though.
    They were sitting on the sand with a small rock pool behind them, six inches deep, the black rocks visible through the clear water and sprinkled with barnacles. John turned Nick around and plunged Nick’s hand into the icy water, transferring his hold on him and keeping a reassuring arm across Nick’s back as Nick gasped in shock. “Aye, it’s cold this time of year.” John noticed his own wet jeans for the first time, spattered with sand and clinging clammily to his legs. “Is it helping?”
    “I don’t know.” Nick gasped the words breathily. He turned his head to look at John, their faces close enough that John could see the little flecks of golden-brown in Nick’s green eyes. “I think so.” He blinked, his lashes dark, his nose perfectly sculpted and his hair mussed by the wind. “I have to tell you something. About me. There’s something you don’t know about me.”
    John stared thoughtfully at him, wondering what Nick was seeing in his face and hoping it was nothing that would make him move away. “This morning I’d have said you were wrong about that. About me not knowing. Now