Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 60487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
When his rescuer’s dark gaze slunk up and down him again, Carl pushed through an ill-timed and ridiculously slinky shiver and got to his feet. “See?” He flung his bag over his shoulder, saluted Silver Scarf, and—with as much grace and dignity as he could muster in his state—marched past him to the dirt track and steep decline. Grace was a joke. As soon as he was out of sight, his movements turned to hobbles, and each hobble had his head pounding and his limbs sluggish.
At a particularly rocky bend, he stumbled and yelped.
He was rubbing his ankle when his silver-scarved hero raced in a scurry of dust to his side. By the light of his phone he checked Carl’s ankle. Fingerless gloves thinly covered his hands and each press around Carl’s foot was a bite of cold with the gentle scrape of blunt nails and the coarse kiss of wool. Carl’s pant leg was pushed back down over the tender muscle. Dark eyes hit Carl again. “Looks okay, but to be sure, hop on my back.”
“I’m sure I’ll be—” Carl slipped again trying to stand. “Yep, sounds good.”
A huff. Perhaps one that came with a grin? Hard to tell now Carl was staring at the man’s broad back. A silly laugh twisted through him as he pressed himself against this silver saviour. Sharp plunging insides robbed Carl of any more laughter as his hero swiftly stood. Confident hands grabbed Carl’s thighs and wrangled him higher up around slim hips.
“I’ll get you down safe.”
It took a moment to talk over the . . . giddiness. Alcohol induced. “Big heart you have, mate.”
“Not heart. Social responsibility.”
“Bet it weighs heavily on you.”
A huffed laugh. Carl draped himself more closely to his saviour’s back and closed his eyes against a firm, sturdy shoulder for the fifteen-minute piggy-back ride.
“You’re strong.”
“You’re lucky. People are lining up for such a chance.”
“To ride you?”
Silver-Scarf tsked; hands shifted down the undersides of Carl’s thighs to his knees and jolted him up another two inches. The sudden friction had Carl hurriedly changing the topic.
“Anyway, what were you doing hiking in the dark?” He smirked. “Are you also an idiot?”
“People need to be more careful, that’s what I meant. I shouldn’t have called you an idiot.”
Carl sighed. “It’s okay, I was a bit.”
“If you’d had an accident—if you’d fallen back there—think of all the people who’d be hurt. Heartbroken. Look out for yourself, that’s all. For you, and for them.”
“You sound . . .” Carl lifted his head from one shoulder and laid it on the other. “Are you heartbroken?”
His saviour paused in his step for a moment before continuing, ignoring the question.
“I’m asking because you’re taking this social responsibility very seriously.”
“Would you rather I’d left you dangling from a cliff?”
Carl chuckled, but the kind of chuckle that preceded a groan. A groan that he expelled after he was deposited on a bus-stop bench.
His hero stuffed a red bus card into his hand, pivoted on his grey boots and disappeared.
Carl didn’t actually need the bus to get home—his brother’s place was literally two minutes up the road—but he was too tired to slur any of that. Instead, he called after his saviour’s shadow, “Big heart. Yup. Owe you one.”
After catching his breath—from the extremely exhausting effort of being carried down the hill—Carl crawled back to Jason’s pad, a villa on a quarter-acre patch with heaps of lavender. He took a breather on the porch chair, and then fell into the spacious, pristine house.
The hallway was a good glimpse at the differences between him and his brother. They might be twins—with the same medium height, blue eyes, snobbish upturned nose, and dimpled smile—might both have this tiny freckle at their jaw, and even the same weird double-jointed toe. But that’s where the similarities ended.
Just look at this hallway. Covered in framed, gleaming music awards, starting twenty years ago and carrying on throughout Jason’s entire childhood and into adultdom. He was famous, in certain circles. Accomplished. Had a career that let him travel the world. Played for huge audiences. Was applauded by them.
Rubbing his nape, laughing, Carl stumbled to the grand piano in the living area and slumped onto the stool. The stand was crowded with heaps of notes—some Schulhoff concerto thing—and amongst the loose pages was a mag that Carl could actually read.
He’d read Jason’s horoscope out to him before he’d left to play Carl back in Oz, but he’d skipped over his own in an effort to keep himself together. Now he was half undone anyway, so . . .
He snapped up the glossy paper and schlepped it to the master bedroom, where he stripped out of his beloved flannel and flopped into bed.
He flipped to the right page, and read . . . and tossed the mag aside, wagging a finger at it. “No integrity at all!”