Текст книги "The Play"

Автор книги: Karina Halle

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Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

“Kayla,” I whisper to her. “Take your time. There’s nothing to rush through. I’m always going to be here for you, always going to feel the same. I will wait.”

“But I don’t want you to wait for me,” she says, almost sharply.

I close my eyes, absorbing the pain.

She’s breaking.

I’m breaking.

“Okay,” I say hoarsely.

“It’s not fair to you. I have my own shit to deal with here and I can’t deal with any more guilt than I already have. I can’t deal with knowing you’re across an ocean, waiting for me, loving me, when I know I’ll give you nothing. I can’t give anything anymore. Don’t you understand?”

I nod, knowing completely what she means and hating it. Hating it. “Aye. I understand. You know, there’s something about me I never told you.”

She stills against me, waiting for my confession. I bite the bullet. “When I decided to get clean, when I decided to come back to Jessica and Donald and beg for their mercy, to take me back in, it wasn’t a gradual choice. It was an immediate one. I had a friend, Charlie. A junkie just like me. All his bad faults were due to the addiction. If you took that away, he was a kind, charming young man. Funny as fuck. And he was loyal, though his loyalty was always to the drugs, to that high, first.” I lick my lips and realize that the story isn’t ripping me apart like I thought it would. The pain and shame and guilt of what was done has been pushed aside. “Charlie really wanted to get into heroin. I never did it, though Brigs and a few other people think otherwise, but I never did. Not that that makes me anything special – meth is just as disgusting, maybe more so. But I didn’t do it and when Charlie wanted to get high that way, I refused to help him. I didn’t want any part.”

I pause and look down. She’s listening, wide-eyed. I go on. “But then I saw him shoot it up and saw how happy he was and then when he came down, it didn’t seem like meth. It seemed harmless. I told myself that. I told myself a lot of lies. So when he wanted some more a few days later, I told him I’d get it for him. We helped each other like that and now, well, now I believed I was really helping Charlie. So I went to some people I knew, the wrong people, but they had it and I got it for Charlie…used money I made begging on the street. It felt better than using it for food. We rarely fucking ate, you know. We could but it just wasn’t important. There was only one thing that was. The bloody high. So I went back to Charlie, gave him the smack. He shot it up in front of me. But…I don’t know what went wrong. Maybe he used too much, maybe it was bad stuff, maybe his body couldn’t take anymore. The problem was, I was so fucking high on meth myself that I had no idea what was going on. He died in front of me.”

“No,” she whispers breathlessly. “Lachlan…”

“Aye,” I tell her, reveling in how much stronger I feel for admitting it. “He died and I watched him die before my eyes. Me and my stray dog. We watched him die and I couldn’t do a single thing to help him. I couldn’t even help myself. I just sat there beside him, rocking back and forth, until my high wore off. Then I got up and ran. I just ran away. I don’t remember the next few days, though I’m working through them with my psychologist now, but I knew I made my choice to save my own life. I remember knocking on Jessica and Donald’s door and everything after that. It was the day I realized I only had one life and that’s when I was born all over again.”

She breathes heavily against me and the darkness creeps closer. But I feel no fear over what I’ve told her. The truth has set me free.

“Why are you telling me this?” she finally says, her voice barely audible.

“Because I know what guilt is. And I know what death is. And I’ve finally learned that you should never attach one to the other. Or it will fucking destroy you.” I kiss the top of her head. “I know you’re going to hurt for a long time and you’re going to hate yourself but please. None of this was your fault. Don’t let the guilt tell you otherwise. Grieve for your mother with all your heart but never poison that very heart with shame. There’s no room for it there. Let it go.”

She trails her fingers down my chest but doesn’t say anything.

There’s nothing more for either of us to say.

We just breathe. Our hearts beat.

We cling to this sliver of time until she falls asleep against me.

I hold her in my arms, truth setting me free.

I just hope that same truth can save her heart.

Just as her heart saved me.

***

I decide to stay around for the funeral.

Alan is not happy.

Thierry is not happy.

Edinburgh is not happy.

No one is happy with this decision. It means I’m missing a game. It means I’m in big fucking shit and that I’ve potentially screwed the team over, especially since we’re up against Leeds.

But I’m not about to leave Kayla yet. Not when she still needs me. And she needs me more than anything. I’m there by her side as she navigates funeral arrangements and her brothers and lawyers and wills. I’m there to hold her when she breaks down and she breaks down time and time again. The strain is sometimes too much for me to bear but I handle it all because she can’t.

After my confession over Charlie’s death, we don’t discuss our relationship anymore. She’s said what she needed to say. She doesn’t think she can be with me, even though she loves me, and as much as I want to shake her, to explain that I’ll be there waiting anyway, I know there is no getting through to her. Right now, there is no us. Right now she thinks there never will be. Right now I’m just the arm around her shoulder, holding her tight. She’s walking through a sea of death and the current isn’t letting go of her anytime soon.

I see Bram, Nicola, Linden and Stephanie at the funeral. It’s the only bright spot as of late, even though none of us quite feel like celebrating our reunion. I talk with Bram a bit about his development and how well it’s doing, how Justine’s father has brought in more investments from society folk. He’s forever grateful to me but I can only tell him to maybe shoot some of those investments over my way. I could sure use them for the dogs.

Saying goodbye to them is hard, especially to Bram. Saying goodbye to Kayla’s mother, as the casket is lowered into the ground, is hard.

Saying goodbye to Kayla, probably for the last time, is the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do.

She takes me to the airport and I’m flooded with the memory of the last time we were here. I was just about to check in, nervous as hell that she wouldn’t show up, that I’d have an empty seat beside me on the plane back home.

And then I felt her behind me, like the sun rising on your back, and I turned around to see her gorgeous face, full of hope and nerves and wonder, pulling a ridiculously bright suitcase.

I fell in love with her at that moment.

And every moment afterward.

Now, now everything has changed, even my feelings for her.

Because that was just a taste of love. What I feel now is the whole spectrum.

“Lachlan,” Kayla says to me while we stand by the security checkpoint. She reaches for my hand, grabbing it tight, her eyes on the floor. “I can’t thank you enough, you know. For everything.”

“No need to thank me,” I tell her, squeezing her hand back. “I’ll always be there for you. I hope you know that now.”

She nods. Sniffs. “I know.” When she looks up at me, her eyes are gleaming with tears. “I want to be ready. I want to be with you again. I just don’t know how.”

I give her a half-smile. “Oh, love. You know where I will be. If you ever need me, want me, you know where I will be.”

“Would you even take me then?”

I shake my head, fighting back tears. “How can you even ask that?”

I pull her into my arms, holding her with as much strength as I can. “How can you even question it?” I whisper harshly. “I love you. My heart is yours.” I pull back, knowing the tears are running down my cheeks. I grab her face in my hands, rubbing my thumbs along her skin as she stares at me with the love I know is buried deep behind her grief.

I kiss her, soft, yielding, never-ending, a kiss that says so much. More beautiful than any kiss before. I whisper against her lips, “Please come back to me. When you can, when you’re ready, if you’re ready. Please come back.”

Then I step back, unable to stand there for one minute more. She’s seen my ruin once. She doesn’t have to see it again. I grab my carry-on, turn, and go.

I wonder if she’ll stay until I’m gone.

Or if she’s already left.

I’m too afraid to look, as if that will give me any indication of our future together.

I show my boarding pass to one of the guards, then quickly look over my shoulder before I disappear behind the wall.

She’s still standing there.

Palm up.

I raise my palm in response.

And smile.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Lachlan

Three months later

 

My phone rings as I’m walking down Queen Street, barely audible over the barrage of Christmas carols that practically scream from the stores. I fumble for it out of my leather jacket, trying to juggle that, carrying a bag of groceries, and handle Lionel, Emily and Jo as they pull eagerly at the leashes. Even with their muzzles, Lionel and Jo seem to charm the pants off of everyone they pass. Emily is still a snarling little mess, but you win some, you lose some.

“Hello?” I answer it, not really able to check who was calling. It’s hopefully one of two things: one of Britain’s biggest footy players wanting to donate to the organization, or it’s Kayla.

“Hey,” Kayla says, the sound of her voice sounding spring sweet over the air. “Catch you at a bad time?”

“Not at all, just being a superhero, that’s all,” I tell her. “How are you doing? We haven’t talked since…the dawn of man, I’m guessing.”

“It was four days ago,” she says dryly. “And you know on my salary I’m not exactly rolling in the long distance money.”

“I can always call you back,” I tell her as I’ve told her a million times. But she’s stubborn. No surprise there.

“I know, but I like the air of spontaneity,” she says. “So how are things?”

“Good,” I tell her. Over the last three months since I last saw Kayla, things have been a bit challenging, a tad tumultuous, but otherwise great. Good changes are happening, anyways, and with change always comes an adjustment period.

I’ve been sober for nearly four months now. Four long, difficult, challenging months, but I’m fighting the good fight, day in and day out. The only thing I’m taking is a low-grade, non-addictive medication for my anxiety. I see my doctor once a week and because of that I don’t have to use any anti-depressants. It’s hard though, digging deep through my past and pulling up a million memories that I would have rather stayed buried. But at the same time, it’s making me more self-aware. It’s letting me accept the blame where it needs to be and to pass it off when it doesn’t. It’s helping me come to terms with the cards I’ve been dealt and why exactly I act the way I do. It’s painful but it’s fascinating and it’s worth it just to be able to manage my depression and anger without medication. Addiction starts from somewhere and you can’t ever get better until you attack the cause.

I’ve also taken up boxing. I know it’s not exactly something that flows well with rugby and I know my body doesn’t want to be under any extra strain, but boxing is something I’m naturally good at and it’s another way for me to get my aggression out. And, according to my physiotherapist, I’m still in excellent shape, maybe more so now than I was in my late twenties thanks to the absence of alcohol and the extra exercise. It might be more of a brain/body thing too, where your body responds better when your head and heart are happier, but I’m not too sure about that.

Because my heart…well, it’s happy enough. It’s beating. But it not operating at full capacity, to put it mildly. Kayla and I have been talking at least once a week and texting, emailing and messaging way more than that. But the space between us is always there. It’s not that we even have a long distance relationship because we stopped referring to ourselves as us a long time ago. After everything that happened, her mother’s death was too much for us to survive. The last time I told her I loved her was over a month ago and I got no answer. A few weeks after that, she casually mentioned that she met a guy at a bar and was going on a date. I guess she was asking me permission or something.

Obviously I wanted to be sick at the thought. It took a long time before I had the courage to talk to her again. I’m guessing nothing ever happened with the guy because she never mentioned him again and I’ve never seen anything on her social media either. I’ve even talked to Bram a few times and asked him. He said she’s been single, just trying to move on. I don’t know if that’s moving on from her mother’s death, from me, or both.

But my love for her has never wavered. Never ebbed. I might not say it anymore but only because I don’t want to make her uncomfortable if she’s clearly moved on. And the last thing I want is to rush her when she’s been through so much.

So I keep it to myself. But I hope she knows. I hope she can hear it in my voice, the way I laugh at her silly jokes, because bloody hell, can she still make me laugh.

And I know it might be easier if I didn’t talk to her at all. But that’s not what I want. I would rather love her, unrequited, secretly from afar and still have her in my life, then never talk to her at all. That’s not life to me. Life is something that she’s in, in any way, shape or form.

Loving Kayla saved me in the end. I owe her everything.

“Just good?” Kayla asks, bringing the conversation around.

“Well, the dogs are good and boxing is going well,” I add. “My old rugby mate Rennie is back volunteering, so that’s fantastic. Other than that…nothing has really happened in four days.”

“I quit my job,” she says.

I’m stunned. “Really? I thought you loved it.”

Kayla quit her last job, the one at Bay Area Weekly, a week after her mother died. They were going to fire her anyway, she thinks, and it was time. That much I could see. She then applied to be a staff writer for a local magazine. To her surprise, they took her in and have been teaching her the ropes. It’s an online magazine about Northern California and I read every article she puts out. She really does have the talent, even though I know it will take time before it really pays off. The only downfall is that she had to take a massive paycut but Kayla rolled with the punches. She gave up her apartment and moved in with her brother Toshio.

“I did love it,” she says. “But it was time to move on. I got what I needed, the experience. Now I want a different kind of experience. I’ve been applying to every publication for the last two days here.”

“Any luck?”

“I have an interview tomorrow,” she says.

“Where? What’s it called? I’ll spy on them.”

“Twenty-Four Hours,” she says. “It’s like a daily free newspaper.”

“Sounds familiar,” I tell her.

“They’re in every major city. They hand them out at the train stations.”

I nod. “Ah yes, I’ve seen them. Good for you. Pay raise I hope?”

“We’ll see. I’m hoping it will be enough to continue sharing an apartment. Otherwise sometimes it’s about more than money.” She pauses. “Where are you?”

“Eh, I just took the dogs out for a bit, picked up some groceries. Coming up Frederick Street now. It’s bloody cold out.”

“I know,” she says and I can almost hear her shivering. “Any plans for tonight?”

“Not really. Stay in, maybe watch a stupid Christmas movie since it’s the damn season and all.”

“You’re positively Grinchy. Are you watching the movie alone?”

“Well, me and the pups, yeah.”

“No woman to join you?”

I swallow. “No,” I say softly.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

I frown. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember if I invited a woman over. You’re still the last, uh, well anyway. My memory is sharp now. It’s just me.”

She seems to think that over and I swear I can hear a sigh of relief. “What are you wearing?” she asks.

“What am I wearing?” I can’t help but smile at that. “Well that’s a question I haven’t heard in a bloody long time.”

“Let me guess,” she goes on. “Your old leather jacket. Dark grey jeans. Olive green sweater. Looks slightly Norwegian, like it would itch a lot. Camel Timberland boots. Oh, and fingerless black gloves.”

I look down at myself, as if I’d forgotten I dressed myself. “That’s exactly what I’m wearing,” I tell her, confused. “How did you…”

Then I look up and see my flat across the road.

I see Kayla standing outside of it.

The bag of groceries drops from my hands.

Somehow I clutch the phone and the leashes.

It can’t be her.

But Emily starts wagging her tail excitedly and Kayla raises her hand, giving me a small wave. She dressed in a bright purple peacoat, jeans, boots, a beanie pulled over head. She’s smiling and pulls her phone away from her ear.

I walk toward her in a daze.

“Your groceries!” she yells at me happily.

As if on autopilot I quickly turn around and scoop them up, then march on over to her. She’s not real until I can feel her.

But the closer I get, the more real she becomes until I’m standing on the curb, staring at her, utterly dumbfounded.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, my words floating away like in a dream.

“I was wondering if maybe you needed a roommate,” she says, putting her hands in her pockets and looking away with a sly smile on her face.

“A roommate?” I frown.

“Yeah. My job interview. If I get it, well, I’ll need a place to live.”

I can only stare at her, blinking, thinking it’s a prank of some sort.

She bites her lip, brow furrowed. “If you’ll have me of course. I don’t blame you if I’m the last person you want to see.”

“Kayla,” I say softly, coming toward her. I stop a foot away, the dogs sniffing her legs. She smiles down at them, absently patting them while she looks back to me. “How are you here?” I ask her.

“I told you. I quit my job,” she says, giving me a hopeful look. “I was ready for me to move on. Move on from the life I was living the last three months. That wasn’t really a life at all. I just…I know I should have told you over the phone or something but I was so afraid, you know. I was so afraid that you’d not believe me or you’d tell me not to come. I was so afraid that it wouldn’t happen. So I quit my job and I bought a plane ticket and I’m just…hoping for the best. Because really, I needed to tell you in person.”

I can barely swallow, my mouth is so dry. “Tell me what?”

She stares at me with wide eyes, like I’ve somehow struck fear in her.

“Tell me what?” I repeat desperately.

She gives me a half-smile. “That I’m still in love with you.”

I cock my head. I couldn’t have heard her right.

She goes, on, licking her lips. “And I know I might have left it too late but…I couldn’t ignore it. I tried, you know. I did. I even went on a date with someone else. I thought that maybe it would help. It lasted a minute, then I got up and left. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even look at him. Lachlan, you have literally ruined all other men for me. None of them compared to you before. None of them will compare to you after. There’s just you and only you.”

My heart is beating like a frightened bird but I do what I can to keep as much control as possible. “I don’t understand,” I tell her. “You knew how I felt all this time. I kept telling you I loved you…until you stopped saying it back.” I blink hard, remembering the burn. “Why? Don’t you know how that felt, to not hear that from you?”

She looks away, nodding with a wounded expression. “I did. I don’t know. I was so fucked up Lachlan and I still am. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about my mother and how much I miss her, how much I would give to have her back, even for one single second, just enough to smile at her.” She stares up, her eyes watering. “I tried to move past the grief but I couldn’t. But it didn’t mean I stopped loving you. I just didn’t want to love you anymore. I didn’t want for you to have my heart, all the way over here. How ever would I get it back? It was already so fragile. It was easier to just…shut it all away. But I was wrong. Because it hurt me more to pretend I didn’t care. And in return, you did the same.”

“But it was just pretending,” I tell her, clearing my throat. “I never stopped loving you.”

She stares at me, pained. “Then why are we standing here like this?”

“Because,” I start to say.

But the words die on my lips. She’s on me in a flash. She grabs my face in her hands and pulls my head down toward hers, until my mouth is pressed against her mouth.

I drop the groceries again.

I drop the leashes.

I don’t care. I’m sure the dog’s heads are in the bags, eating the food, and I don’t care.

I give myself to her, to feeling the warmth, the ferocity of her kiss. It brings me back to a beautiful world, one I never thought I’d live in again. I bury my hands in her hair, holding her head, feeling her as our mouths move sweetly against each other in a slow, intoxicating hunger. I can’t believe I’m kissing her again, touching her again, feeling her again.

I can’t believe she still loves me.

I have to pause, have to breathe, have to know.

I pull back, staring deep into those soulful brown eyes of hers.

“You love me?” I whisper.

“I love you,” she whispers back, running her hands down my arms. “My beautiful beast.”

I grin so wide, I think my face might stay that way forever. “You love me.”

She laughs, so happy. “Yes, yes, I love you. I don’t want to be anywhere but right here. This is the only place I’m supposed to be.”

I put my arms around her, holding her tight against me in a bear hug, her own arms slipping around my waist. I press my lips into the top of her head and pinch my eyes shut. A feel like a whole new dawn is rising in my chest.

Another new beginning.

Another road to go down.

“Let’s go inside,” I say to her after a moment, the December chill settling around us. “Get warm.”

Her eyes twinkle deviously at that. It’s been so long since I’ve seen that look. The reaction is pure chemistry inside my blood. I grab her hand, unlock the door and hustle her and the dogs inside.

I feel like there is no time left.

That all the time that has passed before has never happened.

The need to be inside her again, to be with her, from the inside out, is so addicting, so intoxicatingly urgent, that the moment we’re back in my flat – our flat – and the door is locked behind us, I’m hauling her to the bedroom.

I kick the door shut, throwing off my jacket, sweater, pants, undressing as if my clothes are on fire and I’m on her in seconds, my fingers fumbling along her every inch, frantically trying to get as close as possible. I want the heat of her hips pressed against mine, that silken feel of her skin, the way she perfectly holds me when I’m deep inside her, as if we were made purely to fuck each other, to love each other.

She’s shucking off her clothes too and grabbing me with frenzied hands, our mouths meeting hot and wet and so fucking desperate. I am wild to touch and she is burning under my hands, and I’m lighting her fires like an arsonist.

“Kayla, Kayla, Kayla,” I moan into her neck, tasting her. I sound so damn hungry for her it both scares me and thrills me to the bone.

We fall onto the bed and I’m climbing on top of her, pinning her between my thighs, wishing I could go slow and absorb every single carnal second, but there is no time. There will be – tomorrow. In a few hours from now, even. But right now, in this moment, where I have my love back, time is a precious thing and if I can’t have her now, I fear I never will.

She wraps her legs around me, one hand ghosting over my neck and into my hair, the other skimming down my back and we kiss again, deep and savage, our tongues sliding over each other in a wild war.

“I can’t wait,” she whispers to me and I pull back, lost in her eyes, knowing she feels just as delirious as I do. “Please, come inside me.”

I close my eyes, resting my forehead against hers and position myself between her legs, my cock thick and throbbing and hard as concrete. I push into her, slipping slick and rough until all the air leaves my lungs and it’s almost too much.

I am purified, sanctified, inside her.

“Fuck,” I growl, nipping at her neck now as I thrust in again, this time my arms are starting to shake, my body overloaded. I’m the greedy one, craving every part of her, and it’s my soul that’s just as hungry as the rest of me.

“Harder,” she pleads, her nails digging into the back of my head as I’m biting along her breasts, flicking her nipple with a stiff and merciless tongue. I roughly grab her hips and shift her up, my cock sinking in hard and deep and I’m grunting with exertion as I drive myself in again and again.

“Harder,” she cries out again, meeting my eyes, telling me she needs to feel everything.

I give her all of me.

A savage growl rips from my throat and I’m fucking, fucking, fucking her like I might die if I don’t. I’m a relentless machine, pounding her over and over and over again, then I’m leaning back down over her, my chest pressed against hers, slick with sweat, our hearts beating against each other in a rabid race, wanting so much I don’t know what to do with myself.

I bite at her collarbone, her shoulders, her chest, her nipples and she’s crying out softly, wanting more, wanting all of me. My fingers are clamped onto to her hips, a vice, and I fear I might just break her right in two.

Then it all starts to swirl together. I slip my hand along her clit, rubbing in frenzied circles that make her eyes roll back and the sounds out of her delicate throat are among the most erotic, primal ones I have ever heard.

She undoes me.

She always will.

Bloody hell.

So I go and go and until I can’t, until my savagery snaps and with one rough, final push I’m pouring into her, my hoarse shouts filling the room. We succumb to our pleasure at the same time, riding the current together, our bodies and hearts hopelessly intertwined. I empty into her and yet I’ve never felt so full.

I collapse on her with nearly my full weight, breathing so hard that the bed is still shaking and she’s gripping my back with all her might, like I’m a raft and she’ll drown if she lets go.

But I’ve got her. I do.

We hold onto each other like this for seconds, moments, minutes. We hold onto each other because we didn’t hold onto each other tight enough before. This time, this time, I know neither of us will let go.

“You know it hasn’t been proven yet,” I say, my voice thick and lazy as I brush her damp hair off her face. “But I believe I can exist on you alone. No food, no water. Just Kayla. Care you test this theory out over the next few days?”

She grins up at me and my heart beats something fierce for her. “I would love to help you with this experiment,” she says, her eyes vivid, so beautifully full of life again. “Give me another few minutes and we can try again.”

“I have a feeling this experiment might last a very long time,” I warn, smiling.

“Good,” she says, running her thumb over my lips. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”

And this time I know it’s true.

This time she’s here to stay.

EPILOGUE

Nine Months Later

Kayla

Lachlan is a sweating, grunting, tireless machine. The way his limbs move in all the right ways, his muscles tightening as he dips, and lunges and plows his way through. He’s a beautiful beast to watch, the kind of effortless skill that takes your breath away. And hell, does it ever turn me on.

I can’t be the only one that thinks this. I look all around me, at the stadium of screaming spectators waving their red and black scarves and I know that at least most of the women are thinking what I’m thinking, and maybe some of the men.

It goes without saying, Lachlan McGregor is a force to be reckoned with. And boy, do I ever know it. Now more than ever. And I mean that in the best possible way.

Moving to Scotland was the best decision I’d ever made. Nine months ago I had no idea what would happen with my life, all I knew is that there was a man I loved and a man who loved me and I needed to be with him. It didn’t matter that he was wrought with demons and I was stumbling in grief and aimless except for him. I didn’t care that I was risking it all for something that might not work out. I’d risked it all before and it worked out the only way it could.

My mom once told me that my life is on the track it’s mean to be on. I think she’s completely right. My old track led me to Edinburgh with Lachlan where I fell madly in love. But life has other plans, plans that we may never understand and the track changed. It took me a moment to reroute it. It took some time to figure out what exactly I needed.

It was Lachlan all along.

A lot has changed in nine months. Lachlan has remained sober the whole time, though it’s something neither of us take for granted. I know it’s something that will never leave him completely. He has good days and bad days and on the bad days we go for long walks and I make him talk to me until we can figure out a way through it. We’re in this together now and I make sure he knows that he doesn’t have to face any of it alone.

His psychologist has helped a lot, so has his healthy lifestyle. He’s doing extremely well in boxing, still just for fun, for a form of exercise that has nothing to do with his career and it’s something to get his anger out better than any medication or booze.

I like to think that it’s because of all this that he’s gotten better at rugby. When I first met him, he was so worried about his career and age, thinking he couldn’t possibly last any longer. That doesn’t seem to be the case. Not only is he performing at his best, but he’s the longest-standing member of the team and going into this new season, the team captain.

He handles his new responsibility beautifully.

As for me, we’ll I’m still struggling but it’s a fun struggle.

I never did get the job at Twenty-Four Hours, but I did get a job writing for an online Scottish fashion and lifestyle magazine. I get paid per article, which supplements the income I get from working part-time with Amara at Ruff Love. The two of us are currently trying to put our heads together and come up with a PR position at the organization. Maybe she’ll take it, maybe I will, but if it comes to light, it will really help Lachlan get all the love, funding and attention he needs for the dogs.