Page 68 of Good Losers (Lochkelvin Academy)

Luke furrows his brows as he regards me. “And what would this achieve?”

“Jessa makes me have fun. Maybe she’ll help you have fun.” He pauses for a moment, and then adds, as though he cannot resist, “And byfunI mean shakin’ the stick from yer permanently clenched arse.”

With breathtaking efficiency, this one statement undoes all Finlay’s attempts at being kind and understanding. Luke leaps from his chair and leans down toward Finlay, who rolls his bright green eyes like this has nothing to do with him.

“I guess the stick says no.”

“I do not say this lightly,” Luke murmurs, lethal and soft, “butfuck you.”

Damn it. They’d been getting there. Crawling, inching, abysmally slow, but getting there. And now…

Nursing the side of my head, I mutter, “Stop.”

They don’t listen to me. But they don’t have to. Because to everyone’s collective surprise, the door opens and Rory appears.

Silence falls of its own accord.

He’s rarely around at breakfast, so it’s strange seeing him in the early morning sunlight. He’s dressed in waterproofs and stomping around in muddy wellies. Captain Porthos trails him mournfully, his paws covered in dirt. If Armstrong were still with us, I imagine he’d be having a conniption.

Rory meets my eyes first, a worried look in them.

Something’s happened.

“Are ye okay?” Finlay asks instantly.

Luke settles back in his chair, looking relieved to no longer be the focus of this morning’s grilling.

Rory tugs down his hood and stiffly unzips his waterproof jacket, peeling it off. My stomach flares with heat and I wonder if, after what we did together on that hill, I’m now sexually attracted to men in anoraks. “I don’t know.”

Finlay frowns at him. “Whit’s wrang? Talk tae us.”

With a weary sigh, Rory says, “Every morning at sunrise I go out to watch the birds, but they… I don’t know. This morning the chicks kept crying out for food. I waited for over an hour. I even brought food with me. But their mother… she didn’t turn up.”

Luke stares at him, bewildered. “You watchbirds?”

My heart tightens at the amount of care in Rory’s voice. So he might not give a crap about most humans but he seems to utterly adore animals. “Could she still be flying? Searching for food further afield?”

Rory shakes his blond head. He looks numb, frozen with a kind of shock. “No. She’s like clockwork. Flies for half an hour at most, then comes back to feed. There’s plenty of prey around. But I didn’t see her in the nest once and the chicks were crying the entire time. No one came.” He pauses. “I think something’s happened.”

“What kind of birds are we talking about here?” Luke asks Finlay quietly. “Because my family has a tumultuous history with corvids.”

Rory’s eyes lower. “Eagles. Golden eagles. They’re rare in Scotland. They’re nesting in the Grampians, so far undisturbed. The media hasn’t got wind of them yet. I’m wondering if someone else has found the nest.” Captain Porthos leaps onto a spare chair, his muddy paws planting streaks onto the crisp white tablecloth. Rory strokes the dog’s long, wiry coat pensively. “Maybe it’s nothing.”

“I’ve rarely seen ye look so worried,” Finlay remarks, spreading marmalade onto toast. The last time I remember Rory looking worried had been at the start of the year, Rory frantic and desperate, hoping to God — in Finlay’s arms — that his father would be re-elected. “I’m sure it’s just aff daein’ bird things. Whitever birds actually dae.”

The other chiefs don’t understand. How could they? They’ve never seen her — the spectacle of golden, unfurling wings. But I have. I remember her majesty. I remember her taking to the skies with wings like sails, slicing through gray clouds on her hunt for food. I remember being pinned on my back and watching her soar while Rory propelled me into bliss with his mouth and fingers.

Our hands meet rubbing Captain Porthos’s back.

Rory glances at me, his silver eyes unusually warm as they take me in. He says nothing but his eyes say enough for my heart to skip a beat. After last night… he’s into me. He’s so into me.

I give him a soft, reassuring smile.

The moment is broken, because of course it is. We can’t have anything for ourselves. This morning is not last night, and it’s all the worse for it.

In this instance, I feel it in the sudden tension of Captain Porthos’s muscles. His tail stops wagging. He climbs further onto the breakfast table, as though trying to sense something higher and higher. His body freezes. Rory frowns down at him. The hound stands poised on the table, the only thing moving his twitching black nose as it zones in on whatever scent it picks up.

The door handle descends slowly and, to our surprise, Oscar Munro enters. I try not to examine him too closely, but it’s a bust from the moment I think it, because he’s thePrime Ministerand I can’t not stare.

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