They're from Denmark. Oops.

I think the rain might hold off for a little bit longer. Which is good. Our guests weeded the garden, did all of the landscaping, detailed all of the vehicles and then cleaned the house top to bottom. With five of them (and us) working the whole thing was finished in under three hours and we have grand plans to invade some poor pub for beer and not-beer-but-pop and chicken wings this evening before returning to watch movies in the theatre.

A relaxing day, finally. I'm so tired. It's very nice to have company when you don't have to lift a finger.

They brought us real halloumi.

Blueberry scones and biting wind mark this Thursday, the scones only present because Ben's friends are here for a couple of days from uh..Oslo? Turku? and Ben went and did a quick grocery shop because there are five of them and they're going to eat everything.

They always do, except now they eat like Ben. Instead of cigarettes, broken glass and women, they eat whole grains and vegetables. They juice. Instead of drugs they weigh legumes and instead of dealers they have grocers who know them by name.

It's kind of nice. And they've always been a respectful, sweet bunch who manage to pull off one major renovation every time they show up. One year they cleared out all of the deadwood from the three properties and neighboring woods. One year they painted five bedrooms in a day. One year they did a months' worth of freezer meals for all of us. All of us. Freezer meals for fifteen people. It was amazing. Especially since toward the end of this particular project they discovered we don't have a deep freezer and so everything was divided up between the other houses and I don't think I ever did see any of the food but the boys next door didn't have to cook for months.

They like the pool though I doubt it will be warm enough to use it during their stay. They love Ben, love seeing him so content. Love the property and all the boys. Love seeing Duncan and Daniel too Love visiting with Corey and Dylan. Love seeing the kids grow up. They love me too, being supportive and also weirdly talkative, as if they want to impart as much comfort as they can into each visit.

And it's getting a little crazy around here. It may be this way until Saturday afternoon, but I will see if I can get time to post. If not just know I'm somewhere on the point wrapped in a blanket, listening to death metal and eating cheese.

Holy.

Lochlan did indeed find me last night after finishing off his whiskey. I was pulled down and turned over, his hands around my knees, pulling them apart, putting his face between them, making me squeal with the sleepiest joy you can wake up with, I think, if you were to put it to a vote. He was relentless, violent even. He got an unfortunate knee to the face at one point because me being flat on my back apparently wasn't good enough and he didn't seem like he thought this through so by the time he was really off and running (with me in tow) I was sitting up and he was flat on his back, and I don't know if you've ever sat on the face of a Scottish man, but they still have an accent. You can't quash it, literally or figuratively.

Because they talk. All the time. Constantly. I was a human megaphone only it was muffled and I had no idea what he was going on about, clearly yelling into the wrong end.

But I enjoyed whatever speech he made. Probably something about William Wallace and freedom. Maybe something about Independence or smartphones ruining the mystery of Loch Ness.

He finally throws me back down to the bed and declares me conquered.

What the fuck ever! I'm nothing of the sort. 

Give me five more minutes. 

Five minutes? You can't conquer someone in five minutes! 

But 1) I'm still drunk and b) of course he can.

Done and done.

Slept like a baby again last night. I did not wake up hungover. The Collective made bets. I can't drink wine. It's unpredictable. But at least it's fairly harmless.

Like you, Lochlan says, and smashes a kiss against my forehead.

Did you wash your face? I ask him.

Tuesdays are for drunking.

This is the life. I came home from work. PJ took my lunch kit to unpack and repack, I kicked my shoes off inside the front hall, dropped my bag and keys on the floor and unzipped my dress right there. I might burn it. I might never return to the restaurant, though I got a raise, since the whole province got a raise I guess it isn't fair to go back to square one so I'm making a couple dollars more an hour this week suddenly and maybe I'll stay just a little while longer.

After my shower Ben is there to dress me in clean pajama pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt. I come back downstairs and Lochlan hands me a rather large, full glass of wine while Dalton holds the door open so I can take it out to the patio. Sam has music playing out there but it's on low. The sun is shining. Ruth made cookies. Henry's heading into exams, prom and graduation as we speak.

But I have this minute.

Schuyler is outside on our patio but he makes himself scarce with an excuse when he sees me. Andrew waves from his own perch with coffee and his ipad on their balcony above their stone patio on the house next door. I wonder if I'm hungry and Gage says that he and PJ are making an early dinner and they'll serve it here outside if I like. I take a sip of my ice-cold dry wine and nod.

Yeah. That will be nice.

Dinner always tastes best when I don't have to make it. Also when I am in pajamas. No one says a word. I've finally earned the right to come home and change into comfy clothes and I get it. I always did before when I worked, this is no different.

Caleb joins us a few moments late, with apologies. Conference call. We wave off his efforts to quash his own hubris and pass around the sparkling water. We tell stories and talk about our days. We dissect news stories and help Henry form a study plan. We finish the wine (some of us do). We make plans for the rainy end of the week to come. We take the time to go around the table to make sure everyone is content, built up and has everything they need. We love big and we love hard. We make excuses and head inside to clean up and retire early. My children now remain up in the night longer than I can. I got an incredible nights sleep last night and I hope to do the same again.

But after four glasses of wine I can't even find the dishwasher so Ben takes my glass with a laugh. Time to go upstairs, Bee. 

Bring my Lochlan. 

I will. 

August burns red.

And if the sun grows cold for you along the way
And if the stars don't line to light the way
And when you fall away and crash back down below
I'll search the skies for you and I'll follow
I'll be in your afterglow
And I'll bring you home

Lochlan is burning down the world as he goes. Outwardly clipped and formal, inwardly afraid as the dark sees him holding me clutched against him, securing my place in his dreams, loathe to let go in case I leave him in the night. He says he's fine. We're fine. Everything's fine.

But he's not telling the truth.

I tuck his hair behind his ears. He's sitting so patiently, just staring at me. Loathe to open Pandora's box. Loathe to give a name to that fear. Loathe to let it consume him, unable to see that it already has, even as I dismiss it as shallow, unfounded, unreasonable. Trite.

That's not a fear. THIS is a fear. And I reach up, opening first my skull, wide enough for everything to see the light of day. And this too, I pull my ribcage apart and my heart does a flip-flop out of my chest onto the floor, a caught fish landing in a boat, still hoping against hope for escape. The dark rushes in, putting out the flames, protecting our eyes from the volume of blood, softening the horror of all that I am in his eyes, or so I can only hope.

It seems like nothing to you but it consumes me. It's so easy for you to say your pain hurts more but it can't hurt more than this, Bridge. The fear that you might fall in love again and it still won't be me. 

But it is you, and I fall in love with you all over again, every single day. 

Jesus Snap (crackle and pop).

Be still, my love
I will return to you
However far you feel from me
You are not alone

I will always be waiting
And I'll always be watching you

I may or may not have recorded Lochlan while he was running through his nightly piano exercises. I did it in my free time, ostensibly while he presumed I was off being a jerk to him through no fault of my own. Instead I was tucked around the corner from the living room, in the little no-man's land between the kitchen and the dining room, a place that affords a good view of the piano but doesn't alarm the player.

And I taped him because I love it when he sings to me, even as he doesn't want or mean to. I have precious few memories of him commited to permanence. They're in my unreliable head, a format I don't trust for a second. What if it changes the content? Or brings it out of context? What if it forgets? What if it wipes itself completely?

That's probably the part I fear most, that I'll wake up a blank slate one day, alone and unable to recall. It's a weird new kind of fear newly sprouted, just poking up above the surface, a hint of green. A promise of a whole new thing to worry about. An invasive weed.

Just what I need.

So I've begun to keep things, now able to listen to them on demand instead of having to beg him to sing. He's a performer at heart but so stubborn at will. This is unabashed belting out of the high notes and it makes my heart soar.

Even better is using Ben's big headphones just to listen, without the visual of watching Lochlan's shoulders move ever so slightly as he finds the keys, watching his curls crest his shoulders, leaving the back of his neck exposed as he bends his head to get those notes, watching them sail back as he flips his hair away from his face again. Watching him turn and check for an unwelcome audience and finding none, singing louder still. I have that saved now. I just want to hear him forever.

But Ben's headphones crackle and pop, distracting from the sound of Lochlan's falsetto on those notes and I'm forced to abandon my secret errand. This is why he gave me these ones. They're almost worn and it takes me far longer than it takes Ben to hear these defects. It's like listening to a vinyl record, popping and hissing through the vocals, enveloping the sound in a staticky fog cover.

Daniel comes through. He's coming to church with us and is making sure I'm ready in time instead of lying in bed in my slip listening to music.

That's what you're wearing. 

Just to be difficult, yes. 

Well grab a sweater. It's time to leave. 

Listen to this first. I pass him the headphones.

Ah, Bridge, these are blown. 

Listen.

He closes his eyes and listens for several minutes before taking the headphones off and passing them back. Is that Lochlan? 

Yeah, I smile.

I see why the busking worked so well. 

I put the headphones back on and indicate to Daniel that I'm not coming with them. I changed my mind. I want to stay here and listen a while longer.

Emotional centenarians.

August stayed for dinner (just like always) and we joked around a lot and then after dinner I walked him to his loft and stopped at the bottom of the steps.

This isn't working. I know you through and through. 

It was worth a chance. I was hoping we could reset somehow. 

I don't think we can but I don't want you to resent me either. 

I don't want to be used or to use you but I don't like it when you avoid me. 

So what do we do?

We keep working at it. 

What if you need him? 

That's grief. I try and do something else until the feelings pass. 

What about me?

Being lonely isn't a solution to anything, August, but I can't take a permanent place in your life though. 

I don't want to use you, Bridge. I've done that enough. 

Maybe we just need to work on our shared headspace when we're together. Make it about us, and not him. (I want to capitalize the H on him so badly but you'll be offended.)

How do you get better? 

Time. 

How much time do we need? 

Another hundred years, I think. 

He laughs, gives me a kiss on the forehead and then a ridiculously long hug and I am spun away back toward my own side door.

Inside the door Caleb loiters, most likely pleased with the conversation he overheard.

I have something you might like. And he puts his arms out wide.

Back-up, secondary hugs. Sometimes some of the best ones start out that way.

He'll be fine. So will you, he says, and I get another forehead kiss.

Hope so. I hope none of it takes a hundred years. 

Compare this to eight years ago. Or even two. 

Yeah. 

Things are getting better, Neamhchiontach. 

I nod. I don't know if I believe him though.

Come up and watch a movie tonight. We'll have a quick nightcap. 

Okay. Ten? 

Yes. 

I didn't make it through the movie, falling asleep tucked against Caleb while he watched the citizens of Berk decide to give up their dragons, sending them back to the hidden world. I'm sad I missed it. I was looking forward to it.

This morning as I went back to my room to try and wake up, hoping Lochlan didn't find fault with anything specific. I was out of luck though.

How long is it going to take, Bridget?

A hundred years, I told him, because that's the party line.

Fuck that, he says. God loves Lochlan. He puts up with nothing and yet he gives me the world. Caleb took a weak moment and took advantage. And you're worried about August using you? 

I think about correcting him since it's not me worried about August but everyone else worrying about August but I realize that's a pre-formed argument just waiting for it's time in the light.

I nod in agreement. Just to keep the peace. Sorry. We were only going to watch a movie but I fell asleep. He's never going to wake me up to send me home when he can just have more time. 

He doesn't get more time, Bridget. He's had enough.

Tell him that then! I'm tired!

(So much) At stake.

Our library seems to be neutral ground. It's the place where Talks happen, where things get worked out. It's a calming, restful room with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the woods and a fluffy white rug on the floor. The standing shelves on the two walls that aren't all windows are white, the chairs are white, the couch is white, the walls themselves are white and the floor under the carpet is bleached hardwood, unfinished except for a regular coat of wax.

I love this room. It holds the books of our entire Collective, save for personal favorites that are kept in our respective rooms. So everything else, in other words. It's large but the conversational seating arrangement in the centre makes for a cozy vibe. It's hard to describe but so simple. It has been in a magazine online, just for kicks but I'm not going to tell you which. I don't sell things on my blog. Except maybe desperation but that's not really for you to buy, is it? If I like a product (like my shorts from the other day) I'll point that out but I'm not going to become an affiliate for everything. It was never my intention to write my words and then sell them out from under myself for the sake of a few dollars. I don't need the money, you don't need yet another sponsored post in your life, nor another ad.

Maybe that's why I'm still going, when I've seen some of my own favorite blogs write an entire post on a new toothpaste only to have a link with a discount code at the end. That's not content, that's shilling for a toothpaste company. Is it not? Within a year or two said blogger moves on. They weren't in it for the words, they were in it for the money.

I'm still here. Never in it for the money or I would have married Caleb.

And it's in this room that I meet August.

Not Jake's surrogate brother August. Not August of the past. Not August of the sometimes-difficult present.  Not August the struggle.

This man is new. He's wearing a button-down and a nice jacket. He's carrying flowers. When I open the library door after he knocks and refuses to just walk in, he thrusts the flowers at me and sticks his hand out. He says his name is August, and that I must be Bridget, and he's happy to meet me.

These are beautiful! I stick my face in them. Lilies. What are you doing? 

Starting over. He takes a deep breath. Something we should have done a long time ago but we can do it right now. 

What does this mean? 

We go forward as friends with no baggage. And no pain between us. 

Is that even possible? 

Let's find out. Are you going to invite me in? 

Depends. Are you a vampire?

Last time I checked, no, but you're going to have to trust me. 

Unsure of hardly anything, except him.

I was singing along with Elton John at the top of my lungs at the edge of the pool. Elton wasn't there, proper, he was in the stereo but I was having such a good time that I must have missed the look that passed over my head between August (minding his own business, sadly. As always) and Duncan, who never misses an opportunity to wade into whatever's going on on any given day.

Into whoever, I mean.

I sat up with a gasp, quilt in my fists an hour later in Duncan's room, as Duncan finally let go of me. Chlorine and incense fills my throat. His hands leave almost-bruises everywhere he touches me, Elton still sings in the background and I no longer what August is up to because he doesn't seem to want me to know.

I should spend more time at the pool, Duncan says softly. I wasn't sure if I was interrupting anything between you and August. I mean, I guess it's clear I wasn't. 

I shake my head. There's a lot going on with him. 

Interesting. That's not what he said. 

Please tell me so I don't act like a fool around him, Dunk. 

I could make my own case here and yet I'm trying to show you the virtue of someone else. That's the kind of man I am, I guess. He laughs.  He actually asked if you said anything about him. He said you've been avoiding him for months, that you two had a misunderstanding. 

A misunderstanding. That's what he called it?

Yeah. What happened? 

We had a...misunderstanding. 

Maybe you should go talk to him. Though I'd love to keep you. 

Okay. Sorry, Duncan. 

Short and sickly sweet are my favorite kinds of visits from you, Bridge. 

But I didn't go across the drive to August's loft. I went upstairs alone and hid out on my balcony with a book until August sent me a text.

Busy?

No. 

Come over? 

Can you come here?

Alright. Give me a minute.

I feel like I don't know what he's going to say but I know exactly what he's going to say.

12:8 (Intermittent Benning).

When you were falling from my tree,
I was not scared.
I thought you'd meet me back up there.
It never dawned on me you were home free.
It never dawned on me, no.
Benjamin, no
Benjamin, no
Where did you go?

(A freakishly good song off an even better album, if you want a listen. It's called Benjamin by Veruca Salt and it's on Eight Arms to Hold You).

I took today off, unexpectedly as Ben came upstairs around twelve forty-five and pulled me underneath him instead of going to sleep and since I still smelled of jasmine bubbles I think he was a wee bit hungry for me and that's okay, because I was for him as well.

I've become his drug, I think. Most of the time he can go without but then things reach a fever-pitch and what do you know, I'm currently running on a whole ninety minutes of sleep here.

Ben is not a take-his-time, it'll last an hour kind of guy. Ben is a six-or-nine-hour kind of guy. Sometimes more. Had I known that once upon a time I would have...

...done nothing differently at all.

(Snort.)

But we come to midweek (literally) and I am not in any shape to be moving quickly and that's wonderful today, and even more wonderful is the fact that both Lochlan and Ben are sleeping soundly right now. I'm up, of course because it's Wednesday and I've already completed three loads of laundry and done the budget. I messaged with Caleb who is relaxing still in bed but awake. I turned down repeated requests that I join him (yeah, no. All touched out and fucked to death but thank you) and plan to maybe just do some light gardening today and get the house pulled back together, because Monday and Tuesday were nuts.

Maybe later, after dinner I'll take a glass of prosecco and hang out in the tub for another hour with Lochlan and sleep, finally. That would be good.

But other than that, for Sam's requested barometer it feels like a calm day. A quiet day where everything is okay for the moment. A gift of a day to try and catch my breath. I did my mental gratitude dance for all things for which I remain profoundly grateful (tangible and intangible) and I'd like to get caught up on my music now, I think. And my Benjamin.