"Ouch," I muttered pulling my hand away. A tiny drop of blood surfaced and I wiped my thumb on my jeans. Our rose bush had grown out of control and I brought out the hedge clippers. I tried using the clippers to grab the branches but they kept slicing through one in particular, making it smaller and smaller. So I used my hands to move the pieces. And since the gardening gloves were filled with bugs....

I used my shoe to kick the branches away. The neighbour's basset hound barked his desire to go inside after being out all day in the heat. Wiping the sweat from my brow I agreed with him and could have howled myself. 

Setting down the clippers I grabbed the watering can and took to nourishing Mum's garden and plants. My spaghetti squash was well, I supposed. As a first time gardener I didn't know what to expect or how big they should be by now. Autumn would tell. The tomatoes were fabulous, each plant producing at least ten. Plenty for sandwiches and my favourite tacos. 

"Fancy meetin' you out here," a man said behind me. In a moment of surprise I turned around, my fingers still holding the hose trigger. I let go and covered my mouth in apologetic shock. There, soaking wet, stood Angus McKinnon.

"I'm sorry, Angus, I didn't know it was you!" I said daring to step closer. He shook his hands of excess water and took a look at himself. His jeans weren't too bad but his shirt was drenched. There didn't seem to be any way to help dry him off but the look on his face suggested he didn't need any. "Why are you smiling?"

"I'm impressed, love," he said giggling. "Never seen a woman do that before."

My jaw dropped. "Angus McKinnon Young!" I exclaimed while he laughed his arse off. "You're sick!"

He reached out for me and pulled me in for a hug. His wet shirt stained my own with water. "Come on, give your man a hug, love...." I struggled to get away from him as he nuzzled his wet nose into my neck. 

I squirmed and squealed trying to get away. Tickling him seemed to be the only way to weaken his grip. With a laugh and a half he finally let me go, his eyes shining with mirth. I made a poor attempt at keeping a straight face. "Serves you right."

"I'm sorry for scarin' ya'," he said. "I was headin' for the front door but I saw ya'....since there's no fence there."

I held my hand out to him and he took it. "You want to come in and dry off?"

"Nah, I'll jus'..." And with that he removed his t-shirt and flipped it over his shoulder. The grass was suddenly fascinating in that moment. Angus noticed my schoolgirl blush and took my hand again. "So what were you up to before I rudely interrupted?"

We walked toward the deck, rose bush cuttings scattered here and there. "Bit of gardening," I said. 

"Need help?" he asked. 

Hot sun burned my face and neck. "You don't want to work in the hot sun, do you?" I asked. Angus looked up at the sky, shielding his eyes with his hand. Shrugging, he put his hand on his hip.

"Could always use a tan, ya' know? Been freezin' my arse off in the states."

We spent the afternoon in the yard. I let him water the plants until he tried to spray me with the hose. I deserved it, though, after spraying him. The cold water felt good in the heat. Afterwards he helped me clear away the rose bush branches, careful not to cut ourselves on the thorns. Then we sat in the shade under the maple tree, his arm around me while I leaned on his bare shoulder. He hung his shirt on the rail of the deck to dry. 

"Wanna go out tonight?" he asked suddenly. "We've got another night off."

"I'm sorry, I can't tonight," I said with a sigh. "My family is coming over." Although I would have loved to ditch that disaster and go out with Angus, my parents would never forgive me if I did. "You can stay with us....if you want," I added. Angus looked at me doubtfully.

"I don't wanna intrude or anythin'..."

"You wouldn't be, you'd be my guest." He still looked unsure. "You want me to meet your family, you can meet my family." And you can make my night a little more bearable.

"Does the invitation extend to a place to sleep?" he asked. My heart raced.

"Sure," I said. "We have a guest room right over there." I nodded toward a window on the house. "Queen sized bed and everything."

"Oh, yeah?" he asked looking toward the window. "What about your room? Room enough for two in there?"

Those tomatoes had nothing on me. 

"Uh...well, no. Actually, the bed is too small...." It wasn't a lie. As small as we were, we couldn't spend a comfortable night in my bed. And anyway, I didn't think that was allowed in my Christian household. 

"Oh, I see." He closed his eyes, his skin sleek with a thin layer of sweat. "Queen sized it is. Ya' know, you can always pay a visit."

"I'll keep that in mind," I said. "An' watch what you do in there, my mum walks in sometimes. We use that room for extra storage so if she wants something..."

"I understand, I'll keep my clothes on," he laughed. "You're sure they'll be okay with me stayin'?"

I snuggled into him. "If they don't like it they better learn to love it."

**********

Needless to say my folks were not thrilled. 

Along with ruffled feathers from me dating the man in the first place, the idea of him spending even one night in their house was enough to spoil their dinner. 

Angus stayed outside to smoke while I talked it over with them. "But he's so weird," Mum said. "What do you like about him so much?"

Oh, I dunno...everything?

"I've known him a long time, he's my friend," I said. "What don't you two like about him?"

"Well for starters I don't like his hair," Dad said. "He's shorter than a teenage girl and he's got the looks of an American possum." My heart tore in two. 

"He's the most gorgeous man on the planet," I said. "I will not have this Angus slander in my house."

"You're cuter than he is," Mum said. "And he smokes, I don't like smokers."

"Yeah, smokers are gross," Dad agreed. 

"You're gross!" I told them. They laughed. "You're both just jealous!" I turned to head outside when Dad spoke up.

"Yeah, I'm jealous of him," he said. "I sure wish I had false teeth..."

I made sure to slam the door closed behind me. 

**********

Angus and I sat next to each other at the table. We had to pull an extra chair up to accommodate all eight of us. Much to my chagrin, my grandmother was here too. The kittens slept in their baskets and I wished so bad to shrink to their size and join them. 

"They didn't know what they were doing," my grandmother said through mouthfuls of queso. "They must hire the first people they see without having any experience because my entire back door is scratched up." I could see Angus looking at me out of the corner of his eye. "There are leaves all over my grass, they got dirt on the drive..."

"It's Nature, Mum, there are leaves and dirt outside," my dad said. 

"Yeah, but they were supposed to clean up after they installed it!" She looked irritated and I probably did too. "They're not worth the amount they're charging, I'm going to need you to come over and have a look at it." My dad sighed. 

This was an unfortunate habit with my grandmother. She swore no commercial company ever knew what they were doing. They were all incompetent morons, and we had to hear about it, and Dad had to go fix it. 

My brother went on to talk about something that happened at his work and I zoned out. If I just kept to myself, stayed silent like a fly on the wall, I could avoid any unwanted attention and berating and survive the night in tact. Angus placed his hand on mine, listening intently to my brother. Surely a breath of fresh air compared to the last topic. As soon as my brother was finished my grandmother spoke up.

"That reminds me of a time..."

I chanced a look around the table and saw everyone looking at their plates. Not a good sign.

"They just don't know what they're doing!" She had a look of disgust on her face. Disgust evidently ran in my family as I choked down a stale tortilla chip. Angus looked at me with concern and I got the giggles, inciting him to laugh as well. "What....what is this world coming to?"

"What's so funny, Hannah?" Mum asked. Angus and I tried to quiet down without much success, always looking at each other and losing it again. 

"Probably some...rock and roll....sex joke, or something," Dad said. He turned to his mother. "Did you know they have a new album out? Called Highway to Hell."

My grandmother was The Scream. A rock and roll band putting the word 'hell' in their songs? How dare they! Christianity mentions hell all the time but saying the word itself? Figuratively? How dare they! 

"Supposedly it's about touring," Dad said eyeing Angus. Angus nodded but anything he might have added was drowned out by my grandmother's scoff of disbelief. 

"Then why call it that? Why not something about touring?"

I looked at Angus but he was interrupted again. "It's not rock and roll enough," my brother said with that sarcastic smile of his. "They'd rather sing about hell or drugs or whatever, right, Hannah?"

"That's gross, Hannah," my sister said. "We don't like that stuff, do we, Mum?"

"No, we don't," she said without humour. I wanted to crawl under the table and die. Angus was sitting...right fucking there....

"It's so horrible they way they mock God and the Bible," my grandmother said. "Don't they know that everything they say will be judged?" I squeezed Ang's hand and lost my appetite. "Don't they have any idea?"

"Well," my dad shrugged. "It's rock and roll."

My grandmother was beside herself that this man next to me, who was a wonderful gentleman and my friend, someone I loved with all my heart, wrote a song about touring. Might as well disown me now and get it over with...

"And their lead singer takes his shirt off onstage," Dad added. 

Dad!

I thought my grandmother was about to pass out! Unless their goal was to make her leave the house and never return, why couldn't they stop? God forbid she find out Angus performed a whole strip tease!

"He's covered in tattoos, long, greasy hair..."

"It is not greasy!" I spoke up. Bon slander was also forbidden. Angus kept quiet but gave me a smile. I was more than thankful this didn't happen the other night when the entire band was here...

"What would you say, Angus?" Dad asked. Everyone looked in Ang's direction like they all forgot he was even there. Angus cleared his throat, shy from the sudden attention.

"Well....not like I've run my fingers through it or nothin'...but I think he keeps it pretty clean," Angus said with a straight face. "Bon's a pretty clean guy."

"But he does have tattoos, right?"

Angus smiled. "Yes, I believe he has a few of those."

My grandmother looked positively green. Imagine her own granddaughter dating this....rocker....instead of a Godly man. Her family was falling apart at the seams and I was the root cause. I abandoned my meal altogether and sat there holding Angus' hand. He wasn't eating as much as before but he managed to finish a good portion of his plate. Food really wasn't sitting too well with me. 

Before I could vomit all over the table I asked to be excused.

I needed a hot shower.

**********

Angus asked if he could have a shower after I came out and I showed him how to use it. My grandmother had left leaving us all some pocket jewellry and newspaper clippings. Dad paced the room in agitation from her endless talking. 

"I'll move to the moon," he said. "Anything to get away..."

"I can't believe she thinks it's winter in Antarctica," my sister said. 

"Where's your boyfriend staying?" my sister in law asked. Everyone turned to look at me with either a smirk or shame. 

"In your room?" my brother said. "He'll be lost in there forever."

"Yeah, and he'll die from the stench!" my sister joined in with a donkey's laugh. I hung my head. 

Just a few more hours...

"He has a motel, right?" Dad asked. "Or a hotel?"

"He has a hotel..." I said twiddling my thumbs and shifting my weight from foot to foot. "But I invited him to stay the night here. In the guest room." I looked at my siblings. "As my guest."

"Wonderful," Mum sighed. "Love company...."

"He'll smoke in that room," Dad said. "He'll leave ashes everywhere, the room will stink."

"Maybe he'll burn the house down," said my brother with a smile in my direction. 

"That's so gross," my sister in law agreed. My hands clenched into fists. I trembled where I stood. "Smoking is so gross."

Okay, I get it. He's not perfect. But I didn't want him to be! I wanted him to be the most...the most..."him" he could ever be. I wanted his moodiness when he was tired, I wanted his joy when he spent time with his friends. I wanted his frustration when things at work didn't go the way he planned, I wanted his hands to hold, his lips to kiss, I wanted....

Him.

I opened my mouth to tell my family exactly that but nothing came out. Instead I shook like a leaf while they laughed and jeered. 

"Well, Hannah's gross, so they're a perfect match!" My sister laughed while looking directly at me, almost expecting me to join in. 

"They can get married and have ugly, smoker children," Dad said. 

"Would you like that, Hannah?" my sister taunted. I wanted so badly to storm out of there but something held me still. My eyes watered and my lips pursed. "He's really not that great, Hannah."

A sort of fire worked its way from my heart to every part of my body. Anger wasn't something I dealt with very well, nor was I immune to its...perks. Red flashed before my eyes as my vision darted from one member of my family to the next. They were talking but I couldn't hear them; speaking but I couldn't understand. I couldn't take it anymore.

"He is to me!" I yelled turning the room to silence. Whether or not they listened I'll never know because I turned to leave the room, almost running into...

Angus.

He stood there dripping wet, holding a towel up to his hair and wearing the same clothes he came in. He opened his mouth to speak but I grabbed his hand and took him with me to the backyard where we could be together, away from this bullshit. He didn't object and let me lead him through the kitchen past the sleeping kittens into the twilit yard. I let go his hand and stormed off by myself to sit under the maple tree. Bringing my knees to my chest and burying my face, I let everything out. 

A pair of arms wrapped around me, pulling me close. Letting Angus see me bawl wasn't at the top of my list but I couldn't care less at the moment. All I wanted was to run and hide. Run back to England, back to California, wherever in the world my family wasn't. I knew the day would end in disaster but I didn't picture this. 

Angus let me cry. He didn't try to stop me. And I loved him for that.

**********

"You're sure this is alright?" Angus asked gently squeezing my hand. "I understand now your family doesn't like me..."

"They can piss off," I said grasping the doorknob. "It's my room, I'll let in whoever I want." The knob wouldn't turn. My hand was frozen. Behind that door was years of mental health; a castle of strengths and a moat of weaknesses. 

Here we were at the drawbridge. 

What would Angus think?

Would he be disgusted with me? I knew his flat wasn't picture perfect but it wasn't anywhere near mine. Privacy in certain matters was a blessing but at the same time I wanted him to see me. I wanted to show him the vulnerable sides to me and if he hated me for it...that was his problem. I didn't want to stay this way. But until I was ready for the leap of change...

I opened the door.

I walked in first and he followed, his eyes searching every cluttered corner. Cobwebs, cuttings, and clothes might as well have been paying rent for all the space they took up. I braced myself for his justified reaction, crumbling into myself. "Are those....dead bugs?" he asked. 

I looked up to see him squinting at my light fixture. Some spiders had wandered in the dome shaped covering and couldn't crawl their way back out, thus burning to death from the heat. I nodded my head in shame. His flat hadn't ever been this bad. I could have been on the six o' clock news for God's sake. 

Angus backed away from me toward the door and my heart cracked. Right as I thought he would run for the hills, he surprised me by flicking the light switch off. 

And closing the door.

"Suppose....we don't need to see those..." he said with a smile. "Kinda...kills the mood, ya' know?"

I tackled him in a hug.

**********

"I didn't know you had this," Angus said. He held up my international copy of High Voltage and looked it over. My Aussie copy lay next to it. 

"I wanted to be thorough," I said, my voice cracking a bit. We sat on my floor by my record collection, looking through some vinyls Angus hadn't seen the other night. He found my Easybeats record and gave me a goofy grin. I smiled back through my red eyes, still recovering from my family get together. Everyone had left; only my parents in the living room watching MASH. If they knew Angus was in my bedroom they chose to ignore it. 

For that I was thankful.

Reaching deep into the box past The Kinks and Pink Floyd, he found Miss Big Mama Thornton herself. "Wow," he said examining the cover. "I've heard of her."

"Her "Hound Dog" is the best "Hound Dog"," I said. Handing me the record with a sly smile he nodded toward my player.

"Let's find out," he said. 

I set the record on and once again marvelled at the crackling. Her powerful voice grabbed me by the soul and took off with it. My feet moved by themselves. My hands grabbed Ang's and we danced like always. Stumbling over each other, colliding from the small space. I wrapped my arms around his neck both of us spinning in a circle. After the song quieted down we stopped to catch our breath. 

"Uh...Hannah?" Angus asked. I pulled away to look at him. He was focused on something behind me. "Is that what I think it is?"

I turned around and saw my rather...extensive...chocolate stash on my shelf. I had bought boxes and boxes of dark chocolate as they helped me with PMS relief. I blushed, realising I had forgotten to put them away. "Yeah," I muttered. 

"Jesus," he muttered. "Why didn't I think of that..." He turned around to admire the rest of my bell tower. The large bookshelf loomed over us. "These all yours?"

"Yeah, I've read every single one of them," I said proudly. Angus smiled and wrapped an arm around my neck. 

"That's my girl..."

**********

I wanted him. I needed him. I couldn't get enough of him. 

Straddling him, I kissed him like I hadn't seen him in years. We were in the guest room where Angus would be sleeping tonight. The house was quiet, everyone had gone to bed. After getting him some extra pillows he pulled me into his room and closed the door. And now my hands were frantically trying to get his pesky shirt off. 

Trying to keep quiet was the hardest part. This was something my parents definitely didn't need to know about. Successfully removing his shirt I tossed it to the floor, waiting for Angus to make the next move. When he didn't I kissed his neck hoping to get the idea across. "Probably shouldn't be doin' this..." he said. "...so close to your folks, ya' know...."

"It was...your idea," I said between kisses. After all, he was the one who pulled me in here. 

"I didn't know you'd want to go this far," he laughed. I started kissing his shoulder, running my hands over his soft skin. He sighed, gently stroking my hair.

"I love you," I said. 

"Love you too," he whispered. After letting me have my way for a few more minutes he finally put his hands on my shoulders and pulled himself away. "Think it's time for a bit of sleep, yeah?" he asked. 

I pouted and crossed my arms. He laughed and brushed my messy hair aside, kissing my forehead. "If you can't sleep tonight you only have yourself to blame," I said. 

"Is that so?" he asked. "An' if you can't sleep?"

"Then...you owe me." He leaned in closer to me so I could feel his warm breath on my lips. I shivered despite the heated temperature of the room. 

"Owe you what, exactly?" he asked. He cracked a smile looking awfully smug right then. "Hm?"

"I shouldn't have to spell it out," I muttered, my face red. He laughed and started tickling me and keeping quiet was even harder. "Stop!"

When our laughter threatened to wake even the heaviest sleeper Angus stopped tickling me and rested his chin on my head. "Sorry, love," he whispered. 

We stayed in that embrace for a while. His room was completely dark save the moonlight coming in through the curtains. I wouldn't have minded staying the night but Angus cleared his throat and nudged me. "No," I said hiding my face in his chest.

"Just for the night, love," he said. "Once we get a place of our own I won't ever ask ya' to leave." My heart skipped. "But I think tonight we should...ya' know?" I pulled away from him. I could barely even see his face it was so dark. 

I stood from the bed, grabbing Ang's shirt off the floor. He set it on the nightstand and followed me to the door. Cracking it open as quietly as I could I turned to face him. "You don't owe me anything," I told him. "Ever."

"Well....we'll see about that, won't we?" he winked. I shivered again. With one last kiss on the cheek and a long hug we separated. "Night, love."

"Goodnight." He closed the door and I went back to my own lonely room. 

**********

I woke up to a note slipped under my door.