Ahead of the Darkness Read Online Free PDF

might have seen a little something.
    “But ye must have stripped off in the middle of the night, and when I picked ye clothes up to put them on the end of the bed, all I could smell was rum, so I washed them.” He shrugged. “They’ll be dry in a wee while.”
    He smiled weakly as he passed me a steaming-hot cup of coffee. I embraced the cup with both hands and inhaled the unmistakable smell of freshly-brewed coffee. The smell cleared some of the fog, allowing me to process what he had said. I looked to the left, to the still open bedroom door and confirmed that there was only one pillow on the bed. I looked past the kitchen bench into the living space, where a pile of blankets and a pillow sat on a rather small brown leather couch. I couldn't imagine how he’d possibly slept there. His legs would never have fit.
    “You, you slept out here? All night?”
    I looked back at him as he walked out of the kitchen and sat down on a chair with a nod of his head.
    “Umm... thank you for not raping me in my comatose state, and for letting me have your bed. You could have dumped me in the bathtub and I wouldn't have noticed. Apparently.” I frowned at the thought of waking up in a random bathtub. How uni student of me that would have been.
    “Aye, it was nae problem like. I was fine.”
    I pictured him trying to sleep on the small couch he was already taking up most of, his legs hanging off the sides, tossing and turning all night until he fell off and gave up to sleep on the floor. I might have laughed if I didn't feel a little bad.
    “Ye must have fell asleep halfway here as ye started to snore when I got to the top of the stairs, and for the life of me I couldnae wake ye. Aye, I dinnae have the heart, mind. So I dropped ye off on my bed and covered ye up. The naked part ye did all on ye own.” He chuckled lightly to himself.
    “What? I do not snore!” Do I? I didn’t remember the last time I was in the presence of someone else while asleep. The possibility that I did snore was discomforting.
    “At least ye dinnae drool on me. Well, I don't think ye did.” He seemed to be laughing at my mortified face. I almost wished I did drool on him, the bastard.
    “Yes, well, I don't make a habit of drooling over boys.”
    “Aye, tis a good thing I'm a man then. Unless, ye prefer the birds?”
    He shot me a quizzical look and waited for an answer. I scoffed at his intrigue over my sexuality, and smirked. I refused to answer his question and left him to whatever dirty thoughts were sure to be playing in his head. Instead, I found myself distracted by the rest of his apartment.
    It wasn't huge by any stretch of the imagination, but the same high dark-brick walls, bare beams and white-grey washed floorboards throughout opened up the space and made the room seem bigger. There were another two leather arm-chairs to match the two-seater couch that he’d slept on. An old polished trolley masqueraded as a mini bar underneath a huge square wrought-iron window. From my vantage point in the kitchen I could only see part of the left side, but the other side, in front of the kitchen I had the perfect view of. Another huge window with a little round table and chairs underneath made a small dinning space but my gaze were instantly drawn to the far corner, which quickly became my favourite part of the apartment. Four, floor-to-almost-ceiling bookshelves were filled to the brim with books. An interesting-looking plush burgundy chair sat in the middle. It was high-backed, curved in shape, and looked ridiculously comfortable. I pictured myself curling up in it, my feet tucked underneath me, losing myself for hours in an endless supply of books. I was lost in the daydream when the background music changed to something slower that sounded vaguely familiar. I turned to see where the sound was coming from and found him staring at me curiously. I was about to ask what when the lyrics started, it was: The Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody”. I