SECOND SHOT

SECOND CHANCE SCHOOL #2

CON RILEY

Title: Second Shot (Second Chance School #2)

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or business establishments, events or locales is coincidental.

This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. The Licensed Art Material is being used for illustrative purposes only. All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this may be used, including for AI training purposes, or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Second Shot © 2024 Con Riley

Cover artist: Natasha Snow

Editor: Sandy Bennett

C/W

Mentioned in non-graphic detail and within a healing context: Bereavement, infertility, fostering and adoption, neurodivergence, illness and injury, warfare, refugee journeys, violent crime, bullying, school exclusion, racism, homophobic language, and drug use.

ALSO BY CON RILEY

Christmas Collection

His Last Christmas in London

We Only Kiss at Christmas

His Until Christmas

His Series

His Horizon

His Compass

His Haven

Learning to Love

Charles

Sol

Luke

Austin

Heppel Ever After

Second Chance School

Second Song

Second Shot

Second Story

Shared-World Novels

Finding Mr. Fabulous

A Wedding in a Week

True Brit

Be My Best Man

*****

Older Titles Set in the US

Seattle Stories

After Ben

Saving Sean

Aiden’s Luck

Must Like Spinach

Salvage Series

Salvage

Recovery

Thank you so much for your translation help, Anka. It was much appreciated!

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

I am a British author. Many of my readers come from elsewhere in the world. For complete clarity, all mentions of ‘football’ or ‘footy’ in this book relate to the beautiful game also known as soccer.

This story is set in a small, British boarding school specialising in trauma-informed teaching. Any traumatic events are mentioned in non-graphic detail and in a healing context.

A full list can be found on the copyright page.

1

HAYDEN

I’m not cut out to be a heartbreaker.

Plenty of soccer coaches told me the same after I got scouted. I was big for my age—intimidating. I should use that physical presence, not waste it, because nice guys got benched instead of selected. A goalkeeper with potential wouldn’t risk his one shot by worrying about other people. He’d make saves and he wouldn’t think twice about doing that with bone-breaking slide tackles against opponents. He wouldn’t care about his own fractures or dislocations, either. Not as long as they led to trophies.

I played through my own pain plenty.

But be the cause of someone else’s?

Ten years later, I still have the same too-soft flaw of hesitating before hurting people, and yet that’s what I do on my last day of work at Glynn Harber school.

I break a heart and leave it shattered.

Not during a game of footy—I’m not a coach or teacher in this school’s sports department. I haven’t played a match in a decade and I have no intention of ever touching another football. These days, my skills involve working on farms or wielding chainsaws rather than defending goalmouths. I manage wild landscapes, like my dad did, or I drive tractors—all short-term gigs—but today I open my arms to someone who mistook me for a long-term proposition.

This was never meant to last beyond the summer.

It’s still hard to sound anything other than gruff about our time almost being over.

“Listen, mate.” I clear my throat while he burrows against me, clinging. “I wasn’t ever going to be at Glynn Harber for long.” I rub his back with one hand, using the other to point a shaking finger at where he found me working this morning. “I was only ever here to clear all the school pathways.” That task, along with removing storm-damaged branches before the new school year started, is all the headmaster included in our contract. “I’ve already been here longer than planned.” And I’ve done more in this woodland than my contract stated.

Much more.

Evidence is all around us. What used to be a huge and tangled patch of brambles is now a clearing full of natural potential that I’m gutted to leave before I get to see the seasons change it.

I got carried away—learned to love these woods the same way it seems that someone else got carried away with learning to love me. Now he buries his face against my chest as I tell him the truth about being no one’s long-term prospect.

“I never stay in one place because I have to go where the work is. It’s nothing personal. It’s seasonal, that’s all.”

I’m only being honest. Harvest waits for no man, and I’ve already accepted more work than usual from farmers across the county. There’s only one footpath left to clear here, and one tree with storm damage to cut down. It’s a day’s work at the most. I can’t stretch it out any longer, so I keep this simple.

“You see, I need to help my friends on their farm next week.” Nothing would make Marc and Stefan happier than me putting down roots, but if they were here, they’d understand why I keep breaking a heart by saying, “And the headmaster is still hiring. A new teacher will need to move into my rooms in the school stables.” I point next at the tool I’ve used here the most often. “And my chainsaw is so noisy. It would disturb lessons if I stayed for longer. The sound really travels.”

That’s what I learned from sharing rooms with a housemate who is a noisy fucker. Not that I mind Rowan’s perpetual happy humming or his nonstop tapping. Even his singing in the shower is hard to hate when he has the voice of an actual angel. But when he goes all out on his drum kit, showing off for his boyfriend? I’m pretty sure all of Cornwall hears Glynn Harber’s trainee music teacher.

“Sound echoes in this valley. That’s why I’m here on a Saturday, working while no one else is around. To get finished without interrupting any learning.” I wince before adding, “Then I’ll leave. I’m sorry you didn’t understand that, Adam.”

And I am sorry when I get to see his baby-blue eyes welling.

Shit. He really is upset.

So am I, if I’m honest. It doesn’t matter that I’ve brought a gift to soften the blow of us parting ways before he’s ready. Adam realises I’m offering him a leaving present, and those tears spill over.

Fuck.

I’m so out of practice at wrangling toddlers.

Thank fuck his dad isn’t.

He springs into action, abandoning a pram holding sleeping babies, and strides across the clearing, a man on a mission the moment I call out a strangled, “Charles?”

“I’ve got this, Hayden.”

He has, thank fuck. Charles prises his son from me, gets down on Adam’s level, and puts a positive spin on a final playdate that I’m not happy about either.

“I know you adore Hayden, sweetheart.” His cut-glass accent is gentle. “You’ve been his little shadow all summer long while he’s tidied our school grounds. He’s shown you so many hidden treasures, and taught you the names of all the trees in English and in Polish, but look what he’s brought you!”

Adam doesn’t want the miniature version of my workman’s tool belt that I kneel to give him.

Thank fuck the axe hanging from it isn’t a real one like mine. He throws it straight at his dad’s head before collapsing onto the floor of this woodland clearing—a clearing that I can’t help thinking is my best work, chock full of chances for little kids to learn about my true love.

Not soccer.

I loved nature before I ever saved my first goal, and making this space with Adam toddling beside me all summer has been a good reminder. It has also been proof that I haven’t been part of a real team in forever. And that I missed it. Half of the chances I’ll leave behind here for kids to learn from are better after suggestions from Charles—no surprise when he’s a preschool teacher—but I have been surprised at how well we’ve worked together. Almost as surprised as how much I haven’t hated sharing the stables with a musician almost as noisy as Adam.

Who isn’t done yet with his meltdown.

He kicks and screams like I put that toy axe through his heart, and I don’t know why his dad smiles at that, but like all of Glynn Harber’s teachers, Charles is a professional at helping kids through trauma.

As for me?

I’m not an actual heartbreaker, but I do have three little sisters of my own who have me wrapped around their fingers, so Adam’s tears stab me straight through the chest, and Charles must notice.

“Honestly, you don’t need to worry,” he murmurs. “This is marvellous, Hayden.” He addresses Adam next, who shows no sign of stopping his kicking or screaming, and again, Charles is delighted. “Oh, you really are letting yourself feel everything.”

He meets my eyes, and yeah, he’s truly happy about his son pitching a fit. He even copies it by flopping to the ground and doing some kicking and screaming all of his own.

“I don’t want Hayden to leave either!”

That rings out through the clearing, clear and strident.

What follows is even louder.

“Not after he made such a beautiful Forest School classroom for us.” He bangs curled fists on the ground, disturbing leaf matter that I’ve spread to soften Adam’s frequent trips and stumbles. Now Charles bellows, “He should stay here forever to run all of our nature sessions for us.”

Man, that doesn’t only echo. It lands like a punch, but here’s the real kicker—there is no way this school’s headmaster would create that job role for me.

Not with my track record.

Nope.

I’ve already scored one too many own goals. Besides, I’ve got plenty of work to keep me busy through the end of this summer and well into autumn, even if none of those harvesting jobs will ever make the fortune my first career was meant to net me.

I don’t get to tell Charles any of that.

He hasn’t finished yelling.

“And I don’t only want Hayden to stay at Glynn Harber with us. I want Adam to tell me why he’s really screaming, only he can’t, can he?”

He glances his son’s way. Adam’s chest hitches but he’s definitely quieter, and so is the next question Charles asks him.

“You don’t have the vocabulary for how you’re feeling yet, do you, darling? The words. That’s why you’re so upset. Not with your lovely friend, Hayden. I wonder if all of this upset is about people leaving you. Because it started when the new foster babies arrived, didn’t it?”

Adam’s glance to the pram at the edge of the clearing is as good as a confession. So is his lower lip trembling as much as my hands do all too often lately, which I guess means yes. I can blame my trembles on chainsaw vibration. Charles guesses Adam’s reason, then mirrors an array of strong and painful feelings.

“You’re sad, and angry, and frustrated, but most of all, you’re frightened. I’m not surprised. Those pesky babies turned up with no warning and now both of your daddies have their hands full. That must feel like losing us, and you’ve lost people before, sweetheart, haven’t you? I bet losing Hayden too is a reminder. Right up here.” He taps his temple. “You missed people before who didn’t come back. You don’t want to miss him too, like you already miss having your daddies all to yourself. And missing people is⁠—”

“Really hard.”

“Yes,” Charles says gently. To me, the muppet who just sighed out that gusty confession. “Missing people is hard, Hayden. It gets easier if you share those feelings.” He watches Adam while speaking. “And that takes practice, which is why I was delighted when he attached so strongly to you. You’re such a good role model.”

I don’t know about that, but Charles isn’t done yet.

“A man who is physical and gentle? Who works hard and finds time to share his vocation? I knew you’d be kind about saying goodbye. You didn’t just disappear. You explained and helped him through it. Showed him that he was worth taking care of. He’ll tuck that memory away forever. Maybe model it one day himself. What a gift.”

Adam gets up from the leaf-strewn floor but stumbles, and maybe my first career wasn’t wasted. Even while kneeling, I’ve still got a goalkeeper’s long reach and quick-fire instincts. I catch him before he can fall, and Adam’s narrow chest still hitches against mine, but now he strokes my beard for comfort, like my sisters used to, and fuck my life, I could have a little weep myself instead of drying his tears with my shirtsleeve.

I get my shit together while Charles lowers his voice. “Adam, not wanting to share or lose people is natural. I promise sharing will get easier, and you aren’t losing anything by the twins being here. Your father and I have more than enough love for all three of you. It will be fun!” He meets my eye and winks. “And I know that is possible because before I met your father, I was often a third and I always had a great time.” He refocuses on Adam’s issue. “But it’s also wonderful that you’re letting out all of those big feelings. That’s so much better than keeping them locked inside.”

He looks over to that pram, his smile slipping.

“Those babies won’t be with us forever. Just while their mummy is poorly.” He swallows, his voice thicker, and I’m pretty sure this isn’t him playacting. “I might cry like you just did when the twins do go home. That’s what I did each time I had to give you back before we got to keep you forever. I let my sad feelings out to leave space for how much I love you. For how much I still love you even when you’re a maggot.”

Adam lets go of my beard then and staggers to his daddy, who hugs him, and that stabs me right in the chest too. I’ll miss this father and son—who might not be blood relations but who couldn’t be any closer than they are now.

Charles gets up to show Adam my real leaving present. “Look at this lovely storytelling chair Hayden has made for us out of logs. It’s as big as a throne! Big enough for me, and for you, and for both of the babies.” He taps his lips as if thinking. “Shall we try sharing it with them tomorrow?” He casts a quieter comment my way. “If you had some time to add a circle of tree stumps or logs, even more children could sit and listen to whoever ends up running the nature sessions here.”

I nod. “I’ll chainsaw some stumps for you before I finish.”

Someone else speaks, sounding clipped and in a hurry.

“Leave that until Monday, will you, Hayden?”

The school headmaster has joined us, and I can’t lie, Luke Lawson is a man of many frown lines, which I guess is what happens when you try to renovate a whole boarding school in a summer. Today, those lines are deeper than ever, another sign he must be under pressure if he’s forgotten it’s my last day here. He’s particularly harried, and he isn’t alone.

The man with him is cheerier, and familiar, although I can’t quite place him.

“What’s all this?” he booms.

I do place him after he booms again.

“Come and see this, Justin.”

A frailer man shuffles out from behind him, and of course I know him—he came to every match I played before I was scouted. Now he looks up at this big guy, who tells him, “Look at all these amazing changes, Justin. Handrails,” he says under his breath, “right into the wilder areas. Brilliant.” Our eyes meet, and he continues. “Makes the woods so much more accessible for shaky people. Happens a lot after brain injuries like Justin’s. Any chance you can add some higher rails for adults?” He points in the direction of the care home on the other side of these woods. “I usually run nature sessions for my residents. I’d love to bring them down here if you don’t mind sharing.”

This isn’t my classroom to share with him. I look to Luke Lawson, who says, “Sorry, I don’t have time to discuss it right now. I’m needed at the chapel. Got to meet some guests, but I’m sure that would be fine.”

Charles nods like he agrees, so I say, “Sure. I’ll add higher handrails after chainsawing some stumps. I do need to take down some branches first, then I’ll get right on it.”

Luke pays more attention. “Don’t do that today.”

I know weekend work wasn’t in our contract, but at some point this summer, doing this has felt more like a gift than a chore. “It’s fine. It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” Charles doesn’t agree. “It’s everything!” He points out what I’ve added to engage children’s senses. And that might also engage the senses of brain-injured adults, I notice, as that frailer guy runs tentative fingers over each addition. “Look,” Charles orders. “A ready-made Forest School, Luke. All we need is a teacher who knows all about nature.” He nudges me so hard that I almost do what Adam has twice already.

I stop myself from stumbling, but I don’t get to take a shot at asking for what would actually suit me down to the ground. Not because Luke Lawson leaves the clearing to go meet his guests. I’m silenced by that care home resident pointing directly at me and saying why my first career ended.

“Almost made the Premier League.”

He’s right. I got so close, but I also⁠—

“Failed a pre-match test.”

How the hell he knows that, I have no clue. It was a long time ago and hushed up. All I know is that I blurt, “I really need to get to those branches,” then I crouch for a quick toddler hug before striding away, and so what if I winch myself up to the top of the highest oak in Glynn Harber with my chainsaw just to avoid questions.

There’s no point explaining what kind of test I failed, not when I’ll be gone by tomorrow.

A half hour later, I still haven’t fired up my chainsaw. I still swing in my treetop harness forty metres up while annoyed wood pigeons stage a dirty protest. That’s okay. I’ll shower off that bird shit later. For now, I soak up this view along the valley, doing my best not to dwell on the past.

What’s done is done.

Yes, it fucked up my future. It cost my family much more, and if that means working morning, noon, and night to make it up to them, I’ll do it.

My thoughts swing like I do.

Would be good to stay in one place for a while though.

Maybe meet someone and have more to offer than…

My gaze lands on my battered old Land Rover in the car park for a moment before sliding to the school building. The workmen started early this morning, like me, to get this school ready for Monday morning. Now there’s no sign of any of them. I do glimpse Charles taking the long way round the woods to his home, and that’s a good reminder for me to get busy.

The most direct path for him still needs clearing.

I’ll take these branches down and get to it next.

That’s what I intend to do, only I catch sight of Luke Lawson outside the school chapel. He’s joined by my noisy housemate’s boyfriend. I see the bright yellow of his construction hard hat for a moment between leaves. Maybe they’re discussing a contract issue about working on the weekend, and that’s why all the workers have downed tools when there aren’t many hours left.

I don’t have the same time to waste, so I get busy with my chainsaw, roaring and sawing, but maybe Luke Lawson should have added an extra clause to my own contract about something I’ve done once already today.

I broke a toddler’s heart first.

Now I break a bride’s by ruining her wedding.

At least that’s what I assume when a bride runs below me. I glimpse a white veil streaming out behind someone in a hurry and instantly guess why.

Fuck. Luke said he was meeting guests at the chapel.

Did he mean at an actual wedding?

My chainsaw drops on its rope, plummeting like my heart does.

I chainsawed through her ceremony?

No one warned me.

Times like this, I wish I wasn’t locked into a perpetual team of one. If I worked shoulder-to-shoulder with my friends, I’d ask them if brides running away like this is normal. Stefan and Marc would know after hosting weddings on their farmland. That pretty headland of theirs with its sea view has seen a lot of happy-couple action.

As for me?

I’ve no clue about matrimony. Not that I’m a ball-and-chain avoider, but meeting anyone for more than a one-nighter is a challenge because here’s the problem with having to make hay while the sun shines. When I do have free time in winter, Cornwall turns into a dating Marie Celeste. A hot-guy Bermuda Triangle. Plus, there’s only so much rejection one person can take. Not that I blame Marc for choosing that handsome bastard Stefan. Or Stefan for locking Marc down before I got the chance to. I’m the fool who helped them get together, but they’re the romance experts, not me.

I still can’t help following my own heart by lowering myself down to the ground to head after someone whose veil billows like the meringues Stefan’s mum makes for all of those pretty headland weddings. I also yell, “Hey! Are you okay?”

That runaway bride doesn’t answer or slow down, which is a problem as she heads down the one path I haven’t cleared yet. It’s a snarly jungle full of briars, sticky burrs, and brambles. She’ll get scratched to hell if she keeps going, so I yell even louder.

“Stop!”

She doesn’t.

I run, but my tool belt is fully loaded and heavy. I can’t catch her, not after she puts on a spurt of speed, but I guess I’d break land speed records as well if a shouting stranger speckled with bird shit and armed with blades was chasing me.

I grind to a halt then.

A big axe does hang from my belt. A bramble cutter too. Would I want my sisters to stop and chat in the same situation?

No, I fucking wouldn’t.

My chest heaves while I think. I’ve already ruined her big day by being noisy. Making it worse by chasing her can’t be an option. My only reason for unsheathing that wicked-sharp bramble cutter is to hack my way towards a glimpse of floaty whiteness.

She lost her veil.

It’s well and truly snagged, and freeing that gauzy fabric is near impossible when my hands shake, and I’m exactly as bad at saving this veil as I was at saving shots on goal when I was in too much pain to play through. I still try to rescue part of this day all the while wishing I had caught up with her.

To say sorry.

Because here’s the thing—sound does carry a long way in this valley. In contrast, this silence is awful. Even the wood pigeons who shat on me shut up while I scan the woods for someone who should stand out like a beacon if her dress is as white as this veil.

I do catch a glimpse of different brightness, and it’s wild that the one and only other person I ever let slip through my fingers approaches.

Marc.

One of my two best friends in Cornwall pushes through the undergrowth, heading straight towards me. Or at least, that’s what my eyes tell me when I see a flash of auburn, only this man wearing a smart suit isn’t an actual redhead. He’s only burnished by light filtered through copper beech leaves, and that warm glow haloes a complete stranger—a wedding guest, given that suit perhaps, whose dark eyes widen as soon as I call out, “She ran that way.”

“Who ran what way?”

Huh.

Even though I can see this isn’t Marc, I hear his London accent. He also shares another Marc characteristic—his eyes dance with silent laughter the same way Marc’s do whenever Stefan shares a joke meant only for his husband.

I’m suddenly self-conscious.

Ducking my head like I used to when I was the last player left on the bench doesn’t help—the shiny blade of my bramble cutter reflects a reason for this guy’s amusement.

There isn’t only bird shit in my hair and on my shoulders. There are sticky burrs in my beard that will be the devil to get out later. I’m scruffy and look stupid. Maybe that’s why I focus on the snagged veil instead of on him. “You’re here for a wedding, right?” I ask gruffly.

“Well…”

I don’t know how it’s possible to hear humour in a single word or to see more of that laughter when I glance at him again.

All I know is that he is laughing even while silent. I see it in his head tilt and in the way he looks me up and down. Hear it too when he says, “I’m not against whirlwind romances, but I can’t say I was planning on tying the knot today. Ask me again when we know each other better.”

“Ask you again… What?” I’m flustered. “No. I just meant that, if you’re here for the wedding, your bride ran that way.”

“My bride? Nah, mate.” He doesn’t laugh exactly, but that’s what I hear again when his voice lowers and he gets busy doing what my thick and shaking fingers can’t manage. He makes short work of untangling the veil from brambles, and even shorter work of joking after he folds that fabric and gives it to me. “But if I was in the marriage market, I’m more likely to be interested in someone with⁠—”

He glances at my tool belt, and yeah, he can smile even without his mouth moving. His eyes rise, amusement clear, before dropping to my belt again, and this time my gaze drops with his.

It lands on my axe, and my brain ends that sentence for him.

With a great big chopper.

I’m almost surprised into laughing.

That urge dies the moment he asks, “So what’s the plan with the veil?” He reaches an equally fast conclusion. One I already came to. “Probably not a good idea to run after her to give it back.” He eyes my axe again, that dark gaze rising. It lands on my bramble cutter, and now he’s devoid of humour. “Wait. You didn’t already chase her, did you?”

“I. No. Well, yes, but only because⁠—”

He isn’t as tall as me.

He doesn’t have my goalkeeper’s wingspan or my huge hands either.

His own still curl, and I take a step back as he advances, and yeah, visually he’s nothing like Marc from this close up, but he’s the only other person I know who gets this protective. Marc gets that way about his little brother, Noah. This stranger mentions a different sibling.

“If you tried chasing my sister through these woods, I’d—” His gaze drops to my bramble cutter again, and I have zero trouble translating his abrupt slicing motion across his throat.

I nod quickly. “Me too. Got a sister. Sisters, I mean.” Three of them, all younger, all relying on me to fund their fast fashion and pop concert habits, and all three of them my reason for hauling myself upright after football crushed me. “Listen, all I saw was a bride running.”

I wince because I can’t avoid that my chainsaw is probably the reason. Its roar more than likely shattered a wedding ceremony, and my hold on that veil tightens, crumpling it between fingers that can hardly feel the lace between them. “I’ll take this back to the chapel.” The thought of doing that leaves me even gruffer. “Let her family know which way she was headed.”

That raises another question, my turn to step forward and for him to step back like we’re dancing. “Wait, if you aren’t here for the wedding, why are you in these woods?” Here’s what being a big brother also makes instinctive. I’m instantly suspicious, a hand dropping to my belt. “Only people with special clearance around kids are allowed here.” Yeah, the students aren’t back yet, but some of the live-in staff have kids. I picture little Adam, and this anger is instant. “If you aren’t invited to the wedding, you need to leave. Now. I’ll show you the way out.”

“Oh, I’ve got clearance, and I’m invited,” he insists before backing off, those dark eyes dancing again. “Only not to a wedding, which is a shame.”

He’s gone, swallowed up by these woods like that bride was.

Or almost.

“A great big growly guy like you with a big chopper?”

His voice drifts back laced with laughter.

“I’d ask you to be my plus-one in a heartbeat.”

2

HAYDEN

Be his plus-one at this wedding? My grin at that thought drops the moment I reach the chapel, where it looks like the wedding has been completely called off. There are no flowers around its doorway, no signs of guests inside. That old building seems empty, another abandoned ghost ship, silent instead of joyous.

Shit. I did ruin her big day.

Low sounds draw me from the tree line to the side of the building. A man stands there with his head hanging. If he is the groom, he’s much more casually dressed than that silently laughing stranger I met in the woods. But even without a smart suit, there’s no mistaking the hunch of his shoulders while the school padre consoles him, and man, I recognise the posture of someone who’s lost everything he ever wanted.

That unwelcome blast from the past makes it almost painful to inch closer instead of away. I push through that discomfort, no team doctors here to dull what comes out sounding rough and grating. “Hey.” I have to clear my throat. This still rasps. “I’m sorry.”

The padre stops his quiet consoling to turn my way, one eyebrow raised in question. Not because he’s snooty. He’s a nice guy. Of course he is—he’s Adam’s other daddy, and the scar that stops him from raising his other eyebrow doesn’t stop him from conveying compassion. “What on earth do you have to be sorry for, Hayden?”

“For being too noisy.” I heft the culprit that I backtracked to retrieve. Then I lower my chainsaw while fighting the urge to pull a Homer Simpson. Merging back into the woodland would be easier than continuing, but I’ve done that once already—hidden myself away after causing chaos. I’m not a teen these days. I’m older and more than man enough to face distress I’m to blame for. “I know how loud my chainsaw gets.” There’s a reason I wear ear defenders. “If I’d known a wedding was in progress, there’s no way I would have ruined it.”

The padre shakes his head. “You didn’t ruin a wedding, Hayden.”

The man I found him consoling agrees. “You really didn’t.” He also gives me a reason for his jeans and T-shirt. “This was only a run-through. A service rehearsal. Just for me and Willow. The wedding is tomorrow. Was tomorrow.” He looks sick for a moment before asking, “You were chainsawing out here?”

I nod at him as the padre answers, “I didn’t hear you.”

The groom confirms it. “Me neither.”

Relief rolls in, strong and sudden. So does awareness that this is the second non-Cornish accent I’ve heard this morning. Australian this time, I guess, instead of inner-city. I quit my wondering as soon as he speaks again. “And it’s my fault that the actual wedding won’t happen tomorrow, not yours.”

The padre reacts before I can, which is good. He must have had a lot of practice with unsure students. Today he steadies a groom who I guess had a change of heart with only twenty-four hours to spare.

No wonder his bride took off running.

Or maybe she changed her mind first.

Perhaps a third option is more likely. I’ve never been a fiancé but I’ve had my fair share of pre-match nerves, and I’ve witnessed plenty of non-players have them. Even Marc got a bad case of the jitters last year on that sea-view headland before exchanging vows with Stefan.

Nerves didn’t stop them both from getting their happy ending. Not with me as Marc’s best man, and maybe the definition of masochism was me marching him across the grass to where Stefan waited under an arch that I’d decorated with gorse blossom, but it does mean that I can say this with conviction.

“Honestly, nerves are normal. Weddings are bloody stressful.” I make an accent-based guess. “You’ve been planning yours long distance?” The groom nods. “That’s gotta be even more stressful, but it will be worth it and it will all work out. Just hang in there, yeah?”

I nod firmly and I don’t know when the school’s headmaster got here to nod right along with me. I only know that him taking over with a pep talk shouldn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is hearing my name used for reassurance.

“Yes, Finn. Listen to Hayden. He’s absolutely right. Everything will work out.”

Here’s what else I’ve picked up about Luke Lawson—he’s good at calming jittery people. It will all work out is what he says whenever Rowan gets wobbly about teaching music and his boyfriend isn’t around to be his firm foundation.

That is what Luke repeats now to someone just as shaky, but to be honest, this groom also reminds me of being stuck between big-league goalposts with less supportive coaches yelling at me. Luke doesn’t use any of their aggressive you wimp vocab. He clasps this groom’s shoulder to make a gentle promise, one I should back away from to let him make in private. And I would, only what he shares roots me.

“Finn, this only feels like the end of the world.”

The end of the world?

Fuck. Has this poor sod really been jilted?

A wave of something all too familiar floods me. Not that I’ve ever been anywhere close to marriage, but switch out a wedding for a life-changing place on a team, and yeah, I’ve been inches from that chance, and lost it.

I still can’t help clutching the handle of my chainsaw, my fist clenched like that guy in the woods clenched his at me before smiling without his lips moving. I’m snagged again now, like that veil he freed for me. This time I’m caught by the sight of someone else discovering that their happy ending is snarled by more than brambles.

Find out that your future is over before it started?

I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

Be unable to see a way out?

Maybe that’s why I set down my chainsaw and step into the open to spill what really matters. “You got your family with you?”

“Yes.” The groom—Finn—glances over his shoulder at that empty chapel. “I mean, both sets flew into the UK a week ago. Their train from London gets in later.”

“Then your world isn’t ending.” I must have inhaled sawdust while up in that tree, this croak is so dry and dusty. “I know because my world did end when I couldn’t bring my family home with me.”

The padre lets out a small sound, but I can’t look at him. He can save his compassion for the kids who come to Glynn Harber. Rowan says some of them are feral, and that they only snap and snarl because life hurt them early. That’s what this place is—a school for kids who didn’t ask for what happened to them, not a confessional for adults who caused all of their own problems.

I can’t look at Luke Lawson either. Not when I’ve heard him tell my noisy housemate that his past doesn’t define him.

This definitely defines me.

“You see, my family followed my dream. Supported me every step of the way after I got scouted.” I answer the padre’s sole raised eyebrow. “Football,” I tell him. “Goalie. Lived and breathed making save after save.”

My stepmum always said it’s what my long arms and legs were made for. What the chambers of my heart were built for before it cracked in public.

“And all my family ever wanted was to see me walk out onto a Premier League pitch and walk off ninety minutes later with a trophy. They even relocated so I could still live at home with them while at the academy.”

Luke Lawson asks, “Academy? Which one scouted you? And when?”

“When I was fifteen. By the Supernus Soccer Academy.” That is the elite feeder for England’s top clubs. “I got to train with the best of the best, all of us fighting for a chance to sign first-team contracts.”

I’m aware that he frowns. I’m also aware that another of Glynn Harber’s teachers has joined us. This art master holding a stack of sketchbooks is a nice guy. I saw Solomon leave for France at the start of the summer. Now he’s back with a question. “What happened?”

“I got my shot at making my dream come true.” And my family’s. I shrug shoulders that are broader these days—that can carry what it cost them. “It took two years, but I almost made it with my stepmum right there to watch me.”

Another voice asks, “And your sisters?” and a quick glance suggests the man I met in the woods must have found his way to the art building. Like Solomon, he now holds a stack of sketchbooks and tilts his head, waiting for my answer.

This is a piss-poor time to get self-conscious all over again, but this stranger who made a plus-one suggestion while dressed smartly enough for a real wedding only reminds me that I’m a scruffy fucker with burrs in my beard. And that I’ve been shat on by wood pigeons.

Everyone here must have noticed.

They’ll also get to hear about me getting shat on by life if I keep going, and who wants to hear that sob story?

My gaze skips away from dancing dark eyes to land on the padre’s half-frozen, half-sympathetic expression before skipping again to the headmaster. All of Luke Lawson’s concerned forehead furrows mean it’s easier to focus on Finn. At least him listening to me bleat about my worst day distracts him from his own. The whole time, it’s hard to resist taking another look at someone who joked about the size of my chopper before curling his fists, despite my height and weight advantage.

He was brave.

I wasn’t.

Not when it really mattered.

Maybe that’s why my gaze doesn’t only land on him. It sticks like the burrs in my beard. Those clingy fuckers have hooks. I wish I did as well to stop this landslide, this plunge into a second pool of prolonged eye contact where he smiles without his lips curving and mine can’t help parting to spill my whole truth. Or almost.

“Yeah,” I partially admit. “My sisters got to watch me walk onto a Premier League pitch with a top team.” This part is harder to admit. “And they got to see me get escorted off right before kickoff.”

Here’s what I hope is actually helpful. I meet the groom’s eyes and tell him, “Next to my dad, my sisters and my stepmum were my number one supporters. He was my first and best coach. They were my cheerleaders. He almost made it in football once himself. Got a second shot through me. I lost it for all of them on the worst day of my life.” This is the part that really matters. “I’m still standing. You and your fiancée will too.”

That plus-one stranger reclaims my attention. “Escorted off?”

He’s right to question my word choice. I’d been marched away with TV cameras trained on the Novac name printed across my shoulders. Not in the same way I marched Marc across a headland towards the man he married—my ending wasn’t half as happy. Finn’s still can be, but it isn’t him who asks, “Why?” and it sucks that this is the moment that the sun takes another shot at finding fire, this time in a dark gaze. It burns intensely, lingering and molten, which only spotlights that he’s…

Fuck me, he’s a looker.

Forget that smart black suit. Forget the beard that is so much neater than mine. His gaze has a wild edge, and wildness has always done it for me.

It conjures cliffs and tors and moorland.

Spells sleeping under stars with nothing but the beat of my bruised heart for music.

Most of all, it magics up hope that I’ll somehow get to stay here. That is even more unlikely now everyone knows I didn’t have the grit to reach my potential, even if they don’t know why.

Luke Lawson saves me from blurting that shameful confession. “Finn, your family will want the same as Hayden’s. To be here for you in good times and bad.” That’s only part of my story, but he mentions what I suppose must have sent that bride running. “You couldn’t have predicted your wedding venue would go bankrupt with no warning. That you’d have nowhere for your guests to stay or to hold your celebration.”

Ah, shit.

Luke winces along with me before adding. “Getting that news during your rehearsal was far from optimal, but flowers and food only make a wedding. Willow knows what is truly important.”

“The marriage?”

I nod like Luke does at Finn’s answer, then I nod again as he keeps going.

“I-I know that flowers and food don’t matter.” He takes a staggering breath, which is all too familiar. This is what someone digging deep to play through his pain sounds like, and I wish I didn’t know that. Playing through my own only led to worse hurt in the long run, but maybe this groom really has got more grit than me and isn’t done yet.

It sounds that way when he says, “We both know the marriage is the important part, not all of our savings going down the drain. It’s just that Willow’s heart was… is…” He glances in the direction I last saw his bride run, and his swallow might be a dry click but he digs deep again. “I let her go because she said she had a way to solve it. Willow always finds a way. Nothing stops her when she knows what she wants.”

No one argues with him. He still does what my very first coach drilled into my team at training sessions—if I was under attack in goal, Dad said their job was to protect me. This guy is just as quick to come to his fiancée’s defence.

“Not because she’s some kind of bridezilla.”

“Of course not,” Luke agrees. “Willow couldn’t be even if she tried.” He gives an example. “Remember when I took on the school headship? I didn’t have time for two homesick gap-year students, but what did both of you do?” He answers his own question. “You and Willow threw yourselves into helping me through the toughest weeks of my professional life.” He points away from the chapel towards where the woods are thickest. “And you were part of the search party when little Tor Trelawney got lost, remember?”

Finn nods, a smile almost flickering.

“He isn’t so little these days,” Luke says, “but I’ll never forget who stayed behind to make sure the rest of my youngest students weren’t frightened while you helped scour the woods for him.”

Now Finn’s voice turns strangled. “Willow.”

Luke nods. “And I’ve never forgotten her kindness with the little ones that day, either. With everyone. I’m sure the years since haven’t changed that aspect of her. Of course she isn’t a bridezilla. She knows we’ll help to make the best of it right here. We can definitely feed your guests in the dining hall. I only wish the school could be prettier for your photos.” He looks back as if he can see the scaffolding that has surrounded the main building all summer. “The main issue will be bedrooms. Some of the sixth-form students are already back, so I can’t host anyone in the boarding houses.”

I see Finn nod, his shoulders hunching again, and that should be a signal for me to leave them to their problem-solving. I even make a start on that by retreating, until I’m stopped by dark eyes studying me as if I’m a puzzle, not an ex-footballing fuckup, then I’m distracted by Finn’s next statement.

“Willow only ever wanted to come back to Cornwall.”

It was that simple for me as well.

When my world ended, running home was all I’d wanted, even if the house I grew up in no longer held my nearest and dearest.

Finn’s voice strengthens. “You know, we thought about getting married in California or in Australia, but either location meant travel for our families. Willow wanted the wedding here because it’s where I asked her to marry me.”

Luke can look forbidding with all of those deep forehead furrows. He’s a different person when he’s delighted. “You proposed here? At Glynn Harber?” And yeah, he loves this place too, right down to his marrow. Call me a sap, but I recognise that bone-deep connection with bricks and mortar. With deep roots and with safe havens.

“Almost,” Finn says. He points in the direction of the moors beyond this woodland. “I actually popped the question on the top of High Tor while we watched the sun set over the sea.” He lets out a soft snort, and yeah, I don’t care if this makes me even more of a sap, but I’ve always been a sucker for a happy ending, so I’m surprised by the turn this story next takes. “And that’s where she turned me down flat.”

I can’t hold back a shocked blurt. “She turned you down?”

I’ve seen this groom with bowed shoulders and recognised crushing disappointment. Heard his voice waver, and remembered being voiceless. Now another voice speaks, and forget sunsets—his bride returns, and Finn’s smile is as bright as any sunrise at her saying, “I told you to ask me again when we knew each other better.”

“Willow.”

Her eyes are rimmed red, her arms scratched by brambles, but at least a wedding dress didn’t get ruined by her sprint through the woods. She’s dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and has brought reinforcements.

Charles holds Adam on his hip and pushes his pram towards us, all while apologising.

“So sorry, but Casterley is booked solid, unless you can wait until the end of next week?”

Casterley must be another wedding venue. That isn’t what holds my attention. This bride-to-be walking into Finn’s open arms does, and I’m not sure we’re all meant to hear what she adds as they embrace, but sound carries in this valley, and yeah, I’m the big softy who can’t help melting the minute she murmurs, “But I couldn’t wait, could I? Had to fly out to propose. You saying yes was the best day of my life. Us getting married tomorrow will be even better. We can’t leave it over a week.”

Finn nods, and turns to tell us, “Our families need to fly home.”

Her eyes shining make me think what she says next is a lie. “I’ll be happy even if we don’t have a party. Or flowers.” She touches her hair. “Or the full hair and makeup package. I only wish I hadn’t tried on my veil for the practice run-through.”

I’m still being watched by dark eyes, or maybe I’m the one doing all the staring because I get to see a smile light them as soon as she says, “I lost it in the woods.”

I don’t know why that stranger winking at me again makes me stutter like Rowan does whenever he catches me in a damp towel after showering. Like him, I struggle to get my words out.

“I-I found it.”

I pull that veil from my pocket and get honest.

“But it wasn’t me who untangled it from the brambles for you. It was him.” I nod towards a man with much more nimble fingers than my thick ones, and his smile makes it all the way to his mouth.

“We made a good team…” He hesitates before adding, “Hayden?”

I haven’t been part of a team in forever. I still nod and accept the handshake he offers, unable to feel his grip while my hand tingles, and he must notice that tremor. A slight frown flickers. “Lewis Raeburn,” he tells me. “Rae to my friends.”

Here is something else I haven’t been in forever—the last time I got to feel a hero was after getting scouted. Today, I get a second shot with Lewis Raeburn watching.

“Listen, Finn? Willow?”

They face me.

“You wanted a sea view for your wedding party?”

They nod.

“And you’ll need accommodation for you and all of your guests?”

They nod again, and here I go, trying to make a save.

“No promises, but I might know a place with both where you could hold your celebration.”

So what if I missed my first shot.

I do have friends who own a wedding venue.

3

RAE

If my sister were here to boss me around, she’d hustle me away from this three-act drama that I nosily can’t stop watching.

“Rude, Rae,” Mia would say. “Stop minding other people’s business before they mind it for you.”

That was the first rule of flying under the radar where we grew up. Staring at people spelled trouble—attracted attention—and not the good kind, like from that big guy by the chapel who keeps flashing glances my way.

“Stop staring,” she’d warn me. “You’ll only get distracted, or worse.”

Mia would be right about that outcome, which is why I’m here for a second shot at drawing a happy ending. For her. And I might get to do it, if I can complete the illustrations for a children’s book that an agent says is almost but not quite finished. Only here’s the thing about me—I’m the world’s best at starting projects.

Completing them?

Ugh.

I’d rather turn a new page and doodle. Perhaps that’s why the drama playing out beside this chapel is compelling. It’s a perfect distraction from work I have no idea how to finish.

Settle on a hero, that agent told me. One hero, Rae, not several. That’s what this unhappy couple needs too—a hero to save their big day for them, and that ex-goalie could be it.

He’s calling in a favour, and after what he said about making a walk of shame in front of his own sisters, I kinda want this win for him, so I settle in to watch.

Glynn Harber’s art master has other plans, and Sol Trebeck is a persistent fucker. He always has been, even if he looks like Bambi’s wide-eyed, less assertive cousin. “Rae?” He nudges my arm and keeps his voice low. “How about we leave them to it, yeah?”

“How about, no?” I stand my ground. “Wait for two more minutes, Sol. I wanna see how this plays out.”

Sol hooks a hand through my elbow. “How about, yes? Come on. I need to leave soon to get Cameron to London.” He means his nephew, who, in the years since I last saw him, has turned into an adult. That’s wild, when it only seems like five minutes ago that he was a little kid who used to visit us at art college. Now he’s heading there himself, which is wild too. It’s also shitty timing. “Come on,” Sol repeats. “I’ve found somewhere for you to stay until I get back. Someplace where you can plan your next meeting.”

“Meeting?”

For a moment I’m blank, a goldfish complete with a three-second memory, too busy goggling to answer. Not at Sol. It’s a much bigger man with burrs in his beard and bird shit on his shoulders I can’t look away from.

Look away from him?

I’m too busy picturing him in my sketchbook.

What if I drew him wrapped in oak leaves or ivy? Maybe add a few birds peeking out of that shaggy beard and⁠—

“Yes,” Sol reminds me. “Your second meeting with that agent on Monday. I looked up her details. Your mentor must have called in one hell of a favour for her to let you pitch your idea to her not once but twice.”

He isn’t wrong. Like that ex-football player trying to help this unlucky couple, my mentor won’t give up on me either. I should feel grateful for this second chance he’s scored for me.

Right now?

Monday’s deadline smothers me like a sand dune, and believe me, once those fuckers start to slide, they don’t stop for anybody. Neither will this weekend countdown on me finally figuring out how to fix a journey I’ve drawn over and over, one I started years ago and still haven’t finished.

Sol still tries to herd me away. “You got some ideas about how to revise your pitch yet?”

“No. Not yet.” And maybe never if I can’t find my focus.

He must see me come to the same conclusion. Sol always was observant, good at noticing my most preoccupied moments when we should have been studying together. Now he nudges me away from another diversion.

“Let’s go plan a strategy, yeah? Break down what the agent wants to see into smaller sections. I only wish I didn’t have to shoot off when you just got here. Come back after your meeting, yeah? So we can catch up properly?”

“I would, only I gotta head back to France.”

“Already?” He’s such a mother hen. Here he goes clucking. “Okay. That’s even more reason to get started.” He steers me further away from this huddle of high drama.

I crane my neck to soak up a not-so-happy couple listening in on a phone call, and I glimpse them both tensing as Hayden says⁠—

I don’t get to hear. Not when Sol says, “If the sprinkler system in the art building wasn’t being reworked, you could have stayed at my place while I’m away. Luckily, Rowan is staying with his boyfriend for the weekend. He’s okay with you borrowing his room.”

I stop Sol from drawing me away any further, standing my ground again while whispering, “Listen, I don’t want to crash anyone else’s private space. I don’t even need a bed. I can always camp.” Fuck knows I’ve spent months doing just that across the English Channel. For now, I’m more interested in whether that goalie will get to make his save, which doesn’t look too likely. He’s still holding that veil. It’s as white as his knuckles when he ends one call only to make another, all while looking worried.

Atlas.

That’s who I’d draw him as.

Atlas wrapped in ivy, only with a giant football on his shoulders and⁠—

“No need to camp,” Sol promises. “There’s room for you at the stables. You’ll have the place almost all to yourself all weekend to work on your pitch revisions. And you’ll get to sleep on a real bed.”

He always did know how to tempt me. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t sleep on a camping mat or air mattress. My spine could weep at the thought. “Some alone time would actually be good, thanks.” Even being almost alone would be amazing. After the hustle and bustle of my last encampment, any peace is hard to imagine. So is a happy ending materialising for the story that Sol hustles me away from.

“Come on. Let’s go, so I’ve got time to take a look at your drawings before I leave. I want to read your story.”

“Not yet, yeah?”

I’m not done listening to another.

Hayden’s, right?

I drag my feet, hoping to hear him solve that bride and groom’s problem. It’s sweet how hard he’s trying. Almost as sweet as when he’d worried about that veil snarled by brambles, and that is what he hands to the bride after ending his second attempt to make a phone call.

White lace is caught by the breeze, billowing in a gauzy cloud between us. He’s out of my sight, but only for an instant, and I have no clue if Sol gives more reasons for us to get moving. I’m rooted to the spot, and so what if I can’t hear what Hayden tells that hopeful bride when she shows him that some kind of clasp or comb on the veil is broken. Sunlight tells its own story, flashing like the blade he unsheathes to slice through willow.

Not through the woman.

Jesus, wouldn’t that paint a different picture?

I mean that he slashes through a tree that shares her name. Or through a few of its whip-thin branches, at least.

She shakes out her veil again, like a cape for a superhero, and fuck knows I’ve drawn enough of those with children who needed protection. Now I watch a Cornish hero twist that weeping willow into a circle. He also takes that veil back before abruptly stopping.

He looks up.

Our eyes meet, and I see⁠—

Is that fear?

It can’t be. Not from someone his size.

Panic then.

That feels closer to the truth, and I’ve seen plenty from parents on beaches lately, stuck between war and water.

I don’t do politics. Art is my thing, the more playful the better, so using crayons to distract kids while others shielded them from traffickers has kept me busy all summer. Today I get a chance to do more than play at helping. I don’t even know if Sol attempts to stop me from butting in where I’m uninvited. I’m locked in on what is clear as day to me, and so what if my focus can be fickle? Right now, a shaking pair of hands are my sole target, and yeah, I can solve a problem for this big guy who isn’t scared or panicked.

What I see from up close is obvious.

He’s embarrassed.

He’s desperate as well, all while trying to fix the veil to this pretty circlet he’s made for this bride having a bad day.

His fingers won’t let him.

That’s confusing when I just saw him slice those whip-thin willow branches with zero issue. I also saw him hefting a huge chainsaw, and make that look easy. This delicate movement stumps him, the lace too fine for him to wrangle, so I do it for him, or I try to.

He doesn’t let go of the circlet or lace right away. He even backs off.

I match him step for step, my hands over his, and yeah, they’re trembling.

“No one else can see you’re shaking,” I say quietly, not sure if that matters to him.

Perhaps it does—he stops retreating. He still doesn’t let me help him, not until I remember what I glimpsed through branches after joking with him that he could be my wedding plus-one.

He’s got a sense of humour. I saw that between leaves before leaving, and that joke about his chopper changed him—left him grinning—and wasn’t that quite the transformation? Now I aim for more of the same.

“Let me tie the veil onto the circlet for you. I’m good at knots.” I lower my voice even further. “And I’m even better at wriggling out of them.”

“Yeah?” He’s dubious.

“Yes,” I say more firmly. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been promised a good time, only to be left tied to a bed and waiting.”

A beat too late, I remember Sol on nights out at art college, telling me I’d get mashed and crushed one day by joking with the wrong person, but here’s the thing about me: I’ve got a decent radar. One that pinged earlier at Hayden eyeing me up, if covertly, back in the woods. And here’s the thing about men with overgrown, untamed beards like his. It can’t hide brightness that doesn’t stop at his smile. His eyes gleam too, and I’m surprised into laughter at his murmured answer.

“Handcuffs it is, then.”

This is even quieter.

“And maybe a gag.”

He makes a request while I’m laughing. “Help me?”

I do. I secure that veil to its new leafy circlet and then I return to Sol, only turning one more time to see the bride let Hayden crown her.

Leaves settle, lace floats, and she grins, as pretty as any picture.

I lock that smile away to draw another time. And his. Or I would lock his smile away, only his head is bent, so I’ve missed my moment.

Sol clasps my elbow. “Nice save, Rae.” He tugs. “Come on. Let’s go get your things and a key to the stables.”

I almost get moving, only a ringing phone stops me.

Not mine.

It’s Hayden’s. “Marc?” he says into his handset. “Listen, you know how you don’t run weddings during harvest time? Yeah, how it’s too busy on the farm? Well, I need a favour.”

I don’t hear the rest. Not because Sol pulls me away. Hayden’s voice lowers, so this final act is inaudible. His shit-speckled shoulders bow first as if expecting bad news. The bride’s and groom’s shoulders tense right along with his, and that worry?

I’ve seen too much of it on beaches lately.

Then he straightens, and this blinding smile of triumph? This version of him as a winner?

I’ve got to draw it.

4

RAE

Everyone has a weakness. Mine isn’t limited to distraction. I’m also the worst at speaking without thinking. I do that after peering around the front door of the school while waiting for Sol to return with a key.

“Are kids really coming back from their summer break on Monday? To what?” I ask a nosy blackbird perched on scaffolding. “Complete chaos?” I wish I could haul that back when I realise I’m not alone like I thought. The headteacher must have followed us from the chapel, where we left a much happier couple making arrangements for their wedding party.

The glass in the school door reflects an unhappy expression, and I hate that I’m the dick who carved those forehead furrows, only he doesn’t give me a chance to backtrack or to say sorry.

“It does look that way, doesn’t it, Lewis?” He opens the door for me like he isn’t offended. “Excuse all the dust and packing boxes. As you can see, we’re a very late work in progress.”

“Uh, thanks, Mr. Lawson. And yes. I can see that. But it’s actually Rae.”

“Rae?” Those frown lines deepen. They fade just as quickly. “Ah. From your surname?”

“Yes.” Here’s another of my specialties: My mouth disengages from my brain all too often, going off in tangents, but people expect quirkiness from artists, don’t they? That’s my only excuse for opening my gob and letting this spill. “Although my little sister should get the real credit. She always said I was a ray of fuc⁠—”

I snap my mouth closed before swearing, because yeah, I’m extra scattered when adrenaline takes the wheel and steers, like it has since I got a not yet instead of a firm yes at my meeting this morning, but it’s no excuse for being a dickhead. “Sorry. Honestly, a few packing boxes? That’s nothing. I’ve spent the last six months in real chaos.” I try to redeem my first impression by nudging one of those boxes with my knee. “Can I help?”

That almost earns me a smile. It also earns me an armful of books, and maybe following him down a corridor while holding bestselling titles by real illustrators is some kind of punishment for me calling his school a mess, but it’s also a reminder of how much I need to be here, so I shoulder my portfolio, hold that stack of books even tighter, and hurry after him to make a better first impression.

“Sol says you’re doing great things here.” I cite someone else with school connections. “And Reece Trelawney had a lot of positive things to say about Glynn Harber when I met him.”

Luke Lawson isn’t distracted by my mention of a counsellor from a neighbouring children’s project. Mine is all about art, and I’m a one-man band. Reece is all about play and he has a big team, including some of this school’s teachers. In fact, I’m almost certain I met this headmaster’s partner.

What was his name?

“Nathan!” I virtually shout. “Nathan said you had big plans to expand the school. To offer more free places to kids in trouble.”

He stops, his head tilting like that blackbird perched on the scaffolding, and it isn’t often that I’m studied like this. It’s usually me who does all the watching before setting pencil to paper. This role reversal is disconcerting. So is his request.

“Tell me about your chaos, Rae.”

Fuck my life. He isn’t going to let me insulting his school drop, is he?

Today really is going to shit.

First, I get a verbal revise-and-resubmit instead of the offer of representation that I’d banked on, then I turn up here with virtually no warning only to find Sol leaving. Now I’m blowing my chance to regroup before heading back to my own version of a front line, because how the fuck else can I describe where I’ve just come from?

This pops out.

“You ever see the movie Dunkirk?”

He nods, and I bet he’s picturing landing craft and tanks. Explosions and soldiers from the 1940s.

“My art project is based at one of the beaches in the movie. The kids come from nearby migrant camps.” Those are a whole other kind of war zone. I can hear that this sounds hollow. “Whatever happens on Monday, I’m heading back to draw their stories.”

I’m suddenly worn out.

He must see that—his clipped tone turns gentle. “Let me show you why I ask about chaos, Rae.”

He leads me to a notice board holding photos of students on top of a rocky high point. They all hold up rocks as if they’re lifting trophies, their smiles brilliant.

“Many of our boarding students come from chaotic backgrounds.” He points at a tall, black kid. “Like Teo. He narrowly avoided a spell in a youth offender institution before he came here. He doesn’t trust easily, and now that his best friend is leaving for uni, he’s back to feeling unsettled.” He moves on to point out a redhead. “Same goes for Noah. He’s unsettled because his chaos comes from a brush with gang violence. Friendships feel dangerous to him. That’s why I brought them back to school early to keep them busy and help them both feel needed, but we’re about to have an influx of students from similar difficult backgrounds. What will help them all to bond is something Sol told me you excelled at.”

“Me?”

“You.” He nods. “At friendship-making.”

That’s a kind way of describing my chaotic art sessions, but man, I need this weekend to regroup so badly that I roll with it.

“Y-yes?”

He has to hear my hesitation. Here he goes again, tilting his head, and yeah, I’d definitely draw him as a beady-eyed blackbird with a speech bubble saying, “It certainly looked like your skill set in these photos.” He opens the door to the only dust-free space I’ve seen so far.

This library must be a new addition. It’s bright and modern even if the bookshelves are mostly empty. The noticeboards lining the walls aren’t. They’re full, covered in⁠—

“That’s me.”

The blown-up photo I head for shows a familiar beach. It also shows me, oblivious to a camera that caught a sandy moment where kids stopped being strangers and became friends with each other.

“Yes,” Luke Lawson murmurs. He takes the stack of books I’ve carried and sets them on a shelf. “I thought it was you, only minus…” He touches his chin.

My own hand rises to a beard I’m not sure yet if I’m keeping. “This must have been taken when I first got there. Soon found out there wasn’t a whole lot of fresh water to waste on shaving.”

He nods. “Nathan said the same when he was there. This is you too?” He points to another shot.

If I’m in this photo, I don’t notice. I’m too busy soaking up familiar little faces as he asks, “This was your friendship-making art project?”

“Is still my project. I haven’t finished helping them map each other’s journeys yet.”

“You help map their journeys. Why?”

The short answer is so that someone else on the planet would know they existed, but I give him a friendship-related answer. “They don’t all share a language. Drawing their old homes, their toys, the things they left behind shows what they have in common.”

“Then you turned them into heroes,” Luke Lawson says, touching the edge of a cape crayoned on paper.

“That was easy.” I search another photo, and point. “Take her. Leena’s dad was a translator in Kabul. When the British army pulled out, his family were on the list to be airlifted.” How the fuck they made it to France after that plane took off without them would make a blockbuster movie. “So many of them have similar stories.” And this is where my publishing pitch went south.

I replay what that agent told me.

Pick a single soul for readers to root for. To hope for. To learn to love and want the best for. Then put a unique spin on their journey.

Choosing a single hero is my problem.

How the fuck do I only pick one?

Perhaps he sees that worry flicker. His murmur takes a moment to register. “Show me, Rae?”

I unzip my portfolio for the second time today and flip open my sketchbook to show a stern-faced headmaster what I shared with the agent who told me to tighten my focus.

Luke Lawson has a different perspective. “The children got to see these drawings of themselves through your eyes?”

I nod.

“What a gift for them.” He traces a finger below a sketch of a winding road dotted with landmarks, and he touches the edge of a cape worn by the child flying high above them. “This is their life path? The key moments they remember? What about yours?”

“Mine?”

“Your key moments, Rae. Your motivation for being with them.”

I didn’t expect this question. No one’s ever asked me. It surprises me into saying, “Kids shouldn’t grow up like we did.”

“We, Rae?” he asks slow and careful, and fuck him being a blackbird. I’m observed now by a fierce eagle. Or a wise owl. He misses nothing, all while touching one of those landmarks I helped a lost child draw to remember where they came from. Maybe that’s why I answer.

“I mean me and Mia.”

He doesn’t rush to fill the extended pause that draws out next, which is clever. It’s also a familiar tactic, and I’m suddenly homesick. Not for where I grew up, like so many kids have shown me. I’m homesick for a place most people would think was hell on earth, because Luke Lawson reminds me of Reece, who didn’t even work on the same project as me, and yet found the time to pause on a French beach until I got busy talking.

“We ended up in a home. A kids’ home. In care.”

“In care?” Luke murmurs. “Me too. I always think that’s where my real life started.”

That honesty opens floodgates. I tell him what I haven’t even shared with Reece—about waking up to an empty fridge and the TV missing. To my game system gone, and the same for my sister’s. “All sold for some more fucking gear.” He doesn’t flinch at me cursing, and that helps me to add more. This part is always the hardest. “For our mum.”

He only says, “That must have been rough.”

I nod. It was. I also realise he’s pushing a pencil towards me, and man, I’m tempted to pick it up and draw, only I wouldn’t sketch a living room minus its telly and Sky box. I’d crosshatch the long shadows cast by dealers or spill ink the same shade as shame when there was nothing to eat in my lunchbox. I didn’t care about that for me. I hated having to tell a teacher so that someone would make sure Mia wasn’t hungry.

“Where I come from, gear is everywhere.” I couldn’t change any of that, so I shake my head. “I’d rather focus on their journey.” I touch the outline of foreign landmarks in my sketchbook. “Where they’ve been and what they think their future will be full of.”

I repeat what a worker at a children’s home said after reading a bedtime story I felt I was far too old for at seven and only listened to because my sister wouldn’t let go of me.

That story is why I’m here now. Every time I read it, I hear it in that care worker’s singsong Barbados accent, and I tell Luke all about the book that made a difference for me. That isn’t what I intended to do here today, but some people are born to listen, and others? Well, if they’re anything like me, they’ll be chatty fuckers who don’t have an off-switch.

“There can still be happy endings for kids like us. I mean, like me and my sister.” Luke nods like I included him in that category, and yeah, I can roll with that too. “There’s power in believing in those, right?” Luke nods again, so I keep going. “My mentor wrote and illustrated that bedtime story. If you haven’t got any titles by him in your library, you need them. All of them. Or your students do, at least, if they’ve been where we have.”

I don’t know why I thought Luke Lawson was intimidating. He’s interested, that’s all. So interested that he picks up a pen and asks for the author’s name.

I can do even better. I dig into my portfolio case to pull out my signed copy of the first journey that inspired me—a book I’ve shared with so many kids who can’t see past today or believe in tomorrow. “Here. See what you think for yourself. It changed my life.”

“Because?”

I shrug. “Because it showed another kid surviving life with… Life after…”

My struggle seems to help him come to a decision. “Glynn Harber has a long tradition of students drawing tough journeys.” He opens a desk drawer and removes fragile paper. This scroll is yellowed at the edges. So is the first picture I see as it unrolls across the desk.

Fire.

Luke explains. “This was found in a time capsule buried in the school foundation. It was drawn by a child whose family came from Poland after the Second World War. Their home was bombed. Obliterated. Nothing left of where they came from, the forest his father used to manage before the war burnt to ash. Those must have been little Olek’s bedtime stories for him to draw what his parents remembered so clearly.”

Next comes a sketch of a camp like I just left. Rows of tents go on forever. He tells me this camp was more local. “It’s hard to believe now that Polish families lived in encampments right here in Cornwall for years after fighting ended.”

“They were prisoners of war?” That doesn’t seem right. “Wait. I thought⁠—”

“That Britain went to war for Poland? Yes. Like Poland would have gone to war for us. That’s what treaties are for. Agreements to support each other. To treat each other’s people as equal citizens. To offer refuge and a peaceful future.”

That’s another reminder of a little girl whose parents were promised the same. Now Luke pulls evidence of an older journey than hers from that desk drawer.

This faded book is a diary with Olek W. written on its cover. “Our old student wrote in here about his father being in a Polish fighter pilot regiment that joined with our Royal Air Force. About how the encampments here were full of the families of other Polish pilots who defended Britain. I keep meaning to ask Hayden if any were his relatives.”

“Hayden?”

“Yes. Hayden Novac.” He lifts his head, turning to the window for a second while I picture burrs in a beard and a slow-to-spread smile. “He’s almost finished taming our school grounds.” Luke touches some childish handwriting in that old diary. “I hope he has time to translate the rest of this writing before he leaves us. The part about this student’s goals.”

That’s apt—the next drawing is of an old-style football, the stitching visible through brown leather as clear now as when a Polish boy drew it. “Hang on.” I look up from a footballing aspiration shared by plenty of the migrant kids I’ve worked with. “The Second World War? That’s what, eighty years ago?”

“Almost. This student was born after the war ended.” He meets my eye. “Listen, I know you want to rush back to France, and I know we’re in a mess here, but if you had the time to help our new sixth-form students draw their own journeys like this, to make friends while working through where they’ve come from and where they’re going, you’d be very welcome to stay for longer.”

“Thanks, Mr. Lawson, but⁠—”

“Luke, please. And there’s no need to answer right away. Just think about it, Rae. No pressure.” He pauses before confessing, “My own children had similar journeys. You mentioned meeting Nathan? He found them during a humanitarian mission, so I know what your line of work takes out of a person. Nathan has more to give when he has fuel in his tank. When he’s well rested. You could give yourself a little grace right here to do the same if you wanted.”

Reece Trelawney told me the same before I headed for my meeting. Said I shouldn’t hurry back if I didn’t want to burn out. That if I worked with him on his Safe Harbour project, he’d insist I take a real break. Now the library door opens, and someone else who wants me to stay for longer says, “There you are.” Sol holds out a key. “Ready?”

Luke slides that yellowing scroll away but holds onto the diary while walking us to the front door of this building, where he repeats what is spelled out in floor tile mosaic under my feet.

“Welcome to Glynn Harber, Rae. For a weekend, for a week, or for longer.” He smiles, and wow, that makes a world of difference. “To be honest, I’m hoping for at least a week, especially as you’re a friendship-making expert. Our students need those skills more than anything else we can teach them. There’s proof of how vital that is in here.” He hands me that old diary. “You don’t need to be able to read Polish to see the impact of the friendships Olek made during his first year here. He drew them for us. That’s what I want for our new cohort.”

He points at the minibus in the car park. “Sol will be up and down to London over the next few weeks to bring our new sixth-form students here in small groups. I’ll take them camping right away. That’s where the real bonding happens before they get swamped by a brand-new school.” That smile melts all his sternness. “If you still need somewhere to decompress after your meeting, come with us. See the start of their new journeys. Be part of them with us.”

We leave him on that doorstep, and Sol leads me around the building to an old stable block.

“It’s a bit cramped and the light won’t be brilliant, but let’s spread out your work while no one else is inside so I can take a good look.”

I have a better idea. “Or you could leave it to me and go spend the weekend with your man.” Because that’s the other reason Sol is leaving. “Where is he flying in from?”

“From New York.” Sol’s smile is helpless. “We’ll get Cameron settled into his halls and then have our first time alone together since I don’t know when.”

I take the door key from him. “So you better make the most of it. I’ll take it from here.”

“But we were going to break down your project into smaller tasks.”

“No, you were, Sol.” He always tried to save me from myself at college, which was pointless. He’s a grafter—a sure and steady worker—while I’m wired for frenzied, last-minute surges. But we still both crossed the finish line, didn’t we? “I’ll figure out how to fix my pitch. The answer will come to me, no worries. Go bang your man’s brains out. I’ve got this.”

“You sure?” He sets down my bags, already drifting back towards the car park.

“One hundred percent.” A new idea has already started to percolate. I just need to give it space to bubble to the surface, hopefully before Monday. That’s a whole weekend away. Days and days. Right now that feels like forever. “I’ll be fine.”

He backs off while calling out, “You’re forgetting that I know what your version of fine means, Rae.” Here’s proof of how well he knows me. “The F stands for fucking up your timing. The I is for ignoring your deadlines until it’s almost too late. The N? I bet that still stands for no time left on the clock, and the E⁠—”

He stops dead.

We both know what the E used to stand for at college. Ecstasy fuelled plenty of creativity for the artists we shared studio space with. He knows why I’d never touch it—or speed, which might actually have helped my focus—but there was no way I’d risk triggering what can run in families. I still won’t.

Sol looks sick for almost bringing up the subject. I let him off the hook, I hope, by joking. “The E stands for me drowning myself in energy drinks, yeah?”

His smile re-emerges. “Then you’ll blast out something perfect.”

I’ll need to, given what’s riding on this. My project is self-funded, and I’ve run out of money long before I’ve run out of kids going through much worse than I did.

That thought does sober me in a hurry.

Sol’s smile slips. He also retraces his steps, and this is where anyone who thinks he’s as wide-eyed and wary as Bambi can’t truly know him. He doesn’t shy away from asking this tough question.

“How is the fam? Sorry, I should have asked already.” He meets my eyes, his own so expressive that I wish to fuck he had time to sit for me. I’d draw a whole world of caring in each iris, a supportive galaxy of stars in each of his inky pupils if a clock wasn’t ticking for him.

Time isn’t on my side today, nor is avoiding his question, so I answer quickly. “Mia’s good.” I heft my portfolio like a shield against more probing. “I’ve got everything I need in here. Pens, pencils, sketchbooks. Go, Sol.”

He backs away again, if slowly. “Smash it on Monday, Rae.”

“I will.”

I’d better.

He jogs away, and I turn the key in a door underneath a lucky horseshoe. It opens to prove Sol right about this living space being cosy. He was wrong though about no one else being here.

Someone wet and almost naked leaves a bathroom. Steam billows, but I still recognise him. Hayden is a foggy vision that I itch to put on paper, and his hands must still tremble because his towel slips as he tries to cinch it.

And as for me?

If I’m gonna do him justice, I’ll need a bigger sketchbook.

5

HAYDEN

Thank fuck I’m in too much of a hurry to feel awkward, and I had years of being naked around players in club changing rooms. At least my hands cooperate enough that I can knot my towel more firmly while Rae apologises.

“Sorry. Sol said there was a spare room here where I could get my head down. To work.”

“Work?”

“On some drawings. Got a deadline for them on Monday. I won’t be here for long, but I wasn’t expecting⁠—”

“To walk in on anyone? I only came back to clean up.” I tug at one of the burrs in my beard. “I’m heading out as soon as I can shift these. Make yourself at home.” I show Rae to Rowan’s room, still tugging at a burr that shows no sign of shifting.

He dumps his bag and portfolio on the bed. “You got scissors?”

“Scissors? Why?”

He gestures at my face. “Because they’re as snagged as that veil was, and you’re making it worse.” He isn’t wrong about that, or this. “The only way they’re coming out is if someone with a steadier hand than yours cuts them free for you. Or you can go ahead and stab yourself in the eye. Your choice.” He softens that bluntness with a smile that touches his lips as well as his eyes, and this is softer. “I’m just saying it’s no problem for me. You helped that bride and groom. Finn and Willow, yeah? Found them somewhere to celebrate their wedding?”

A ripple of pride rises. Not for me. Marc and Stefan are the ones who came through with a venue for free, so I nod.

He nods too. “Then let someone help you.”

He makes it simple to agree, and before I know it, I’m back in the bathroom where he raises scissors to my throat like he threatened to do with my bramble cutter. This time he does it for friendlier reasons. I still instinctively take a step back.

“Hold still.” His hand lands on my hip and he snips burrs away.

I swallow dryly. Close contact wasn’t on my play sheet for this morning. Hasn’t been for the whole summer if I’m honest. I’m hyperaware of his hold on me, of my towel just below his fingers, and of what is underneath it. It’s a hell of a time to realise I’m touch starved, especially when he shuffles closer.

His shirt brushes my bare chest. “There.” He snips some more, then smiles up at me, easygoing compared to tension that chooses now to coil in my belly. “Ten burrs down,” he says. “Only about a thousand left to go. Typical, just when I’m in a hurry.” He’s exaggerating about the number. Joking. I can’t smile back, not when his shirt brushes my chest again, and his palm shifts on my hip.

Christ.

I close my eyes and give myself an order.

Do not get a semi.

I open them again at his quiet question. “What even are they?” He holds up a tiny burr.

“Probably hedge parsley seeds or cleavers.” At least those are my best guesses. “I didn’t stop to check while I was running.”

Conversation is a good distraction, thank fuck. That coil in my belly loosens, and I focus on the snip snip snip that I bet Rowan would tap along with if he were here. I still can’t help saying, “Can you go any faster?” My reason is hurried. “There’s a lot to do, and my friends can’t help until later. All the farmers around here help each other, and they’re already committed to cutting hay elsewhere.” It’s the only reason their headland wedding venue is available. “This time of year is busy, so it’s down to me, Finn, and a couple of students who came back early to get started.”

“Get started doing what?”

“Making sure the guests all have somewhere to stay. Mowing pathways to the headland. Setting up an outdoor dance floor. And I need to find the arch and decorate it.”

“Arch? What’s that for?”

It’s a reasonable question. I’m still not about to spill how an arch, which I’m almost certain is in Marc and Stefan’s barn, spells romance to me. I settle for giving a less sappy reason. “It makes a great focal point for sunset photos.” I add finding that arch to a mental list that I prioritise while he keeps snipping. “Task number one has got to be pitching a whole lot of tents.”

I catch his gaze, his eyes twinkling. He’s laughing at my phrasing, I guess, and his offer confirms it. “Well, I just happen to be an expert at that if you want a hand.”

What is it about me and smiling today? I can’t remember when I last did so much of it. I haven’t forgotten what he just said though; Rae doesn’t have time to spare. He has a deadline of his own, doesn’t he? Needs to keep his head down until Monday. “Thanks, but no. I’ve pitched plenty all by myself before.”

“With shaking hands?”

“It’s passing.”

I hold a hand up, which still trembles. Wobbly traitor.

“It will pass.”

“Football injury?” he guesses. His gaze flicks to the side, letting me know he’s noticed my scars. “Nerve damage after surgery on your shoulder?”

“No. I’ve been doing a lot of chainsawing.”

“Ah. The vibration?”

I nod without adding more detail, and perhaps he reads that silent hurry-up message without me needing to verbalise it.

“There,” he says almost right away. “All done.” He makes himself a liar by raising the scissors again. “Or nearly. Hold still again, yeah?” His eyes narrow. I’ve been scrutinised plenty over the years, and not only by team doctors and coaches. For a moment, I’m reminded of teammates who had been on my side only to put distance between us, and that’s what he does next.

But not for long.

I still rock, as if his hand on my hip had been doing more than keeping me in place. Then I’m steadied again when he’s back with a comb I’d left by the basin.

“What—”

“Hold it,” he says, his focus intense before he snips some more.

I don’t have time for this. I’m about to say so when those dark eyes meet mine.

“My mum used to work in a salon,” he murmurs. “Had a boyfriend who was a great big beardy fucker like you.”

“And you aren’t beardy?”

He touches his own as if he’d forgotten he had one. “Huh. His was nothing like this.” That intensity bleeds out of his eyes, and it’s been so long since anyone looked at me like he had been, even for beard-trimming reasons, that I want to rewind to being his sole focus.

Maybe he does too. He picks up from where he left off, sounding brighter. “I suppose I am beardy for now.” He also gets back to his trimming, taking his time, like getting this right is important. “I saw her do this plenty for him,” he murmurs. “Give him a good trim. Comb and oil his beard for him. Wouldn’t let him leave our flat untidy.” His eyes narrow again, squinting, before he sets down the comb and scissors. “There. What do you think?” He turns me towards the mirror. His reflection doesn’t smile. If anything, he’s worried. “Might have got a bit carried away.”

Carried away?

I’ve never looked neater. The mirror reflects a different person than I expected. Me, but better. “Wow. Thanks.”

He’s instantly all smiles, and that suits him so much better than worry. He also leaves me in the bathroom, pausing in the doorway. “Not that I really think you need help pitching tents.” His gaze doesn’t drop to my towel, thank fuck. “But I did mean what I said. I’ve had plenty of practice with tents lately. I can help.”

“You don’t need to get on with your work?”

“Me? There’s plenty of time for that. Days and days.” He glances away before admitting, “I need to make revisions to a story. To drawings of a journey.” He tags that last point on while frowning, and that isn’t a first. I saw him frowning with his fists curled earlier, didn’t I?

That anger was about me scaring a bride. Now he’s pissed off with himself. “I still haven’t figured out how. Doing something else might actually help.”

I don’t know why that edge of rawness means I accept his offer, but Rae sits next to me in my Land Rover as I leave the school and head along the coast road with him and two more passengers.

A tense groom also travels with us, as does a surly sixth-form student who throws off leave me alone vibes. I can guess why. I almost walked into him saying goodbye to Sol’s nephew on my way back to the stables, and that goodbye didn’t look easy, so I strain for some way to involve him.

That’s tough when Finn sits beside him and won’t stop talking about the wedding. Not that I blame him for worrying we won’t pull off something as special as the party they’d planned and paid for, but I keep glimpsing teen misery in my rearview mirror. I saw that plenty of times in team changing room mirrors after getting benched, so I can’t ignore it. I wish I had after I say, “You been to any good weddings lately, Teo?” to a kid who looks like he’d rather die than answer.

Rae makes a save by joking, “In Peckham? That’s where you’re from, right, big man?” He looks Teo’s way over his shoulder. “Pretty sure all weddings there start with setting a pile of tyres on fire outside a KFC and end with riot vans and tear gas.”

Teo snorts. He also sucks his teeth and tsks as if insulted, but I know banter when I hear it. So must he. This grumble is low but not unfriendly. “I ain’t from Peckham, blud.” They chat about different parts of London, or Rae does at least, and Teo seems easier in his skin, especially when we’re flagged down at the entrance to a farm lane by a redhead.

Marc’s younger brother, Noah, climbs in, and they must know each other. Teo offers a fist that Noah bumps, and I start the engine again to drive past a sign for Love-Land Weddings with more company than I’m used to.

I like my own space. My own pace. Peace and quiet too.

But this company?

I glance sideways. Dark eyes do the same in my direction, and…

I’m not one bit mad about it.

It’s been a while since I sat in on a pre-match team talk. I give one today, only not on a touchline. I create this game plan in a farmyard, unsure of the strengths and weaknesses of my players, so that’s where I start collecting data. Noah is an old hand at camping. That’s good. Both boys are more help than I expected at loading tents onto the trailer I hitch to the Land Rover. I face Rae next, and Finn—who has a worried Willow on the phone, I guess, when I overhear him sounding a lot steadier than he looks.

The poor guy is frazzled.

“There really are enough tents. They’re nice ones called...” He looks to me for help.

“Bell tents. Some people call them glamping tents. Glamour while camping.”

He pounces on that description. “It’s going to be good, babe.”

I overhear more data.

“What’s that? Luke’s found a way to keep everyone busy until later this evening?” He laughs. “Unpacking boxes and getting classrooms ready? Good.”

That is good news. It’s already midafternoon. I don’t want a crowd wading through thigh-high grass at twilight or tripping over guy lines. Mowing pathways is a priority, followed by pitching these tents and extending the lighting.

First things first. “Can either of you drive a tractor?”

“Yes.” Finn is no stranger to farm life or grass cutting. He still has his phone clamped to his ear. “I spent last summer with Willow on her parents’ farm.” He smiles before rephrasing, now speaking to her. “Okay, okay, it’s a ranch.”

I pass him a set of keys. “Great.” That’s another massive timesaver. “Follow us down to the headland. I’ll show you the marquee.”

Willow must overhear that and ask a question because Finn laughs. “No, a marquee is a really big event tent.” He flashes a worried glance my way and I nod. Stef and Marc’s marquee is massive, their biggest investment in a wedding business that is usually booked solid.

“Come on, I’ll show you.”

I drive across fields, leading the way to this wedding party solution, and it’s pure luck that I glance in my rearview mirror just as Finn sees the headland for the first time.

“Wow,” Rae says from beside me, having the same reaction as Finn, who stops driving to take in what I can’t help thinking is one of the best views in all of Cornwall. It sounds as if Rae agrees. “That water… the colour of it.”

I don’t need much of an excuse to stop driving as well. I guess one day I’ll be immune to all of this jade and turquoise shimmering at the base of the cliffs here, to the contrast of it sparkling below the lush grass green of the headland with craggy tors as a distant backdrop. I’m nowhere near immune yet. I see Finn whip out his phone in my rearview mirror and move it like he’s videoing this panorama. He’s setting Willow’s mind at rest, I guess.

And Rae?

He takes it all in too—soaks up this view, only without a phone camera, which I suppose makes sense. He’s an artist, right? I guess that’s why he stares in silence.

I do a bit of staring of my own, only not at the view, then I almost jump out of my skin when Finn taps on my window to give me a thumbs-up. “She’s crying,” he tells me through the glass, but he doesn’t look too sad about that. Happy tears, then. They fuel the next labour-intensive part of my game plan. So does knowing that, yeah, Rae soaked up that view, but his gaze doesn’t end there.

It lands on me and stays, still lingering after I get out of the Land Rover to open a five-bar gate. Before I unlatch it, I mentally shuffle what needs to happen next into order, and the boys join us.

“Noah? Is the arch still in the lower barn?” I point towards the copse of trees hiding that structure. He nods, and Teo’s shoulders straighten when I say, “It takes two men to shift it. Think you can work together to carry it to the headland for me? Then carry out the dance-floor sections?”

“We’ve got it,” Teo rumbles.

The boys climb the gate and run ahead through overgrown grass while I give Finn direction. I’m aware that Rae has climbed the gate too, only he sits astride it. He’s taller than me now, and the view must be even better from up there. I’m still his focus, and I have to resist the urge to check my beard for missed burrs like they’re the only reason for this attention.

Perhaps he spots that. His gaze breaks away as I ask Finn, “See those trees where they’re headed? There are portable bathrooms behind them. And a kids’ play area a bit further on. The paths there all need mowing, but priority number one is mowing one from here to my fairy circle.”

That gets Rae’s attention. “Your fairy circle?”

He turns back so fast he almost loses his balance on the top bar of the gate. Steadying him is instinctive, an easy save to make, and my hand on his hip is a reminder of when he did the same for me in the bathroom, so I guess we’re even.

It doesn’t feel that way when he slides down from that top bar. He braces against my chest to do that, the contact fleeting. I still feel the whole thing in slow motion, which wrecks my concentration. I end up stuttering, “A circle of my bell tents.”

“Your tents?” he asks quietly, like we’re the only two people here.

He’s the one who slipped so fuck knows why I’m unbalanced, or why it takes Finn repeating a different question for me to pull myself together. “Sorry, Finn, what did you say?”

He points at the marquee. “You said ‘dance floor.’ Is there some kind of sound system here?” The relief I witnessed a few minutes ago fades. “Only the wedding package we booked included a live band. For dancing.” His voice lowers. “Willow really loves to do that.”

Maybe a summer of waking up in the next room to a happy fucker wasn’t wasted. While Finn mows a pathway with the tractor, I get back in the Land Rover to call someone who might help a bride’s big-day dreams rise from disastrous ashes. Rae climbs in beside me, sees the phone in my hand, and makes to get out again until I shake my head.

“You’re okay. This isn’t private.”

I’m making an adjustment to my game plan, that’s all, because that’s what the best coach I ever had always did on the fly. And that’s what I attempt while Rae busies himself with his own phone like he isn’t listening in on what I’m sure we both hear—my call rings and rings before going to voicemail.

I leave a halting message.

“Uh, Rowan? Hey, could you ring me back if you’re free tomorrow and feel like making some noise at a party?” I lower my voice, which is pointless with Rae sitting right beside me, but this part does feel private. “No worries if you’re not feeling it, mate.” My ex-housemate can’t help being shy around crowds. I know all too well the feeling of not living up to public expectations. “Performance pressure is real, yeah?”

I must say that with more feeling than I meant to. In the periphery of my vision, Rae looks up from his phone screen.

His head lowers just as quickly, and I make myself finish.

“A couple of Luke’s old gap-year students were due to get married tomorrow at Glynn Harber but found out today that they lost all their wedding budget. Venue went bust. All they have left of their original plan is getting married in the school chapel. No flowers, no food, not even music. Gotta house the whole lot of guests too, so I’m setting up all my tents.” I’ve got to stop calling them that. “I mean Marc and Stef’s tents.”

Rae’s head lifts again, not hiding that he’s listening.

“But even a loan of some speakers would help a hell of a lot, Row, if you have any to spare. Let me know, yeah?”

I ring off to answer Rae’s earlier question. “They aren’t actually my tents. Saying that is just force of habit.”

“Because?”

“Because I used to run a camping business. Glamping. Pretty bell tents with real beds for the adults. Woodland adventure sessions for their children. That was the best part.”

“Was?”

“I couldn’t justify sinking more cash into a gig that was only busy every summer.” Not with three little sisters who have growth spurts year-round. “So my friends bought all but one of them from me.”

He looks back. “Those are the tents on the trailer?”

“Some of them, yeah. The rest are pitched in⁠—”

“A fairy circle?”

I nod. I also face Rae to see what kept him busy while I made that SOS call.

My weekend housemate has been busy sketching. Not on paper with a pencil. He’s done it on his phone with a stylus, and for a surprising moment, I’m reminded of my usual housemate; Rae is suddenly as shy as Rowan was when I first met him, which is a stark contrast from the man who curled his fists in the woods at me.

He doesn’t need to be shy. Not about what he’s drawn in the space of a single phone call. “Wow.” I almost touch his phone screen, then pull back a still-shaking finger. “That’s me.”

I’m semi-naked like I was in the shower room, only I don’t have a damp towel around me in this drawing. Ivy leaves cling low on my hips, the top of my bush visible, which makes me think I can’t have cinched that towel fast enough back at the stables.

I don’t know why him noticing enough to draw that dark tangle hits this hard. Maybe it’s because he’s paid attention, and I’ve avoided that for so long that I don’t know what to do with this evidence of it. More than that, he lends a new perspective.

I’ve never seen those scars left by the surgery on my shoulders as anything other than signs of weakness. Now they are the site of gossamer wings, and I don’t know how those add to a picture of strength, of power, which is weird since I also sparkle like I’ve been sprinkled with fairy dust and magic.

I snort at the version of my beard he’s added. “You left them in. The burrs.” I’m not sure how he made them glitter. “Wait. You think I’m a fairy?”

There are several ways to take that.

As a slur?

It’s one I heard plenty of times from teammates. Not aimed at me, but that potential felt like a constant hammer about to fall the same way seeing coaches confer with club doctors about my fitness always left my chest tight. Rae gives me a different reason after touching his screen with that stylus again.

A crown materialises.

“King of the tent-pitching fairies.” He tilts his head. “Or maybe king of whatever tree spirits are called in Cornwall. But you’re the one with a fairy circle, so how about you show me your kingdom?”

It’s hardly that, just a circle of pretty bell tents on the far side of the headland, linked by chains of solar lamps that will glow when the sun sets. That won’t be many hours away now. There’s a lot to do before tonight’s arrivals, and true to his word, he helps me.

“How come you’re good at this, Rae?”

“Because I had to do it a lot in France.” He cinches a knot for me. “Where I run an art project.”

“An outdoor one?”

He matches my heave on a rope, and another tent rises higher, yet this comes out sounding low. “Something like that.”

Three tents later, I know more about migrant children than I ever wanted. More than that, I get to see why this weekend stay is important to him—cash to keep his project running depends on him scoring some kind of publishing deal on Monday.

“That’s the simple version. There’s a ton of steps between getting agented and getting a deal.” He shares more while we’re busy. Not about the publication process. He tells story after story about kids who disappeared between tides. “It wasn’t real to me until I saw what the tide washed back in.” He chokes then, turns silent. Maybe that’s because Finn joins us after mowing to work alongside us as the sun starts to lower.

Those two kids work hard too.

I don’t hear much snarling from Teo. If anything, he lets Noah direct him, and that’s surprising, but good to witness—a sign he knows his limits and can see Noah has better ball skills. Tent skills, I mean, but the analogy holds true. I land a hand on his shoulder after the rumble of an approaching engine registers. “Teo? That’ll be Mr. Lawson come to get you, but know this, yeah? We couldn’t have done this without you.” I include Rae. “Without you, either, but you can both get off now.”

“Now?” Rae looks back at the trailer, which is only half unloaded. There are plenty more tents to keep me busy.

Busy?

I’ll still be pitching them at midnight. Rae must guess that. His hold tightens on a guy line. “But we aren’t finished, and you can’t⁠—”

I hold up a hand. It’s good and steady. “See? Told you the tremors would wear off.”

“Until the next time you use a chainsaw?”

I shrug. “Everyone’s gotta make a living.” He looks ready to argue about leaving me to it, so I take the rope from his hand and haul a tent up without him. The canvas is heavy, and my muscles bunch. I manage it single-handed. “I’ve been doing this all on my own for years,” I say quietly. “That project of yours gonna keep going all on its own, or does it need you to smash your meeting on Monday?”

He nods, acquiescing.

Rae climbs the slope up to the headland with me in silence, where I discover I was wrong. It isn’t Luke Lawson who’s come to collect Teo. I mean, yeah, Luke is there in the school minibus, but he isn’t alone. Rowan and his builder boyfriend are here too.

Liam is an ex-soldier who has brought reinforcements. All Royal Engineers, he tells me. His crew are rebuilding experts. Putting up tents and setting up an outdoor dance floor are nothing compared to rebuilding bridges and airstrips.

All of that is more than enough assistance, but Stefan also arrives, and he’s brought his mother, who is armed with samples of her baking and a question for Finn.

“How many tiers do you want on your wedding cake, love?”

That’s when Finn finally buckles, and I can’t blame the man for that reaction. I’m a bit teary myself.

“Oh, come here, love,” Stefan’s mum says. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

I know she’s an awesome cuddler. She’s given me plenty, so I understand why Finn’s voice is muffled. “You know you’re all invited tomorrow, right? All of you. We wouldn’t even have a wedding without you.”

I walk Rae to the minibus.

He’s shadowed, the vehicle blocking the view of an amazing sunset, but that’s okay. I get another great view the minute that Rae meets my eyes. His are tired and yet still dancing. “You know Finn was talking about you, right? That he and Willow would have fuck all to look forward to if you hadn’t made that phone call?”

I’d turn to point out everyone else who has pulled through to make a party possible if Rae didn’t catch hold of my wrist. And if his close contact in a shower room wasn’t a clue along with that slow slide down my body when he got down from the gate, this rub of his thumb over a skipping pulse point is a signal visible from the moon.

I give him one of my own by letting him do it, and by curling a hand around his neck. No idea if that’s to stop him from moving away or to pull him closer. All I know is that his grip shifts, and I let him cradle my hand, then I watch him lift it.

No one has ever studied me this closely—my wrist and palm and fingers—and if there was ever a moment for those fuckers to shake, this would be it.

I’m rock steady. Not frozen, exactly, but I guess this is what happens when touch-starved kindling meets a lit match. I’ve been tense for hours now, ever since saying goodbye to little Adam and then chasing a bride through the woods. That tension releases, every single nerve under the skin he touches flaring to life where he makes contact, and it’s a lot.

It’s also nowhere near enough.

I don’t know who moves first.

I lean down as he surges up, and we’re kissing, a clash of teeth and lips that quickly softens, all while I’m aware that more cars are approaching.

Headlights dance like Rae’s eyes do when he pulls back. Those cars pass, and we’re alone, out of sight and shadowed again, and you better believe that when he pushes me against the side of the minibus, I let him.

“Gonna be my plus-one, Hayden?”

I must nod.

He grins and kisses me again. His body is a hard and wiry length that feels as tensely wound as I do.

I want to feel all that tautness loosen.

Be the reason for it.

Only he’s gone.

“Yeah, I’m over here, Luke,” he calls out, answering a question that I missed while blood rushed in my ears like waves rush against the base of the cliffs, crashing like my heart does when Rae looks back, his smile a bright flash painted gold by the sunset, and…

I can’t wait for tomorrow.

6

HAYDEN

I make it back to the stables after midnight. Maybe it would have made more sense to sleep on the farm, and I almost did until the solar lamps illuminated something that I guessed might make up for something Willow and Finn already paid a florist for and have no more cash left to repurchase. Now swathes of gorse blossom decorate the chapel doorway, a dark green and golden surprise that I hope starts her wedding day with a smile.

By the time I finally let myself into the stables, all the lights are out, the door to my housemate’s bedroom closed.

There’s no sign that Rae is still awake inside it.

I hesitate in the hallway, reliving a kiss I hadn’t expected and now can’t stop rewinding and replaying, and my hand rises to knock on his door.

Here’s the thing about me and hesitation: Second-guessing is always fatal. I’ve had years of being trained to read body language, so I should be able to predict Rae’s reaction to me appearing at his bedside, except football didn’t only break my heart. It stole my family’s future and that’s what wrecked my instincts.

Can I trust them now?

I don’t.

I tiptoe past that door instead, crashing out in my own room, where I stare at the ceiling until dawn. Then I creep past that closed door again, get back into my Land Rover, and head back along the coast road.

Once I’m at the headland, I do let myself rewind and replay Rae kissing me. Morning dew kissing the hem of my jeans is a reminder as I finish by threading more gorse blossom through the arch the boys set up for me.

I stand back.

It looks good, but I only really trust my choices when Willow stumbles out of her tent, still half asleep, and sees what we made for her. I hope she doesn’t cry again at the chapel where more gold and green waits for her.

I get busy then, setting out tables and chairs and serving a farmhouse breakfast to the guests who arrived late last night while Stefan’s mum talks my ear off. As soon as I’m done at the farm, I head back to Glynn Harber and go check if that chapel doorway decoration still looks okay.

I don’t have an artist’s eye. I kinda wish I’d woken Rae to get his opinion, but I settle for adding some strands of willow while the padre watches. His quiet, “Bless you, Hayden,” follows me back to the stables, where I hesitate before entering, not done rehashing how good it felt to get chosen for once.

By Rae.

That fucking kiss.

I also remind myself that it was from someone who had a high-stress day, and who seems to joke as easily as breathing.

Joking could apply to his plus-one invitation, couldn’t it?

I’ve almost convinced myself of that, which is an unwelcome flashback to waiting to hear who made the academy team, so I give myself a pep talk.

Go inside and ask him if he meant it.

What’s the worst that can happen?

I’ll live if he says no, then I’ll never see him again. Why would I? I’m not heading to France any time soon, and I won’t even be at Glynn Harber if he ever comes back. My contract here is pretty much done and dusted barring the work this wedding interrupted. Our paths won’t cross again after that, and…

It’s funny how I’m alone out here in the stable courtyard and yet I hear the best coach I ever had shouting from the touchline.

Take the shot, Hayden.

I nod as if Dad can see me, and I do it, only Rae isn’t inside.

His bedroom door stands open, and after showering, I pause there again. That’s where I freeze in the only suit that I own after spotting something I recognise written in an open sketchbook.

I break an unspoken rule then, and cross a housemate’s threshold.

Not to nose through his sketchbook for any more fairy king illustrations. I trace a finger over a word he must have copied from what else is on his bed—a diary that spent decades buried in this school’s foundation.

Tatuś.

That’s the Polish for Daddy.

I remember printing it on birthday cards to my own back when I was little and he was a giant. The next time that word came to mind? I never said, help me, Daddy aloud while getting marched off a Premier League pitch. Might as well wear a sign saying king of the fucking fairies.

But think it?

You bet I did, even if wishing for a giant to scoop me up and save me had been pointless.

Locking into that trip down memory lane means I’m almost late to the wedding. I’m one of the last to arrive at the chapel, which is crowded. I edge into a spot under a stained glass window and stand. At least that means I can see all the action, and the conclusion to a love story that has played out with me watching.

I get to sing along with Luke Lawson’s rich baritone. Get to watch a flower girl scatter petals from a little basket. I also get to see her trip over. The fairy wings she wears don’t save her.

Petals fly, a disaster playing out in what feels like slow motion, until a blond-haired boy dashes to help her gather them up. He also helps her to stand, and they start over.

It’s nuts how easy it is to only hold on to life’s worst moments—how a single word in Polish can bring back my own sensation of falling. Of failing. But getting to see her helped to her feet, all smiles again, followed by a bride whose veil is still tied to the circlet I made?

That all goes straight to the top of a happier league table.

That’s where today is going to sit, along with the memory of Rae’s grin last night when I told him yes to being his plus-one.

I find him then.

Our eyes lock across a crowded chapel, only my gaze skims his for a second before sliding back just as quickly. He’s clean-shaven, and yes, his beard was already a whole lot tidier than mine, but now?

He looks….

He’s…

He’s a whole other person. Rested. Warmly smiling, and that warmth reaches all the way across the chapel to curl around me when he points to an empty spot in the pew beside him.

He’s saved it for me, and that’s where I watch the rest of this wedding. It’s a tight fit, so tight that we’re wedged together, and I don’t hate that even when I realise who takes up the rest of the pew.

Mitch from that care home is as friendly as ever, if a touch wary. “I was hoping to catch up with you,” he whispers. “Justin’s brought his football scrapbook to show you. He knows⁠—”

I stiffen at what Justin knows. There’s no way I want to revisit or explain what I’ve left ten years behind me.

Mitch has to notice my reaction. He quickly whispers, “He knows he said something wrong. He doesn’t know what or why, but that’s brain injuries for you. He must have got confused, that’s all. No malice intended, mate. You believing that matters to him. It would set his mind at rest if you’d take a look at his scrapbook sometime, that’s all.”

Thankfully, the service interrupts him. The chapel rings with applause and congratulations when it completes, this couple safely married, and I escape a football conversation. Not that I’m rude about it. I do it by making a promise. “Soon, yeah? I’m a bit busy today.”

Then I escape with Rae, who asks, “Ready to show me a good time?” He phrases that with a lightness I could read as joking, and I’m stuck doubting myself under a doorway decoration summing up Cornish brightness.

Take the shot, right?

“Yes.” I nod as firmly as I can summon, considering I’m no one’s long-term proposition. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it. About you.”

I score a real smile then and score a second after arriving at the headland with him.

He’s almost breathless. “Look at what you made happen.”

I didn’t have anything to do with this end-of-summer sunshine or with the sea looking extra sparkly. That isn’t what he points at. Rae has spotted a brand-new husband and wife posing for photos, framed by an arch smothered with bright bursts of yellow—flowers with prickles I wished I’d worn my work gloves to avoid, which Rae must have noticed.

He grabs my hand as we walk towards the marquee, turning it over like he did last night behind a minibus where no one could see him looking. Now anyone could see him study my hand and touch dots left by thorns, as if they’ll join to make a picture. Each pinprick was worth getting just to have him say, “You know they’ll never forget this, right?”

“I didn’t do it all on my own,” I insist, and I shove my hands deep into my pockets. Not due to any shaking or because I don’t want anyone to see that we’re together.

My truth today is that I won’t forget getting to be part of this either.

It’s another teamwork reminder that I tuck away for later. There will be plenty of time to replay this sunny highlight come winter when there is no work, and maybe if I go home for Christmas, I’ll even tell my sisters.

I shove my hands deeper in my pockets, no need to shiver. For now, it’s still summer, and I still get to listen as Rae shares stories about his drawings, about his plans to stop being a walking disaster and to hit that revise-and-resubmit deadline. About how he hasn’t started yet, but he’s got a plan brewing, so there’s no need to worry. He’ll get it done like he did at college, even if that means burning his candle at both ends.

“Sleep is for the weak,” he tells me while stuffing his face with Cornish baking. With food and drink from the school kitchen. With a cake that defies description, and all while sketching guests with that stylus. Fuck knows how he captures people with a few lines on a phone screen.

It’s bewitching to witness.

I can’t look away for hours, or blame my lack of chill on champagne at this no-budget wedding celebration. I’m as sober as a judge, and that’s fine. I don’t want to miss a moment of how he shares his drawings without fanfare before emailing them as a keepsake to guest after guest. They’re reminders of a big day that didn’t go to plan, and I know exactly how that feels. It means I won’t forget his help in a hurry.

I won’t forget Finn and Willow either.

They laugh through best-man speeches before visiting every table, and none of this was their first plan, but I think they got some of what they wanted. And for all that I’m no candidate for long-term commitment, they make marriage look appealing. Willow reaches our table, and I can’t remember the last time I was hugged this hard while watched by someone as proud of me as Rae looks, and that pride?

It’s been a while.

No wonder it gets to me.

So does this bride and groom having a first dance on a dance floor with the sun dipping low behind them, and that is what Rae also captures—love framed by an archway, complete with a sunset that kisses the horizon like dew kissed my hems this morning. He draws gorse and dots it with yellow. With gold. With more of that magic as the afternoon turns to evening and the dance floor crowds to the voice of an angel.

Rae must like what Rowan sings—his head pops up like a meerkat and he’s up on his feet, heading to join the dancers. He turns, a hand extended, and I get to my feet to join him.

One of last night’s soldiers beats me to it.

The crowd closes around Rae and that Royal Engineer, and when it opens again, I spot them dancing. So does someone I didn’t realise had joined me—Marc takes the seat Rae vacated.

“You really gonna let that happen?”

His husband is just as relentless, only he’s quieter about it. I didn’t know Stefan was behind me until he says, “He hasn’t stopped looking at you all evening, you muppet,” and then tips my chair up. “Go make some hay while the sun’s still shining.” That’s an exaggeration for this deepening dusk, but I don’t stop to argue the point. I’m already moving, because no.

No.

I’m not letting what feels like another big chance get stolen.

That’s what I haven’t been able to tune out since getting reminded of a test I failed.

Failed?

My last shot was stolen from me, even if I don’t like to revisit what led up to that moment. It’s too late to do anything about it.

There are years between me and the clueless kid I once was. Tonight, I’m a different person, so I plough a direct path across the dance floor to someone I’m not ready to surrender to a stronger player.

That determination must show.

The soldier I tap on the shoulder has seen combat, but he still takes one look and holds his hands up, laughing. The person he dances with turns too.

It isn’t Rae.

I barely hear this soldier’s explanation over Rowan’s second song of the evening. “Your boyfriend went looking for you.”

“Hey.”

I turn, and fuck me, Rae looking relieved to find me is better than winning any trophy. He’s so pleased to see me, and it doesn’t matter that tonight’s bride and groom lost their champagne budget when their first choice of venue went bust. This fizz at being his first choice is just as heady.

It sucks that I won’t be after tonight.

I stutter to a halt—only for a moment—but Rowan’s song spirals like something trapped in my chest does, and forget everything I said about not being a long-term prospect. I hold out a hand as if I am. For him. It’s way steadier than I feel when Rae takes it, only I don’t dance with him. I lead him outside, heading away from the wedding celebration and bypassing circle after circle of pretty bell tents where fairy lights glow now that the sun is setting.

I take Rae in a different direction.

The woods I lead him into are deeply shadowed. They are also fenced off, and I open a gate and then slide a bolt home behind us.

I don’t need light to know where next to take him.

He laughs, clinging on tight after he stumbles. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere the newlyweds usually stay. I would have hung lights to show the way, only Finn and Willow wanted to be closer to their families.” Which I kinda understand if they don’t get to see each other often. In hindsight, I wish I’d spent more time with mine. “They picked a spot with a little bit of distance, but not with this much seclusion. To each their own. I’d always choose this tent first. It’s my favourite.”

He stumbles again.

Or is that hesitation?

I pause. “You want to see it?”

He must do. Rae lights the way with his phone, that blue-white beam slicing every shadow. “Just try and fucking stop me.” This is softer from him. “Everything you’ve loved so far has knocked my socks off. The sunset here. The view over the sea.” His hold tightens on my hand. “Just so you know, you set the bar, so I’ve got high expectations.” He matches me step for step until a new view stops him, and again, I wish I had even a scrap of artistic talent. I’d capture this surprise, this slow smile that is so different from all his others.

He slides his phone away while washed by the last feathering flames of tonight’s sunset. It reaches through the gap in the tree line I cut to reveal a sea view, and it touches the tips of his hair, which glows like the very first time I saw him. I don’t see a single trace of Marc now, and it has only taken an intense weekend to make that difference.

There’s no hiding who I want to share this spot with.

It’s Rae.

And it’s Rae who grabs my hand and hauls me straight for a tent that plenty of honeymooners have used but also feels like a version of home to me.

“I sometimes stay here between jobs if Marc and Stefan don’t have bookings. To be fair, they’re always trying to get me to stay in one of their farm cottages. I just… I prefer this. Reminds me of when I retrained. Of when I became a forestry apprentice.”

“You lived under canvas?”

“In summer. Or in a cabin through the winters, right in the middle of a forest with an old hand who took no bullshit. Loved it.” And him. Aleksander taught me almost everything I know about woodland management, and his forest was the one place in the world where it felt like no fingers pointed. “I could breathe there.”

I lead him inside, turn on the lamps, and take in his reaction. Here is proof if I ever needed any that he’s spent enough time under canvas to appreciate what a good life boils down to. Rae lists what other people might see as basics. “A stove.” He moves on, fingertips tracing the edge of a copper basin that I traded gardening work for. “And running water?”

“Bottled. There’s a foot pump. And a shower behind the tent along with a wood-fired hot tub.”

He next eyes the soft glow from the string of lights above us. “Solar?”

I nod. “I rigged up enough panels so they’ll run everything I need and last all night long instead of fading.”

“Nice.”

What is really nice is not having to explain why me only having this place on a very part-time basis and an old Land Rover are all I’ve got to show for a man closing in on his thirties. But those stories Rae shared both yesterday and today have painted their own picture of someone who hasn’t settled down either.

I don’t know his reasons, just that he’s darted from short-term projects like he darted from subject to subject this evening while sketching. That only makes his sudden switch to focussed even more apparent.

His gaze sweeps in another slow circle, which I guess means he’s locking my bolthole away to draw when his time here is over.

Tomorrow.

Maybe that’s why he stops looking around and heads straight for the bed. He presses on the mattress. “Real.” That’s the opposite of how it feels to see him lose his suit jacket, strip off his shirt, and unfasten his belt.

The lamps pick up where the last of the sun left off, lighting the stark difference between black chest hair and pale skin where the sun hasn’t tanned it. He’s another outdoors person, like me. That farmer’s tan proves it. He’s practical too, like when he asks, “You got everything we need here?”

Thank fuck for newlyweds. This tent being kitted out for their first nights means I can nod even though I’ve never brought anyone else here for this. Now I’m glad I kept my short-term flings with tourists to their holiday rentals, because Rae holds out a hand to me like he did by a dance floor.

A soldier got to him first then.

This time, I won’t let anything get between us.

7

RAE

Hayden has hidden talents. I thought that the first time after seeing those big hands twist willow into a dainty circlet. I thought it for a second time after he pulled together the kind of planning I can never manage to start, let alone see through, no matter how many times Sol tried to corral the bucking bronco of my attention at college.

Tonight, Hayden proves he has a whole other string to his bow, and not only for making weddings happen, because this isn’t only a place for honeymoon happy endings. It’s a home away from home that he’s made out of almost nothing, one that he’s traded favours to furnish. I’ve seen that happen in camps. That’s where I first watched people from different nations swap a meal for minutes of mobile data or exchange bedding for a chance to search for news of family.

Hayden has traded carpentry and plumbing for his manual labour. Traded his muscle for warmth in winter, and I don’t know why that stove keeps catching my eye. It doesn’t glow right now, yet that’s what I see in my mind’s eye—a cherry-red glow, and a big man with snow in his hair, crouching to feed it with kindling that he cut with his great big⁠—

I yank at my belt, warm all over despite that stove being unlit. I’m already on fire and in a hurry to get this party started. “Why are you still dressed?”

Hayden doesn’t answer my question.

Doesn’t move.

Doesn’t look as if he even breathes, but that’s okay. I stopped breathing too, didn’t I, last night.

When we kissed.

I would have traded plenty for more of that—would have handed over my phone and all of its data to carve out more time with him. Now we do have time, at least until the end of the wedding party that I can still hear faintly, and if I learned a single thing from watching all those exchanges made behind sand dunes, it was to make the most of mutually beneficial chances.

Most people don’t get a second.

I’m not wasting this one, so I stop asking questions and issue an order.

“Get over here.”

He moves then, and for a first time, I glimpse what it must have been like to face him in his first life. He commits, going all in with nothing held back, and that always does it for me.

I hit the mattress with him on top of me, and me being half naked while he’s still dressed also does it for me.

I’m back to picturing that stove, that kindling catching alight, with no idea why this contrast between skin and fabric ignites me. Maybe it’s down to friction—the scuff of his suit jacket against my chest. My nipples are hard enough to cut glass already, and that’s a sharp shock, a little unexpected burst of sensation while our mouths are locked together.

His belt buckle against my stomach is another contrast. That prod of metal is as hard as his dick soon gets, which means I can’t just lay here getting tongued to death by someone who kisses like he hasn’t stopped thinking about last night either. Not when more than a wedding-party clock is ticking.

I’ll be gone tomorrow.

It’s still hard to hurry, and what started out as hard and fast now slows to almost glacial.

His tongue slides against mine in careful exploration like we’ve got all the time in the world, and I’ve never been more turned on from so little.

From so gentle.

It’s another mind-fucking contrast, like his lips being this soft while his hold on my jaw tells me I’m going absolutely nowhere.

I don’t want to.

I’ve seen enough shitty human behaviour to recognise a good guy when I meet one despite his axe-murderer first impression, so I wiggle a hand between us and wrench that buckle of his open to get his fly down.

His mouth leaves mine. Not to tell me no. His lips explore my jawline while I trace the thick, hard outline of what his underwear still covers. He must like where the heel of my palm presses. A hum rumbles through him, and I’m glad we’re chest-to-chest so I get to feel that, even if it means my hand is trapped between us.

If I was warm before, I’m on fire when his mouth reaches my throat, sucking, and I’m not sure if it is my dick that throbs or his. I shiver at the graze of his teeth shifting lower, which isn’t due to his beard scratching. My tremor is involuntary, a response to him being so hungry for me that our teeth clash when we next kiss.

Only for a moment.

He repositions to suck on my tongue like he can’t get enough of me, so it’s no wonder I’m caught between wanting to melt and combusting at the same time.

He lights me up so fast, and so what if we’re both a little clumsy or that his lips slide wetly while he’s figuring out how we best slot together. His hands find my arse, pressing us closer together, my hand still caught trapped where his cock swells, and I’ve never got harder faster than when I squeeze and he lets out a small sound.

It says so much without speaking.

That groan was an almost silent fuck, yes followed by a don’t stop that I can get on board with after spending a whole day wanting this with someone who goes all out for other people with no showboating.

I wonder if he knows how rare that is—how plenty of people turn up at the camps with flags and banners to advertise their do-gooding before disappearing the minute shit gets real. Reece’s boyfriend is one of them, which is surprising. I’m already pretty sure Hayden wouldn’t act anything like him. Fuck it, he’d probably weave lifeboats out of willow, or at least try to, and that makes it easy to want to give back, so I do.

I push him onto his back, and he lets me. He also doesn’t argue when I look down while those little lamps highlight that he’s still dressed. If we had longer, I’d strip him fully naked, but music rises from a party that I can’t help thinking Hayden should be at. Because here’s something else I’m not sure he sees but I’ve noticed over and over—he made it happen. All of it. The whole thing from start to finish.

Him.

That dance floor where I dodged a good-looking soldier? Hayden is the reason that it’s full of happy couples. And that singer who so many wedding guests now dance to? He’s only here due to the man who cups my face as I bend to kiss him.

I heard every word of that careful phone call. Saw him wince, not wanting to put that singer under pressure. No wonder people can’t resist saying yes to someone who only asks instead of demanding. He doesn’t demand a thing from me now, but I’m about to suck his dick, so maybe I’m a good example.

That music fades out and other sounds take over, like his rough inhale and my hum after pressing my face against his pelvis. His cock is hot through the thin cotton of his boxers, and I groan. I also inhale his musk, which pulls exactly the same internal trigger as him sucking on my tongue did. Saliva floods my mouth, wetting cotton as I map him, delaying the moment that I guess we both want when he grinds out a rasping, “Please, Rae.”

I free him then, pushing his underwear down far enough that I can cup his balls and roll them while taking a first taste of what slapped thickly against his belly. Then there’s only heavy breathing and the lapping of me getting him wet before sucking him down, my turn to be greedy. And I am so hungry for him, even if he’s a lot to handle. I still try, because he trembles, and not in that chainsaw-induced way.

This is him holding back.

He pushes himself up on one arm to reach for a lamp. It almost topples, but that’s okay. I almost do too at him wanting to see us like this more clearly. He takes advantage of my distraction, shedding clothes like he’s got all the time in the world.

We don’t, so I get busy, and when I next pull off, both of us breathe harshly. His chest hitches when I focus on the now slick head of his cock. On his shaft. On every vein carrying blood on a pulsing journey. That’s where I can’t resist the urge to spend long minutes, and if time ever had any meaning for me, I forget it until he touches my jaw where it hinges. His hand slips lower as I suck him again, and it’s my turn to be mapped, only he explores my throat, feeling himself from the outside, and almost crumples each time I swallow.

His light clasp of my throat tightens, and don’t ask me why I like it. I was joking about being tied down and left waiting, but this hold? He’s got me in the palm of a hand, and knowing that it is speckled where thorns jabbed him only makes me want to take him even deeper.

I’m hoarse when I have to pull off.

My eyes blur, so I don’t see his reaction right away when I ask, “Want to do me?” I wipe dampness away and can see more, so I ask a different, more careful question. “Or do you want me to do you?”

I didn’t have him bending over the edge of a bed on my wish list for this evening. Now it’s what I’m going to remember when my mind drifts like it does so often, when it skips from what I should be doing to something more compelling. And he is compelling while I slick my fingers with supplies meant for married couples. Thank fuck for them. I didn’t come to Cornwall prepared, and PrEP isn’t for people who lose track of time like me. Now I smear lube where a swirl of dark hair circles, and I press in a finger.

His low groan rumbles.

The whole world doesn’t tremble. Doesn’t quake or shake or tilt off its axis. I still feel like I’m falling each time I press in deeper and he tells me without words that this is what he wanted—what he must have needed really badly to push back until I’m up to my last knuckle and he’s ready for another.

And all my thinking about fire? About heat? About being lit up?

He looks back at me, his eyes wild and desperate, and that’s the hottest thing I’ve ever witnessed. I’ve never ripped open a condom wrapper faster. Never sworn as loudly at fucking up rolling it on. Never paid more attention to the steadiness of his hands as he turns to do it for me.

He’s got this, and me, with no problem, and I only stop him when he starts to turn away again. Then I grasp his shoulder, a slick hand sliding across scars I wouldn’t notice from a distance.

They’re faint.

This isn’t.

“I want to kiss you.”

I do.

I want that almost as much as I want inside him, and that’s what Hayden makes happen just like he’s made everything else I’ve witnessed and then locked away to draw one day when I don’t have deadlines. He lays back and hooks a hand behind a knee, spreading for me, still on the edge of the bed, and I have to squeeze the base of my dick at the sight of him spread out like a fucking wedding breakfast.

My dick nudges where he still feels impossibly tight for a moment. Then I’m inside him, and it’s incredible. So much so that the inside of this lamp-lit tent spangles. Light splinters, swirling into fractals as I push all the way in, my vision turning into a kaleidoscope with him at its centre, and that’s where he stays.

He’s my focus now.

All that I see.

A gentle giant I didn’t know was on my horizon after staring at so many, and getting to kiss him while we fuck only makes that wait worth it.

I don’t want to stop. Can barely coordinate breathing while finding the right angle for him. I even give up inhaling or exhaling when I hit the right spot, and fuck anyone who ever said concentration was my weak point. I have no problem focussing on getting him off.

His cock is hot and hard in my hand, and slicker each time I get it just right for him. I do that until the coiling low in my belly winds too tight to stave off, but we’re on the same page, or maybe we’re just in the right place at the same time to synchronise this closely.

I thank fuck that I washed up here.

And I thank Sol too for answering a distress signal sent from outside that agent’s office. Most of all, I thank myself for taking a wrong turn in the woods. Then I get back to the business in hand—I tug on his cock while fucking him hard and fast until he clenches, coming, and I quit thinking.

I’m sprawled over him moments later. Those moments turn into minutes. And if we lay here for even longer, what does it really matter? Tomorrow will come regardless. For now, I only move when Hayden whispers, “Want me to show you something special?”

He’s already shown me plenty, but he shows me another special sight outside.

“Look up.”

I do, standing outside the tent while wrapped in a sheet. We’re under a blanket of stars, a canopy of deep purple velvet studded with diamonds above us, and I lean back against Hayden to count their constellations. His arms are snug around me and his hold isn’t much looser when we go back to bed, where he lets out another of those deep rumbles of satisfaction.

Music drifts faintly to us, and I can’t keep this in. “How come no one’s snapped you up already?”

“Me?” It’s cute that he’s surprised. This statement is less so. “I’m not exactly a long-term kinda person, Rae. You see yourself staying in one place for good?”

I shake my head. My work is wherever the tide takes me.

His must be too. “I can’t see a future like that for me, either.”

I trace the breadth of his bare chest, and I take my time about it, in zero hurry right now to be anywhere else but here. I don’t want to head back to that wedding, nor to make a start at meeting my deadline. I’ve got a whole day left, or almost. There are hours and hours to go yet, and with Hayden wrapped around me?

Short term or not, right now that feels like ages.

I fall asleep in Cornwall but wake up in France.

That’s how it seems when the shush of the sea registers. Only I’m not behind sand dunes this morning, and this shushing is different. It’s the wind through leaves as well as the rhythmic wash of nearby waves, and I’m not alone in waking disorientated.

Hayden stretches behind me. His hand on my hip flexes, fingers tightening before his arm slides to gather me closer to him. I’m enveloped, held captive by a heavy arm, and a sleepy rumble travels through me.

It’s a contented grumble, a satisfied and gruffly wordless expression of someone almost awake and happy. His dick is just as pleased. It gives me a warm and friendly nudge of morning wood that I’m down with.

Down with?

This is the best I’ve woken up feeling for ages. I also feel it when he wakes up for real.

Hayden goes still.

That heavy arm around me lifts next, slow and careful as if it might be unwelcome. He adds an inch of distance, and fuck that. Fuck it. I’m exactly where I want to be, thank you very much for asking. And no, I haven’t woken in France this morning, but that’s where I learned to never hurry waking. Much better to stretch out the gap between unconsciousness and the moment reality gives me my daily kick in the nuts.

I don’t have to search my gang of little artist-heroes for missing faces today.

Won’t have to scan the sea and wonder if they’re scared or sinking or⁠—

No.

I don’t have to do that this morning. I roll to face him instead, and find a sleep-rumpled version of someone not worried, exactly, but clouds do gather in a reminder of him baring his soul outside a chapel to a couple having their worst day ever. I have no idea why until he asks, “What time is your train?”

Train?

Here goes reality taking aim for my nuts.

My train. It leaves at eleven.

I lurch upright, scrambling through discarded clothes for my phone where—thank fuck—I find it’s only a few minutes past six. “Not for a while. Eleven. That’s ages yet. Hours and hours,” I tell him and slump back to where it’s warm and cosy. He’s up on one elbow, and there’s a lot of him to look at, so I do.

Shadows flicker. Not internal ones this time. These are cast by the sunrise through the trees around what he described as an occasional home. As temporary, like most of the work he mentioned while in the marquee. I get it. I spend most of my time with temporary people, both migrants and project workers. Only big operations like the one Reece works for last the distance.

I want mine to as well.

Need it to be permanent.

Perhaps that’s why this pops out. “Why don’t you rent somewhere?”

“Me?”

Something in his gaze shutters. Closes. Keeps me out, which isn’t what I want for this last time I’ll get to see him. I give myself a mental slap to wake the fuck up, and to try harder not to add another bruise to someone whom life has scarred already.

“You’ve got so many skills, is all.” I gesture around us. “And I heard someone at the wedding say that you made a whole new playground at the school out of nothing.”

“A Forest School space,” he corrects me quietly, but those shutters lift and he smiles when I keep listing everything else I’ve noticed.

“You aren’t just a school groundsman, even if you are pretty handy with a…” I sketch the shape of that wicked blade he used to slice through willow before twisting it into leafy circles.

“A bramble cutter.”

“Yeah, that. Plus, you used to run nature courses, didn’t you, and you know your way around farming.” Plenty of people came up to him last night while I was sketching, wanting to book him in for harvesting duties that he had to turn down, his schedule full already. “You’re in demand and have a lot of local contacts.” Anyone who watched him pull this wedding celebration together out of nothing would guess that. “So why⁠—”

“Do I live here between jobs? It’s free.” He says that as if it is a complete answer. Maybe it is, but he offers more, and I’m done listening to this still-sleepy softness. “I’m saving up.” He doesn’t say what for. I don’t ask because he follows it with something perhaps he didn’t mean to say aloud. “While I still can.” This comes out much faster. “Because I rely on seasonal work. Spend it all now and there won’t be enough for later. I know that’s not exactly the definition of successful.”

He lays back, so I go up on my elbow to see a different kind of shuttering, the type I’ve seen from kids before drawing what they didn’t choose to leave behind them but had to. So many of my little artists blamed themselves for the chaos that led them to my project. Shame travelled with them, because here’s the thing about kids—they’re brave little fuckers who’ll hide their worries from their families until they have an outlet.

Provide that for them with paper and pens or crayons and with other kids to share with, and boom, that shame has no place to hide. They can let it out, and I can redraw it for them.

I want to redraw Hayden now.

He doesn’t let me. He shifts again, adding a few more inches of distance, and I’ve thought fuck that once already. Fuck this right in the eye too, because someone who goes all out to help strangers for no payment or need for kudos can’t have anything to be ashamed of, so I move with him.

I also document how the sheet slips lower, and the shadows of leaves fall across his torso like when I drew him wearing a crown and ivy. All he wears now is a reminder of what those kids carried, and fuck that too. “I’m not judging,” I promise. “It isn’t like I’ve got a place of my own.”

“I could have my own place.” He meets my eye. “I have had plenty of times before. Rented locally. And I said that Marc and Stefan keep offering me a room. Saying no meant they could let the cottage out. Farming isn’t easy. Starting a wedding business wasn’t either. They need the income, and me renting anywhere else would be a lot of cash that I could...”

I take a guess, remembering something else he said while I sketched wedding guests and we chatted about everything and nothing. “Spend on your sisters? Or on more fast fashion and Taylor Swift tickets?”

He actually laughs, and that’s a great sound. He also meets my eyes, and that’s even better. I’ve left a picture I drew for him back at the stables to find when I’m long gone. Now I wish I could take another stab at adding everything that means I can’t resist this impulse.

I kiss him.

He kisses me back, closed mouthed but soft, and that’s what is missing from my drawing. This not a long-term kinda person is as soft as butter. On the inside, I mean. He’s plenty hard in other places that I roll against now, and we get off again, slow and unhurried, because there are hours left on my clock, right?

That meeting might as well be forever away while his hand wraps me. It could be years off when we get so hot and sweaty we need to make use of that shower he built for honeymooners. And if washing each other led to getting off for a third time, that was all good to hurry.

Time still rushes, and in no time at all I’m waiting at a station where I can’t avoid that I don’t have anything new to present to that agent.

It is almost the very last minute.

I’d hate myself if I wasn’t making the most of a final kiss with Hayden that comes with another quiet rumble that I barely hear over the sound of the station announcement. The next arrival will be the train to Paddington. I need to be on it.

“Good luck today, Rae.” He takes a step back. “Hope you get everything you want.”

“I’m gonna ask for it.” It’s so worth tagging this on. “You should too, Hayden. Ask for what you want, as well. You deserve something for you.” And that means I get to carry the surprised shift in his expression onto the train with me.

I’ve got work to do now, no way to ignore this deadline any longer, but I still prop up my phone, get out my sketchbook, and draw who I left on that station and who I won’t see again.

Cornwall blurs outside the train window as I sketch moorland as rugged as him. Towns and fields fly by too. The train must pass a music festival, I guess. Tents cram close together, and I add them to this drawing, only not exactly. These aren’t music festival tents or the nylon jungle I left across the Channel. I recreate the neat rows I last saw on a different child’s journey, one found buried under a school foundation.

Then I look up, watching the trail of an airplane flying high above the southwest of England.

Who knows why that comes out on my page as a Spitfire trailing smoke over Hayden—it wasn’t his life journey on that fragile postwar scroll, was it? It is him I draw again now, a giant extending a hand to a ghost, a wraith, to a vague outline of a child with hopes and dreams who washed up in this country after⁠—

I add flames to that Spitfire. Draw more around a blazing forest that caught fire the last time the world marched together against Nazis, which has nothing to do with the kids I’ve worked with in France.

Only…

Something clicks for me then, and yeah, I’ve often cursed myself for being scattered, but these moments of clarity? This intense hyper-focus? They almost make it worth saying no to the prescription medication that could save me from playing fast and loose with deadlines.

I flip back several pages, leafing through miniature hero after hero. That agent’s instruction repeats in time with the clack of wheels against the train tracks.

Put a unique spin on a journey.

The train hurtles towards my second shot at getting this right.

And as for me?

I get busy drawing.

8

HAYDEN

I leave Rae at the station, then keep myself busy all week long. That isn’t hard as Cornwall shakes off her summer greens for autumn metallics. Wheat ripples in the sea breeze, a golden ocean I sail through first on combines and then on tractors, baling straw.

I do that all over again the next week too on a different farm, sprinkling in a few of the last tasks left to complete at Glynn Harber—tasks that Luke told me to press pause on, which is proof that he’s a local. He told me the weather waits for no farmer, and he wasn’t wrong about that, but that repetitive work of driving up and down fields only gives me time for wondering how Rae’s meeting went in London.

So what if we only had a one-off that always had a deadline? Now I can’t help wondering how things panned out for someone I’m pretty sure was desperate to score long-term funding for his project and wasn’t as fully prepared as he could have been.

Because he helped me.

Fourteen days after we said our goodbyes, I’m also unprepared for a message pinging my phone.

Not from Rae.

I’ve had plenty of time to regret that we didn’t exchange numbers, even if our weekend together was a one-and-done, fleeting but so fucking good. I’d still much rather read a message from him than from who sends me this one.

Luke Lawson: We should finish our talk.

I know which conversation he will want to revisit.

It won’t be about that clearing I made for his students, which I keep circling back to between farm work. Charles says the nature-based activities I’ve added are proof I’d be an ideal candidate to work here full time. He insists all I’d need is a formal Forest School qualification, and that I should ask for a chance to run classes here while studying for it.

Last year, I wouldn’t have wanted that full-time commitment even if I had the right teaching credentials. I still thought my camping business had a future. Now, after spending a single night under canvas with Rae and remembering how that stove only took the edge off the cold last winter, I’m tempted to ask for what Charles says would get me a guaranteed yes and a permanent place at the stables. Even if that means sharing with a happily humming fucker.

Only I’m almost certain that Luke hasn’t messaged about me sharing the stables with Rowan for any longer.

He’ll want to revisit a conversation that a hectic wedding and a couple of busy weeks interrupted. His next text feels like confirmation.

Luke Lawson: Come and find me as soon as you can.

I can also guess what that means.

He’s had time to research what kind of tests players take before big matches. I even confessed to getting marched off a pitch in front of thousands, didn’t I?

That doesn’t happen for minor reasons.

Run classes for him? There’s no chance, especially now his school is full of students.

Charles has mentioned that some are fragile. Others are apparently volatile enough that Luke has had to stagger their arrivals. That has been a partial blessing—those new kids trickling into his school have kept Luke too busy to track me down and ask for my key for the stables back.

He’ll want to end my contract right now, even if I haven’t completely finished.

I get busy then too, only I spend every last minute in the woods doing what Charles suggested to extend learning.

I hear that in his posh accent—help the children to need each other—so that’s what I do over and over, creating natural teamwork chances with logs and tarps. With spoons and jars and buckets, and planks it will take two to carry. And with a storytelling chair that I turn into a real throne by carving a crown, a finishing touch I can’t help wishing Rae knew he inspired with his king of the fairies drawing.

Of me.

I add more finishing touches for both kids and adults, all while picturing an unsteady little girl who spilled her wedding petals and a brain-injured man I made feel bad but didn’t mean to.

These adult-height handrails are my apology to Justin for having absolutely zero intention of seeking him out for a footy-related conversation. No need to revisit those bad old days, but I do hope he gets to use this place and enjoy it.

I also hope that Rae’s second pitch went better than his first one—that he got his big chance, even if I’ll never know which journey he picked to run with.

He mentioned so many kids he’d met overseas while he sketched at that wedding, always coming back to one he drew wearing a yellow life vest, her skinny little arms outstretched to a plane that flew away without her family. Rae drew a cape for that girl, and now I kinda wish I knew if she made the final cut in his story.

Maybe that’s a soccer hangover—a pang of sympathy for anyone left on a bench. Perhaps I’ll pass a bookshop one day and find out.

And perhaps one day I’ll figure out how my stepmum always knows when to reach out to me.

I sit on that storytelling throne and get the virtual kick in the arse I need from her.

Kirsty: I just got the girls’ savings account statements!!!

Kirsty: Seriously, love, stop adding to them.

Kirsty: Spend your money on yourself. We’ve all got everything we need.

Kirsty: Apart from seeing more of you.

She follows that with a screen full of emojis that blow kisses, and one random dollop of poop.

Kirsty: Sorry. Didn’t mean to send that emoji, but I do mean it about the money. Seriously. They’ll only spend it on clothes, and there isn’t room for any more!!!

She sends a photo of their bedroom, and yeah, it’s cluttered and chaotic, the triple bunks I built for them almost camouflaged by clothing, but it is also enough of an incentive to get my head on straight, even if driving tractors across bumpy fields so often lately means my fingers shake while I type this.

Hayden: I’ll build them a bigger wardrobe next time I’m up.

I tag on another message before she can ask when that will be, and I add a kiss for each of them.

Hayden: Soon xxxx

That might be much sooner than I want once harvest is over and I run out of too-busy-to-visit excuses.

I’ll also run out of money to send home.

I shove that thought away the same way I shove my hands deep in my pockets to still them.

Another thought won’t be shoved down. It clings like a burr while I sit on a throne in a kingdom I’ve spent a summer creating.

I do want to be who teaches the kids here.

Adam toddling up to me with his arms raised like the kid in that picture Rae sketched is only confirmation.

We have a quick play while a tired-looking Charles wheels napping babies. Adam likes the thin discs of logs that I’ve sawn. We count them. Make a path of stepping stones with them. He jumps from each one before we stack them into a tower, and I find a chrysalis hiding. I haven’t read a book about a hungry caterpillar to my sisters in forever. It comes back to me for Adam. I’m word-perfect while I sit on that throne with him, and when I finally exit the woods, I’m determined to try to stay for longer.

At least through the winter.

I march to the main school building, because Rae didn’t put off that meeting of his, did he? He got on that train because kids need the cash getting a yes could net him. Now I take a shortcut—no brambles here to snag me or ivy left to smother this natural beauty.

The woods look so much better, and so does the school without the scaffolding that covered it all summer. Now windows gleam with a golden sunset, and I should go straight upstairs to find Luke and ask him to let me lead those sessions for him.

What I actually do is hesitate on the threshold of the front door, feet planted on mosaic tile welcoming me to Glynn Harber, and…

Will I still be welcome, if he has done his research?

I backtrack and end up at the stables, which feels like a mistake as soon as I see what waits on my bedside table.

The fairy king that Rae left here for me stares out from a sheet of sketchpad paper. He’s confident and commanding, at peace with his scars. With his past. Even his gaze is calm, and fuck me but I thought I was calm too until someone said four little words within Luke Lawson’s hearing.

Failed a pre-match test.

Maybe that’s why I feel seventeen all over again as I hold a sketch that Rae surely didn’t have time to waste by drawing the weekend he was here.

I want to live up to how he saw me.

So I do.

I retrace my steps to find Luke, who doesn’t make that easy. He isn’t in his study where I knock and wait like a shiny brass sign orders, and maybe him not telling me to enter should be a reprieve, only I can’t stop thinking of Rae telling me he was gonna ask for what he really wanted and that I should too.

That’s the spur in the side I need to go searching through classrooms. The smell of fresh paint travels with me down hallways lined with noticeboards. And that’s where I find Rae.

Not for real.

A photo of him is on a noticeboard just inside the library. He’s surrounded by kids. By sand. By shared art projects, none of which hold my attention. I’m drawn to eyes that smile even in a photo, and to his brand of busy interest. I’m so engrossed that I don’t hear Luke until he stands beside me.

“Was he ready in time for his meeting?”

I jump. Not due to surprise. Leaping is any goalie’s first reaction, and that’s what I do now by coming to Rae’s defence. “He won’t let those kids down.”

Luke repeats what I last saw on a dance floor when a soldier held up both hands to say don’t shoot. Luke’s upraised hands ask me to hold fire the same way, only he doesn’t back off. If anything, he draws closer to me and rephrases while speaking quietly. “Of course he won’t let them down.” All of his frown lines deepen as he makes a quiet confession. “I only wondered about how his meeting might have gone for selfish reasons.”

“Selfish?” That isn’t a word I’d associate with this headmaster. I’ve watched him work hard all summer. When he hasn’t been walking and talking with his trainee teachers, he’s wielded tools or paint rollers. Even now, he’s dotted with white spatters. He’s also midway through another chore for the kids who learn here.

Luke gestures at a box of books I assume are meant to fill the shelves of this new library. “I was hoping Rae would help me add to our collection of stories about journeys, like in these books, especially if those stories involve failure.”

“Failure?”

I guess we aren’t talking about fiction anymore.

This is about me.

I brace myself, but Luke picks up a picture book for little children. “Rae recommended this one to me. Said it was a particularly difficult story that spoke to him, got to him right here.”

He touches his chest while something deep inside mine twinges at the thought of Rae hurting. What Luke adds next soothes it.

“He said that story healed him. Not sure if that’s because he saw himself in it or because it was illustrated by someone who went on to become his mentor.” He taps a book cover showing a boy staring up at a sky full of stars, his gaze fixed on the brightest one sparkling high above him. And isn’t that another reminder of Rae right there, only under a canopy of Cornish stars with me.

Luke touches that bright star on the cover of the book. “I ordered several by the same illustrator based on Rae’s recommendation. This is the one that held special meaning for him, but do you know what almost happened to it this afternoon?”

I shake my head and Luke tells me.

“I haven’t been able to find a perfect librarian for Glynn Harber. I settled for someone who fit the bill on paper, and that’s who I found packing these books away to return, because”—he makes air quotes—“they aren’t suitable for children. None of them. Not even the book Rae personally recommended. The one story he said made him feel less alone.”

“Alone?” There goes my chest again, twinging.

Luke points back to that noticeboard full of photos.

“Perhaps Rae meant he wasn’t alone in wanting to help children through art. Regardless, the librarian decided none of these books were suitable. Said they had too many scary low points.”

He smiles tightly while proving to me that he isn’t afraid to end contracts early like I’ve come here more than half expecting.

“We’ve agreed to differ. Parted ways before he could return them.” Now Luke is rueful. “And unfortunately before he could finish shelving any of the books he did approve of, hence…” He gestures again at the mostly empty shelves in this library. “It looks as if I’ll be on duty—which isn’t the most optimal timing—until I can trial another addition to my team. Someone with a more open mindset.” He admits to making a mistake without any excuses. “I selected the wrong person. Me. No one else. I made an error of judgement. Perhaps I hoped too hard that I’d found someone with a storyteller’s soul for our students. Someone who knows the value of seeing yourself in fiction, in getting to be a hero instead of a victim.”

Like Rae does with all those kids.

I glance again at the photos on the noticeboard. Rae is almost clean-shaven in the first. He’s increasingly bearded and progressively more harrowed as I walk along this record of what Luke tells me is a collaboration between several projects. “Our counsellor Reece helps to run the Safe Harbour project. He’s always gathering up like-minded people.”

He has also gathered kids. Each photo features different children. A tide of statistics, Rae had called them.

What else did he say that night while wedding guests danced and he drew them on his phone with a stylus?

A never-ending tsunami of half-finished stories.

Luke murmurs, “Having an extra story-telling person on my team was key to my plans for Glynn Harber, but if that librarian couldn’t see the value of difficult journeys, I can’t possibly risk them around my students, can I?”

Risk them.

That phrase has rattled through my brain all day long. For the last two weeks as well.

Luke picks up the same thread and runs with it. Not literally though. If anything, he cautiously peers around a set of shelving, then crooks a finger. I follow to see his little daughter curled up on a beanbag seat, asleep with a picture book open beside her. He carefully scoops it up and retreats with it to show me.

“Risk Jamila never getting to see Syrian children like herself and her brother?”

The book is full of little girls and boys just like her and her brother, Hadi.

“Risk her not getting to see that good times are possible after bad ones?”

There’s loss on these pages, and how the fuck an artist conveyed that without it being terrifying, I don’t know, but Rae’s mentor has drawn love far more often than he has drawn fear or sadness.

Luke touches one of those caring images. “Risk her not getting to see how much her heritage matters? Heritage like you helped to translate for me, back when we found little Olek’s scroll and diary in the school foundation, remember?”

I do. That was at the start of the summer. Months later, I wish I knew what happened to a kid who didn’t only share my roots but also my footballing dreams. Even if those never worked out for me, I hope he got his own happy ending.

Luke clears his throat. “Difficult paths are the ones our students most need to read. They need to see them play out more often, not less.” He faces me, no escaping this eye contact. “They need to hear them from people who have lived through similar tough issues like theirs and who have come out the other side as aspirational people.” He pauses. “Like you have, Hayden.”

“Me?”

“You,” he confirms. “Which is also what I meant earlier about Rae’s meeting.” He’s honest again. “Part of me wanted to keep him here for a little longer, just like I want to keep you.”

My throat tightens out of nowhere, and perhaps he can tell.

Luke speaks for me. “You’ve worked with children when you ran nature courses as part of your camping business, so you must have passed clearance checks multiple times.”

I nod. I have.

“Some of our children are particularly vulnerable. That’s why anyone who works here needs to pass enhanced checks. Yours came back completely clear, Hayden. No police cautions or convictions.”

I nod again, fully expecting more questions about exactly how I let down everyone who loved me.

Luke tilts his head to ask a different question. “Who let you down, Hayden?”

I can’t answer.

I can’t breathe either, if I’m honest.

And I’m not sure how I end up sitting heavily on a chair provided by someone maybe I shouldn’t have avoided, because Luke doesn’t probe. He only sits beside me to open that star-covered storybook Rae apparently recommended. Luke turns to a page where a boy props up a massive boulder, and this illustrator’s style is different from Rae’s. There are no fairies on these pages, no crowns or burrs or sparkles, just a little kid struggling not to get crushed under something heavy.

Luke touches the edge of that huge boulder, then asks, “You failed a test when you were how old?”

“Seventeen.”

“The reason you failed it… That was your decision? Your idea?”

I shake my head. Then I nod, so Luke rephrases.

“Would you say you were supported?”

That’s much easier to answer. “No.”

He inhales slowly. “And you were alone with all of that.”

That isn’t a question.

“I wasn’t alone. I had my family.”

Here’s proof that Luke has done his research. “I meant alone after you lost your father.” He winces while repeating how I’d described Dad to him outside the chapel. “Your number one supporter. Your first and best coach. Someone who almost made it himself and who got a second shot through you.” He apologises right away, then adds, “I didn’t realise you lost him only months after joining the soccer academy. And of course his passing meant your stepmother must have been distracted with your sisters⁠—”

“It was nothing to do with her,” I snap. “Or them,” I say more softly, and I can only guess my face shows some of the storm we all went through. I hear the same thunder that hammered in my head and heart during academy practice sessions when succeeding became even more vital.

For them. For the girls and Kirsty.

Luke quickly holds a hand up in another don’t-shoot gesture, so I focus on that image of a boulder because here’s the thing: I don’t remember my birth mother at all, but my stepmum? Kirsty is the living and breathing reason why that word step gets attached to mother or father. She stepped up for all of us—held up a boulder of her own after losing Dad—so I settle for saying, “She was under a lot of pressure.”

And what does pressure make?

The best and the brightest diamonds.

That means this emerges with a hard edge. “She absolutely would have been there for me if…”

“You’d told her what was happening to you?” He pauses. “If you’d shared how you were being guided? Moulded? Shaped into an elite player, no matter how?” Luke lowers his hands, his voice equally low. “That’s what I meant by asking who let you down, Hayden. All five of you. Because it sounds as if you and your family weren’t supported. Where were your new coaches in that bereavement process?”

He wants me to tell him everything.

To speak up about something I’ve done my best to forget.

He waits while my pause extends, his question still unanswered, so he rephrases again. “You were in pain?”

“Yeah.” This is so, so raspy. “I played through it.”

“Someone...” His next word choice feels careful. Testing, and quietly worried. “Someone encouraged you to do that, Hayden? To play even when you were hurting and showed you how?”

I nod, just barely, although encouraged doesn’t feel quite right for being faced with a team of coaches and club doctors. For being backed into a room with them. For having no one in my corner when the choices were made so simple.

Do what it takes to play or lose your shot forever.

Today I settle for repeating the motto painted on every surface at the academy. “No grass stains, no glory. No bruises, no story. Right?”

“So they encouraged you to…”

Bruise.

This pause is even longer. I still can’t fill it by speaking.

Because bruise doesn’t even come close, does it?

Luke inhales and exhales slowly. Does it again, his next exhale louder, and it takes me a moment to realise he’s reminding me to breathe along with him. Finally he says, “I’m sorry any of that happened to you.”

I can’t shake my head, or nod, or answer.

I’d had a chance most kids would kill for, a golden ticket to play a game I loved almost as much as Dad did. I was excellent at something physical and competitive that used to make me stretch myself to my limits and enjoy it.

Describing how quickly that went to shit is too much of a stretch for me now, and Luke sits in silence with that. And with me.

He finally breaks that silence by closing the book and touching the highest star that sparkles on its cover. “I’m guessing your father would be so proud of you.”

I only wish I could believe that.

And this.

“You were grieving. You did your best to keep going regardless. You failed, and you recovered. And the leadership you showed a fortnight ago? That was exceptional, Hayden. Exceptional. You magicked a team together out of nowhere and made that wedding party happen. Of course I want to keep you.”

That’s it.

I’m done.

The picture book blurs. The whole world does. I can only blink it away when he finally outright asks, “The test you failed?”

I nod, waiting for a boulder to finally crush me.

Luke asks this oh-so quietly next. “Do I need to be concerned about any current issues relating to it?”

I’m not gritty now. I’m choked. “You really don’t, but…”

This is the closest I can come to voicing aloud what didn’t only fuck up my future. Perhaps that’s why this is edged in desperation. “Test me anytime you want. Every day if you need to. Test me at random, with no notice and no warning.”

His hand lands on my shoulder, firm and certain. “I think you’ve tested yourself more than enough.” He retreats to retrieve his still-sleeping daughter, coming back with her to whisper, “Jamila keeps asking to go to your clearing. Can I tell her next week, maybe, depending on your harvest duties?”

“You mean…”

“How about we give each other a short-term trial?” Luke suggests. “With three conditions. The first is that I want you to think about getting a formal Forest School teaching qualification.”

“A qualification?” That doesn’t sound short term. “How long would that take?”

“A year. Two if you need to stretch out your studies.” He must guess cost as my reason for hesitating. “That’s an investment the school could probably cover if you are committed. Let’s give it until the half-term break for both of us to decide whether you being here long term will work out.”

Long term? I’ll settle for a single winter if that comes with somewhere to live and steady earnings.

“The fine detail is negotiable.” He meets my eyes again, and there’s nowhere to hide from this steel. “This next condition isn’t. That’s due to the tough roads many of our students take to reach Glynn Harber. They have had traumatic journeys. I can’t leave them in the care of someone who hasn’t processed their own.” He touches that star in heaven on the book cover, and I guess he means bereavement although I’m a whole decade past needing a bedtime story to console me. Luke says, “Reece is the expert with that process, but he’s⁠—”

“In France?” My gaze flashes to a big blond man working alongside Rae in some of those photos, and I must have guessed right because Luke nods.

“That’s why you’ll need to agree to engage with him as soon as he comes back, which has to involve being open about exactly what you went through, Hayden. About every little detail. He’ll be back after the half-term break. Until then, I’ll find a mentor to work with you.” His gaze doesn’t waver. “That’s nonnegotiable as well. Not because I don’t trust you, but because I’m not sure you trust yourself. Not yet. But you will be able to in future if you’re prepared to do the hard work.”

“I’ve never been scared of that.”

“No.” His gaze warms with a smile. “And I’ve seen you do plenty of it for other people. How about you do some of it for yourself? On yourself. You won’t regret it.” He tacks on a third condition I wasn’t expecting. “And maybe you wouldn’t regret taking over our football coaching too.”

I sink. Or my soul does, at least, and he must notice.

“We can lose that condition, if playing again doesn’t spark joy for you. What you made for the children this summer clearly does, and if that’s all you have to give, it’s already more than enough.”

Something inside me rises then, lifting me like cliffside thermals do to gulls. I fly, soaring the same way I imagined I would if a stadium full of fans had roared for me.

Tonight, I hear them cheer instead of jeering my walk-off.

This is really happening. I’m going to get what I want.

Or part of it, at least.

Only one thing could make this result even sweeter, and this picture book that I carry out of the library for Luke while his hands are full with his sleeping daughter is a star-covered reminder.

Now I wish even harder that I’d swapped phone numbers with Rae.

Did he score a yes for his dream too?

Fuck it, if I really was a fairy king like that drawing he left for me, I’d cast a spell to make that happen for him, then I’d cast a second one to magic him back here to tell me himself.

Luke leaves me at the front door to go grab some paperwork, the click of his heels echoing through this empty building. So does the sound of different heels on mosaic, and maybe I don’t need magic.

My wish fills the doorway.

9

HAYDEN

Rae’s hair is wild like he’s run his hands through it a thousand times since I last saw him. I can’t believe he’s here. Or how good it is to see him. Both are a dazzling distraction until I’m close enough to see below his smiling surface.

He’s also tense. Tired. More than a little wired, and I take a stab at guessing the reason.

“You been burning the candle at both ends again, Rae?”

That’s what he told me he needs to do to hit his deadlines. This evening, he shakes his head before just as quickly capitulating. He nods, and his grin of greeting fades but doesn’t drop entirely, which is good. He doesn’t have to pretend to me that he’s got his shit together, and he must feel that to admit, “Maybe a little,” before he goes all in, and I’d forgotten how much I liked how he isn’t afraid to tell his whole story—the good, the bad, and the deadline-challenged.

“Actually yes, but only because I’ve been trying to fit drawing around my project workshops. I needed to after finally getting an answer from that agent. My agent.”

Here’s something new: He’s so fucking proud that his chest puffs, his gaze locking with mine and holding.

“Because she said yes.” His grin is a lightning flash even if it comes with some hedging. “Kinda, at least.” An incisor rakes his lower lip in a suggestion of nerves. He goes all in again to share the reason for them. “Thought about emailing the school to let you know.” His gaze drops just as quickly. Perhaps he reads the same mosaic message and wonders if he’s welcome. “Then I thought that might be weird, right?” He rubs the back of his neck, still studying those green and white tiles. “If I emailed the school to get a message to you like I almost did? Or asked Sol if he had your number. I mean, we only⁠—”

Got up close and personal at a party?

Let romantic wedding vibes tangle us like brambles?

But that isn’t all I remember from that weekend. What has stayed with me since is how Rae threw himself into helping, and how he drew Finn and Willow’s big day for so many people. He didn’t have to do any of that, and perhaps that’s why I’m honest. “I wouldn’t have minded if you’d messaged me.”

“No?”

He traces that mosaic with the tip of a shoe, his head still down, and that’s all kinds of wrong from someone who was on my team when I needed him. He went all out, so I return the favour, even if this feels risky. “No.” I tilt his chin with a steady finger. “I’ve been kicking myself that we didn’t swap numbers.”

“Yeah?” Here’s that smile I prefer, intense and only for me, and who knows why that makes me gruffer than usual.

“Yeah, Rae. I wanted to know how you were doing.”

“You really been thinking about me, Hayden?” He’s teasing now. That lightning smile widens, and who knows how long I stand there, smiling back until footsteps echo.

Luke returns, and I drop my hand, not sure when I stopped tilting Rae’s chin up with a single finger and switched to cupping his jaw. All I know is that my palm tingles, and I can’t blame that on chainsaw or tractor vibration. I shove my hands back where they belong and hope Luke didn’t notice.

“Rae! You’re back.”

“Hi, Luke.” Rae instantly switches that intense focus, talking a mile a minute, and that’s another difference I can’t help registering now I’ve seen it. All this speed and switch of focus comes with an increase in tension. “Yes. I hit up Sol to hitch a ride down with your latest batch of new kids.”

He looks over his shoulder, and I see the school minibus in the car park, where Sol talks with a group of unfamiliar faces. A couple of more familiar ones join them, Teo and Noah stepping up, which is good to see. Rae faces us again, wets his lips, and launches into the same kind of pick-me pitch I came here to make this evening.

“My agent wanted me to focus on one journey and find a unique angle. I showed her some rough drafts, and she loved my concept. I didn’t know she’d shop the idea around so quickly, let alone get some nibbles from publishers. They want to see more progress before making a final offer.” He rushes over both of our congratulations, doing more of that spilling without editing away his failures. “Problem is, I’ve got nothing new to show them.”

He doesn’t strike me as lazy. He can’t have struck Luke that way either, who scores a bullseye with his guess. “Because you went back to France, and didn’t have time?”

Rae nods. He also swallows. “I’ve been trying.” I can guess what drowned his focus—that never-ending tide of kids he’s described to me once already. “I need to go back.”

If that is Rae’s plan, he’s come in the wrong direction for a flight or ferry across the English Channel. He acknowledges that right away.

“Not back there.” I don’t know why his next glance my way feels nervous. He frowns as hard as Luke next, and that looks all wrong on him. “Here. Because this is where that journey started.”

“Here?” Luke shifts a still-sleeping Jamila on his shoulder, his voice low. “At Glynn Harber?”

“Yes. All I need is your permission. Well, and some time.” Here comes a pitch I’m pretty sure Rae doesn’t need to make. Not to Luke, who switches from furrowed to openly interested as Rae says, “I know you’ve only just got your building back, and every room will be timetabled, but Sol says he could carve out a corner for me to work in, with your agreement. In return, I’d run that friendship-making workshop you mentioned. Because you said that the first few weeks here could be make-or-break for the new students, right? I could make it fun for them. Get them all talking to each other. I’ve had a ton of practice at doing that.”

He glances back, and when he faces Luke again, I recognise someone about to take their shot. He’s determined not to miss it, and I’ve faced a whole lot of strikers. This is the first time I’ve wanted one to score this badly.

“I already started breaking the ice with them on the way down here. They’re good kids.” His brow furrows in a much better Luke Lawson imitation than his first one. “I didn’t realise what they’d…”

“Been through to get here?” Luke’s hand sweeps up and down his sleeping daughter’s back. “And the hurdles they still face to move forward?”

Rae nods, and this sounds almost helpless from him. “After what they told me, I kinda want to draw it with them. Their futures. How to get there. So they can see what could be real for them.”

“They shared with you already?”

Rae huffs out a quiet laugh. “Probably because it was the only way to stop me talking.” He rubs at the back of his neck again. It looks as if heat climbs it. He’s rosier when he adds, “We’re from the same ends, aren’t we?”

“Ends?” Luke asks. “You mean from the same part of London?”

Rae nods. “Pretty much. Close enough that we all⁠—”

I’m not part of this conversation. I still can’t help saying, “Speak the same language?” I heard him do that with Noah, didn’t I, while we pitched tents together. Saw him chop away the silence Marc’s little brother wears like armour. Heard him make Noah laugh, which is a rare sound. “You had similar experiences to them?”

“Yeah, if you mean failing at school and spending most of my time dodging—” He falters while meeting Luke’s eyes. “You remember what we talked about, yeah? About what happens where we grew up.”

If he means he’s dodged gangs, Marc’s mentioned plenty to me.

“Yes. That’s why they’re here,” Luke murmurs.

I’ve never heard Rae this fierce. He virtually spits this. “Good. It’s a fu—” He instantly apologises. “Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to swear around her.”

He means Jamila. “You didn’t, and she’s fast asleep,” Luke murmurs once more, low and gentle. “Go on.”

Rae does, if more quietly. “It’s worse now than ever. I went back after my meeting to tell my sister the good news and saw for myself.” He shakes his head. “I hate—” This abrupt stop doesn’t last for too long. He’s in a hurry all over again, this time speaking even faster. “Listen, if you let me have a base to work on my illustrations, I’ll definitely find time for them in return. Time for all of them.” Here’s an ace he’s saved until last. “And I’ll include the school in my story.”

“Include? How?”

I edge away from what sounds like a negotiation that Rae doesn’t seem to realise is already a done deal; he won over Luke Lawson the moment he said he wanted to sketch brighter futures for his students.

Backing away from them lets me see that Luke was right—Jamila is out for the count against his shoulder. Her eyelashes are a dark fan casting long and spiky shadows. So do Rae’s. They fan so darkly against suddenly pale skin when he closes his eyes and goes for broke.

“I was gonna use the advance to fund my art project, but I could cut the school in on that.” This honesty feels brutal. “Might end up being half of nothing.” He’s optimistic next, which feels a lot more on-brand for him. “But it could end up being half of a decent number. Either way, I’ve got some time before I have to present my final illustrations. I’d be all yours until then. Could even come camping like you wanted, keep up that momentum of them getting to know each other. You said you do that right away, yeah? I’m ready.”

He swings around to show off his rucksack and his portfolio case slips from his shoulder in the process.

I can still move fast when I need to. I grab it, slide it back where it belongs, meet his eyes for a second time this evening, even while he speaks to Luke.

“That is, if you do want me around for longer?” Rae breaks eye contact with me, suddenly looking anywhere else. “Only there is one other thing I’d need.”

“Hold that thought.” Luke makes to pass him in the doorway. “Give me ten minutes to pop Jamila home and grab my rucksack. I’ll be right back.”

Rae blurts, “This is important.” He stops avoiding eye contact with me. His are as dark as his lashes. They’re also worried. “I can’t recreate the journey my Glynn Harber kid took without a translator.”

Luke pauses. Turns on his heel. Tilts his head and asks, “A translator?”

“Yeah. Someone to work closely with me on the unique spin I came up with.” This time Rae’s gaze doesn’t waver. “I can’t read Polish. I’d need help from someone who can.”

Who knows what my reaction shows him. All I do know is that he trips over his words like I did earlier with Luke. Rae rushes the exact same way now. “Because online translations won’t cut it for this story. Won’t help me to understand context or nuance. Not about the journey I want to follow.”

I picture that old diary again then, see it on the bed Rae borrowed at the stables. I also blink the moment Rae says, “Hayden’s perfect for me.”

It’s a trick of the falling light that I think Luke smiles. He’s just as serious as ever when he tilts his head again and murmurs, “Perfect for you?”

Rae is flustered. “I mean, he’d be a perfect research partner.” He keeps going, his chin rising like someone cornered yet coming out fighting regardless. “Only that means he’d need to stay on here for a while longer. But when I’m busy with your students or drawing, he could put that forest school he made into good use, couldn’t he? It’s a win-win for you, Luke. A two-for-one deal.”

Now I don’t only picture that diary full of Polish in childish handwriting. A whole conversation under canvas floods back where I said I wanted to see that clearing come to life. See it change with the seasons, along with the children in it. He can’t have any idea that I already asked Luke for that myself this evening—or that he was my inspiration to do it. Rae has still come all the way back here with a plan to make that a potential option for me, and for a second time this evening, I hear a crowd roar like I’m a winner.

I’m pretty sure Luke must say something. I don’t hear what; my internal cheer is still deafening. I only realise Luke has left us—is already striding away across the car park towards the waiting students—when Rae closes the distance between us, that worry back in those wide eyes of his. “I didn’t know if you’d still be here, so that was all a bit spur of the moment. I mean, I’d been thinking it. I hadn’t meant to say it, that’s all. Not without checking if it’s something you’d want.”

Rae runs a hand through his hair like he must have done all the way back from London, worrying about my answer. “Because we’d have to spend a lot of time together, yeah? And there’s a big difference between copping off with your plus-one at a wedding compared to finding out they’ll be around twenty-four seven. At work and at home.”

“No. I⁠—”

I don’t get to tell him that he wouldn’t get the chance to crowd me at the stables. Rae butts in with a ready-made contingency plan.

“Sol’s got a spare room. Think he’d actually like the company now that both his partner and nephew are away. And Reece could probably hook me up with a Polish speaker from his Safe Harbour project. No problem if you’re too busy to help me.”

I know when someone is covering worry by sounding easygoing. Heard it from my stepmum enough times to recognise Rae doing the same, so I get my arse in gear and use the book I still carry as inspiration.

“Come with me for a minute.” He follows me to the library where I don’t even wait for the door to close before explaining. “I only said no because Rowan lives on-site during term time.” I also catch hold of Rae’s wrist with my free hand and tug him closer and tell him, “Don’t ask Reece for anyone else.” And I like this smile a whole lot better.

He keeps smiling while asking questions, which clues me into what Luke must have told him while I wasn’t listening. “You already got Luke to agree to you running some nature classes?”

I’ve never been more relieved that I bit the bullet about admitting to a failed test. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t get to say this. “Yeah, I’ll be here for longer, like you.”

He’s instantly sunny. “Look at you, getting everything you wanted while I was away.”

I have now that he’s back to happy instead of worried. He’s also back to being intent on me, not even seeming to notice the book I hold between us, and I don’t know when I raised it like a shield, or why. I don’t need protection from someone who came back with a plan for me, even if it was impulsive.

This is equally hasty. I shove that book covered with stars onto a shelf and pull him even closer. We’re chest-to-chest in an empty room where our voices might echo if I spoke any louder. “I did want something else.” His eyes dance so I keep going. “Your phone number.”

He grins, and we swap. Then it’s his turn to ask a quiet question. “You want anything else from me, Hayden?”

I do.

I kiss him, and he kisses me back, thank fuck, only it isn’t as good as I remember.

It’s even better.

His mouth on mine comes with a slick and familiar slide of his tongue that I open up for. Reciprocating is so, so easy, like we’ve done this plenty instead of only before a wedding, then during a hurried night together followed by an even more rushed goodbye at a station.

He’s back now, and a crowd roars for a third time. Not for real. Only in my head, where that roar turns thunderous the moment he sucks on my tongue.

I’m back in a honeymoon tent with him then instead of a school library, which is the worst place to remember what else he last sucked for me, and Jesus, I can’t get hard here.

I can’t.

I mean, I shouldn’t, but his arms tighten around my neck, and it’s what I want more than anything. His mouth. His lips. That tongue mapping me and getting busy. I want it all, and for once I’m actually getting everything on my wish list.

Or I would if we were somewhere I could slide a bolt home behind us.

His hands roam somewhere we can’t get caught undoing buttons, and a groan of frustration slips out from me at having to slam on the brakes so soon after starting. He echoes it, chasing my lips to pick up where I left off kissing him, only this feels different so I crack one eye open.

That fucking smile.

I don’t even need to see his mouth to feel it. He’s so transparently happy, and here’s the problem with never usually being a long-term prospect—I didn’t know being wanted would feel like opening my chest with my own axe and bramble cutter. Those are my tools of choice to let light flood into dark and stunted places.

This blade between my ribs now?

It’s exactly what I’ve needed. I can’t get enough of him being as into me as I am into him. I need him even closer, not lurching away like he surprises me next by doing.

Rae moves fast.

One moment we’re connected, the next he grabs a book, shoves it into my hands, and points at a page as if it’s why we stand so close together that our shoes dovetail.

I used to have quick reactions.

I’m way too slow to register his reason.

Footsteps click, the library door swinging open, and Luke Lawson joins us.

“Ah,” he says. “Here you both are.” He tilts his head, gaze dropping to the book I hold between us. “Getting a head start on that translating, Hayden?” I’m not sure why that’s funny. Or maybe Luke only smiles due to what he tells Rae. “You definitely made an impression on the students. They’re pleased you’re coming camping with us.” He holds the door open.

There’s no arguing with that. Nor with what else he aims at me as Rae exits the library.

“Hayden, I haven’t forgotten about finding a mentor for you. I’ll ask someone to join you. You won’t be alone when you start your nature sessions.”

Once Rae has gone, Luke definitely smiles.

“And Hayden, I’m no expert at reading Polish, but…” He makes a circling gesture with a finger. “I’m almost certain that diary will be easier to translate if you turn it up the right way.”

10

RAE

One day, I’ll learn to stop causing my own problems. This camping trip is a good example of what Sol used to call me getting in my own way. I can almost hear him reminding me that if I’d asked more questions or listened harder, I’d already know Luke takes these kids camping for days, not for a single night like I expected. That’s longer than I have to spare while my new deadline clock is ticking, and I still don’t know exactly where to start this second try at scoring a book deal.

What I need is a launching point of inspiration. A spark. A single image that makes readers want to turn to the next page.

I’m no closer to deciding on what needs to be a banger of an opener by the time the sun sets, so I fish out my phone and send an SOS to my mentor.

Rae: How did you decide on your first image? Your opener?

Then I rush to catch up with Luke, and I get a glimpse of why he makes this hike a first experience for his new students. “It’s a chance for the old hands to step up,” he says, and that’s what I watch happen while Luke gives me a potted history of this cohort of sixteen- and seventeen-year-old kids. I learn more about their backgrounds and crises that would have put them into prison if they’d been adults, and I blurt a question that Luke frowns at.

“For supplying drugs?”

“Not this time.” That frown deepens. “But you know how pervasive they are. Each student that we can help see they have different options makes a difference. Watch Teo,” Luke suggests. “He’s a good example of what a year or so of having more options can lead to.”

“Like?”

“Like him choosing to stay with us for an extra year. Not because he needs to retake exams. He already scored a place on a college course. He’s pressed pause on following that path.” He eyes me. “That’s brave, right? Deciding to change direction?” He eyes Teo next, watching him move from new student to student, checking in with them, and this quiet progress? That steadying hand Teo lands on new kids’ shoulders? It’s a Hayden reminder.

Teo could be re-enacting that night when we all worked together. The only difference is that he starts a game of footy the moment those tents are pitched, which Luke comments on.

“If anyone touched Teo’s football when he first got here, he’d fight them. But there’s no fun playing alone, is there? He still fought off friendship. Kept running away and refused to trust us. All he had head space for was⁠—”

“Surviving?”

“I was going to say worrying about his family, but yes. That too.”

I look away then, Mia instantly on my mind, and Luke’s tone gentles.

“Get to know him, and he’ll probably tell you why. That isn’t my story to share, but I can share this: Asking anyone to trust again after being let down is a tall order. A huge ask. So, Teo wanting to stay here for longer? That trust is a gift.” He eyes me again. “Like you trusting that Glynn Harber would be a good place to stay longer, Rae. You pressing pause here too means a lot.”

He joins the kids before I can say that my situation is different. I haven’t pressed pause for me. I’ve scrambled for extra time, that’s all. What I really need is more of that inspiration that only Hayden can translate for me.

Liar, I hear at the base of a tor, although I’m pretty sure that whisper is internal, not an echo. So is this one. You could easily find another way to translate that diary. You just want to see more of him.

I march away from that truth and follow this band of kids who are blank-faced until we reach the top of a high tor together where, like them, I’m blown away by the view.

The sea and sky are endless up here, fields clinging to the distant coastline in a patchwork of harvest yellows. A tractor armed with a forklift works in one of them, collecting huge, round bales of straw, and tidying them into a neat line.

I use my phone to zoom in on that tractor’s driver.

Is that him?

I snap a photo and send it with a text asking for confirmation. Then I slide my phone away and listen while the lowering sun paints the faces of these students in similar gold shades as the fields.

Luke asks them, “Could you even imagine this view from down there?” I wish I had Sol’s talent with oils or watercolours. I’d paint these kids all standing on top of crags as hard as their eyes were when I first met them in London, only I’d have to sprinkle them with this evening’s bright new wonder. Wonder that they work hard to hide like...

Hayden.

I’ve seen him do the same, haven’t I? Watched him work hard to hide his own reactions, like after getting praised, which I saw happen plenty at that wedding table. I notice similar reticence from these kids, but I guess Luke’s an old hand at staving off withdrawal. He crouches by a pile of stones at the highest point of this rocky outcrop and addresses it head on.

“You can see yourself from a new perspective, as well, if you give yourselves permission to start over. Mr. Raeburn will even help you to draw brand-new futures. Yours can be as bright as this evening is. All you have to do is let yourselves have it, but I know some of you want to walk away from this second chance. To run from it.” He nods towards Teo, who nods right back at him. “Or to pick a fight to avoid dealing with why you feel like you don’t deserve it.” Noah mirrors his next nod, his hair as fiery as his flush. “All those reactions do is weigh you down.” He picks up a rock. “The minute you drop them, you will feel lighter. Until then…” He taps his temple. “This is where that weight stays.” He pats his chest next. “And right here.”

I picture the book that changed my life then, see a small boy holding back a boulder, and I’ve already imagined Hayden as Atlas, haven’t I? Now I picture him in a different stance, shoving against one of those huge bales of straw, and I sketch that quickly on my phone while standing behind these listening students.

He comes to life in a few lines, and it’s so easy to draw his arms braced but shaking like his hands did after using his chainsaw. Even easier to be tempted to sketch a second person beside him, sharing that load with him, but I stop there and slide my stylus away as Luke continues.

“Pick one thing you’re sick of carrying. Work with us, and you’ll be able to leave it behind when your time at Glynn Harber is over.” He hefts a final rock. “Like mistrust,” he says, his gaze fixed on Teo again. “Or pain,” he adds while Noah rubs his own chest, which feels like an interesting untold story, only Luke reclaims my skittering attention. “Or guilt, which can be the heaviest weight of all to carry.”

He’s speaking to the students.

His gaze lands on me, and I need both hands to clasp the rock he hands me.

“Some of you carry guilt for other people.”

I’m on the top of a Cornish tor. I don’t know why I see that TV missing from my childhood home again. Or that empty fridge in our kitchen. The long shadows cast outside our front door by dealers don’t belong here where everything is so golden. Only the stone in my hand is real. So is the grit digging into my palms as I replay what it took to make a nightmare end for me and Mia.

End it?

You made it worse.

Fuck me, this stone is suddenly way too heavy.

Luke must be close enough to see that. He murmurs, “You can let it go,” but this talk is for students, not for would-be illustrators who can’t let wishful thinking distract them, no matter how appealing Luke makes dropping this weight sound by saying, “Imagine what you could carry once you have both hands free. What you’d have the headspace for and more room for right here.” He taps his chest again. “Room for new friendships. For aspirations and achievement. If you want, you can close your eyes right now and picture those in your futures.”

I visualise my book right next to my mentor’s on the shelves.

That has got to be my goal, yet the grit on my palms pricks like burrs did once, and I hear this so clearly that Luke must be right beside me. “You’re allowed to want good things for yourself. You’re allowed to take this time to figure out what those good things might be. You can open your eyes and see it.”

I do, and then I have to blink.

That tractor in a distant field has been busy. Those bales don’t make a neat line now. They make a smiley face instead, and my surprised grin must paint its own picture.

Luke’s hand lands on my shoulder. “You’re allowed to want good things and let yourself have them.”

That’s his refrain to the students for the next three days and nights—nights that I spend texting Hayden about everything and nothing. He doesn’t seem to mind. If he’s busy, he sends an emoji version of the smiley face he made with a forklift in that field.

For me.

He also sends photos of that woodland clearing. I wake to find he’s already been busy, squeezing in new additions between his harvest duties. He’s been busy too with that chainsaw; stacks of logs have been sliced into thin discs, and I ask why.

Hayden: Charles says they’re good for tons of learning.

He sends a photo of a toddler mid-jump between two of those discs. I roll over in my sleeping bag, studying that energy, that blur of motion, and something else in the background.

Rae: Who’s sitting on your throne?

Hayden: Charles. Think he’s regretting a few of his life choices.

His next photo shows why: Charles has borrowed Hayden’s ear defenders and holds twin babies, their little mouths wide open.

Hayden: Can you hear them screaming?

He follows that with another question.

Hayden: Can I see you?

He doesn’t need to ask me twice. I take a sleepy and bare-chested selfie, and send it to him within seconds.

Hayden: I meant when you get back, but thanks.

He sends a selfie of his own then, and there’s sawdust in his beard. His eyes are tired and heavy. They also stare straight into my soul.

I see them even after my phone dies, no charge left as Luke and his kids camp and hike and draw different futures for seventy-two hours, and I’m not sure when I stop panicking about that clock ticking and start hearing you’re allowed to want good things instead, but that selfie is what I picture each time Luke says it.

He reminds me of that mantra on our last hike, which brings us to the far side of rugged moorland. We’re followed by students who laugh while tramping behind us, their banter a world away from their first sullen silence. They’ve also made progress with starting to sketch their journeys, and Luke mentions a Polish one when we finish our last tor climb of this three-day bonding session.

He shields his eyes to guard them from afternoon sunlight before pointing.

“There.”

“There what?” I shield my own eyes, gaze skipping from the moor to some bordering woodland. “What am I looking for?”

“One of the old Polish resettlement camps. I knew it was around here somewhere.” He points out what my gaze must have skimmed past, and I’m instantly back in an encampment, only what Luke shows me doesn’t involve tents. These skeletons of abandoned structures must have once served the same purpose, although it’s hard to believe that they could ever have provided shelter. They look closer to broken ribcages than homes for allied veterans and their families.

All that remains of those homes is strangled by dark-green ivy and snarled by brambles. Even the entrance to the camp is hidden now that nature has taken over. Luke takes a photo and promises to send it to me.

I need to draw this—have to capture what used to house war heroes if only to show it to someone who shares a Polish connection.

It’s so easy to picture Hayden again then. Not with sawdust in his beard. Or burrs. I do imagine his chainsaw and that wicked-sharp blade he used to slice through willow, and I can imagine him clearing a path for a little Polish boy holding an old-style leather football.

He’d do that in a heartbeat, wouldn’t he? Cut him a path. Mow him a pitch. Stand in a goal and coach him.

It’s a perfect opening for my story, one melding the past with the present.

I can’t wait to share it with him.

I do have to wait until I can charge my phone in the minibus on the way back, but a notification on my phone screen stops me from texting. Instead, I read a reply to an SOS sent when my mind swirled at the start of a three-day mental reset I didn’t know I needed.

I needn’t have bothered to send it.

My mentor has only answered with what some time and space let me find out for myself.

I knew I’d found the right starting image when I couldn’t wait to share it with someone special.

11

RAE

That’s who I track down the minute we get back to Glynn Harber, and if Luke comments about me taking off running, I don’t hear him. I’m already halfway across the car park where I pass a Land Rover suggesting that Hayden is here instead of on a tractor somewhere.

No wonder he looked tired, because here’s what else I witnessed on those tors I climbed with students every evening: Work never seems to stop in the farms bordering the moorland. Even after the sun lowered, headlights lit fields, and now that it’s almost evening, I more than half expected Hayden to already be working in one.

If that’s his plan for today, I want to see him before he leaves, and I’m the perfect person for this mission, a guided missile locked and loaded on my target. I even engage what Sol used to call my deadline tunnel vision, and today there’s an element of truth to that descriptor. I do enter a tunnel, only this one is leafy and leads from the car park to the woods, where I can see that Hayden has worked his arse off.

I pass brand-new benches built from logs and positioned for quiet moments. Handrails are also dotted wherever the ground is uneven, carved as if they grew here. There isn’t anywhere left on the way to the clearing that someone shaky can’t access, and shaking is the first thing I notice when I find him.

He’s silhouetted, his back to me, and I have a clear view of where his hammer fits on his tool belt. That loop on his hip isn’t out of reach. It’s right there, but I guess he’s been really busy with his chainsaw to fumble that simple manoeuvre.

I’m not the only person to notice. Charles takes the hammer from him, which proves that if you want something done, you should always ask a busy person. He slides that hammer into its spot just fine, even with two babies clutched to his chest. Then he passes one to Hayden, and all but shouts, “Got her?” over the sound of wailing.

I see Hayden nod.

“Fabulous,” Charles yodels. “And everything here is fabulous too. I promise you don’t have a single thing to worry about for your first session with the children.” He jiggles a second squawking baby on his hip while trying to herd his toddler, and I step forward.

“Can I help?”

They both turn, and who the fuck knows what I look like with my arms open like this or with my jaw dropping, but Charles just says, “Perfect timing,” and passes me that second baby while I can’t take my eyes off…

“You shaved.”

I won’t have to guess about Hayden’s jawline the next time I draw him. It’s right there, each sharp angle uncovered, until Hayden ducks his head, lifting it again as soon as I tell him, “Looks good.” He was the one with the shakes. Now I’m the twat who stutters. “I-I mean, you looked good anyway⁠—”

“After you tidied me up? I didn’t recognise myself after you did that.” He shrugs. “Looked like myself. Or closer to myself, at least.” I think this is meant to sound like a joke. “Felt like I could handle seeing even more of myself in the mirror.” He says something else that I can hardly hear over wailing—not from the baby he holds, but from my own unhappy, wriggling armful. I have to come closer to hear him repeat, “You’re out of breath, Rae. You okay?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m fine. Just wanted to catch up with you.”

The baby wails as if that’s the worst news ever. Hayden doesn’t. Here’s a repeat of the tired smile on my phone, only in real life?

He’s gorgeous.

He also says, “Pass her here so you can tell me.”

Perhaps I shouldn’t after seeing him fumble with that hammer, but he told me once that those tremors don’t last, and here’s proof—he holds out a steady hand and both babies coo once he smiles down at them.

I know the feeling. I’d coo as well if I had all of his attention focussed on me.

Charles has a different reaction. “Alleluia,” he yodels again from across the clearing. “Please, for the love of mud, share your baby-taming secret.”

“Years of practice,” Hayden murmurs. He meets my gaze, and it’s cool here where trees shade us from lowering sunlight. I still heat at this second slow smile, but that’s only fair. I’ve got a photo on my phone that Luke sent me, which I feel a correspondingly intense need to show him.

I also want to kiss him, which explains why I don’t notice that Charles has come closer until he asks, “Seriously, how did you do that, Hayden?”

“Stop them both from crying? I had plenty of practice with three sisters. Triplets,” Hayden says while the last of the afternoon’s sunbeams find him. He’s dappled with green and gold light, and so are these twins who he one-ups by admitting, “Or triplet half sisters, I suppose.” He bounces slightly and that cooing continues. “I never think of them as that.”

This quick look my way holds a hint of something. Not bruising exactly. It’s something else I don’t have a word for that deepens as he tells me, “I can’t have been much older than these cuties when we lost my mother. Dad met my stepmum a few years later, and then we were a team of three for what felt like my whole life until the IVF worked. Final round. They were about to give up. Went all out, and—” He repeats a word I’ve thought recently too. “Boom. There they were.”

“Triplets,” Charles breathes with what could be awe or horror.

“Triplets,” Hayden confirms. “The only time they were quiet was when all three of us were there to rock them. I had to learn to rock two at a time pretty quickly after Dad⁠—”

That smile slips.

Hayden doesn’t.

He’s rock solid, even if his next smile is smaller. “I didn’t mind doing double duty. They grew out of this stage fast.” He flashes a quick glance my way. “Now they’re almost teens, getting piled on by them for a cuddle feels like getting tackled by a whole team.”

“I bet it does.” Charles cuddles his own wriggling armful before setting his son down, who instantly legs it. Charles watches before saying, “Look what he headed straight for. He loves that you’ve left tools out here.”

Tools?

That seems like an accident waiting to happen, only Adam stops by a tree stump that Hayden must have hollowed out and that now holds a collection of sticks.

“For mark making.” Charles follows his son, grabs a stick of his own, and makes marks in a sandpit that wasn’t here on my last visit. “Of course, you’ll know how important that is. Getting to leave your mark, I mean. Communicating? Especially for children who can’t write yet? Practice doesn’t always make perfect, but it does mark progress, and I love to see it.” He repeats what I thought on the way here. “Honestly, Hayden. You won’t have to sell staying on full time to Luke. I’ve been talking about us having more outdoor learning for ages. It’s top-tier for unlocking potential, and you’ve included everything that I would have.”

Hayden can’t hide a flush under a beard now. I like seeing him this pink with pleasure. “Thanks.” He huffs out a huge breath. “And thanks for mentoring me. I seriously don’t know how you’ll find the time.”

“Oh.” Charles stops sketching in the sand. “I won’t. Find the time, I mean. Not while I have the twins. But I’ve found the perfect person for you.”

“Who?” Hayden asks, still swaying gently, and maybe he says something else to Charles. I’m deaf to conversation while picturing him on paper, only I’d draw him with his feet rooted in this woodland, the breeze adding to that oh-so gentle rocking motion. In my mind’s eye, his arms are thick branches that support a trio of wide-eyed babies.

That vision clears as soon as Hayden goes still, and I tune into Charles saying, “Yes, Mitch. From the Haven. You know, the care home on the other side of the woods? The other teachers will help when he isn’t available, but he’s who I’d choose for you any day of the week.” He points in the opposite direction to the school. “He’s already run plenty of nature sessions here for years, only for adults, but play is play, and he’s so fabulous at it. We could pop in and see him now, if you like?” he asks brightly, seemingly unaware of what I can’t ignore now I’ve seen it.

Hayden hasn’t only stopped that rhythmic swaying. He’s stopped breathing.

“You okay?” I ask quietly while Charles follows his son and crouches to dig through leaf matter with him. I dig too, only through memories of a wedding. The only Mitch I’ve met lately was at the chapel. Nice guy. Friendly. So why does Hayden look like Charles just punched him?

It has been years since I could have protected an adult but didn’t.

Almost a week since I last tried to do the same for children in boats and couldn’t.

Those boats were already close to sinking before I could wade after them.

I can’t let Hayden drown now.

“Hey, Charles?” I waggle my phone. “I need to take Hayden somewhere while it’s still light. To show him something important.”

I recognise Hayden’s next look, saw it plenty after wading out behind those boats with Reece Trelawney. Now Hayden grabs my lifeline the same way parents grabbed life vests printed with the Safe Harbour logo for their kids before the current tore between us. Today, a current of relief draws Hayden closer to me.

“Y-yeah,” he grits out. “Sorry, Charles. We have to go.”

Charles blinks. He also smiles just as easily as ever. “You’re going out together this evening? Lovely! Well, don’t let me keep you.” He takes back those content babies and gives Hayden one last piece of advice. “You’re a natural with the little ones. Just follow their lead and let them make their mark. You won’t go wrong if you do that.”

Hayden follows my lead first.

He’s one step behind me all the way to where the woods meet the car park. He grinds to a halt beside a weeping willow to scrub at his face, and with no beard left to hide what his face shows me the moment his hands drop, I have to steer him backwards, because this look?

It’s too raw to share.

A curtain of narrow branches closes around us, green leaves shielding him from view, and he says, “Thanks for the save.” This comes out on a sigh. “Just wish I didn’t need it.”

“Need what?”

“For you to make an excuse for me.” Hayden straightens his shoulders, although that looks to be a challenge. “If I will be working with Mitch, I’m not gonna be able to swerve him forever. Especially if he brings Justin with him. Might as well go find him right now and face it. It’s just…” He scrubs at his face again, nothing hidden once his hands drop.

What the fuck does he have to look ashamed about?

I’ve seen that look on him once already. Now I remember where, and a different conversation floods back.

Shame had stained his cheeks when he’d told a bride and groom about crashing and burning out of soccer stardom. No wonder he doesn’t want to repeat it with someone who sounds fixated. Because that’s what I overheard on a pew in a chapel. This Justin person has a footy scrapbook he wants to show him.

Seeing Hayden start to turn on his heel to go do just that does something to me.

I don’t have a lifeline to throw him. Hayden doesn’t need that or a life vest from me. He’s more than strong enough to wade through repeating that soccer story, only I don’t want that for him.

I really don’t.

Don’t ask me why. All I know is that I blurt, “It wasn’t an excuse. I do want to show you something.” I blurt this even faster. “For my book.”

“For your book?” His head dips. “Oh. Yeah. Of course.”

I’m fucking this up, which is what happens, I guess, when your life doesn’t lend itself to dating. Or when you rush into banging someone’s brains out as a one-off only to find out that you can’t stop thinking about them, even after he told me straight that anything long-term wasn’t on his agenda.

It isn’t on mine either.

I still try harder.

“I mean, yes, what I want to show you will be good for my book, but you were the first person I thought of when I saw it. I wanted to show you right away. Came looking for you the minute we got back.”

His head rises, and man, I’ve seen some epic sunsets in the last few days. This sunrise of a smile is the best yet.

I part willow branches to point at his Land Rover. “You got your keys?”

He nods while looking tired enough that I hold out a hand to take the keys for him, only Hayden takes my hand instead, and squeezes. And yeah, I’m shit at anything close to being boyfriend material, but I squeeze his hand back, because maybe Charles was right.

Practice doesn’t have to make perfect, but I do kinda love this progress.

12

HAYDEN

The problem with being too busy for a love life while making hay and money is that I’m rusty.

Rusty?

Before leaving football behind, I didn’t have a single boyfriend. Way too risky. Ruin my one shot by turning my own team against me? That wasn’t a chance worth taking, and yes, I can see how that is messed up, and that I likely wasn’t the only queer player chasing a contract.

Benefit of hindsight, right?

Now my eyesight is twenty-twenty. I’ve lost my blinkers, like the ones racehorses wear so they only see the finish line while breaking their hearts to win trophies for owners who will shoot them if they stumble.

My hindsight is crystal clear these days, but there was never anything wrong with my hearing, and I defy any fifteen-year-old kid to listen to a stadium full of football fanatics howl and then do anything other than keep their head down.

Later?

I had even less of a chance to meet men on my wavelength, and this evening drive with Rae beside me is a reminder of why.

My stepmum drove me through similar woods when I was seventeen and left me with a man who did teach me how to handle one type of big chopper, but Aleksander was all about trees, not hookups. Apart from that, my relationships have all lasted for as long as vacations—tourists who spent a week or two here. Lately, I haven’t even done that. I made a conscious decision to focus on working as hard as I can, so I have absolutely no fucking idea if it’s normal to want to hold Rae’s hand this much while driving.

That’s what I want.

To hold his hand.

It’s a stupid minor detail to mind fuck when he’s already bent me over a bed and banged me.

He already knows that I’m no virgin, and I certainly can’t forget why. For the last few weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time reliving sex that I can’t compare to sleeping with holidaymakers or app-based hookups. Most of those were one-offs.

This isn’t.

Even the selfie he sent was nothing like the ones I used to scroll through. I’ve seen plenty of anonymous torsos. His was a reminder that I already knew what his chest felt like against mine while we kissed for fucking ever. And that sleep-creased and soft expression that he sent to me when he was camping?

I already knew it. Had seen it. Know that it was exactly what he looked like when he rolled over after our night together, and we started over.

We held hands then too.

I want to do the same now.

I almost do it. My hand even flexes a few times on the gearstick, and I wish I’d walked slower across the car park rather than jogging. I could have felt his fingers thread with mine for longer if I’d taken my time. But like that night when he returned as if I’d wished him into reappearing, this evening I get another wish granted.

Rae’s hand lands on mine after we leave Glynn Harber behind us.

The road ahead is straight, no reason to swerve my vehicle at that contact. I hold steady, and who knew that I’d like the weight of his hand on mine this much or that, if I spread my fingers a little, his would slip between them and hold on even tighter.

It doesn’t matter if that contact only lasts for a few minutes. Even him lifting his hand away isn’t a complete loss. He points out something in the distance and starts talking, and I like that too, but I’ve learned new things about brain development today from Charles. About how communication helps even the most neglected brains to flourish. Couple that with sensory input, and Charles says that hearts can grow too.

Maybe that’s why I soak up this bullet spray of Rae’s conversation, why I don’t interrupt what starts as rapid-fire and almost nervous-sounding. It means I get to reap the reward of him explaining why we’re heading inland.

We drive alongside moorland that I grew up with as a backdrop, and he tells me all about it. “That’s High Tor,” he says, as if I wouldn’t recognise a craggy outline I grew up seeing almost daily on the way to footy practice. His hand lands on mine, only to lift right away to point again. “And that smaller tor beside it? There’s a really deep⁠—”

“Quarry right below it?”

I glance sideways to see him rolling his eyes at himself. “Of course you already know that.” He sinks into his seat, his voice less animated. “Ignore me.”

Guilt flickers. I’ve rained on his parade right after he helped me out of a similar quarry-deep hole with Charles. It makes me quicker to talk than usual, faster to mention someone who used to make those almost daily drives to footy practice with me. “Dad always said that quarry had stories to tell.”

Rae asks, “Yeah?”

“Yes,” I agree firmly and glance sideways. Rae sits taller in his seat, and that’s better, so I keep going. “He said smugglers would drop their loot over the edge.”

“Into the water? Why? And how would they⁠—”

“Get their loot back out?” I snort. “Dad had some ideas.” Which were wacky enough that I’m pretty sure they were all tall stories. “But smugglers did run Cornwall for generations, back in the day. Anything that washed up after shipwrecks was meant to belong to the crown. We thought differently.”

“We? You count yourself as Cornish?”

“Course I do. And Polish. I was born here. So was Dad, but he still would have told the tax man to take a hike if he’d been a Polish national. He was fierce about what mattered to him.” Like I am about my stepmum and the girls, so I guess that apple didn’t fall too far from Dad’s tree. “Give anything up? Nope. Not him.” He never gave up on a single thing for us until that choice was taken from him.

Another sideways glance shows that Rae is soaking this up like I soaked up his description of his camping adventure, which I guess proved Charles right. He told me that communication with kids only works when it is two-way. That even if they are silent, every mark they make is them trying to tell their story, so we should watch them closely. Rae is better at this than me. I just shut him down even if I didn’t mean to. He does the exact opposite by saying, “Don’t stop. Keep going. What else did your dad say?”

“That there’s a cave hidden by an overhang at the base of the quarry, and it’s full of Spanish gold and silver.”

I focus on the road but can hear his smile clearly. “Next you’ll be telling me that smuggling is a Novac family tradition. How did he even know? Did his dad tell him?”

“I don’t think they did a lot of talking. Different generations.” I answer an unasked question. “I don’t remember him. My grandfather wasn’t a well man after the war.”

“Ah, sorry.”

I shrug. “Dad said he promised to make sure I knew where we came from. That I’d speak and read the language. He only spoke to me in Polish if I went to work with him, or if we were at footy practice.” I give examples and hear them in Dad’s voice, not mine, which is a weird yet also a surprisingly warm blast from the past. “Reach for the save, son,” I say in Polish. “Keep playing like that and you’ll go all the way.” This comes out more thickly in English. “Anyway, he told me you could only see what was sunk in the quarry when the water was particularly low.”

“Did you ever go look with him?”

I wish I had when I had the chance to.

Perhaps Rae guesses that. He continues before I can say so. “Do you think any of that is actually true?”

“About treasure being hidden in the quarry?” I’m about to say no when a memory flickers a whole lot brighter than any Spanish gold or silver. It glitters like I remember seeing something else under that water with my dad’s hand tight around mine. “Yes.”

I slow down below a line of camper vans all lollygagging over this tor-filled view, which makes it easier for me to look Rae’s way for longer, and his gaze?

It glitters as well.

Who needs treasure?

I have to focus on the road before I steer us off it. Knowing my luck, I’d tip us straight into that quarry before I get to kiss him again.

Because that’s what I want even more than getting to hold his hand like some kind of lovestruck kid. I want to kiss him for the first time in days, but I have to settle for giving him a new journey to add to his collection. “Dad worked on the moors as a warden. One summer, we had a drought and the water was really low. So low that I did see something.”

“What?” I can hear his grin again. “A barrel of rum? A cave full of silver?”

“No.” The traffic has moved on. I chance one last glance at him. “It was a car.”

“In the quarry?”

“Yeah. Must have been there a while, Dad said. An old classic car, he called it. I just remember it being bright blue and shiny.” I must be misremembering. Something that had been down there for decades wouldn’t shine, would it? “You’d never know it was down there unless you looked at the right time.”

At least Dad and I got to see it together.

That hike with Dad still replays when we reach the spot Rae wanted to show me. I’m caught between the past and the present, which only continues after I pull off the road and take a track that cuts straight through the kind of managed woodland he liked the least. These regimental rows of fir trees don’t belong here, all lined up like ranks of waiting soldiers, but that’s what they lead up to, Rae tells me—homes for Polish soldiers and their families, who waited for the country they’d fought for to build real homes for them.

I park next to a wilder section as Rae says, “Like in this image.” He unfastens his seat belt and slides closer along the bench seat. His phone is in his hand, and he shows me a photo of an old drawing where tents stand in similarly neat rows. He scrolls to another. “I took photos of Olek’s scroll and diary before I left. This next image comes later.” Other structures have replaced the tents, even if they still look temporary. “Prefab huts,” Rae confirms. He expands a section of writing. “Can you translate this?”

I take his phone, our fingers grazing. That’s a light touch, a slight brush, that’s all.

It’s all I can feel.

His thigh too, pressed against mine.

We’re so close, I can even see dots on his fingertips that are a reminder of ones I got while threading prickly flowers through an arch and around a chapel doorway. He must have found some gorse while on the moors, and a teenage part of me wonders if he thought of me when he saw it. I don’t have to wonder for long—I must cradle his phone tight enough that it locks and I’m faced with…

That’s me.

I’m on his lock screen, only this version of me is bigger. I’d need to be a giant to roll a hay bale uphill like he’s drawn. My arms are braced, and he’s found a way to convey effort. I can almost feel this strain, this exertion, this sweat beading under a circlet of the same flowers that had to have prickled his fingers while he was camping.

He touches my face on his phone screen before cupping my jaw for real. “I’ll have to redraw you,” he murmurs as I shift in my seat to face him. “Without the beard.” His smile flickers like the last of the light does through the trees that shield us, and I need to close my eyes as well, because each time he shows me how he sees me?

It does a number on my self-perception.

I open them again to see him looking down at the phone I still hold. This time he traces the strain in my arms and shoulders, in my hands too, as if this shaking he’s drawn is a signal of strength, not of⁠—

“I liked your beard,” he murmurs. “Like you this way too. Kinda want to see if you grow it again.”

He’s moved on to touch my face again, only on that screen instead of for real, and I know which I prefer him touching, so I let his phone drop to my lap, and I catch hold of his hand to put it back where it feels so much better. I also tell him what I’ve had weeks to turn over. What I’ve kept kicking away but someone keeps kicking back to me to deal with, and Dad used to do that, didn’t he? He’d shoot balls at me in our back garden and cheer whenever I reached far enough to stop them.

Turns out that when someone I’m invested in asks me to stretch even further, I can. That’s got to be why this comes out way lower than I expected. My voice rumbles, and I’ve never sounded more like the man who taught me to throw my whole self into everything I take on. “I want you to stick around to see that.”

“Yeah?” There’s another flicker that I can’t blame on the last of the light filtering through leaves. He isn’t as certain as me, and when he swallows, I hear that dry click over the tick of the cooling engine. Over a sudden drumming in my chest too when he adds, “Some people say I can be a bit full on,” as if that’s a bad thing.

I stretch for the right words. Reach like Dad taught me, and right now, I’m glad I haven’t had more practice—that this first time is for someone who has drawn me like I’m a hero. “Some people should have told you that being full on makes you fucking amazing.”

When Dad used to cheer at me going all out, my stepmum used to knock on the window, eyes dancing with laughter all while warning Dad to keep the noise down. Rae’s eyes dance the same way now, warm and happy, and just like that, we’re kissing.

I love this. How our noses nudge. How his camping stubble rasps against my new smoothness until we get situated. And so what if that involves me fighting with my seat belt, the steering wheel, and the gearstick? I’m all arms and legs and not enough space to get him where I want him, which is straddling my lap. But that weight, once I make it happen, is so much more than grounding, although that’s what I need when his mouth opens for me. My tongue slides against his, electricity surges, and it’s explosive.

Land Rovers are built to withstand bumps and crashes. I have no idea how the windows of this vehicle don’t shatter or how the tools secured behind us don’t roar to life due to this pulsing current.

Energy soars.

Roars.

My chainsaw isn’t responsible for it, or for my hands shaking as I fumble to shove his T-shirt higher. My touch stutters over bare skin all while I almost vibrate with how much I want him—with how much I need to pull him even closer—only he pushes me away like I’ve jumped the gun.

That’s a no?

I freeze for a single, soul-crushing, second-guessing moment.

Rae melts me just as quickly.

He pulls his T-shirt over his head, knuckles banging the Land Rover roof in the process, before he gets to work on my shirt buttons, and I’m no artist but I know determination when I see it, so I guess that push back was a yes, only on his terms, and I’m more than okay with that.

Have someone else make decisions that mean we’re bare from the chest up, pressed together again like I’ve spent weeks remembering, and kissing again?

Yes, please.

It’s so much better than thinking I’ve misread the situation. We’re on the same page right now. He grinds against me as I push up to meet his movements, and that’s another reminder of a night I’d half put down to a fugue caused by wedding-induced exhaustion. The rest was down to magic, and so is this. It’s also real and raw and needy. At least that’s how my groans sound as he rocks against me.

I try to claw back those needy noises.

Each grind feels so fucking perfect that I can’t do it.

The word perfect must slip out with his next slow grind. “Yeah?” Rae pulls back just enough for me to see my own inky reflection in his pupils, and yeah, needy does describe me. So does perfect for him because I focus on what else he shows me. Rae flushes—blushes—and gets a hand between us. He wrenches at my belt, at my buckle, at my fly, and there isn’t room in here with me sprawled across the bench seat for him to kneel and blow me. He tries to regardless, and I don’t think I’ve ever been harder than when he slaps one of my thighs and says, “Up.”

I do what he orders, but I’ve been well-trained at following instruction, haven’t I?

I don’t mean by team doctors, or by those last coaches who never cheered me on in Polish. I mean that I always willingly worked the hardest for someone who was on my side. I feel the same rush now when Rae yanks my trousers down far enough that the head of my dick is visible over the underwear he reaches for next.

He pauses. Not due to hesitation this time. I guess the long look he takes is his version of taking a mental photo. He can go ahead and sketch my cock all that he likes later. For now, I strain without meaning to, sliding against the seat until I’m a few inches closer. My back is wedged against the driver’s side door, and this angle doesn’t make for easy fucking; in fact, it’s uncomfortable as hell, but that’s okay. My later coaches trained me to play through that without complaining.

Rae had been trained to do something different. He observes before issuing another order. Following it comes as easily as breathing when he says, “Up,” again, only more quietly than the first time.

He shoves our shirts behind me, which act as padding when I settle back, everything softer apart from my dick. That’s never been harder, so maybe I have a care kink. His touch is another contrast once he gets my underwear out of the way, if only barely. I’m tied by the tangle of my trousers, by Rae trapping my hands in his, and I couldn’t care less. Not when our fingers thread and Rae looks up like I’m…

Like I’m…

“So glad I got to come back.” He barely touches where I want him to so much that I’m already sweating with sexual tension. “So fucking glad,” he says quietly enough that I barely hear him over the drumming of my heart. It hurries. Rae doesn’t. He acts like he’s got all the time in the world to trace the outline of my dick before bending to kiss where the head shines.

That’s where he makes an equally quiet promise. “Not gonna fuck it up.”

He means his project. His book. A story he wants to weave with pictures but he told me he didn’t know how to start in one of his texts sent while camping.

That’s what I assume as he sucks the head of my cock. Then my brain disengages.

All I can do is hang on, and I need to after his fingers unthread from mine. Who knows why that feels like falling, but he must notice. He slides a hand up my forearm to press one of my hands higher.

I find the headrest then and cling on.

He guides my other hand to the steering wheel next, and I have no idea how he does it while flicking my frenulum with his tongue. I don’t even know how to describe what that does for me. All I know is I grab hold tightly, anchored where he wants me, and it is all that stops me from squirming away at the graze of his teeth when he takes me deeply. This edge of danger must do it for me the same way care does—I taste precome when he lurches up to kiss me.

He gets busy freeing his own cock, and I’d help him if I could let go, only I can’t. Hauling in deep breaths is all I can manage, and if I thought his gaze was busy before, I was mistaken. I’m his sole focus. It’s a lot. So is seeing him watch me open my mouth for the finger he taps against my lips.

I suck it with a good idea of what is coming.

I’ve never wanted more to be fully naked. To have a whole bed to spread out on, and yet these tight confines also do it for me. This tangle of trousers. These work boots stopping me from kicking them off. It all does it for me. So does this tight clutch I can’t let up on the steering wheel and headrest.

I can’t let go.

Can’t look away.

Have to stay right here and watch as he strokes himself off, intent now on pressing that wet finger just inside me.

His mouth finds the head of my dick again then, and…

I’m gone.

Shattered like I thought could happen to the Land Rover windows. The whole world crashes off its axis, tumbling like we’ll both fall and join that car I once saw glint under quarry water, only I don’t sink.

I can’t, not when Rae looks up, that dark gaze locking with mine as he says this hoarsely. “I’m not gonna fuck up this chance. I’m gonna work as hard as you do.”

I didn’t hit the bottom of a quarry, but that single sentence?

The way he sees me?

It wrecks me.

I also still cling to a headrest and the steering wheel, watching him get off, and who cares if the spatter of his come lands on my trousers? He can stain them as much as he likes. You better believe I’m not moving, not when it’s my thigh that he braces on, fingers digging in hard enough to leave his own mark on me.

I stay right where he needs me to be until he stops panting and raises his head to remind me of what he looks like after coming.

He’s so fucking pretty.

So strong too.

He needs to be to prise my fingers from their death grip.

It’s a contradiction I can’t get enough of, like I can’t get enough of him curling against my chest and almost purring when I rub his back, which I’m in no hurry to stop after he says, “Gonna get my shit together and start this story over so I can stay for even longer.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He lifts his head. “Pretty sure my story starts in there, only I can’t see how to get closer to it.” He glances out the window, and I’ve never been happier that my first shot missed.

It means I’ve got tools to help him.

I get out and retrieve one, and this blade is bright and shiny, so I have no idea why this emerges sounding rusty.

“Your story starts in there, Rae?”

He nods, eyes alight in that way I can’t get enough of. He’s still sex-flushed. Still so fucking gorgeous. Still looking at me like I’m his answer instead of a letdown or a problem.

I wield my cutter then, like a knight might with his broadsword. Brambles don’t stand a chance against it, or me. And by the time I’m finished?

Not a single thorn is left to scratch him.

It’s the strangest place in the world to remember watching Sleeping Beauty with a lap full of little sisters. I must be under the same spell as in that movie because Rae kisses me on the way past, and my eyes weren’t closed, but it feels as if they open for the first time after a long sleep.

Open?

I wake the fuck up, and, for once, the past doesn’t have a stranglehold on my thinking.

Rae heads through the gap I’ve cut for him, then stops still. “Oh, my fucking god. This is perfect.”

He looks back at me as if I’m an actual hero.

A real giant.

I’m far from either, but if he keeps looking at me like I am?

I might have to start believing.

13

HAYDEN

I don’t get to see the starting image Rae comes up with after that evening.

Not because I don’t see plenty of him—he’s my new shadow in the woods at Glynn Harber, talking me through his progress, although he isn’t ready to show me what he’s come up with.

Maybe he would if I visited him at the art building after hours, but harvest still waits for no man. Straw-baling seems never-ending this year, just when I’m tempted to sacrifice cash for time. With him. But he was serious about buckling down to get his drawings done good and early instead of at the last minute, and I’m not about to fuck that up for him, like I’m not prepared to fuck up my own chance here by being weird about Mitch being my mentor.

Only Mitch doesn’t turn up to my first week of nature sessions.

A variety of other teachers bring the children, and I’ve learned something new from each one of them.

I wait for today’s group to arrive while Rae shares that he’s not sure what path to follow next on that Polish schoolboy’s journey. He could head in several directions, he tells me. Deciding which path to take is always his dilemma.

“Too many bright and shiny choices.”

He laughs.

I’m not convinced that sound is happy.

“I want to draw something that was really special to Olek. A pivotal moment where he chose his direction. Then I’ll hold up a modern mirror to it. You know, to reflect the parallels?”

“Sure.”

I’m actually not, but I bet that makes sense in artistic language.

To me, it sounds like he’s hesitating the same way I used to in goal until Dad taught me the meaning of commitment. I rephrase that old coaching session. “Maybe it doesn’t matter which scene you draw next as long as you go all in.” I point out little Asa, who is busy rolling logs that Charles suggested I leave stacked up. “No idea why he’s moving them from one side of the clearing to the other.” I strain for the term he told me. “A transporting schema, maybe?” I tilt my head, watching him roll another log with the fierce concentration that Charles said this space could help him build on if I gave Asa plenty of free choices. “Could be a rotation schema.”

“Wow. Someone has been listening really hard to teacher.”

He’s teasing, but I nod. I could also admit that I spend any breaks I get between baling by searching online to learn more, only telling Rae this feels more important. “See how he’s really going for it? How he’s committing and not quitting? Look at his face.”

I bet Asa doesn’t know his tongue peeks out, he’s so determined. So incredibly focussed too for a kid Charles described to me as having ants in his pants in the classroom. Now that he’s outdoors where he gets to choose his own direction, I can see his real potential. “If I was picking a team, he’d make a good midfielder.”

“Why?”

“Because when he’s got a goal in his sights, he’s a finisher, not a quitter.” I face Rae. “Throw yourself at one of your ideas like him, Rae. Pick a direction to dive, and go all in. At least you’ll know you did your absolute best.”

He must like that suggestion. I get to watch Rae commit too, although not to choosing a page from that old diary as inspiration for his next drawing. Instead, he commits to pushing me through a thick curtain of weeping willow branches the minute this school session is over and the children are gone.

Those whip-thin branches close around us, and we might as well be the only people left in the woods.

I know we aren’t though. I can hear someone calling for Rae.

“It’s only Sol,” he says between kisses. “Calls himself a good friend. He’s actually a micromanaging cockblocker.”

If Sol does come looking for him, he won’t see Rae’s arms around my neck or my hands on his arse to pull him as close as I can get him for a few too-fleeting moments. This tree still has leaves even if others have started to lose theirs, so for now, Sol won’t spot Rae tilt his head back or hear his voice turn bark-rough either.

I’m the only one who gets to hear that hoarse, “Yeah,” and I’m the only person who echoes his groan after he wriggles a hand between us. Rae gives my dick a squeeze that leaves me wanting.

His voice is still rough. “You working tonight?”

I nod and close my eyes when he squeezes again.

“And tomorrow?” His teeth graze my throat when I nod again, and fuck me, I like that.

Like it?

I think about it that night when my second shift of the day is over.

That’s when I sit in the car park with the Land Rover engine ticking and my whole body aching, and with my gaze fixed on a gap between trees at the top of the valley where light would glow if anyone was still awake in the art building.

Maybe it’s for the best that it is dark up there night after night, and I head back to the stables to creep past Rowan’s bedroom. Rae needs to work, and I’m dead on my feet.

That’s the first thing Luke notices on Friday when he joins me for a nature session and catches me mid-yawn.

I’m still torn between seeing him as a stern coach and a comedian. “Goodness,” he says dryly. “I could almost see what you ate for breakfast.” He lets me know why I haven’t seen Mitch. “Justin hasn’t been well, but he’s on the mend now. They’re both looking forward to joining you soon.”

I wish I could say the same. For now, I focus on the children. Luke does too.

“You’re a big hit with Hadi.” He points out his son. “He talks about your sessions nonstop at home.”

He names my quietest student, who brings his dad a fallen sycamore leaf, and Luke shows me another facet, neither stern nor comedic, as he names it for him in English and what I assume is Arabic. That’s an unexpected reminder of Dad, but I guess it is only what I’ve copied by naming everything here in Polish.

Luke finds some of those labels I’ve made and approves of them. “Heritage matters. Let’s work together on adding the Cornish names too.” He also says, “Well, well, well. Someone is very interested in nature all of a sudden, aren’t they?”

He doesn’t mean his son, who hunts for more leaves, or Asa, who usually has ants in his pants.

Luke has actually spotted Rae, who is in my clearing again, this time with his sixth-form students.

They all carry rolls of paper. He’s told me they will use them to document their pathways to Glynn Harber. That they need to look back before they can move forward without the past snagging them like brambles.

Rae’s own roll is tied with string. There’s a text message on my phone telling me why. I read how he doesn’t want to influence his students when I was sitting on a tractor at sunset. Another text told me he only shares his journey stage by stage rather than all at once. Now he waggles that tight roll at us in greeting.

I nod hello and wish I hadn’t committed to so much extra farm work, only there’s no way I’ll verbalise that to Luke. Not while I still feel like I’m on a bench, waiting to get selected.

This is still a trial. Still temporary. He said we’d talk again after the half-term break. That weeklong school vacation is rushing up already, and the weeks I’ve already spent here with my harvest workload as a stark contrast means I can see that staying would be a more sustainable option.

I don’t need to use my chainsaw every day here, or steer heavy machinery that I still feel rumble long after I switch off the engine. My hands could be proof of that. They are rock steady as I tell Luke, “I don’t mind sharing space with them. I’ve learned a lot about art this week from Rae.”

I learn even more when Rae notices the leaves that Hadi has found and uses them as a prompt for another art lesson. He kneels down to ask my group of little kids a question.

“Did you know there’s a famous artist who used to do farm work just like Mr. Novac does in addition to running your nature sessions?”

That leads to lots of questions. Asa’s are all speed related. I grin as he zooms in a circle, and I agree. “Yes, I do get to go on quad bikes sometimes. And tractors.”

Little Maisie Dymond’s questions are more practical. She leans on a handrail and asks, “How can you work in two places at the same time?”

“I don’t. I do farm work in the evenings and on the weekends.”

I don’t have an answer for her next question.

“But when do you play?”

Noah fields that for me. His voice has deepened in the last month. “When harvest is over.” He rubs his chest. “I’ll be more help with that next year.”

Luke says, “I bet your family will be glad of an extra pair of hands, Noah.”

Farming is a family business. Marc and Stefan won’t need so much help from me once Noah is fully recovered.

That’s a good thing. I still dig the toe of a boot into leaf matter, kicking that worry away, and I change the subject gruffly. “What’s so special about this artist?”

Rae swings his attention to me. “The way he took what he saw while farming and turned it into art is pretty special. He made beautiful things out of wood. Out of leaves. From natural resources.”

“Like you do!” Maisie shouts. “You’re good with wood, Mr. Novac!”

Rae has crouched. I can’t see his mouth over the heads of little children. I can still tell he’s smiling. Those lively eyes meet mine and skip away just as quickly. “Yes. He is very good with wood. So is this artist. He makes amazing pictures out of everything you have here.” He looks my way, perhaps asking permission to hijack this session. I nod before deferring to Luke, but that’s okay—he nods too, so Rae goes for it. “Want to see?”

He’s come prepared with printed examples of those outdoor art projects, and he asks the little ones, “See how he uses everything that you’ve already found? Great big leaves as well as little ones. Twigs and stones too, see? Look at how he’s grouped all the same colours together.” He looks around, getting up to grab something from the clearing floor and coming back with a selection. “Like all of these…”

“Sycamore leaves?” Maisie offers.

“Perfect.” He hands one to her that the autumn has painted scarlet. He skips Hadi to next show a yellowing leaf to Asa, who stops wriggling for long enough to name and claim it.

“Oak!”

“And this last one?” Rae asks no one in particular.

“That’s from the willow tree!” Hadi shouts, which is a first from a child who is so often silent.

“He’s a sponge,” Luke says quietly. “The right task squeezes out all the English he’s soaked up. He just needs time to put his words in order. Leaving him until last and asking an open question like that was perfect. A low-pressure way to give him a chance to join in. Very neatly done.”

Rae is oblivious to this praise. He kneels again and taps his lips as if he’s thinking. “I wonder if you could put everything you’ve found into colour order like my artist did? Can you group all the shades of red, like pink, crimson, and scarlet?” He issues another challenge. “And then can you help each other to put them into size order from the smallest leaf to the biggest?”

He extends a fist towards the biggest student.

Teo bumps his own fist against it as Luke murmurs, “Sorting and grouping. Mathematical categories and vocabulary extension. Nice.”

While the little kids hustle to collect leaves, Rae asks the older students a different question. “Let’s talk about the art we grew up seeing, yeah?”

“Art?” Noah snorts. “More like graffiti, sir. Tags, like the ones spray-painted on the walls of the art building.”

“We did that last year,” Teo adds. This is quieter. “It was a good day. First time I could see myself staying instead of running, innit.”

“Because you saw familiar symbols and were allowed to make marks of your own?”

Teo thinks about that and then nods.

“That’s the power of art,” Rae says. “Seeing yourself and making connections.” He lifts that roll of paper. “Feels like it’s almost time to show you the marks I grew up seeing. But for now, think about this: What if you didn’t have any spray paint to make your mark? What if none of you did? Could you still see yourself here and make your mark, only maybe like this instead?”

He shares more images of what looks like street art, only these vivid symbols cover a forest floor. The reds, golds, and greens of the leaves the artist used instead of paint are vibrant. Bold. A visual statement as clear as Rae’s next one. “Think you can tag these woods with whatever colour leaves the little ones find? Make patterns and connections with them. Help them feel as seen as you did when you were allowed to make your mark on the walls of the art building?”

“Oh, he is good.” Luke slides a look my way that I can’t read. “Someone that smart? He’ll get snapped up by a school if he ever wants to put down roots. Snapped up by someone local as well. In fact, I heard that someone’s already working on that.”

“They are?”

Dammit. That popped out way too quickly.

Luke doesn’t grin. He doesn’t have to. I’m becoming a master at knowing when eyes laugh at me.

He does say, “School scuttlebutt is that you two only just slid back through the gates a minute before curfew last week. You must have been very busy to lose track like that.”

That’s one way to describe me scything a path to those old living quarters for Rae. Maybe someone saw the glow of my phone after we got back, both of our heads bent over it as I translated more of those diary pages. That took another hour of us sitting close together in the Land Rover, me reading out what Olek valued enough to write about or draw.

That brown leather football of his featured often. So did a pool he learned to swim in.

His handwriting was harder to decipher, but Luke doesn’t have any trouble translating what I want in my own near future.

“So, are you going to show him some more art inspiration this weekend? Get him fired up for his project?”

He’s as mistaken as I was about how inspiration would strike Rae. He is usually such a live wire, like he is with these kids now. I more than half expected fireworks—for him to be excited and loud about it after I hacked through those brambles.

The calm that actually descended?

That was a surprise I’ve spent this week turning over. The more I do, the more it makes sense that peace settled for Rae the moment he knew how to kick off his story.

I’d feel fucking calm too if I could see my own sure way forward.

Luke misinterprets my huff—a soul-deep exhale that will cloud once these woods turn frosty. And they will soon. These fallen leaves will turn dry and crunchy regardless of whether I’m still on Luke Lawson’s year-round payroll.

He lands on a different subject. “If you do go out again looking for inspiration, there’s a lot of local artwork in the restaurant at the Anchor in Porthperrin. Good food too.”

Marc told me the same. I’m pretty sure the Anchor is where Stefan wined and dined and stole him before I got a chance to date him, only right now, I’m so fucking relieved at how that panned out. Because it isn’t Marc who I picture with a candle flickering between us on a restaurant table.

It’s Rae.

Luke leaves me then, time for another teacher to be my mentor.

A deeper sigh huffs out from me once he’s gone, because the Anchor is way out of my budget and I’m too busy.

All the children turn my way, so I guess that sigh came out loudly. So does a shout.

Little Adam is pleased to see me, and I drop to my knees with my arms wide open. That’s instinctive. So is catching him when he stumbles. I scoop him up as Charles approaches, but he doesn’t take his runaway son back from me. If anything, his first comment is surprising.

“Look at how easily he loves you.”

I can’t pretend that doesn’t sound raw, and the shadows under his eyes prove a point he makes once the children are busy.

“Sorry I haven’t been much help this week. I’ve been a bit overwhelmed. Lost perspective.” He’s brutally honest. “Felt like I was the one and only person responsible for everyone’s well-being. Even Hugo’s, and he’s an actual functioning adult.” This is the fiercest I’ve ever heard him. “Of course he’s got my back, and of course everything won’t fall apart if I stop trying to be everything to everybody. Thank you for showing me that I don’t have to.”

“Me?”

Adam must be tired. He snuggles into the crook of my neck and shoulder, a fully relaxed weight adding to building blocks three other toddlers must have stacked in my chest. Now I hold Adam against mine and sway from side to side with him.

“Yes, you.” Charles sways right along with me, even though his arms are empty. “Look at him, so safe and sound with you. So secure. Cared for by someone who isn’t me or Hugo. Running right for you, and me not feeling bad about that, because here’s the thing.”

I was wrong about him being fierce before. This is the real deal.

“I cannot keep trying to pour for three little people from an empty vessel. None of us can, can we, Hayden? Keep pouring out everything we’ve got, I mean. We have to refill that vessel, even if it means letting other people rock our babies.”

I can’t help picturing my sisters.

Who the fuck knows why I’m defensive.

“I don’t have any babies.”

Charles doesn’t argue. He simply comes to a decision. “I’m going to ask for more help. Call in some babysitting favours. Rally the troops so I can take Hugo out and show him a bloody good time, and do you know what else?” Here’s a smile that looks so much better on him. “I’m going to get my empty vessel well and truly filled up.” He nods like that’s a done deal. “Right, that’s my weekend sorted. Now tell me what fun you have planned.”

“This weekend? Making hay while the last of the sun shines.” Or baling more straw, to be more accurate. “And harvesting potatoes, depending if anyone needs a hand with that yet.”

“You’ll still have your nights free, won’t you?”

He can’t have ever worked in fields against a clock ticking down to winter. I settle for teasing. “It’s like you never wondered why tractors have headlights. The bigger farms even set up floodlights.” I can’t say I’m a fan of the flashbacks to nighttime practices at the academy those lights give me.

I must frown.

Charles does too, if only for a moment. His next optimism shines as brightly as this late September sunshine. “I’m sure you’ll think of how to fit in some fun like me.” He holds his hands out for Adam. “Let someone else rock your babies, Hayden. Prioritise filling⁠—”

“My empty vessel?”

I’m kidding, but I watch Rae, who is busy helping kids make their mark here, and I don’t know how or when, but he’s left a mark on me—tagged me with more than his name and didn’t need leaves or a can of spray paint to do it.

Charles pats my shoulder on the way past to join the children. “Just don’t forget to make some hay of your own, or it will be winter before you know it, and…” He tilts his head towards Rae.

He’ll be long gone.

“Make hay, Hayden,” Charles repeats.

And me?

I watch Rae spread out leaves in lines that flow across the clearing, a stream that forks the same way the river running through these woods does.

A shaft of light lands on him at the same time as a bolt of lightning hits me, which is exactly how I imagined inspiration would strike him.

I’m lit up with an idea of how to make more than some hay with Rae.

Waiting to tell him until the kids have finished splashing this space with colour is murder. Torture. Finally, the chimes of the school bell faintly echo.

The children leave, along with Charles, and Rae and I are back where I last kissed him.

A willow curtain closes behind us, and Rae’s arms are around me only seconds later.

“Wait.”

He blinks at that order, and part of me wishes he could see himself like this, smiling while strafed with emerald. The rest of me gets his romantic shit together.

“Listen. You know I’m working all weekend, right?”

He nods.

“I could take a few hours off later on Sunday afternoon to take you somewhere.”

I rub the back of my neck, clamping my hand there to stop its tremble at the thought of turning down cash. That wasn’t ever my long-term plan. Neither was getting attached to someone, even if they’re a short-term addition to Glynn Harber. It’s worth it when I tell Rae what came to me after I watched him make rivers of leaves with the children.

“Because if you don’t mind getting wet, I can show you the pool your Polish boy learned to swim in.”

14

RAE

That fucker Sol gets to the door before I can on Sunday. His greeting echoes through the studio space. So does his teasing. “Nice of you to bring Rae a present, but you know flowers or chocolates are more traditional, right?”

Hayden must be used to dealing with best-friend bullshit. He jabs straight back. “Man, that’s rough. Feel for you, Sol.”

“You feel for me?”

“Yeah, if no one ever showed you a good time in a wetsuit.”

In a wetsuit?

I turn to find out that’s exactly what Hayden has brought with him. It’s folded over one of those corded forearms I just lost an hour to drawing. He must have come straight from whichever farm he’s spent the weekend at working. He’s tired. I can see it, and I itch to find the same shadowed shade amongst the pencils littering my cave of a workspace. I’d smudge it under his eyes in the latest drawing in my sketchbook. I’d need to find a warmer shade to speckle his hair with fragments of whatever his work today has thrown at him like confetti.

He raises a hand to his chin, where stubble has already thickened, as if he’s checking it for more of the burrs that clung there when I first met him. That’s a clue I must be staring. Sol gives me another clue by covering his smile with a hand and rolling his eyes before leaving us to it with a final unasked-for comment.

“Have fun getting wet and slippery.”

And we do, even if none of this outing goes as I expected.

For a start, we don’t leave in Hayden’s Land Rover. One of his friends from that wedding-venue farm is waiting for us in the car park in his own vehicle.

Marc’s handshake is firm. Today’s bright light finds auburn embers in hair darker than his little brother’s bright red. “Good to see you again, Rae.” He drives us out to the moors, only instead of taking the turnoff leading to the encampment, he keeps going uphill, the whole while chatting shit with Hayden like Sol does with me.

“You sure you should swim so soon after eating, Hayd?” Marc meets my eyes in his rearview mirror as the vehicle climbs higher, and his gaze twinkles as he directs this at me. “Stefan’s mum brought lunch out to us in the fields. You should have seen the number of pasties and scones Hayden packed away. He’s gonna get cramp for sure. Hope you know how to save him from drowning.”

And like with Sol earlier, Hayden doesn’t take any of Marc’s shit either. “It’s sweet you’re so worried. There’s no need. I already tested Rae’s mouth-to-mouth skills.”

Once Marc stops laughing, he pulls up at the top of the hill in a pub car park, and we get changed behind his vehicle where I echo what Hayden told him. “I’ve got mouth-to-mouth skills?”

Hayden pulls off a dusty shirt and replaces it with a wetsuit that strains over his chest and shoulders. “You’ve got some. But you know what they say.” His kiss is quick. Rough. Salty with a day’s hard work. It’s also fucking delicious. He slips on wetsuit boots, and tells me, “Practice makes progress.”

I like this version of him.

Yes, he’s tired, I can see that. But he’s also excited, and that’s a good look on him.

No. Not a good look.

It’s a great one.

I can’t stop staring, and Marc notices. “Ha!” He pokes Hayden in the ribs. “That’s exactly how you look whenever you get a text from a certain someone lately. Sorry the honeymoon tent isn’t free again until November. How about I book you two in then?”

Hayden flushes. “How about you shut the fuck up?”

“Charming.” Marc laughs as he leaves, but I am charmed by the thought of repeating a star-filled night that I’ll never forget. That I’ll always remember, and have drawn several times already when I should have been sketching another subject. So charmed that it makes me slow to realise Marc has taken our clothes with him. My phone too.

“Wait. Where’s he going with our stuff?”

“Back to Glynn Harber. He’ll leave everything at the bridge there.”

That doesn’t really answer how we’ll get from wherever this pool is and then back to the school. I don’t waste time asking. I catch up with him at a gap in the car park wall, where the view stops me. Stuns me. Means that I can barely breathe around this much beauty.

The moors fall away, steep and sudden, then flare out like a shaken blanket. So many shades of green and gold spread out below us with a thick silver seam sewn through the moorland’s middle.

A river.

His arm is heavy across my shoulder, and I snap my hanging mouth shut, hot and flustered for a moment at looking like a twat who’s never seen this much nature. I mean, I didn’t, not as a city kid with no transport, and for a fleeting moment, I wonder if the family of that Polish boy ever stood in this spot and had the same reaction.

I see woods in the distance, but I hear gunfire. See some kind of kestrel hover at eye level, then plunge, only I hear the crump of bombs dropping like I last saw crayoned by kids across the Channel.

I’m suddenly homesick, which is stupid when I don’t have one.

Or maybe it’s guilt.

I should be there with them. Make sure they all have life vests.

Hayden’s arm tightens around me. He doesn’t speak. He’s strong and silent while I have a moment, then he leads me through the gap in the wall, and we follow a path towards the sound of burbling.

“Wait,” I say for the second time in as many minutes, this time at the bank of a river. “He drew a picture of a pool, not this.”

“Trust me?” Hayden extends a hand.

I take it without hesitating.

I also go underwater when he jumps from the bank, still holding my hand. He comes up whooping. I do too, and fuck me, it’s cold. Then we’re off on a wild and wet helter-skelter ride down the hillside.

“It’s called wild swimming these days,” he gasps. “I grew up doing it. Nothing beats it.” His fingers thread so tightly with mine there’s no escaping, but that’s fine by me. It means I get to hear him over the rush. “I can take or leave surfing.” He tugs me out of the way of a rock. “It’s okay, but I leave the tourists to catch waves. This is more my speed.”

I wouldn’t have pegged him as an adrenaline junkie, but there’s his smile again, a brilliant spark showing someone in their element that I’ve caught glimpses of in his clearing with the kids. I wish I’d seen him in his soccer days. I bet he looked like this while playing—while leaping to make the kind of save he does next.

Hayden pulls me away from more rocks, and we have to stand to wade around them. He’s breathless, but so am I. I’m also over that homesick feeling—which was guilt, I accept now that this river has washed it away.

It has also cracked open something I didn’t realise had been closed off in Hayden. He’s so fucking chatty, I wonder what else he’s held back.

He shakes water from his hair, glistening droplets beading in that short beard, no sign left of the tiredness he arrived with. “Plus, I don’t need to spend any cash to do this. Decent surfboards are expensive.” He climbs onto another obstacle—this time a fallen tree that he balances on like it’s a longboard, his arms extended. One of his hands is still linked with mine, and when he tugs, I join him up there. I also wish I had my phone with me to capture his expression when I slip.

He grabs me and won’t let go, an image of determination. I settle for being in this moment with him, and for listening to him sound like a winner instead of defeated when he says, “Used to come up here with Dad before I got scouted.”

He jumps again, and so what if I risk bumps and bruises by jumping right beside him? They’ll be worth it to hear what spills out after he threads our fingers again. “He promised me a trip up here for every goal I saved in under-eleven matches.”

“So you saved plenty?”

“So fucking many.”

I love his laugh. It’s magic. And loud. Not even the rush of water can drown it out as we tumble and splash, as we wade and dive, and as he only lets go of my hand to climb boulders, and makes it look easy. I brace both arms against a huge one, winded and catching my breath.

If someone took a photo or drew me, I bet I’d look just like that kid drawn by my mentor.

Would I even be here if I hadn’t seen someone just like me on a journey in a story?

I hope to fuck he never felt guilty for taking the time to draw it.

I find more strength then—strength to soak up as much of this as I can in case what I draw later does the same for a kid who needs to see that water can be fun instead of frightening. That traffickers don’t get to steal that from them. I also find more breath. Enough to laugh when I clamber to the top of that boulder and get to push Hayden into the deep pool of water behind it. My cackle rings out until he grabs my ankle.

Then I’m falling.

For him.

He’s so physical. Hayden powers after me in a game of chase, a seal slicing through the water behind me. A shark snapping at my heels as I splash. A bearded merman with slicked-back hair who I end up kissing for so long that I risk drowning.

Hayden’s breath is hot and panting, his nose freezing, his smile amazing when we break off. The water carries me away, plunging me downhill, while an eddy traps him.

I spin, fighting that tumbling water, and fuck me, it’s an effort, but I wade uphill against this torrent and pull him out of the whirlpool that trapped him.

I slip next, and he grabs me.

“Got you.”

He does. He’s got me in a way that goes beyond us linking hands to take this wild and wet ride together. He’s well and truly got me, even when the incline lessens and we float while he continues his story.

“The river runs past where I used to live.” He eyes me for a long and quiet moment before reaching out to push us away from more rocks, and we turn in a lazy circle. The water is calmer here, which means I get to hear him ask this. “Want to see where I grew up?”

I do.

I want to see anything he’ll show me.

Everything.

I’m meant to be filling a book with sketches of one kid. He’s who I itch to put on each page, and as we float under a canopy of trees, a way to do both comes to me.

I see it as if I’ve already drawn it, and calm descends in an instant.

Peace reigns and it’s fucking glorious.

The clamour in my head is silenced, that fast beat perpetually skittering behind my ribcage finally slowing.

Hayden is the story.

He’s the only one of us who knows what’s ahead on this downhill journey. But I know a way ahead too now. It is as clear as this water to me, and a new journey flickers to life behind my eyelids the same way as light flickers between the leaves above us.

I can’t fucking wait to add him to each page, not only to the first one.

“Nearly there,” he promises. He pulls me closer, not letting the current carry me even an inch away from him. I get a face full of water in the process but it’s worth it to be close enough to hear this. “I said that Dad was a moorland warden, yeah?”

I nod.

“He worked for the duke who owns everything between here and Porthperrin. The cottage was tied to his job.”

“He didn’t own it?”

Hayden shakes his head. “Didn’t need to. It was a lifetime deal. And he loved his work even if it never paid much. He got to be in nature, you know?”

Of course Hayden got his love for wildness from someone special to him.

“He got to do that and coach footy in his time off. I’m glad he got that. I only wish…”

He rolls away.

The water is shallow, and when he kneels up, silt stirs. The water turns cloudy. Murky. That’s the only way to describe what crosses his face until he covers it with both hands. Only for a few seconds. He’s back to usual as soon as he drops them.

Too late, mate.

Way too late.

I’m seeing through all his cracks now, and there are plenty, like him insisting he’s a short-term guy like me. Everything he’s shown me suggests otherwise, and I see more after he extends a hand to haul me out of the water, and then pulls me up a bank to peer through a gap in a hedge with him. His sudden exhale is a signal. I can’t ignore that he goes preternaturally still, his next breath held, until I prompt him.

“What is it?”

“The goal posts. They’re still there.” He swallows. I hear it over the rush of water behind us. “We needed permission from the duke to put them up. Proper regulation-size posts, not the flimsy kids posts I outgrew. I remember him and Kirsty talking about it.”

“Kirsty?”

“My stepmum. Dad always says she’s the brains of their operation. Said,” he tags on before clearing his throat. “She wrote the email asking the duke for permission. She explained my…” He swallows again. “She explained my potential. A week later, a truck turns up with a delivery. From the duke.” He tilts his head at those posts. “A pro setup—posts and a net, a dozen balls. And a cheque. Said he’d had a growing boy of his own once. Footy wasn’t his son’s sport, rowing was. But he remembered what it cost to keep him kitted out for that. Said to keep in touch about my progress.”

“Did you?”

“Dad might have until… I didn’t. Good thing too. He might have felt like he had to come and watch me fuck up my⁠—”

He doesn’t have to say my big chance for me to hear it, or this.

“Fucking glad Dad didn’t see it either.”

“He’d already…”

“Gone? Yeah. He got to see me start at the academy, and then…” He shakes his head, maybe trying to shake off the past, and here’s another crack to peer through—he only ever looks this bruised when he mentions soccer. That doesn’t stop him from being open about failure, which is a reminder of when he stood outside a chapel and told a bride and groom they’d survive what felt like a disaster. That they could change plans and look back one day without flinching.

He does the same now, even if he doesn’t know it.

He meets my eyes, his gaze much steadier than the hand he slicks back his hair with. “I’ve only got one regret.”

“Yeah?”

He shrugs. “Well, maybe I’ve got two. Here’s the first.” He meets my gaze, water droplets clinging not only to his new beard but also to his eyelashes, like tears for a past he can’t rewrite. “I wish to fuck I’d let Dad get a few more balls past me in that garden. If I got a do-over, I’d let him put every single shot in the back of the net.”

See how he doesn’t ask for a second chance at fame or sporting glory?

“I wish I could go back. I can’t. But I can remember.”

This is what I’m talking about—what I’ll burn the candle at both ends to capture later. I don’t care how long it takes me.

I’ll draw this memory for him. This resilience.

He makes some more memories for me by leading me back into the water, and it’s wild how it feels so much warmer after being out of it for a few minutes. I’m warmer still when the river dumps us into another pool, where I see what he must have noticed in Olek’s drawing to identify that this was the exact spot where he learned to swim. I point over the edge of this pool. “Those are…”

“Glynn Harber’s chimneys? Yeah. The school is just a little further downhill. Back in the day, they must have brought the kids up here for swimming lessons. This pool is perfect for it.” He’s right. The water is calm here. Almost still. The river rushing past is behind a natural wall of boulders.

I look back at him to find him watching.

Me.

His question is low and careful. “This what you needed to see, Rae?”

No.

He is.

I nod rather than say that he’s my muse now—my reason to itch for pencil and paper or for my phone and stylus. He’s the hero whose journey I’ll hold a mirror up to, and ask the world, what’s the fucking difference? English or Polish. Native or new arrival. In the past or the present.

That’s what floats along with us as the last of the sun fades and Hayden tells me more about growing up here. About his dad’s twin passions, and how Hayden learned about both without even knowing, and how he had all of his dad’s old contacts. “So when I got...”

“Dropped?” That’s what he said the very first day I met him, confessing to crashing and burning like Icarus in sunlight. “You already had another skill to fall back on and people who could help you?”

“I had Aleksander,” he confirms. His spots something behind me. “Turn around very slowly.”

I do, and I’ve never seen an owl from close up. This one watches us, wise and solemn. An otter also joins us, and I’ve never seen one of those in the flesh—or in the fur, either. This one joins our swim, curious and playful, before slipping away into increasing darkness.

Hayden looks up next. “Bats.”

They flit over the water, snatching insects, their flight another form of natural magic, another first that I add to a bank of images I know will spill out later with Hayden at the centre of my page.

But first, we climb that rock wall and tumble downhill one last time to end up where the river splits in two directions. It gushes to the left. The flow is more tranquil to the right, and that’s where Hayden tows me through familiar woodland that I get to see from a brand-new angle.

We float under a bridge decorated as if welcoming us home to Glynn Harber. Streamers flutter and fairy lights twist around handrails to light it against the twilight. That light is magical as well. So is the way it finds cracks between the planks of the bridge as we pass underneath it, and another crack splits wide open. This one is inside my chest, because Hayden’s suddenly gruff in another reminder of the first time I met him, back when he wasn’t sure if he had a place here. Now he’s uncertain all over again.

“Rowan stays with his boyfriend at the weekends. He won’t be at the stables if you wanna⁠—”

He’s led me all the way here. Shared more than secret pools and old goal posts with me. Now it’s my turn to be as open with him.

“Do I want to spend every fucking minute I can with you?”

He nods, a smile starting. He also hesitates like he can’t let himself have fun without double-checking. “Unless you need to get started⁠—”

“Drawing everything you showed me today?”

He nods.

“Fuck, no.” I grab his hand. “There’s tons of time for that.” I stand up so fast that water swirls around us. “I’ve got days and days left. Weeks. Maybe even longer, depending on what the publishers make of the first images I send my agent.”

That deadline might as well be forever away as I pull Hayden out of the water.

He emerges, wet and laughing, and…

I want even longer.

15

RAE

Hayden ignores the bag of clothes Marc left for us, only dragging on a pair of runners like I do before he takes off sprinting into the dusk. The man has legs for miles, and I don’t know if footy or farm work built his stamina, but he has plenty. So much that he doesn’t show any sign of slowing, not even when the school padre calls out from the chapel doorway.

“Lovely evening for a jog, boys!”

I can’t keep in a cackle. There’s no way to keep that happy sound in when part of me is still tumbling downriver, still slipping and sliding, carried away by rapids and by the need to catch him. And when I do?

I’m gonna bang his brains out.

Or he can bang mine.

I don’t care which.

I just want him.

That’s what rings in my ears now, and not only because I want to get between those endless legs of his. After everything he’s shown and told me today, I’ve got enough ideas to fill a whole sketchbook. More than that, I finally have direction, and that relief at finally knowing where I’m headed means I’m still riding a wave of gratitude.

For him.

It’s the second time he’s unlocked my inspiration, slicing straight through whatever blocked it, and hasn’t needed a bramble cutter to do it. Today he’s done it by being honest.

I wish I could go back. I can’t. But I can remember.

Those long, strong legs carry him through the woods way faster than I can hope to keep up with, but here’s the thing about growing up with a parent who owed cash to every local dealer—I know how to look for gaps to dart through.

If I sketched this sprint from the river to the stables, I’d slash bright zigzags behind me and add a speech bubble to contain Hayden’s laughter at me crashing ahead of him. I’d also draw the flush that rises when we pass a group of boarding students. We both slow to a walk, then stop to field their why are you wearing wetsuits questions, but I can see that he’s vibrating—all of him, not only his hands. Tense, until the kids head off for their supper.

Then we’re off again, running side by side this time, and fuck it, I’d sketch wings on our heels if it got us back to the stables any faster.

My chest is heaving when we finally get there, and he slams the door closed behind us. He locks it, then stands in evening shadows, that broad chest of his heaving as well. His hair is a wreck, complete with strands of weed from the river, and he’s both wild and magic like this.

That’s how I’ll draw him—as a king of the dryads this time, rising from a pool of silver water.

I can picture that pool with him in it. And I can still see those chimneys in the background. They belong to a school that shares its name with a much bigger project than mine. Glynn Harber means something like safe harbour in Cornish, and that’s what Hayden is when his arms open for me.

We crash together, and I’m not the only one with mouth-to-mouth skills. His kiss is a reminder of being pummelled by a current that wouldn’t stop tumbling downhill. Ours tumbles us down a hallway. Against a wall. Into a tiled shower room where his voice echoes. “You’re cold.”

I am fucking not.

I’m on fire with how much I want him.

I can’t verbalise that while his mouth is on my throat, sharp teeth scraping, new beard raising goose bumps until I’m hot and cold all at the same time. I also laugh when he pulls back to wipe a strand of river weed away from his mouth that must have clung to me too.

“Off.” He tugs at my wetsuit zipper, yanking it down and peeling neoprene from me until my wetsuit drops to the floor in a wet puddle.

His gaze drops too, tracking my chest, my stomach, all the rest of me after I kick out of my boxers. Then his hand is on my cock, his tongue back in my mouth as water runs and steam starts to cloud the air.

The mirror reflects us—shows me naked while he isn’t—so I fix that. Our next skin-to-skin view mists and then is gone as soon as he backs me under running water.

This shower wasn’t designed for two men to share. It’s tight, but we slot together.

Haven’t we done that since that headland wedding? He held out a hand to me then. We’re as close again now, and it’s ironic that, after hurling ourselves downhill along with cubic tonnes of water, this is where I’m going to drown, but I have to get my mouth on him.

I sink to my knees. Rub my face against his hard and hot cock. Get the head of it into my mouth, and choke, but I’ve always been greedy once I get inspired—have to go all in and not stop until something else captures my attention.

Tonight?

I’ve never been more focussed. Never wanted to stay in one place like this. Now I can’t imagine taking a different path without him at the end of it.

He fills my mouth, my throat, and a space in my chest that has been hollow for so long I didn’t know it was empty. He’s so deep inside me, and who knows if his hips shifting is the cause or if it’s due to the water cascading over both of us. Either way, I have to pull off, my saliva connecting us for a glistening moment, and I never resented needing to breathe more. All I care about is taking him even deeper. I want him so much my hands shake like I’m the one who uses a chainsaw to make my living.

I steady mine by digging them into the meat of his bare arse, his cock in my mouth again, and a loud groan echoes.

Hayden lets out another, this groan quieter, a low, deep rumble I feel and hear at the same time, and soon I’ll show my students what drugs did to me and Mia on my own roll of paper, but that sound right there? It’s a high of my own, one I can’t help chasing.

It’s addictive.

Compulsive.

I need more, and I get it by clasping his arse even tighter. My head bobs, the head of his cock at the back of my throat, my tears washed away like the rest of the world is by a feedback loop of groans and motion.

And when I touch where he opens?

Hayden crumples.

Only for a split second. He recovers, one hand braced against tile, the other on my jaw to stop my movement. He looks down as I look up, and all I see is a repeat of what else I’ve drawn lately, what I can’t stop my stylus from recreating. He’s etched with care. With pleasure too, and that combination?

It’s explosive.

I want that. Need this quiet man to get so much louder. Make him lose a battle I’ve seen him fight with himself over and over ever since I met him.

All those times he could have been the centre of attention? When he could have shouted from the treetops about how much he has to offer?

He’s taken a step back. Stayed silent instead of bragging. Shown me a tough past while cradling each memory like those big hands of his might turn them to dust if he grips them too tightly.

Even now, I see his face after finding out those old goalposts were still where his dad once sunk them into concrete. I get a whole new goal of my own then. It coalesces right here in a shower too small for us, but which can’t contain this need to show him how I see him. And to stop holding back on this wild ride with me, only not down a helter-skelter river.

Water thunders. So does my heart, thundering with a beat I need to follow, and he’s a big guy who shouldn’t be easy for me to manhandle, but here we are, out of the shower and dripping, with him exactly where I need him, bent over the bathroom basin.

My cock presses the crease of his fucking gorgeous arse, and it’s my turn to let out a low rumble.

“Yeah?” I kiss one scarred shoulder, and he shivers. “You want it?”

The mirror over the basin reflects his steamy outline. His nod of agreement. His trembling point towards a cabinet where I find what I need for us.

Perhaps he doesn’t expect me to drop to my knees after getting myself ready.

Maybe it’s the surprise of me spreading his cheeks and my lips brushing where I want in that prompts more shaking. Or it could be the light flicks of my tongue setting off these whole-body shudders. He arches away like it’s too much, but he’s forgotten I’ve seen his default setting, and there’s no way I’m letting him keep acting like he doesn’t deserve to feel good.

Right now, he’s getting all of my attention. I’m hyper-focussed. Getting him off is my one and only project, and the sole reason I rim him for what feels like forever. And yeah, me knocking his knees further apart and getting my mouth on his balls works too. He stops even trying to stifle groans against his folded forearms.

He’s loud, and I fucking love to hear it.

Those groans cut off the moment I ease in a finger, then they pick up again as soon as I rub where it matters for him, and this next clench and rumble are go signals if I ever felt or heard one.

I rub inside him again, pressing slow and intimate circles while wishing I had more hands to hold him open so I could tongue him at the same time. He does that for me in another clear-as-day signal that he’s on this journey with me from start to finish.

His, “Yeah, Rae,” is guttural, his own fingers digging into an arse cheek to give me more access, and I can’t even care that the shower still runs behind us. That splashing only means I can close my eyes and be back in those river rapids with him where he took the lead.

Me doing the same now by taking this slow is torture. I want my dick in him again so badly, only this time not to celebrate someone else’s happy ending, like at that wedding.

This one’s for him, and I have to grip my cock tight after he almost buckles. Then I switch my grip to his hips after getting up to stand behind him, and it was absolutely worth this wait to sink the head of my cock just inside him because he shouts. Shudders. Verbalises what he needs, and I’m here for that too.

“More,” he begs after I give him another slow inch. He glances over his shoulder, wrecked and flushed, and there’s my wild man. My giant. I’m wrecked too as soon as he pushes back, greedy for my cock inside him, his heat an intense temptation to fuck him as hard and fast as I can.

He’s as hot as hell, and I’m not only talking about being inside his body. That hand he had on his arse grabs at my hip, and for all the times I’ve seen him shaky, he’s the opposite now. He pulls me closer until I’m fully buried.

It’s so much more than good, and this is so much more than fucking when I see his reflection, and to hell with going hard and fast until we get off.

I can’t move a muscle.

Not when he’s a steam-misted vision—a smudged portrait of pleasure that I tell myself to lock down on paper.

That will have to wait until later.

For now, I’m busy trying to hold back. To keep my pace slow and steady. To soak up each and every sound while I’m their reason, their source, all his, for as long as I can make this last for him.

Sweat beads.

Drips.

My hands skid.

His must do as well—he lurches, and who the fuck knows how, but that gets me inside him even deeper. The register of my voice drops to give a gravelly warning I wouldn’t believe could come from me until I hear myself warn, “Hold on, Hayden.” We’re on a whole other helter-skelter ride now. “Hold the fuck on.”

He does, knuckles whitening around the taps on the bathroom basin. He locks on there. Anchors himself. And thank fuck for that because I can’t hold back any longer.

I fuck him good and hard, wishing this could last forever, and Hayden looks back.

His gaze is so much darker now. It’s almost entirely inky pupil, and I see every star from the first evening we spent together. Every constellation. Each planet dancing just above the horizon, and I can’t believe I fucked him under canvas instead of underneath them. Now I add doing that soon to a mental bank of works in progress already crammed with Hayden Novac moments.

Him, with burrs in the beard that hid him when I first got here.

Him, with bird shit and the whole fucking world on these scarred shoulders.

Him, every single time a child learns to love nature, like Hayden’s father taught him.

He’s so more than good-looking to me, or a way to sweat away my attention-deficit problems and guilt for leaving behind sand dunes.

“Close,” he grunts out. “Fuck, fuck, I’m so close.” His whole body tightens. He makes as if to let go of one of those taps he’s tethered himself to until I reach around him, my hand on his wrist in a silent not yet order.

Hayden complies—sobs—grasps the tap even harder as I slam into him, and he doesn’t shudder now. He fucking quakes with how much he needs to get off.

I do too with how much I want to be his reason.

I let go of his wrist. Find his cock with a now free hand, and it’s so wet with precome I instantly feel a winner—a striker running for an unmanned goal and scoring for a team roaring for me. Only it’s Hayden who shoots, his spunk streaking the basin and counter.

I see it spatter. Most of all, I see what relief looks like on him, and that’s a finger on a final trigger. I shoot to the hammering beat of my heart, which only slows after he shows me to his room, and we’re in bed together.

Hayden looks across his pillow at me. He’s tired again. I can see it. So am I.

I fight sleep, doing my best to soak up everything I’ll need to draw before my time here is up.

At some point in the river, he must have crashed into one of those boulders. Most likely while stopping me from braining myself to death. A bruise darkens just below his clavicle.

It could be a shadow.

I go up on one elbow to check, touching it lightly, and he mistakes the reason. His own hand rises to his collarbone where, now I’m paying more attention, I see his fingertips trace an uneven pathway.

He touches a lump. “Fractured this side twice.”

“How.”

“Trying to make the first team.” He closes his eyes. “Stupid enough of me to do it once. Twice should have been a sign I was pushing too hard. So was me dislocating these more than once.” He touches each shoulder where those scars have had years to lighten from raw to faded. “My reactions were too slow, my balance off.” His hand next drifts to his forehead. “Blame it on the concussions.”

“Concussions, plural?”

He shrugs. “Occupational hazard.”

So that’s why he didn’t get to play in his big game. Failing a concussion test had to suck hard, especially after I’ve seen how much the game meant to him. I saw his reaction to those old goalposts. Now I get to see another reaction.

To me.

His eyes are the softest I’ve ever seen them. So is his voice.

“Worth playing through the pain.”

“Yeah?” I don’t see how it can be. Not after catching a glimpse of a family home and hearing how everyone he cares for could still live there if he hadn’t been scouted. How the fuck can any of that pain be worth it? “Really?”

I must sound disbelieving.

He nods more firmly.

“To end up here? Definitely.”

I almost ask, “At Glynn Harber?”

Hayden’s eyes drift closed again. This time they don’t open. He still finds my hand without looking and threads his fingers through mine in a silent and devastating answer.

My heart doesn’t only thunder all over again. It swells, close to exploding, as I guess his real reason to be grateful.

Because he ended up right here with me.

16

HAYDEN

It’s unreal to wake up for days with the same mental image, but that’s what happens all week long, even when I need to roll out of bed early to go and make hay. I still see Rae up on one elbow, exploring everywhere I hurt and not seeming to notice any weakness.

He looked at me like I was man of the match instead of someone who failed with the whole world watching, and I had no idea that him touching me where I was bruised would matter this much to me. Or that letting him see where I broke before time in a forest healed me would matter to him.

And who knew that my housemate’s happy humming was contagious?

Not me, but that’s what Rowan mentions over an early morning cuppa at the end of the week.

“I didn’t know you were a Disney fan.”

“Me?”

“‘Once Upon a Dream’? That’s from Sleeping Beauty, isn’t it?” He tilts his head to the bathroom. “If it wasn’t you singing it in the shower, someone else sounded pretty happy at the crack of dawn this morning.”

I grump right back at him, “And someone else can quit bitching because we both know who really makes all the noise around here.”

He only snorts, which stands to reason—I’ve never been able to snark around him. Could never make myself unleash the same banter with bite as the academy lads competing for a spot on the first team against me. I’m pretty sure Rowan knows that’s because I genuinely like him. I’m also pretty certain that we’re both up early today for the same reason.

The sooner the weekend is here, the sooner Rowan will get to stay with his boyfriend again, only this time he won’t be coming back. To the stables, I mean. He’ll move out for good, and apparently Luke doesn’t have any new hires starting anytime soon.

I’ll have the place to myself.

I better not look as goofy at that thought as Rowan does now. He smiles over the rim of his mug again, then smiles even wider when his boyfriend arrives. “Liam! You’re early.”

“Thought I’d grab your things now so you can come straight home after work.” He eyes a collection of guitar cases and sighs, although he’s a shit actor if he thinks that huff passes for unhappy. His grumble doesn’t fool me either. “I said we’d have room for your instruments, Row, not for the whole London Philharmonic.” That grumble doesn’t have bite, but it does sum up what I’ve spent the whole week doing when I haven’t been busy on farms or with kids in a clearing.

Liam gathers together what my housemate needs to be happy, and that’s what I’ve been working on, just like him. Not by stacking up musical instruments for Rae. He doesn’t need those. I’ve found different building blocks. For his story. At least, I think I have, and that’s been worth getting up before my alarm to decipher that old diary.

Wanting more happiness for Rae has also led to me phoning home more often. Today I even forget to feel any preemptive guilt when my phone buzzes.

Kirsty: Found them!

A photo follows that Rowan spies on his way past, the nosy git. “A photo album?”

“My grandad’s.” I can’t say that I remember ever looking through it. I text a quick request back.

Hayden: Can you send a photo of each page?

My stepmum is just as quick to answer. She sends back a single emoji that cries with laughter.

Kirsty: I love how you think I’ve got enough free time for that.

Kirsty: There are loads!!!

The next photo she sends me proves that. She hasn’t only found one album up in the loft. There’s a stack of them piled on the kitchen table between four breakfast bowls and something pink and fluffy. My phone rings as I squint at it, trying to figure out what the fuck all that pink fluff is. Kirsty launches into speaking at a mile a minute before I can ask her, which would be a Rae reminder, only she mentions people he hasn’t met.

Yet.

I haven’t been home in ages.

If things were different, I’d take him with me—thread him into more lives than mine the same way that he’s threaded himself into the life of this school and made it look so easy. That’s what he’s done since that camping trip he went on with the sixth-formers. From even before then, if I count back well over a month to Finn and Willow’s wedding.

I want to thread him into every single night too, and now that Rowan’s leaving, I could.

I leave my housemate to his packing and head out to collect the little ones for today’s nature session, still listening to Kirsty, until I catch a glimpse of someone ahead.

Mitch.

I duck into Rowan’s outdoor classroom and crouch behind the fence. “Kirsty?” I whisper. “Hold on a tick.”

I peer through a gap in the fence, about to tell her that I’ll call back, only Mitch booms, “Stop!”

He isn’t shouting at me.

He interrupts a kick-about between Teo and Noah, and what he booms next is the opposite of what my academy coaches used to yell at me.

“Don’t head the ball.”

Rae must have been close by. He’s as curious as ever. “Why, Mitch?”

“Because of what high-speed collisions can do to a brain. Heading a football has the same effect, especially on developing brains, only the damage doesn’t show up until later. Cognitive issues, memory loss, emotional dysregulation. It stacks up with every injury.”

Teo sounds disbelieving. “Really? Just from heading a ball?”

“Really,” Mitch booms. “The science has proven that without doubt now, which is why heading is being phased out of kids’ matches. Banned—to cut down on needless trauma.”

Banned?

I must have headed balls thousands of times in training. I even stood in an academy goal with my hands tied behind my back and made save after save with only my noggin. Then I’d done it again, just as soon as I stopped puking.

I haven’t thought about that for years. Now my head thuds at remembering those batterings, and Kirsty’s voice buzzes. “Hayden? You still there?”

“Yeah, I’m still here.”

Mitch isn’t. He must have left while I was locked into a different kind of booming than his voice. This remembered pounding relates to a life I’ve left behind, and, in hindsight, to coaches that Dad would have lost his shit with if he’d seen their training methods.

“Hayden?” Kirsty asks again, but now someone else is my reason for being distracted.

Rae stands in a spot that used to be mine on football pitches, and Teo runs up to take a shot directly at him.

“Fuck sake.”

That slips out as I stand up to see Teo slam the ball into the back of the net, and Rae cackles as though almost getting concussed is a fun way to start his morning.

“What did you say, love?”

Kirsty tells someone in the background to be quiet. Good luck with that if all three girls are in the kitchen with her. That room is tiny compared to the one where I’d shovel down carbs before matches and where I’d walk in on her and Dad hugging after failed IVF cycles.

I baked a cake for her in that kitchen when she told me I was going to be a big brother. Now she says, “Hush, I’m talking to Hayden,” to that cause for celebration. I have to hold my phone away from my ear at the screeching that comes in triplicate, but I must smile at the girls all begging for her to put the call on speaker; across the grass, Rae grins too.

At me.

That could prove fatal. Teo has a powerful right foot, so I bellow even louder than Mitch did. “Keep your eye on the ball!”

That screeching on my phone silences abruptly. So abruptly that I check the screen, assuming we’ve been cut off. Instead, Kirsty asks a careful question. “You’re playing again, love?”

“Footy? No, I…” At some point, I’ve left Rowan’s outdoor classroom and drifted closer to the pitch. Now my toes are only inches from the touchline, and all I can do is swallow.

She guesses again. “You’re coaching?” she asks, sounding…

Hopeful.

Fuck knows what that does to my face. I grit out, “No,” and Rae jogs over, his smile gone.

“Hey, you okay?”

Three voices shriek, “Who’s that?” Which isn’t how I intended to introduce the girls to someone I’m not entirely sure how to label, but I switch to a video call that ends with Rae cackling again at my sisters’ inquisition. I can’t be too mad about them fighting over who gets to hold the phone or about their intrusive questions, not when he answers and I get to find out more about him.

“Why do I sound like this?” His eyes laugh at me as he hams up his accent. “Because I’m a London boy, innit.” He shares which part of the city he grew up in, and they shout back the name of the neighbourhood of a northern city where Dad rented a house after I was scouted.

Ava is the smallest and fiercest of my sisters. “We’re right by the academy. Only boys get to play there, which is sexist.”

Emma is equally indignant. “It is sexist. That’s why Dad painted our front door pink, because girls rule.”

There’s no way she remembers that door being painted. I do, because it was me who slapped on that pink coat of paint when I was fifteen. I only copied what Dad showed me. He’d painted the front door of our old house to make Kirsty smile when she brought the girls home for the first time.

Smile?

She’d cried her eyes out, and so did the girls, which is how I got a crash course in rocking babies. So yeah, it was me who painted the door pink where they live now, but I did it for the exact same reason. Girls do rule, and fuck anyone who says different.

My sister Isla is easygoing, like always. “Girls can play footy if they want to. But mostly, I just like pink. What’s your favourite colour?”

I discover that Rae doesn’t have one, but if he absolutely had to pick, he’d choose sea green. “Like the water down here in Cornwall. Never seen anything like it.” I also discover that I just missed his birthday. The girls share their own birthdate, excited for it only being a week away, and even more excited about the present I sent them early.

“Concert tickets from Hayden!” all three of my Swifties shout.

Kirsty turns the phone her way again. That pink fluff I saw on the table now wraps her neck. “A feather boa,” she explains. “For the concert.”

Rae sucks his teeth and eyes me. “All four of you are going?” Maybe he has an idea about how much that cost me. His gaze slides to my Land Rover in the car park.

That vehicle, one tent, and my tools are all I have to my name, and he knows it.

His eyebrows rise when Kirsty says, “It’s good you’re doing so well for yourself, love. That you’ve got work coming out of your ears year-round, but do not send the girls any more money for merch. One, it’s all overpriced tat, and two, we don’t have room.” Her eyes narrow. “Unless you’ve found a gap in your schedule and are coming home to build that bigger wardrobe for them, I know you’re booked solid until after Christmas.”

Again, Rae knows different.

He stays silent as she lowers her voice.

“But you know what matters more to the girls than concert merchandise or money?”

I’m the one with the axe and bramble cutter. She slices through me with a single sentence.

“They’d give anything to see you sooner.”

More kids have joined Teo on the pitch. I’m vaguely aware of their continuing practice. Of Teo yelling coaching instructions. Of the thump of kicks, and the double-time thump of my heart as Kirsty tells Rae about a person he absolutely has to know is a work of fiction.

This success at business she describes as always spoiling his family. Always sending treats and cash and⁠—

“Look at these flowers.”

Sunflowers fill the phone screen. These miniature blooms are much smaller than the giants Dad grew every summer in our old garden. They didn’t grow half as well in the shady backyard of the rented house that was only ever meant to be temporary—a stepping stone between my training wages and a contract that was written in my stars.

Now her face is as sunny as if those stars hadn’t fallen to earth. She’s delighted when she points the phone at herself again, which is what I’d hoped after sending her flowers on what could have been a sad day. “For my wedding anniversary.” She gently chides me next. “One bunch would have been enough. You didn’t have to send one to each of us.”

I know that.

I know this too. “The girls have to share a lot already. A few flowers was nothing.”

She tells Rae more things about me that he has to know can’t be true after he’s seen where I stay between jobs in winter and we’ve had conversations about me needing to make hay because the sun won’t shine for much longer. Now he’s got to see why I’m so driven.

My four reasons are right there on my phone, fighting over who gets to wear a feather boa, and I can name what crosses his expressive features—he’s confused.

More than that, he’s…

Impressed.

He also gives off strong there’s more to this story vibes, and I’ve seen that spark of his curiosity before. It flared the moment I cut a path through a Cornish jungle for him. I saw it crackle again in a river after I showed him that pool. He was impressed then too, wasn’t he?

By me.

That curious spark flares again now in the coal of his eyes. Laughter joins it. “Tickets and flowers for four? Didn’t realise I was seeing an actual millionaire in the making.”

“You’re Hayden’s boyfriend?”

Kirsty doesn’t ask that. It’s the girls shrieking in high-pitched triplicate, but here’s why I always picture diamonds when I think of their mother—of what takes real pressure to form—Kirsty’s eyes sparkle as she diverts them. “Time to get to school!”

It is, thank fuck. The school bell rings here to give students a half-hour heads-up before lessons, and it’s a reprieve from another conversation I’m not ready to have.

Not about money.

About where this is headed when both Rae and I know he’s only a few drawings away from leaving.

I’m also not ready for Rae to bite his lip once the call is over like he’s wondering the same. Then his gaze locks on something else behind me, and I turn to see what he’s spotted.

Noah takes a turn in goal and faces Teo.

That would be fine against any of the other kids I’ve seen play here, but he’s up against a formidable right foot. I also know he’s desperate to be treated the same as all the other kids here—I know that—but I also know why he can’t be. Not yet.

Rae comes to the same conclusion. “Shit. He probably shouldn’t⁠—”

“Get a ball straight to the chest?”

No, he probably shouldn’t after surgery that only proves how quickly Rae has bonded with this group if Noah has shared it with him. Or maybe it was Luke who shared that information. A quick glance up at his study window shows him in the window, watching. Nothing about his body language screams that I need to take action.

He’d shout if Noah shouldn’t be doing anything this physical, wouldn’t he?

I want to believe that, but I can’t risk this game leaving Noah as broken as m⁠—

Rae shoots away before I can, darting across the grass towards the goalmouth while shouting, “Hey. It’s my turn in goal. You shoot, Noah.”

“No, it’s my turn.” I race Rae then, and who knew I’d start my Friday by making myself a liar on a football pitch, because I told Kirsty I wasn’t playing, didn’t I? That’s exactly what happens though, and yeah, I’m years out of practice, but I still stop every shot Noah fires until Teo switches places with him.

I told Kirsty I wasn’t coaching either, yet I call out instructions that only make my time in goal harder. Teo was good already. A few adjustments to his run-up later and he almost knocks my block off.

I have to work even harder to stop his second shot, which slams into my chest where a river boulder already bruised it, but thank fuck it’s my ribs that take that blast instead of Noah’s.

Teo listens to my winded feedback and his next shot is incredible, even if I have to strain old wounds to save it.

“Hey!” I shout after I stagger upright. “Take it easy on an old man, won’t you?”

Teo’s last shot shoots straight past me, a cannonball to the back of the net, a perfect top corner that I don’t see coming.

I can’t.

Not with my eyes suddenly blurring.

I blink stinging dampness away as Rae jogs over, and I don’t argue when he shuffles me out of goal and takes over. All I can do is focus on a second blurring. This time, the grass between my feet smudges. So does the white line of paint between my work boots. Both are still fuzzy when the bell rings again, the school day starting in five minutes, and the kids run to make it inside in time for their classes.

Rae’s hand lands on my shoulder. It rests right over a scar, his pats there oh-so gentle because he knows what my shirt hides from other people. “You okay?”

Okay?

I can’t see.

Can’t breathe.

Can’t do anything but let his voice wrap me.

It’s another boa, feathery and soft around my throat, which only slowly loosens. Finally, I can chuff out something close to laughter along with the reason for being this choked up before nine in the morning. “Dad used to say that to me.”

Rae asks, “Yeah?” and I’m usually the gruffer of the two of us. Not today. This comes out even lower from him. “When?”

“When he took a turn in goal for me.” Knowing that Rae pictures the same posts as I do means I can let out what I’d usually try to swallow down or forget. Today, remembering is easier, if still painful. “He’d say, ‘Take it easy on an old man.’ I’d forgotten, Rae. Hearing it again? Being the one to say it? Caught me off guard, that’s all.”

Rae’s hand slides to the small of my back. Then it tugs on my elbow, and I don’t know when I stuffed my hands into my pockets, but he pulls one free to plant on his chest. There’s no way to tell if it shakes. Not when both of his hands cover mine completely.

He presses, and I feel the rise of his inhale under my trapped palm.

His exhale is an audible gust—a different reminder—this time of the man who last breathed with me through a tough moment.

I flash a look up to the study window again, which is thankfully now empty.

I can’t look anything like a leader right now. Like someone exceptional who Luke would keep on here for longer. Not while I’m as weak and lost as a lamb. As beaten to the ball as a player who just got slide-tackled out of nowhere.

And by what?

By remembering a single phrase after a decade?

Rae sums that up for me. “It’s the little things that sneak up and kick you in the nuts, right, when someone was that important to you?” He casts a glance at the sixth-form students waiting for him to start another session of recording their journeys. He shares part of his with me. “I get kicked in the nuts plenty. That happens when people are important. Your dad is still that for you. Pretty sure everything you do here is your way of showing that to everybody. He’s why you’re the way you are.” This is quieter. “Why you’re so strong.”

He sounds so certain while I’m only sure of one thing.

Dad would have liked Rae.

I wish he could have met him. There’s no chance of that now, but Rae could meet Kirsty and the girls, only I like the way he sees me.

He thinks I’m strong.

Take him home?

That would mean showing him where I was my weakest.

17

HAYDEN

Rae jogs over to the sixth-form kids waiting for him. He takes his roll of paper from one and then heads off with them towards the woods, only he walks the last few steps backwards, as if keeping me in sight is important.

Typing a quick text to Kirsty then is easy. I send it before I can change my mind.

Hayden: Might actually make it back for their birthday during the half-term break.

She replies just as swiftly, all exclamation marks and heart-eye emojis. So fucking many of them. My screen fills with her excitement.

Kirsty: Can’t wait to tell the girls!!!

I type quickly one more time.

Hayden: Don’t say anything just yet. I need to double-check my schedule.

I already know that Marc and Stefan would chase me out of Cornwall if I asked them—they’re all about making time for family, which their fast reply proves while also confirming that they’re a massive pair of dickheads.

Marc: So that’s a yes to a November wedding, right?

Stefan: Mum wants to know how many tiers you want on your cake.

He’s a wanker. They both are. So are the other farmers in our group chat who send rude emojis, but who also confirm that I could make it happen. I tell them I’ll let them know for certain as soon as I can, then follow that with another message to Kirsty.

Hayden: If I can make it happen, would it be okay to bring a plus-one?

My screen fills again with more emojis that I can’t help smiling down at, which is how Luke Lawson finds me.

“Good news?” he asks.

“Uh, yeah. Yes, I hope so.” I almost slide my phone away, and Luke must see my hesitation.

“Go ahead if you need to reply.” He tilts his head at the football left on the grass. “We’re so close to the half-term break now that I had a sudden urge to play instead of working.” He takes a shot, which goes wide of the goal to a chorus of oohs from the little ones in Rowan’s outdoor classroom.

“Try again, Mr. Lawson,” Asa shouts through a gap in the fence. He repeats what I’ve told him while trying out new ways to make his mark in my clearing. “Practice makes progress.”

Luke does take a second shot, although I’m pretty sure he misses it on purpose. A final bell rings, signalling it is time for lessons to start, and I quickly fish my phone from my pocket to send one last message. Not to Kirsty. I type this one to Rae, my thumbs stuttering all over the screen before I get my shit together.

Hayden: Catch up with me later? Need to ask you something.

Luke saunters back, seemingly in no hurry to return to his study. “I’ve been hoping for some good news too.”

He inclines his head at the pitch again, his eyebrows rising. He’s asked me once already if I’ll coach football for him. I guess this is him asking if I’ve reconsidered. He also offers a get out.

“Mitch has volunteered to help with the after-school footy club. He is a very busy man though.” Luke quickly adds, “I know you are too.” Here is additional proof that he’s a real local. “For a few more weeks, at least, until the harvest is in.” He inclines his head one more time, this time towards a goalmouth I never expected to stand in again. “Only you looked so at home there, and I know the boys were impressed with your stopping skills. With your advice too. When it comes to coaching, that’s what really matters, isn’t it?”

“What does?”

“Having the trust and respect of your players.” Luke meets my eyes. “Mitch talks a good game, but he’s honest about only knowing so much because someone he supports lives and breathes the sport.”

He means Justin.

That’s who I picture now. I also can’t help remembering what barely registered with me years ago, but Justin did come to plenty of my matches before I got scouted. He sat behind Dad, so I bet he soaked up a ton of knowledge.

Luke continues. “That’s what we do for people we care about, isn’t it? Get involved with their passion, especially if they’re an important person in our lives. Of course you’d want to speak the same language as them, especially if communication otherwise is an issue.”

I guess that he is still talking about Justin. I have only ever heard him mutter a few words—even if they were devastating—but it’s Dad I picture, who struggled with speech at the end, but who worked so hard to keep communicating if soccer was the subject.

All those stories about how he nearly made it?

How he took up coaching after he didn’t, and learned to love it?

I wish I’d listened harder to them.

To him.

Luke crosses the grass to retrieve a football. He touches it with the tip of a shiny black shoe and says, “The difference between you and Mitch is that you can’t only talk about the game. You’ve lived it for real in a way that makes you an exceptional example.”

That’s the second time he’s used that word to describe me.

Exceptional.

Fuck knows why this shoots out from me. “My reason for not playing wasn’t exceptional though, was it?”

There isn’t anyone left out here on the pitch other than him and me. No one else can have heard me admit that. Only Luke and I are out here playing hooky. We’re also playing footy, passing the ball to each other, and the little ones must all be lined up at the fence of Rowan’s classroom watching—they cheer when Luke chips the ball at me and I catch it in a foot stall.

That catch is pure muscle memory, not deliberate showboating, but I flick it up in the air to another cheer, and the next series of flick-ups I launch into is as easy as breathing.

Easier.

I don’t have to think. The ball goes where I send it. I catch it on my knee where it balances as if glued there, then I let it fall only to catch it in another foot stall, all to a chorus of little ohs and ahs from the watching children. Then I boot it up, sending it soaring to a host of cheers and to another sound that carries across the grass to me.

Fucking drumming.

A quick glance over my shoulder shows Rowan tapping away on the classroom fence with sticks as I flick the ball up again for a last time, barely able to hear Luke over that percussion and the children’s excitement.

He says, “Don’t mix up having to leave that academy with you having to stop playing. No one can take the game from you, Hayden. No one.”

Apart from me.

For the second time today, I end up in goal, this time with a line of little children taking shots at me. They all get to put a ball in the back of the net to an accompaniment of Rowan drumming along with their run-ups.

I only really reach to stop one shot.

Luke isn’t a sore loser. He laughs. He also says, “Those sixth-form students knew the difference between you and Mitch the moment you got a foot on a ball. It’s why they listened.” He offers me the ball.

I want to take it.

I can’t.

“I’ve got to go.” I point to the kids. “They’re waiting for me.”

Little Asa breaks away from the line of children. He’s usually distracted but today he’s deadly serious. “Come to our footy club, Mr. Novac!”

He darts away, but I’m stuck.

I’m also torn.

Luke lands a hand on my shoulder one last time. “Maybe talk to Mitch about dropping in on one of his coaching sessions. Start small. No worry, no hurry.”

“Maybe.” That’s actually another no, and I guess Luke knows it. Those forehead furrows deepen. I allow a small concession. “I’ll mention it when I next see him.”

That turns out to be much sooner than I’m prepared for.

Mitch is my mentor today, and is waiting at the clearing when I get there with the children.

He isn’t alone.

Justin hovers in the background, clutching what looks like one of Rae’s sketchbooks. And that is who else waits in the clearing with his students.

“We were just leaving,” Rae promises. His voice lowers. “But I can hang around if…” He tips his head in Mitch’s direction, and I’m caught like I was in that river, pulled by opposing currents. One tugs me closer to Rae because he thinks I need defending. The other pulls me closer to the real truth, which floods out.

“No. It’s okay. You don’t need to stay. Mitch is a good guy.”

He is. Even now when he’s got his own work to do, he’s here to help me out. And he stopped the kids from taking headers I didn’t even know were risky, didn’t he? Which was the exact opposite of what my last coaches demanded from me. He even flashes a smile my way, although it’s wary, and that’s…

My fault.

I’ve hung back too often. Avoided him and Justin. Now I almost feel Luke’s hand on my shoulder again, and I do my best to live up to his image of me.

“Hey, Mitch. Good to see you.” I include Justin. “Both of you.”

That’s nothing exceptional, is it? It’s only a simple greeting, and the bare minimum of politeness. Mitch beams like I made his whole day brighter. “Good to see you too.” He’s so smiley, it’s contagious. His big voice booms. “Ready to play?”

And we do for this last session before the half-term break.

We play until lunch, or the kids and Mitch do at least. I’m not sure when I realise that I’ve taken on the role of session leader, but I stand back the way that Charles and Luke and Rowan have role-modelled for weeks. And like them, I observe before I make suggestions. Mitch is more of a man of action—of big moves and even bigger bursts of laughter—but he also keeps coming to me for input.

“Their concentration is amazing. I didn’t expect it from the really little ones,” he confesses. He also frowns. “Should he have that hammer?” He means Asa, who taps away just like I taught him. Mitch frowns even harder. “Adults with brain injuries sometimes need a lot of supervision. I kinda thought the kids would need an even closer eye kept on them, not less.”

“Oh, they still need watching.” It’s pretty much all I need to do now I’ve got a better handle on the individual trajectories that Charles says they can shoot for so much faster when they’re self-directed. “Asa knows what he’s doing.”

I say it within his earshot because I know how motivating a coach’s praise can feel, and Asa deserves some. He’s far from having ants in his pants now, so I go ahead and give him some more armour for his future in case he meets a coach like my last ones.

“I can see how hard he’s been listening to me. How closely he’s watched my demonstrations.” Yes, Asa watched while fiddling with all the nails in a container, but I didn’t need to watch him for long to see he was actually sorting and categorising, his hands busy while his brain was even busier learning. “I can trust him to ask for help if he needs it.” I sit in that storytelling chair Charles once called a throne, and for once it does feel like I rule here. “I’ll be right here if he needs me.”

We both watch Asa work as Mitch crouches beside me. “What’s he doing?” he asks quietly.

“Making his mark.”

He is, even if it takes him all morning to do it. By the end of the session, a child who was too wriggly to sit still is done. He’s also bursting with pride to show off what he’s created when Rowan arrives to collect the kids for their lunch.

Asa holds up one of those thin log slices that I chainsawed, clutching this one in front of his chest like a shield. “Look!” The wide and shiny heads of those nails now spell out his name, and fuck me if my chest doesn’t puff almost as much as his.

I’m still chuffed when Rae passes through the clearing again with his students on his way back to the main school building for lunch. He smiles across the clearing and calls out, “Someone looks happy,” as a beam of sunlight crowns him with licks of flame in a reminder of the very first time I met him.

Back then, I mistook him for someone I once thought could fill my future. It isn’t Marc I see in that role these days. It hasn’t been in forever. Now Rae looks at me the same way Marc looks at Stefan, and fuck permanent being off my agenda.

Like Asa’s work this morning, Rae’s name might as well be hammered across my chest.

Maybe it’s a good thing he isn’t staying.

I won’t be able to claw out those nails if they lodge any deeper.

“Listen,” Rae says, this bright smile another hammer blow to my heart. “I just had some amazing news—” He can’t have noticed that Mitch is still present until that moment. Rae suddenly halts, asking me a silent question, which I can read with zero problem.

You okay?

That’s a sudden reminder of someone else I haven’t stopped thinking about all morning, who also spoke to me with his eyes. And who, if I’m honest, has been on my mind for months now, even though he’s long departed.

Mitch picks up on that, and if he’d ushered me over to a picnic table where Justin now sits with that sketchpad any sooner, I wouldn’t have joined him. Couldn’t have. Today, I watch him help the brain-injured man he’s supported for years by opening what turns out to be a scrapbook full of memories I’m not prepared for.

“That’s…” I sit more heavily than I mean to, and of course my hands shake. Anyone’s would in the same situation. “That’s Dad.”

A different hand lands on my shoulder. Rae has sent his students for lunch. He’s alone, but for once I don’t feel like I am while faced with what made me hide in woodland.

“That’s…” He studies the photo. “That’s your back garden, yeah?” Rae asks. “Those are the goal posts you showed me?” Giant sunflowers stand in a row behind them, and I nod like they used to.

“They are,” Mitch agrees. He sits beside Justin. “You’ve followed the local team for years, haven’t you, mate?” he gently prompts him. “And what do the team all call you?”

“Number one fan,” Justin mutters. He shifts in his seat as if agitated and snaps that scrapbook closed. This is fierce, if faint, from him. “Still my team.”

“That’s right, they’re still your team,” Mitch promises, his tone reassuring. His glance my way seems apologetic. “So it was a bit of a surprise when the son of one of your favourite coaches didn’t want to see your scrapbook. Because that’s who Mr. Novac was to you, yeah? Your favourite coach after your accident.”

Mitch touches his own forehead, but my gaze fixes on the deep depression in Justin’s, a clue that he’s played through plenty of pain of his own. It means I can say this without choking.

“He was my best coach too.”

Here I go again, reading eyes instead of needing to hear Mitch say thank you. His crinkle at their corners to send that message across the table to me while he aims this next comment at Rae, who takes a seat on the bench beside me. “Justin didn’t grow up locally. Before his accident, he was a prospect in the city. In Plymouth. Your dad remembered seeing him play for the under-elevens when they were up against Porthperrin in school tournaments.”

Trust Dad to never forget a player with potential. Now Mitch swallows, his gaze fixed on Justin. “That was your superstar heyday, right, mate?” His fingertips graze his brow again. “And when Justin came to me and wanted to watch some live footy, your dad welcomed him back, didn’t he? Mr. Novac let you watch practices with those kids you used to play against, didn’t he, J-man? Made sure no one took your seat. Kept you right in the middle of all that football gossip, and he let me take photos to help you remember.”

He pauses. This time, his gaze lands on me and stays there. “And he invited Justin to your home so he could practise kicking a ball into the back of a real net with no one watching. Made sure everyone was out. Didn’t matter if you missed a shot, did it, J-man, or if you fell over.”

“No.”

Justin’s death grip on his book loosens. He hasn’t spoken with emotion around me until today. He’s been fierce once already. That same fierceness is loud and clear all over again.

“Miss him.”

Me too, mate.

Me too.

Mitch pushes the scrapbook closer to me, and he’s got a big voice, right? Can boom loudly enough that the whole school could hear him, if he wanted.

This is so, so gentle.

“Justin still goes to games now. Still sits with the local team. They all followed your progress while you were away. You know what clubs are like.”

I do. I almost suggest hotbeds of gossip only he has a different viewpoint.

“Protective of their home-grown talent. Invested in their futures, especially when there’s a strong family connection. And if that family connection ends all too abruptly?” He touches the edge of that goal-post photo. “The club gets even more protective. Add in what happened right before you got your big shot…” He glances Rae’s way before locking with me again, and who the fuck knows what he sees, or if he was about to spill a loser label that I so want to leave behind me.

It’s an unwelcome flashback to Justin mentioning the shame I hoped I hadn’t brought back to Cornwall with me.

Luke Lawson suggested that old shame wasn’t mine to carry. Now Mitch lets me off the hook of having to feel more of it in front of Rae by not being explicit. Instead, he makes a promise.

“The reason why things didn’t pan out for you doesn’t matter. Clubs talk, but they close ranks around their own, now and forever.”

He’s telling me my fall from grace will stay between us, and relief floods me.

He tags on a quiet, “If that’s what you want?”

The reason why I do sits right beside me.

Rae sets down his roll of paper, and I hope to fuck he’s drawn me on it as strong instead of weak. As someone he’s glad he crossed short-term paths with. Right now, I don’t want to step out of a story where he sees me as a giant. I’ve also seen him sketching us hurtling downhill while wet and laughing.

He’s my rush now. My high. My healing from all the old wounds that faded the moment he showed me how he saw me.

As a hero whose journey isn’t over.

Now I show him a hero of my own, and this time, when I reach for that scrapbook, Justin lets me take it.

Dad fills it.

So do I, and I can’t speak. I can only turn page after page that shows us on so many pitch sides along with other players. Mitch names them, but I barely hear him. I’m focussed on images of me with skinny legs and goalie gloves that look massive on me before I got my growth spurt. Dad’s taller than me in many of these snaps, stooping while pointing at a goalmouth. For a moment, seeing both of us in profile is confusing.

I could be the adult, we’re so alike now.

I turn more pages to be confronted with a reversal. Dad is in a wheelchair with me stooping to point out gameplay, and Rae’s hand lands on my thigh.

Fuck knows why I feel that touch somewhere else—this pressure right over my chest is a phantom reminder, a sensory ghost telling me to breathe, so I do my best to inhale and exhale while Mitch keeps going.

“I’ve been with Justin for over twelve years. He couldn’t talk when I first started working with him. Too much damage. Too many dead ends in his noggin. Brains are brilliant though, aren’t they, mate?” He nudges Justin, who nods just like that owl I showed Rae by the river, looking wise and solemn. “Everything in the traumatic brain injury textbooks says that maximising sensory input helps to forge new connections. When people with TBIs engage more senses, their progress can be amazing. There’s no better place for that to happen than in nature. I knew that, but I had no real idea about where to start.”

There’s a smile in his voice next. “Back then, you could have written what this city boy knew about working outdoors on the back of a condom wrapper and had room left over.” He flips another page, taking me back in time to Dad’s days as a moorland warden. In this image, he’s at work with a younger Justin as his shadow. “Your dad told me about the Haven. How it had a focus on gardening.” He tilts his head in the direction of the care home. “And he reached out when I started work there. Offered to teach me about nature.” The smile in his tone turns serious. “Every single activity I do outdoors grew from the seeds he planted. You better believe it was a fucking privilege to return the favour.”

Mitch shows me how.

He shows Rae too by turning a last page. This one holds familiar sheets covered in words and phrases, and in single alphabet letters. The later cards only show pictures. Some are highlighted the same way we would highlight whichever picture or word Dad stared at, piecing together our last conversations.

Rae surprises me by saying, “I use these.” He touches a row of images showing facial expressions. “So I can work with kids even if I don’t have an interpreter.”

That’s what Mitch did, if he was who gave these tools to Kirsty. He helped us interpret for Dad when he physically couldn’t tell us what he needed. Now Mitch touches his temple. “When the PSP kicked in and communicating became hard for your dad, Justin put this scrapbook together for him. Used to show it to him when your dad came to the club, neither of them talking, both of them enjoying your journey.”

Rae asks, “PSP?”

Mitch waits a beat before answering for me, thank fuck, because there’s no way I can say this. “Progressive supranuclear palsy. Presents a little like Parkinson’s, but the progression is different and can be much faster.”

So fucking fast.

“That’s tough on families,” Mitch says.

It was tough on Dad, not on me. Tougher still on Kirsty, who had to hold us all together. The triplets were too little to be aware, which was the only blessing.

Mitch isn’t done yet. “That’s why we wanted you to have this.” He pulls out one of those communication sheets. “I mean, you can have the whole scrapbook, but this is the last conversation he had with Justin, so it seems kinda special.”

This communication sheet is covered with single letters. Only four of them are highlighted.

Mitch says, “He was looking at photos of you.”

Rae pieces those four letters together.

“Star.”

I’m voiceless. Almost sightless, as well. All I can do is hear Mitch ask a string of questions followed with a firm promise.

“If he could see what you’ve done with your life? What you’ve made here? What a chip off the old block you’ve grown into? Hayden, I guarantee he’d still think the same about you.”

18

RAE

I steer Hayden back in the direction of the stables later.

It seems like the best option after he’d closed that scrapbook and kept his eyes shut for what felt like forever. Even now, with his eyes open, I’m not sure he sees where he’s going or realises that we aren’t alone on this slow and stumbling journey.

Mitch walks with us as far as the chapel, talking to him the whole time, one arm around Hayden’s shoulders, the other around Justin’s, and I’ve heard the man boom enough times to know this quiet tone is different. Low and soothing. At least I hope it’s soothing for Hayden.

My own head buzzes with what I didn’t expect to hear or witness after getting that need to ask you something message.

I have news to share with Hayden as well, but now I’m so fucking glad I didn’t. Glad, too, that I got to see what filled the pages of this scrapbook I carry, otherwise Mitch stopping now beside the chapel door and then cupping Hayden’s face with both hands would have zero context.

I’m still not entirely sure why Mitch tells him, “You haven’t done a single thing that your dad wouldn’t understand, mate. He would have coached you through it if he’d been there with you. You were his star before, during, and after. You are right now. You always will be.”

I take a step back, giving them space for a conversation that seems even more private than what I’ve already witnessed.

Hayden’s hand snaps out to stop me, and if this lightning-fast reaction is a measure, no wonder he was scouted.

He doesn’t even need to look to find me. He’s so aware of where I am in relation to him—so certain it’s my hand he needs to hold on to. I’m stopped in my tracks. Then I’m reeled in, a fish on a line, and I don’t usually let myself get hooked when the world is full of bright and shiny sights I haven’t drawn yet, but I can’t fight this hold.

More than that, I don’t want to.

Distance is the opposite of what I want from this big man who I watch crumple, a giant felled by hearing he was cared for, which is bullshit. Everyone loves Hayden and wants to keep him.

Like me.

I’m who reels at that thought all while being pulled even closer to hear Mitch’s next murmur. “You’ve even started to let yourself shine again at what you’re good at lately, haven’t you?”

Shine?

As far as I know, before this morning, Hayden hadn’t touched a football in years, and I get it. There’s a whole world of pain in my past I’m in no hurry to repeat and would never want to.

Only maybe Mitch wasn’t talking about Hayden crashing out of soccer.

He says, “I watched you coach those kids all morning in the clearing. Mate, they fucking light up around you. A little bit of your shine has rubbed off on every single one of them. Where did you learn how to do that?”

I can guess this answer. Hayden confirms it by choking out, “With Dad.”

“Of course you did.” Mitch gives Hayden’s shoulders the kind of shake that would make my head wobble and my ears ring. It barely rocks him, but I’m close enough to see the effect of Mitch’s next rumbling statement. “You getting to shine again is exactly what he would have wanted.”

Hayden’s face creases with emotion, folding. I see it happen the moment Mitch adds, “If you can let yourself enjoy what you excel at, he’ll see your light all the way from heaven.”

I can run with that visual—Hayden’s always shone to me, hasn’t he? Every time I’ve added a little brightness to a doodle, he’s been my inspiration. Even though I’m on a countdown, it’s him who keeps appearing on my paper, and how many times have I drawn him as a guide or caretaker for someone sharing his roots?

And isn’t caretaking exactly what he’s been doing for his sisters from a distance, even if I heard his stepmum say loud and clear that they’d all rather see more of him than of his money.

Now?

He’s the only person who needs taking care of.

Mitch looks down at where Hayden’s hold on my wrist has slipped so our fingers thread, and has to come to the same conclusion. “Take your man home.”

I don’t argue with his your man description. I can’t make a joke out of it, not while a clock is ticking. In fact, I’m pretty sure if anyone tried to take over steering Hayden to safety, I’d fight them for him. I can’t even care if that’s an overreaction. When it comes to him, I’m done with being rational.

Right now, I’m a man on a mission that has me guiding Hayden through a quiet school while fully prepared to push back hard—to growl or snap or snarl if anyone tries to stop him from getting what he needs, which I guess right now is silence.

Peace. That’s what I want for him the most.

Quiet. So he can process.

Only he doesn’t seem to want to be alone once we get to the stables. He misses the lock with his key twice before I take it from him and open the door, but his tight hold on me doesn’t let up, and it’s far from shaky, which I guess makes sense if he’s spent the morning with the kids instead of using power tools.

I can’t help thinking some part of him has got to be shaking after witnessing a conversation that rocked him to his foundation. To his core. To a part of him that matters. My problem is that for all I’m usually a chatty fucker, I don’t know what to say next, or what he needs after getting his chest cracked wide open.

All I can do is crack open my own right along with him.

“Mitch was right, you know? You are brilliant.”

Hayden’s face creases again, so I lead him inside where no one else can follow, and I keep talking.

“Seriously, you’re so fucking brilliant. I think it each time I see you. Every single time I draw you.”

I swallow, not sure if this will be helpful, but fuck it. I place a hand over his heart and push, and yeah, he’s heavier than me, but he goes so easily where I move him.

His back lands against the door, and I step into the space between those long legs of his. “I think it every single time I get to touch you.” I slide a hand under his shirt and reach for the same place that I just shoved him.

His heart hammers under my palm, and he shudders.

He also pulls me closer, and so what if sex isn’t always the answer. I kiss him and guess it’s the right decision.

For him.

His mouth is a hot press against mine, his lips instantly parting, and I know that kind of desperation, don’t I? This fraught and frenzied need to do anything other than think. It’s exactly what I sank into each time the tide washed up tiny life vests. The difference now is that I don’t want to fuck away my fury with some random project worker, or to draw a story to raise cash to stop more kids from sinking.

What I want least of all is a time limit.

With him.

After everything he’s shown me, I want more time with him, not less, and it’s annoying as fuck the news I got this morning means I’ll be leaving even sooner.

It is good news for my project, but after sitting in on today’s conversation, it feels like the worst timing—a missed chance to know even more about him. To fill all those gaps making no sense between how he sees himself and how my pencil or stylus draws him.

It also sparks a different kind of desperation from me. Our kiss deepens enough for both of us to sink into. He’s right here with me, his tongue in my mouth, his arms clinging like I’m his lifeline, which feels desperate enough that I have to check in.

My hand slides down from his chest, heading lower, while the other unthreads our fingers to reach up. I clasp his jaw where his regrowing beard prickles. My other hand does the same along the hardening length of his cock. I squeeze both while double-checking. “You want to?”

Hayden doesn’t say yes. He doesn’t say no either. A whole new low sound tears from his chest, and his back isn’t against the door anymore.

Mine is.

He drops to his knees, getting his mouth on me so quickly, I have to brace against the doorframe.

I’m meant to be the one giving comfort. His mouth on my dick means I’m almost falling.

Almost?

I already am.

For him.

That has nothing to do with this hot, wet suction, or with the sensation of his teeth dragging where it shouldn’t feel good but actually makes my toes curl. I fell for him at some point I’ll pinpoint later when I’m not fighting the urge to fuck into the softness he offers.

The urge is difficult to resist when he sucks me to full hardness, his grip on my hips tight enough to be bruising. My dick nudges deeper than can be easy for him to take, but he sounds grateful. That’s what slips out, pure and primal, and I’ve never felt more connected.

Not because he blows me.

Because he looks up, checking I’m getting what I need too.

Fuck knows what he sees to make him pull off. All I know is, he’s never sounded hoarser.

“Please.”

His eyes are wet. A tear spills over, and it doesn’t matter if it’s because of what we’re doing or due to what Mitch told him. He needs this—me—and everything else can get in the sea.

I crouch then, my tongue back in his mouth, and I lose my balance. We crash over, and I’m sprawled on his chest, my trousers tangled at my ankles, my spit-wet cock against his, which is still fully covered. Then it’s a race to see who can get undressed the fastest.

I struggle to my feet with him right behind me, our shoes kicked off and clothes discarded, and thank fuck Rowan is busy teaching. There’s no hiding the chaos we leave on the floor behind us or the mess I leave in the bathroom.

Lube topples from the cabinet I dig through. A box of condoms scatters. I tear open a wrapper, my eyes meeting his in the mirror. “I’m fucking you, yeah?”

Hayden doesn’t answer. He’s hot and hard behind me, his mouth locked on the side of my neck and sucking, those sharp teeth back to rasping, which goes straight to my dick. So does all the blood in my brain. I’m hazy about how we got here, even if I’m not about the fact that his cock is a lot against the crease of my arse.

It nudges between my legs, and I clamp my thighs closed around him, pushing back. He lets out an honest-to-god growl. His gaze next locks with mine in the mirror, and I get to see his face crease for a third time, only this time I witness pleasure, and there’s a decision made I’ll go ahead and let future me pay for.

How long has it been since I’ve taken?

He lands a kiss on my shoulder, and the answer doesn’t matter.

I get busy with lube, or I would get busy if my hands didn’t switch roles by shaking. I’m clumsy, but I still manage to reach down and back to clasp that hot, hard thickness until he’s good and slippery.

Then we’re fucking.

Or almost.

I’m braced on one forearm, getting shoved against the counter with his dick between my thighs, and he doesn’t hold back. I guess that is proof of what he needs the most after that conversation. He’s tightly wound, needing release, which has to come out.

I know it hasn’t yet.

I’d see it in this mirror.

Instead, the glass reflects stoicism—strength—and I always knew he had plenty. His next shove slides his cock against my balls in a way that makes my vision narrow. It also shoves me closer to the mirror, where I see a first glimmer of his control finally loosening.

Hayden’s fingers dig into my hips. His own stutter, and he pulls back before surging forward again. This time, his cock slides between my cheeks, the head nudging my hole before skimming past it, and he looks down, watching.

His movements slow then.

I hold my breath at what the mirror shows me.

He’s so fucking gorgeous, rocking so, so close to where I’d take him. And I would, if he pressed any harder than this slow-as-molasses slide. He stares down, captivated, and I can only imagine what he’s seeing. Can only translate that slide turning from slow to glacial as nothing else existing for him than me.

Than us.

He isn’t angsting about the past now. Isn’t doing any preemptive stressing about his future after this harvest season. He’s locked into the here and now, and we might as well be the only people left on the planet.

His dick slides close, and a million nerves send conflicting messages of fuck, yes and hell, no until one wins out and I’m begging.

That’s me grinding out a drunk-sounding, “Yeah, yeah, do it.”

Me who looks up, face flushed and lips bitten scarlet.

And it’s me who spreads his legs wider and who almost has a fucking seizure when he pulls away.

He doesn’t go far. Hayden reaches for the lube and takes me at my word.

He goes for it, and I knew his hands were bigger than mine. I’ve watched them handle an axe and twist willow. Now he twists something in my chest by being just as careful with me as he was with that veil.

My eyes close with each slick knuckle he slides inside me until I repeat what echoed in this shower room once already.

“Do it.”

Hayden rolls on the condom and does. He pushes the head of his dick in, if only for a single smouldering, fire-hot moment. Then he’s gone and my eyes fly open just in time to see him pour more slick in a diamond stream before⁠—

“Fuck.”

That word stretches out as I stretch too, and the mirror shows his eyelids fluttering closed behind me. It also shows me the crumpling and creasing in his expression smooth out, and that’s what I want for him more than anything, so I push back to take more of him in a hurry, and the world turns white.

I don’t know how long he holds still or how long he runs a hand up and down my back until I can drag a breath in. He’s so fucking patient, or I think he is until my vision comes back online.

I’ve left a handprint on the mirror. Left a bite mark on my forearm. Lube spills over the empty condom wrapper, but he leaves far more on show than me.

I see it in his desperate eye contact even while he’s stock-still behind me. I hear it as well in his rough moan when I shift. All it takes is me saying, “Yeah,” and he lets go. Not of me—his hold is unrelenting. It’s himself he lets go of, and all of that control? That patience?

He’s been holding back a storm, and fuck knows how long he’s contained what batters me now, shoving me against the counter even harder. I can barely take it, and he has to notice.

A blanket wraps me.

He’s plastered over my back, breathing heavily, hot air gusting across my ear along with his promise. “I can stop.”

No, he fucking cannot.

Not now I know what he’s been holding back from me.

I push back and don’t stop until we’re as close as two people can be, and he fucks me again, driving hard and heady, whipping up a blaze that has me shouting something loudly—something strangled—he muffles it with a hand over my mouth as a new sound registers. The school bell rings outside, a signal the lunch break is over and kids might pass the stables on their way to lessons.

I nod my comprehension, and then shake my head at him easing out of me. He shifts while still inside me, and this change in angle plucks a new nerve. I groan against his palm as he does it again, not looking away from me for even a second.

Doing this was for him at the start.

I’m the centre of his world now.

Nothing else exists. That’s what he shows me with each fast fuck in and slow slide out, with each search for where I’ll make the same sound again for him to muffle, until the world turns white for a second time.

His hand drops, finding my dick, and it’s game over.

I come so hard it’s a good thing he’s got me wedged between him and the counter. And thank fuck I am when I’m too boneless to be any help with his last few shuddering thrusts.

His fingers spasm, then search, and if I ever wanted a sign I’ve been in one place for too long, he gives it to me—his forehead is pressed against my shoulder, no way for him to see, yet he still finds my hand again without looking.

He does it again after we collapse across his bed in a sweaty and heavily breathing tangle of limbs and kisses.

The ache in my arse is worth it to see his expression—he’s at peace when he lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses my knuckles.

That easy contact? This soft-yet-rough combination of lips and new beard prickle is like getting to see him for a first time, only minus any burrs or blades or tension.

He’s relaxed, and I love that so much for him that my voice dries.

“You feeling better?”

He nods. He also scrubs at his face like he’s embarrassed. He keeps his eyes covered. “I don’t know why I got all…” He shrugs and lets his hands drop to gaze across his pillow at me. “It was all good, you know?” he says softly. “Everything Mitch showed me? Everything he told me? It was just…”

“A lot?”

He nods again. He also changes the subject. “You said you had some good news. What was it?”

“Oh, yeah. The publisher liked the image drafts I sent. Which is good. They told my agent that they’ll definitely move forward with a contract if I can strengthen another aspect.”

Hayden blinks, so I add more detail.

“They want to maximise who the book will appeal to. My mentor will blurb it. That means I can splash his name on the cover and that will attract the kids’ story market. The other market I can corner attracts readers who like to support charitable projects. If I can find a nonprofit organisation that will agree to collaborate, it will help with marketing. Lend credibility to any publicity. That kind of thing. Once I have that agreement, the publisher will sign me and publish the book sometime next year.”

They’d also give me an advance right away, which will keep my project going.

“Collaborate with a charity? Do you have⁠—?”

“One in mind?” I cross my fingers while saying, “Hopefully, yes. I reached out to a contact. He’s fixed me up with a meeting in London as soon as I finish my last session with the sixth-form students.”

“That’s this afternoon? But you’ve got another week left, right?”

Here’s the thing about deadlines: They can shift like sand dunes. “Not if I want to meet the guy who heads the nonprofit foundation I have in mind. He’ll be away on business tomorrow. The timing will be tight, but he’s agreed to meet me tonight. If I can make the train, I can pitch the idea to him face-to-face. Then I’ll shut myself away and get busy.”

“Back here?”

I shake my head. Explaining why feels like a weakness, but he’s faced tough shit with me watching, so I go ahead and do the same. “Too many distractions. I mean, not everyone like me procrastinates, but I’ve had a pretty bad case of it lately.”

“Everyone like you?”

“With attention issues. Mine mean I do this every single time.”

That soft gaze searches my face. “Do what, Rae?”

“Get in my own way.”

“How?”

“By never starting until it’s almost too late. Drives me up the wall when I’ve got everything squared away up here.” I tap my temple. “I can picture everything I need to put on paper.”

“But you’ve been drawing plenty. I’ve seen you.”

“Yeah, but nothing I should have.” A hundred sketches only featuring Hayden probably won’t cut it. “I literally can’t make myself work if there’s even the slightest distraction.” I tap my temple again like I watched Mitch do earlier. Then I touch Hayden in the same spot with much gentler fingers. “I thought Cornwall would be distraction-free for me.”

“But it wasn’t?”

He’s still flushed, his colour still post-sex heightened, and I’d kill to recreate how he looks at me like I’m the opposite of what I describe to him. “Mate, I’m a disaster who has never had a harder time staying focussed.”

I’ve also done my best work ever. Those initial images the publisher loved prove it.

That contradiction leaves me frowning.

Hayden frowns too, and I can almost see cogs turning—him guessing that he’s the reason—and he even starts to pull away, so I repeat what he did outside the chapel without needing to look to know how to link us. This time, it’s my hand that shoots out to grab his as I try to make light of what has lately been a heavier cross to carry than usual.

“It’s fine. I haven’t missed a deadline yet.” The inside of my head is just a shit place to be stuck in during countdowns. “I always manage to pull it out of the bag at the last moment. Can focus when I have no other choice and absolutely have to.”

This is what I wish I could punt into the sun but can’t keep swerving. “There’s too much riding on this project to risk waiting to the very last moment. I know it, and so does my agent. That’s why they’ve offered studio space to lock myself away to get the next set of images finished.” I describe what I’ll draw next, going to get my phone and bringing it back to bed to show him a photo that is so much more than a reference image for me. It’s what started this whole ball rolling.

“A kid’s life vest?” He takes the phone from me, peering closer. “Is it…”

“Slashed?” I nod, remembering the kid I ran after through waves to make sure she got it. Traffickers are scum. This doesn’t seem much better. “That’s what the authorities do to anything they find. Slash it so it can’t be used by anyone else.” I can only hope that means their boat was stopped before it reached deep water. I change the subject rather than describe what happens to kids miles off-shore when that happens. “Hey, what about your text?”

“My text?”

“Yes. You said you had something to ask me?”

“Ah.” Something flickers in those soft eyes as he gives my phone back. “It wasn’t anything as important as this.” He’s quiet for a long moment. “Just something about my sisters.”

“You decided to go and see them for their birthday?”

He shrugs. “I probably won’t while there’s still work to do here.” His biceps are a bulging distraction from arguing he should make time for the people who miss him, especially after a conversation that left him creased and crumpled. The kiss he brushes my forehead with is another distraction before he rolls out of a bed I wish we could both stay in for longer, and he says, “Just do one thing for me, yeah?”

Anything.

“Don’t miss your shot, Rae.”

The like I did is silent. I guess we both hear it, and this is hoarser.

“Take it and don’t let anything or anybody stop you. Give your last talk to the kids and then go make that pitch. Get that foundation to partner with you, then lock yourself away, turn off your phone, and draw your fucking heart out.”

Neither of us mention what will come after.

I’ll cross the Channel while he’ll be here.

I know that.

We both do.

We’ve done this before—gone our separate ways and got on with our lives until I washed up back here. Today’s bright and shiny publishing news has obscured what now comes into stark focus.

After today, I won’t have a reason to come back. The next time we say goodbye will be for good.

I’m not ready.

Hayden comes back to bed, his arms tight around me, and he’s a man of few words. I know that like I always knew this was a short-term reprieve from real life.

He doesn’t need to speak to tell me what I hear loud and clearly.

For someone who told me he wasn’t a long-term proposition, he isn’t ready either.

19

HAYDEN

I don’t even make it to the end of the school day before hunting for Rae.

Not because I want to distract him. It sounds as though I’ve done enough of that already. But distraction is what has stuck in my mind and is my motivator for stopping first at my ex-housemate’s classroom.

Rowan joins me at the fence there. “Hey. You okay?” His forehead furrows, and those deep lines look out of place on his sweet face, which is a sign of my own distraction—it takes me way too long to realise he is mimicking my own expression.

I lighten up in a hurry. “Yeah. Yes, I’m okay.”

“Well,” Rowan says primly. “I know Luke wants to recruit a new drama teacher, but I’m not sure acting is your forte.” He leans over the fence and whispers, “Try harder, Hayden.”

I straighten up and do that. “I am okay.”

That’s a lie. The fact is, I can’t stop thinking about how Rae described himself to me.

As a disaster.

It clings like those burrs once did.

“Actually, no. I actually wanted to ask you a quick question about...” I cast an eye over the children scattered in this outdoor classroom, exchanging smiles and waves with several while searching for the one who keeps coming to mind since Rae left the stables to go meet his students.

Asa.

He isn’t with Maisie, who is busy in the sandpit. He isn’t with Hadi either, who walks a balance beam with barely a wobble.

The child who reminds me so much of Rae is engrossed in something. So much so that he hasn’t noticed my arrival.

“Listen, Rowan.” It’s my turn to whisper. “Can I ask you something about him?”

“About Asa?” Rowan glances his way, that frown melting away when his gaze swings back to me. “Of course you can. It will make a change from him talking my ear off all about you.”

“Me?”

Rowan nods. “Because you’re his favourite teacher.”

“I’m not⁠—”

Rowan rolls his eyes. “A real teacher? Try telling him that. In fact, come in, and I’ll show you why he thinks you’re the best thing since sliced bread.”

He heads for the gate at the end of the fence and holds it open for me.

“Look,” my softly-spoken ex-housemate orders much more forcefully than usual. “Tell me you didn’t teach him how to do this.” He points out the log disc that Asa hammered his name into. It has pride of place on a table with other oddments. “This is their achievement table. Where they put the work they’re most proud of. The work they value the most. Do you know who never puts anything on here?” He goes ahead and tells me what I can already guess. “Asa. Not until today. Who do you think that is down to?”

“But—”

“But nothing.” Rowan marches over to a drying rack before I can explain that anyone could show a kid how to use a hammer safely. All it takes is patience and some small adjustments to stop them from hitting their fingers. Like using a pair of long-nose pliers to hold the nails in place the way Dad first taught me. I follow him to say that, only Rowan holds up a sheet of paper daubed with still-wet paint. “He wouldn’t have done this without you.”

The painting is a mess of random splodges until I focus. “Ah.”

“Ah,” Rowan agrees. “That’s his name in paint dots, over and over. So many times it’s hard to read it, but he knew exactly what he was doing, Hayden. He couldn’t stop making his mark once he got back from your morning session. He hasn’t stopped since.” Rowan isn’t done yet either. He points at Asa, who is still too engrossed to notice us both watching. “Now look really closely.”

I do, and it takes a moment before what Asa is busy doing registers with me. Then it becomes harder for me to see for a whole new reason. For a third time today, I have to blink away a sudden blurring, and this comes out thickly. “He’s writing.”

He is.

That’s Asa’s name on the sheet of paper in front of him.

Not in dots.

He’s joined them.

He’s done that on the chalkboard too, his name there in a rainbow array. Rowan turns me to face another corner of his outdoor classroom where Asa’s name is also scrawled in crayon. That’s where Rowan says, “Charles told me that children making their mark is vital for them right here.” He doesn’t touch his temple like I more than half expect. He touches his chest in the same spot mine has been aching for the last few hours. “He said that if I could only do one thing with his children while he was busy with his babies, it was to help them make their mark in any way that mattered to them. In song. In story. Inside the classroom, or outdoors. Communication is everything. Without it, they’re stuck. Asa was, even though he always looks so busy. Now he can’t stop making his mark because he’s joined dots up here.”

He does tap his temple now, in a reminder of Rae back at the stables. Rowan is also flushed as pink as he was, if for a different reason. He’s passionate about Asa’s progress. “He refused to try to write at his last school. Now he’s asking everyone how to spell their names. How to spell anything at all. He can’t stop now he’s found enough focus to make a hand and brain connection.”

That leads me back to why I stopped here in the first place.

“Listen, Rowan. You mentioned focus. Do you think that’s because he might have⁠—”

“ADHD?” Rowan makes a weighing gesture with both hands and names what Rae described while in bed beside me, and what my subsequent Googling suggests could be a textbook example of it going undiagnosed in adults. Rowan discusses a much younger candidate. “Asa might have ADHD. He might not. He could just be a very busy boy. It’s too early to slap on any kind of lifelong label.”

He echoes what my Googling also told me.

“Do that too early and negative opinions can become the only mark that lingers.” He’s serious about this. “Plenty of people put any kind of neurological difference down to not trying hard enough to fit in. To be normal.” He straightens his shoulders. “Asa doesn’t need to hear that, or see himself as having a problem. Later, if he is assessed and does score highly, there are other strings he can add to his bow.”

“Like medication?” That was what Google listed, linking me to story after story of people who found it turned a key in a lock for them after years of struggle.

Rowan is less certain. “Maybe, but like I said, it’s early days. The assessment ball is already rolling in the background, but up until a formal diagnosis, the whole team will keep teaching him the way he can learn the best, right? Set him up to feel capable, like you have. We’ll watch for chances to extend his skills when he’s ready for more challenge. That’s teaching, Hayden. Watching and adapting and extending, like you’ve been doing.”

He includes me as part of that teaching team.

So does Asa, who spots me, and yeah, I still need to catch up with Rae before he leaves, but Asa runs over and looks up to me. His little face is smudged with paint and success as he asks, “How do you spell Novac?”

I tell him.

He scurries away before running back to me. “Want to watch me write it?”

I need to hurry to find Rae, not only to say another goodbye while I still can, but to tell him what could possibly help him.

For now, I tell Asa something else I’ve found out.

About me.

I take the hand he offers and promise, “I wouldn’t miss that for the whole world, mate,” and I mean it.

By the time I finally escape Rowan’s classroom, it’s even closer to the end of the school day.

The last bell will ring soon, signalling the start of a weeklong break. The kids who don’t board here full time will stream out and Rae will leave with them. Only he won’t come back, and he’s told me enough times about where he’s needed. Seeing that little life vest made his driver so real to me.

I still want to find him, and I even take a few steps, which is as tough as wading through hip-high water. But that’s what Rae did, isn’t it? Waded through waves to give that life vest to a child he told me should have been airlifted out of Kabul. He waded uphill for me too, through a torrent to grab my hand so we could face a wild ride together.

I want that again now.

Now?

He already knows I live season to season. Wanting more doesn’t fit my future. I still can’t make myself stop wading, only Rae isn’t inside the art block with his students when I go inside to find him. I’m alone inside a studio where huge windows show acres and acres of trees hiding where Rae could be.

“Shit.”

“Looking for someone?”

I turn around to see Sol wipe paint from his hands. He doesn’t wipe away his smile, although it’s gentle. It’s also a reminder of Mitch smiling across a scrapbook full of photos that broke me, and suddenly I’m exhausted, wiped out, like I was by the sex that put me back together.

I’m also swamped with want, like when a little boy asked me to stay a little longer.

I want Rae to stay too.

I can’t wade through that or hold it back. I can’t hold this back either.

“I’m not ready for him to go yet.”

Sol doesn’t make a joke by asking who. Instead, he steers me to a corner of the studio I didn’t notice. No one would, not when sheets hang from the ceiling, walling it off from view. “This is where he’s been working for the last few days. Calls it his last-chance cave. I used to have to make him one before every deadline at college.” He gestures at windows, which are also covered, and tells me what I know already. “Because the slightest thing distracts him, but look.”

This workbench is littered with evidence that Rae has been plenty busy.

“And this isn’t even half of what he’s churned out in the last forty-eight hours like someone lit a fire under his arse.” Sol flicks through sketches, sounding thoughtful. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he changed his mind about meds.”

That feels like confirmation.

He holds out an example. “Because this work?” Sol touches an image of Neptune rising out of stormy water, a child in a slashed life vest safe on his hip, only this giant is me with barnacles in my beard instead of burrs or straw or sawdust.

“And this?”

Ivy trails across the next picture Sol shows me. It knots around giant goalposts. I stand between them, that ivy tangling my ankles as if it will trip me, and isn’t that a perfect representation of how my last chance ended?

But I didn’t fall completely, did I?

I fell onto my feet here, and he sees that.

It also takes me time to see that Rae has drawn a row of sunflowers, and a little boy in old-fashioned clothing who beckons me from a gap in a hedge, complete with a speech bubble.

Let’s see where the river takes us.

I’m still taking in that detail as Sol says, “If this is his worst work, he’ll smash his meeting. Any charity would want to endorse him.”

“This is his worst work?”

“Compared to what he’s taken with him?” Sol nods.

Shit, shit, shit. “He’s gone already?” We already agreed forever wasn’t what either of us saw in our futures. Now all I want is a little more time.

“No,” Sol says. “I mean the best images are in his portfolio. So is the journey he’s drawn with his students. He’ll have both with him.” Sol grabs my arm, steering me to the doorway. “If you hurry, you can catch him. He said he needed space to unroll it all the way out, so he’s taken them to⁠—”

The clearing.

I must say that aloud. Sol nods. “Go and tell him what you just told me. Be quick though. He can’t miss this train.” His gentle gaze meets mine. “But also don’t make the same mistake I did.”

“Which was?”

“Thinking that distance had to be a relationship problem.” He lets go of my arm, this time to touch a different artwork. The man it features is golden and laughing, his arm slung around Sol’s shoulders. “I lost years to thinking that. I needn’t have. Not saying it’s easy, but my partner travelling so often just makes us both work harder at staying connected.”

He searches my face. Fuck knows what he sees there to make this offer.

“The first few days apart are always the worst. If you need company this weekend, my door is always open.”

“Thanks. I’ll probably be working or…” I’m still not sure about this. “I might visit the fam.”

“So you’ll be busy? Good. Just remember, miles don’t have to matter,” Sol promises. “Not if someone is really worth the effort.” Fuck his gaze being gentle. Now it turns steely. “Is Rae worth it to you?”

I nod.

That steeliness is a sudden bright flash. He grins. “Then what are you still doing here?”

I don’t answer.

I’m already running for the clearing.

No brambles snag me on my way to find Rae. Every pathway is clear. So is the light. It’s as bright as the paper on which these kids must have just finished drawing their journeys. They spread like sunbeams from Rae in the middle of the clearing.

He doesn’t see me at the edge of this corona. None of them do.

They’re engrossed in listening, and I see why as he unfurls more of his own story. They can all see what he’s shared with me since the end of the summer in snippets of conversation. Now it’s autumn, and he sets out a timeline threading all of those snippets together, which he verbalises with the crackling energy he brings to everything that matters to him.

“So, now I’ve taken you through my whole journey once, I want to recap with the crucial parts that had the most impact. How I went from here to here,” he says while using a stick to trace a line drawn between housing estate tower blocks and a smaller building. He’s drawn a cartoon explosion. “Boom! Taken into care at seven.” He moves along the paper. “Boom! Taken into care again at eight. Boom, shoplifting for our supper sent me back to the same place at nine with Mia, and again at ten, eleven, and twelve. We talked about life explosions, didn’t we?” The kids nod, and he continues. “About having your world blow up over and over, yeah?”

The students nod again.

Rae is emphatic about this. “Then what else do you remember?”

Teo speaks up. “You said going into care was the best thing to happen to you.”

Because someone read him a bedtime story promising he’d get through it.

Rae nods. “Here’s what symbolises the time before that for me—what made the biggest mark on me.”

A pin could drop, it’s so quiet.

If birds sing, I don’t hear them. I don’t even breathe. I can’t. Not after he uses a Sharpie to join dots with everyone watching.

A needle emerges.

So do pills.

A spoon and shining silver foil do too, but I can’t look away from what he drew first, and I’m back at the academy, taking what made playing through my pain possible.

“Addiction blew up my whole world for real. Boom,” Rae says. He also scribbles over a sketch of a girl and boy holding hands. “It left a stain I can’t ever erase and meant I couldn’t trust the one person who was meant to love me.”

I must let out a sound or lurch forward. I don’t know which. I only know that when he sees me at the very margin of this circle, sunlight strikes his face, and there’s no hiding his smile.

Or that he means this.

“Because the words I love you from an addict ain’t worth shit. There’s no future in it.”

He adds this so, so softly.

“These days, I’m pretty sure I’d know the real deal if I heard it.”

He addresses the students next, and this comes out with a harder edge. “But a little kid can’t know the difference between real care and what an addict promises, can they? Real care would have meant seeing where I struggled at school, and helping. Would have meant fighting for me, for real, instead of lying when social workers came knocking. That was the drugs talking, but when kids get lied to enough times, they’ll believe they get exactly what they’re worth. Believe they did something bad to deserve where they end up. Assume maybe they’re the reason for the habit. What’s that called?”

Noah spits, “Shame and self-blame.”

“And what do those do?”

“Stop you from talking when really you should.” Noah’s hair flames. So does his face. “I could have told Marc what was happening at home.”

“Shame and self-blame,” Rae repeats. “But you didn’t because…”

“I didn’t want to get Mum and Dad into trouble.”

Rae almost sighs this. “Me neither, mate. Me neither.” He draws in a deep breath. “And I would have kept blaming myself and maybe ended up here—” He strides over to Teo’s journey, that stick stabbing at an image I can’t see.

Teo joins those dots for me. “Locked up, like I would have been if Mr. Lawson hadn’t promised I had a place here, even after I kept running away.”

Teo is a big lad with a deep voice. It’s easy to think he’s a man already.

He’s never sounded younger.

“That’s why I’ve drawn him with a cape here.”

Rae swishes an invisible cape of his own, his eyes meeting with mine and laughing while an old shame chokes me. “Nothing wrong with needing a hero,” he says, still smiling at me. “Or a giant. It will only make it easier for you to be one. You picked a great role model.” He heads back to his own roll of paper. “If I hadn’t had a hero or role model of my own to lean on, I could have ended up in prison, or I could have ended up sinking as low as Mum did as an addict.”

And there’s a punch straight to the centre of my chest.

I’m winded as he continues with what sounds like a description of a nightmare.

“With weed at first. Then with a little bit of brown when weed wouldn’t take the edge off, and so what if heroin cost more and meant selling whatever wasn’t nailed down? There was always ket, and if it left her too zoned out to be a parent, a few bumps of speed would always…”

He stops there, his head hanging before he meets my eyes again. This time it’s only fleeting. He might as well have held up a mirror to a confession I once made to Kirsty about a failed test that meant I’d fucked the future for her and the girls. He sounds just as shame-filled. “A bump of coke or speed would get her motor running. Why wouldn’t she send her son out to score it for her?”

A penny drops then for me.

He isn’t ashamed of himself. He’s ashamed of her.

For her.

My soul shrivels.

Rae says, “If I hadn’t drawn a picture of those white lines, and if a teacher hadn’t noticed, I could have ended up⁠—”

Noah speaks up. “Having to mule?” He translates for the others. “Run drug deliveries. Little kids do that all the time where I’m from.” He rubs his chest like it hurts, only his gaze is fixed on what he’s drawn during these sessions with Rae. I can’t see, but I guess it must be a knife when his voice sharpens. “Or they get made into a lesson.”

Rae nods. “No good choices when it comes to rival gangs, right?”

“My brother got me out,” Noah says. “That’s why I drew Marc on my journey.”

“Another hero.” Rae clasps Noah’s shoulder before turning back to the end of his roll of paper. He says, “Remember I told you where I found my first one after addiction wrecked my family?” This smile is so, so sweet. “And things got better for me.”

The rest of what he says might as well be static.

Usually, he’s the one who can’t focus.

Now, it’s me.

I know he talks and then points at an image of a book with a starry cover. He also points at boats on choppy waters, and I tune back into him saying, “None of us can change where we’ve sailed from. My first hero stopped me from sinking. Taught me to never give up on people while their journey isn’t over. My second hero confirmed it. Now I’m making a career out of doing the same. You can too. That’s pretty cool, right? Worth sticking it out here at Glynn Harber just in case you can make a difference to someone else’s journey one day?”

The kids nod.

He does too before saying, “Show me how your stories pan out one day, yeah? Track me down. I want to hear where your journeys take you. And if you ever need help drawing yours, I got you.”

I guess that’s the end of his session because he untacks that roll of paper and slides it away in his portfolio.

I’m aware that the kids roll up their journeys as well. I hear plenty of them saying thanks, and good luck in London, and smash it, sir, before we’re alone together in the clearing.

Rae slings his portfolio over his shoulder before joining me at the tree line. Fallen leaves are thicker here but haven’t dried yet. They’re as soft underfoot as him saying, “I thought we already said goodbye.”

I nod.

He does too. Then he snorts. “Great minds think alike. I was gonna come and find you before⁠—”

A horn beeps in the distance.

Rae glances in that direction. “Shit. That’s my ride.”

I nod again, still silent because everything I came here to say has dried in my mouth.

Rae wets his lips. “Listen, I’ve been thinking. Maybe I don’t need to shut myself away in the studio my agent offered. I could meet the head of this charity and then come straight back on the last train tonight.”

“No.”

He doesn’t listen. Or maybe he didn’t hear my croak over the sound of a zipper opening. “Because I think I’ve already got all the images I need. Look.”

He digs in a portfolio that might be filled with more of what Sol already showed me. I back off before he can show me more versions of my own face in pencil. Or in ink as permanent as I wish we could be if I hadn’t heard him say, there’s no future in it.

I’ve been slide-tackled plenty. Was trained to defend myself against it by running forward. To attack.

Today, all I can do is retreat.

Willow fronds part around me.

Rae follows me through that curtain. It closes behind him, and every single time we’ve been here before, we’ve kissed where no one else could see us. Now, I keep backing away, putting distance between us.

“Wait,” he blurts. “I’ll show you. I’ve already got the whole story, Hayden. Been drawing and drawing without realising I already had everything I needed.”

“You don’t have time to show me.” I swallow thickly, still backing away, and almost stumbling, which is wild after all that academy training about how to stay upright even with my hands tied behind me. I’m so off-balance this stutters from me. “N-not if you want to make your train.”

He keeps coming.

I keep retreating.

The other side of that willow curtain divides us again.

He shoves his way through it, moving faster.

“Maybe I want to be free this weekend. For you. For the girls’ birthday?”

The internet told me that impulsiveness is another key ADHD indicator. One which could jeopardise the only chance he has for the same brighter future he just promised all those students.

“You have to stay in London and keep drawing.” A horn beeping again forces me to hurry. “Because you haven’t drawn the whole story.”

“I have.”

I can’t back up any further. We’ve reached the river. Behind me, it forks in two directions.

“You can’t have, Rae.”

I meet his eyes and see the moment our journeys divide the same way as the water.

“Not unless you’ve already drawn me as an addict.”

20

HAYDEN

I don’t know what I expect him to say. I don’t hang around to find out. I grab his portfolio from his shoulder and march with it towards the car park until he shouts, “That’s really why you avoid your family?”

I halt as abruptly as I set off.

“What?”

He catches up with me, flushed like when we last shared a pillow, which was only hours ago. He’s still as gorgeous. Still as full of questions. Still wanting to know everything about me.

“I asked if that’s why you don’t see your family? Your mum said you were avoiding them.” Fuck knows what he sees flicker across my face. “Sorry,” he says quickly. “Your stepmum, I mean. Kirsty?”

I nod, unable to voice how him calling her Mum isn’t why I’ve faltered, or how I’ve actually stayed away from home for a whole other reason. One that didn’t matter between me and him as long as this was short term. What stops me dead is how, after weeks of me translating for him, he’s now trying to translate me as if he has every intention of staying around for longer, all while a horn beeps and he should hurry.

He doesn’t.

He also doesn’t phrase this as a question. “You’re not a user.”

I shake my head. I’m not.

“But you were and that’s why you missed your shot. Not because of a concussion.” He squints. “Is a test you failed ten years ago really why you keep your distance from them?”

No.

That isn’t my reason, but he asks another question which is easier to answer. “What did you use?”

“Tramadol.”

“Anything else?”

I shake my head, but then I have to nod. “Yeah. I took something else. Once.”

“When?”

“Right before my big chance. Second biggest regret of my life.”

He swallows. “Where did you get it?” He comes to his own quick conclusion. “At the academy. The one that scouted you? Fuckers.”

After the talk I just witnessed, I didn’t expect this reaction. I don’t expect his hand to reach out for mine, either. I’m too slow to dodge it. Too slow as well to look away from what crosses his face.

Protectiveness.

It’s such a familiar expression. One I’ve seen recently.

In all those drawings Sol showed me.

Of me.

Him wearing the same now feels like another mirror held up right where I can’t avoid it. I just wish that fucking horn would stop its beeping so I could tell him I’m no hero or anyone’s giant.

Right now?

I’ve never felt smaller.

I can’t help meeting eyes that lock with mine as easily now as before I told him what ended my first shot for me. Now Rae’s tone lowers the same way as when he consoled Noah or supported Teo. “Hayden, exactly how much of my talk did you hear?”

I blink.

“How much of it?” More than enough to hear him say no future, and to guess that my bright idea of meds to make his life easier might be the opposite of what he’d ever choose to swallow. I only skimmed a few websites but I’m pretty sure the amphetamines they mentioned are longhand for speed like his mother needed bumps of. And that she sent him out to score for her.

Suggest using anything like that to him?

I’d be as bad as a team doctor for only focussing on the end result instead of on the player’s welfare, so I settle for telling him this. “I heard your recap.” Which is why hustling him towards his ride is a better option than him taking advice from someone who didn’t even know he was addicted until his own supply stopped.

Rae digs his heels in like he isn’t done asking questions until another volley of honks rings out. Then he does let me hustle him, but he doesn’t release my hand while we hurry.

He holds fast all the way through the woods and past the chapel, his grip tightening the minute we get to the car park where a minibus waits. Sol is behind the steering wheel and he looks apologetic, but I get it. What I don’t expect is for Rae to bellow, “Give me one more minute,” before yanking me through another willow curtain.

This one offers little camouflage now that most of its leaves have fallen. Anyone walking past would see him finally let go of my hand to clasp my face. They would also witness him pull me closer. Our foreheads connect like we’ve got all the time in the world for explanations.

We don’t.

He must know so. He sidesteps so the tree trunk blocks any view of us, and his kiss is the same surprise as the first time we ever did this. That was on the eve of a wedding. Now he makes a vow I’m certain he’ll break the minute he has time to think.

“We aren’t done talking. You didn’t hear my whole story.”

“I heard plenty.” My reminder is so, so gritty. “And we already said goodbye.”

Drawing a line here is for the best.

I know it.

I still make myself a liar by reaching for his face with fingers affected by emotion. “I told you I wasn’t a long-term prospect.”

This should be a full stop.

All I know is that Rae studies my face, and fuck knows what he sees. His eyes don’t dance as he repeats, “I’ve still got more to tell you.” He follows it with a quieter order, “Go the fuck home, Hayden. They really miss you.” He can’t know he next echoes Dad when he was too sick to come to matches. A chart used to spell this out for me. Now it’s Rae who says, “If you do go, let me know you got there safely, yeah?”

Then he’s gone.

Sol hits the horn again as the minibus leaves, this time tooting goodbye. I hear Sol’s final volley in time with what he told me.

Miles don’t have to matter.

Right now, with the minibus only halfway down the driveway, I already hate this distance.

Maybe that’s why I cut another distance in half later in my Land Rover. Then I slice it into quarters by battling Friday traffic. Fraction by fraction, I leave Cornwall behind and close in on another confession I’ll have to make when I reach my destination.

I can’t keep hiding from Kirsty.

I do stop on the way for diesel, where I catch myself scanning pasties in a service station chiller. Every single one of them is wrapped in plastic, and I’ve never been more tempted to get in my vehicle to head back to Marc and Stefan’s. I could be at their kitchen table right now eating the real deal while they take the piss out of me.

Not for eating my body weight in home baking.

For falling so hard for Rae that I can’t stop wanting to be the giant he drew so often. A king. His hero.

Only Stefan and Marc wouldn’t take the piss if they knew that. They’d set up an arch for me in celebration. Prick their fingers on gorse blossom and be so happy for me if I told them.

Instead, I get back in my vehicle with a coffee and send a text to our group chat.

Hayden: Definitely can’t work this weekend.

I sit in the service station and swallow bitter caffeine as traffic roars past, and I calculate how long it’s been since I started making excuses not to make this journey.

Nearly a year.

Fuck, that’s almost a twelfth of the girls’ lives.

The months have slipped by so fast while I’ve been locked in a whole other landslide. One of Rae’s questions is another boulder I can’t hold back for any longer.

Is a test you failed ten years ago really why you keep your distance from them?

No.

No, it isn’t.

My phone pings, my drink tasting less bitter as I read replies reminding me of a mentor’s advice.

Marc: Good.

Stefan: Because you can’t keep drawing water from an empty well, mate.

Marc: Take off as much time as you need to refill it with your family.

Family is what I need now. I still hesitate when I pull up outside a bright pink front door.

The engine ticks as I hesitate some more while imagining Rae beside me. He’d already be at the door if he were here instead of London. He’d ring that bell first before thinking about the consequences of waking up a trio who need sleep more than they need to see their big brother with the jitters.

That’s what strikes as soon as I get out of the Land Rover to face music I can’t put off any longer.

I hesitate again, a trembling finger raised for the bell because there will be no going back if I show Kirsty why working until I’ve got no fuel left in my tank has seemed my only option. And why short-term distractions are all I’ve let myself have or had the spare headspace to offer to another person.

Until Rae.

A light clicks on inside, glowing like a hot coal of distress does inside my chest—distress that must be a beacon for this woman who wiped my teenage tears and told me we’d survive even if Dad didn’t. That we’d go on as a family unit, no need for blood between us. It didn’t matter if she wasn’t my mother by birth. She’d promised to always be a shoulder to lean on, for better or for worse, and yeah, I’ve always called my stepmum Kirsty.

I can’t tonight.

“Mum?”

I hold out both hands and don’t try to hide their shaking.

There’s no point.

We’ve walked a journey that started with these symptoms once already.

Shaking hands are no excuse for almost falling over in the hallway. I trip over suitcases no doubt holding clothes I could have built a wardrobe for already if I hadn’t wanted to stave off this moment.

For her.

I can’t now, or five minutes later in the kitchen when I take the mug she offers across a table cluttered with proof that a flock of Swifties lives here. She moves a pink boa out of the way, feathers shifting in the breeze as she also moves paperwork out of my way—forms I recognise from years of her filling out the same applications for me.

“You’re signing the girls up for soccer camp?”

“Only Isla,” she says. She also immediately cuts off my usual worry. “And don’t you go thinking that’s because I can’t afford to pay for three sets of subs or for three new kits. I keep telling you there’s no need. I just mean that she’s the only one who inherited that gene from your father.” She quickly adds, “For football.”

This comes out so fast it’s an unexpected reminder of Rae, but then she always was a mile-a-minute, like him. She is again now.

“And stop trying to change the subject.” Her hand shakes almost as badly as mine now that I’ve given up hiding them in my pocket or from her. “Hayden, how long have you been worried about PSP?”

I take a sip, surprised by the sweetness of this hot chocolate instead of the tea or coffee I’d expected. It’s a reminder of gulping down similar sugar-filled fuel on wintry touchlines. Of her breath clouding around the words, “Have fun!” before I ran onto the pitches back when football was fun for me. Maybe that’s why this slips out, although this confession doesn’t relate to any of my tremors. “I wanted to tell you. About the Tramadol.”

Her hand finds mine across the table, and that’s a second time today when someone hasn’t backed away from what got this whole shame-filled ball rolling for me. “You need to talk about that first?”

I shake my head. Then I nod.

She takes a sip of her own drink. There are more laugh lines around her eyes these days. Fuck knows how. They crinkle even deeper as she says, “Just as long as you know we are talking about this.” Her hold tightens, squeezing until my hand stills, and that’s better. I can keep going just as long as she doesn’t let go, like Rae didn’t let go of me either under a willow almost stripped bare of its leaves.

This leaves me bare too. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I don’t know why.” I focus on the table between us. It’s scored with marks. With evidence of years of us sharing it as a team of three before a trio of baby Novacs joined us. “I’m sorry for not explaining.”

“You didn’t have to.” She sets down her mug to free up a second hand for me. “Neither apologise nor explain, Hayden. None of it was down to you. If I’d been more on the ball, I would have been there for you so much sooner.”

She’s told me that before, and I know it. I do. It’s why I’ve been able to take a second shot at building a life. How I learned to hold my head up despite everything.

Until lately.

“I meant I’m sorry for not explaining why I kept putting off coming home. Wouldn’t surprise me if you thought I was using something again and trying to hide it from you. I’m not. I wouldn’t.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. Because your Tramadol use was only ever situational, wasn’t it?”

I nod. I know that as well. Have known it for years and put it all behind me to work on building a future for all five of us. Now that I sit here in the house that was only ever meant to be temporary, missing a second shot to do so is a reminder. Perhaps it’s why feelings I’ve sidelined for ten years keep bubbling up so often lately. “If I do have PSP⁠—”

“You don’t.” Her hold could give Rae’s a run for its tight money. She’s as emphatic now as he was about us not being done talking. She isn’t done yet either. “You absolutely don’t, Hayden. Neither do the girls. None of you share those genetic markers.” She squeezes again until I look up. “Spit it out.”

“What if they were wrong?”

My throat is full of brambles. I swallow, but they still snag on this.

“Those tests, I mean. What if they were all wrong, or I got someone else’s results? It could be an admin mix-up. And what if the science has moved on? Or what if I’ve got something like it, because this came out of nowhere, Mum, and it can’t have, can it? People don’t shake for no reason.”

Her hand clenches around mine. “First thing tomorrow, I’ll dig out all the test results.” This bulldozer wrapped in a feather boa keeps going. “And then I’ll get back in touch with your dad’s team.” She means the medics who ran batteries of tests on me and the girls when I was a teen and they were babies. The squad who did their best to play defence for him until they couldn’t, which is an odd time to picture Mitch and Justin.

It’s also a reminder of what else I’ve brought with me.

I itch to fetch that scrapbook full of photos of the man she next mentions.

“Dad’s experts will explain until you believe them, Hayden. Or we’ll get them to repeat the testing if that’s what you need. And then we’ll get any other tests you need to get to the bottom of whatever this is.”

If her hold gets any tighter, I’ll lose all the feeling in my fingers.

Right now, I hope she never stops, even when she couples it with a question I’ve been fending off for almost a year now. She touches one of the miniature sunflowers I sent her. “What did Dad always say about these?”

My throat is too thick to answer.

She does it for me. “They search for the sun, then face it. And if a cloud covers the sun and they can’t find it?”

I croak this. “They turn to each other.” Like they did in that picture Rae drew of our old garden.

My voice takes a turn at shaking, and I don’t try to hide it. “Mum, let me go grab something quickly?”

I head outside. It is colder this far upcountry. My breath clouds when I’m back in the Land Rover where I can grab a scrapbook I didn’t know existed and now feels like a gift. Yes, there’s pain between these pages. There’s also love—so much of it, and for a first time, I’m glad of the reminder that real teams always pull together.

My breath also clouds my phone screen.

I type regardless and hope Rae gets this message.

Hayden: I did go home.

I follow it with another message.

Hayden: Made it here safe and sound.

A third message is harder to type. Not for trembling reasons, but because of how true this feels.

Hayden: Wish you were here with me.

And if my hands quit shaking anytime soon?

I might even find the guts to send it.

21

RAE

The train to Paddington takes long enough for me to shuffle my images into order. Then I rearrange them a hundred times while practicing a sales pitch that could push my publishing deal over the finish line and score the advance I need to keep my project going.

So why does it feel like I’m headed in the wrong direction?

That suspicion travels with me until I emerge from an underground station into a nighttime city.

Kensington is a world away from Cornwall. A world away too from the beach that should be my next stop if I get a yes tonight.

That’s what I need.

A solid yes—from a partner the publisher will approve of—and a publishing contract.

I should look forward to both.

I can’t help looking backwards in one of London’s poshest postcodes, where there is no sign of a river, yet I wade like I did when Hayden was caught in a whirlpool behind me.

I hope he isn’t stuck tonight, unable to escape swirling water without me to hold out a hand to him. I really hope he’s on his way to visit his sisters. And to see a woman I last saw wrapped in feathers as soft as her eyes after he said he might make it home for the first time in ages.

That’s why I pause when I truly don’t have time to loiter.

I should hurry, and I need to if I’m gonna make a pitch that could keep my one-man band going. My feet still drag, my portfolio strangely heavy. My rucksack too, and it makes no sense that I look for Hayden over my shoulder once again and expect to see him reaching out to take it from me.

I can’t count how many times he’s helped me.

Who does that for him?

Plenty of people seem to want to. He doesn’t let them, and I didn’t know why until he got as bare as the branches on that last willow. Now I have a little more detail to add to a picture of a man who doesn’t think he’s earned help.

Fuck that. Seriously. Fuck it right in the eye.

I’m on a street far from shifting sand dunes, but that’s what flashes in my mind’s eye next—me, kneeling at the base of a dune and digging for someone drowning on dry land.

I see that pink feather boa next, hear the woman who wore it telling Hayden not to keep sending money. Now here I am, surrounded by swanky homes worth millions, yet all I can think about is a man who doesn’t have four walls and a roof of his own. Who has sold almost everything he owns, like all but one of those bell tents, and I understand travelling light, but…

Migrants trade their possessions when traffickers come calling. When desperation drives parents, they’ll give up every single thing they own for their kids’ futures.

What is Hayden trading away his life for in such a hurry?

I start walking again then but grind to another halt while picturing a face that looked bare, even with his beard regrowing. I’ve had a long journey to think over everything he’s shown me. Like how his beard is probably only growing back because he can’t always trust his hands with a razor. That adds to everything else he’s told me, including a last confession I’m almost certain he only shared to get me moving.

He’s hidden part of himself in plain sight while confessing to something else, and the more I think, the closer I circle what feels like his real reason.

My phone pings twice, and I have to lean against a townhouse railing.

Hayden: I did go home.

Hayden: Made it here safe and sound.

I have no idea how long I waste reading those two sentences. A third one gets me moving.

Hayden: Wish you were here with me.

It isn’t too late. I could be there for him, and for what I guess he won’t be able to hide from people who really know and love him.

Like I want to.

Like I already do.

I shoulder my portfolio again, and⁠—

“Lewis Raeburn?”

I don’t know the owner of this clipped, posh accent. I turn and see someone at the front door of my destination. He isn’t what I expect a lord to look like. Or an international banker who heads a charitable foundation. He’s as scruffy as any other project worker who I’ve shared camps with. He even wears the same T-shirt.

Safe Harbour is printed across his chest, and isn’t that what I’m here for now Reece Trelawney has pulled strings to make this meeting with the head of his play project happen?

I want a safe harbour for more kids.

That’s always been my driver. Right now, it’s a riptide pulling me in the wrong direction, but I slide my phone away and make myself focus. “Yes. That’s me, Lord Heligan. But I’m Rae⁠—”

“To your friends?” He smiles tiredly. “You certainly have plenty of them. I’ve heard a lot about you.” He extends a hand. “And I’m Rex to mine. Thanks for coming at short notice,” he says, as if I’m the one doing him a favour. “Come in. We saved some supper for you.”

“I’m sorry I’m so late.”

“It’s never too late for a bedtime story.” His gaze is as soft as butter, a real Hayden reminder. It also twinkles. “And I happen to be a huge fan of happy endings.”

He’s surprisingly down to earth for a real-life lord. We sit in a study dominated by a massive painting of an island castle, and he tells me about his project while I eat the best curry I ever tasted.

“Safe Harbour started as a small operation. A passion project. I’ve been hard to pin down because I’m transitioning away from banking to run the foundation full time. That means the bank is extracting its pound of flesh while it still can.” He tilts his head to a suitcase. “At least I won’t need that tomorrow. Edinburgh is a short hop. I can be there and back in a day.”

His husband Devesh flicks through my sketchbook. “I remember this time capsule being excavated. Seeing what you’ve done with the contents is fascinating.” He neatly summarises my images. “You’ve compared postwar journeys.” He traces a light finger between pages. “One old path comes from Poland. The newer one from Kabul. Both children were promised safety for their parent’s service. Only one of them received that protection.” He pauses over a drawing of barbed wire around an old Cornish encampment. “Or, at least, they did after a fashion. Do you know where this old Glynn Harber student ended up or what he did for a living?”

I shake my head. “I couldn’t find Olek’s full name. The school lost the records after a fire in the 1960s.”

He touches the edge of a stadium I’ve drawn where two boys play in front of a crowd of thousands. A giant holds a trophy, and Devesh says, “At least his descendants were successful.”

“Hayden?” It’s gutting how saying his name makes something clench so hard inside me that breathing is an effort.

He should be here with me.

No.

I should be there with him.

I’ve never felt so pulled in two directions. It’s a mind fuck that leaves me raspy. “I don’t think he really is one of Olek’s descendants. I mean, his surname doesn’t start with a W. But yeah, he’s a good example.” Fuck anyone who says he isn’t. And fuck everyone who judges him for taking a shot that misfired. I’ve had plenty of time on the way here to Google Tramadol use in soccer.

It’s fucking endemic.

An epidemic.

Someone else supplied it—prescribed it—put him in a position he wouldn’t have chosen, and I know addiction. Have lived and breathed it. Never say never, but there’s a world of difference between seeking drugs and what news article after news article all describe as standard operating procedure to help him play while injured.

Devesh asks, “And what happened to the little girl from Kabul?”

“I…” Not knowing still slays me. All I can do is turn a page to show what the tide washed up for me one morning.

I’ve drawn a giant on his knees beside that tiny life vest, his head hanging limply, too heavy to hold up, and Devesh next asks this more softly. “Did you know her full name or have any other information?”

Rex explains his husband’s interest. “Devesh is an archivist. A pro at linking old family roots with newer branches.” He turns the last page, his brow furrowing. “I thought you said the story was finished—that all you needed was my agreement to use the Safe Harbour name and you’d be all set for your final meeting with the publisher next Friday.” He flips another page as if looking for more. “Are some drawings missing?”

That wish you were here with me message on my phone is heavy in my pocket. It is also my reason for blurting my own confession. “I thought I was done, but I’m not.” I blurt this as well. “But I will be. You can trust me to finish. I never miss a deadline.”

I feel like I am missing one right now.

With Hayden.

Because I left him to drive upcountry with hands that shook the last time I held them.

He’d been at the school all day long. Did I hear him use a chainsaw?

No, I fucking didn’t.

I did hear his breath catch while flipping through a scrapbook full of reminders of his father’s decline. That’s my reason for blurting for a third time, and this feels urgent. “I want to draw a happy ending. I can’t. Not yet, because I need to fill this gap first.” I tap an empty page, hoping and praying inspiration will strike soon. “It won’t take me long.” I start packing away, gathering photocopies from a diary, and closing my sketchbook. “So I do actually need to get going.”

“Now?”

“Right now. If I can catch the last train, or a really early one tomorrow, I can track down those final details and draw them before the deadline.”

“A train?” Rex glances at a grandfather clock tick-tocking close to midnight. He leans forward. “To where, exactly?”

I tell him, and he tilts his head one last time. This time towards a framed photo of him next to a helicopter.

“Well, if you can make yourself wait until the morning, I’ll fly you.”

Sometimes I make lightning-fast connections. Other times, I’m so slow to join dots that I could slap myself. It takes until we’ve chased the dawn almost all the way to my destination before I say, “Wait. Where are you a duke of, exactly?”

His voice is clear through my headset despite the roar of helicopter rotors. “I’m not. That’s my grandfather. And our duchy is the smallest in the country. Just one island and a mainland village called⁠—”

“Porthperrin?”

He nods.

“And the moorland?”

“Yes, some of that too. Nothing there but sheep and tors and⁠—”

“A quarry.”

He confirms that, but I’m already picturing another location where goalposts were cemented. Talking about that fills the rest of this flight, and we’re at my destination before I know it. And before most people are awake, which is handy. No one sees us land on playing fields near a training ground I hope to fuck is the same one Hayden said he could see from the house his family rented.

I go in search of it after Lord Heligan leaves me, and Hayden wasn’t wrong about the brightness of this pink paint. It’s a beacon I head straight for.

Tunnel vision strikes then, and a commuter has to slam on the brakes of his car to avoid me. I dodge it, still so focussed on that pink door and what is behind it that I keep running, barely stopping myself from hammering on the door when I reach it.

It’s way too early to knock hard or to ring the doorbell, only I’ve come in search of someone who works on a farming schedule, haven’t I? For someone who rises with the sun, and that is what I’m bathed in the moment Hayden says, “Rae?” from behind me.

I turn to face him, and I’ve joked before about needing a bigger sketchbook to do him justice, but fuck me, here’s the real truth—there isn’t enough paper in the world to capture the scale of his reaction.

He’s so happy to see me.

And disbelieving.

I see that in his uncertain smile. In his faltering footsteps my way. In those big hands shoving deep into his pockets.

I close the distance.

We’re in a city suburb, not under a willow, but he’s just as fragmented here as when green and gold light flickered across a face I’m not sure I’ll ever tire of drawing. Now his face flickers with something I finally have a name for.

I tug his hands from his pockets.

Feel them shake, and hold them.

Meet bruised eyes and ask him, “This was always short term for you, yeah? You and me.”

He nods.

“Because you won’t let yourself want anything long term.” That isn’t a question. Neither is this. “Due to this.” I squeeze his hands, and his face creases.

“It isn’t that I won’t let myself.” He looks anywhere but at me. “I can’t.”

My portfolio slips from my shoulder, and even though he isn’t looking at me, he saves it before it can fall, which is such a textbook reaction that I go with my own signature impulse.

“You can, because I love you.” My free hand finds his chest. “Breathe.”

He does. He also says, “You shouldn’t⁠—”

“Love someone who is having a crisis?” His head hangs, and I almost sigh this next. “Too late, mate.” That was soft. This must sound more pointed. He flinches when I ask, “Or did you mean I shouldn’t fall for someone who got hooked on painkillers and who sorted his shit out ten years before I ever met them?”

His head rises, a whole world of pain in his eyes. There’s hope too, so I keep going.

“You only heard me recap my journey. That was my start, Hayden. You missed what came after. There’s more on that roll of paper, like how Mum scored a place in rehab. How the first two times were a bust, which broke my fucking heart. The third time was the charm. She worked her socks off for me and Mia. I’ll never forget anything that went before. I can’t. But I can forgive a human who is trying. She’s choosing a different path now. On a better track than her first one. Fucking miracle if you ask me. I can’t predict her future, but I can say I never saw strength like it. Not until…”

His swallow is a dry click. “Until?”

“I met you. Met you and fell head over fucking heels for you.” My hand is still on his chest, which rises only to deflate after I repeat a question I’ve asked him once already. “You a user, Hayden?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

This feels like the hardest question to ask yet. The most risky. I’ve never been good at resisting impulses, so I go all in. “And you fell for me too?”

He nods slowly at first and then faster. “So fucking hard, Rae. I just don’t know⁠—”

“Where this is going?”

He nods, which is fair. I don’t know either, but I can make this promise. “I haven’t met a single soul yet who does, but I do know that tough journeys don’t scare me.”

He blows out a shaky breath, and I love how he goes all in as well—how he throws himself into being honest now he isn’t alone with this. “I’m scared shitless of where mine might be headed.”

It’s the easiest thing in the world to kiss him then, even if I have to break off sooner than I want when his sisters interrupt us.

Interrupt us?

They fucking detonate with delight on the doorstep, but that’s okay. It’s their birthday; they’re allowed to be excited. Their brother is home. It’s all they wanted, and they’re happy.

So is Hayden, and getting to see that?

It makes waiting to kiss him again so easy.

22

RAE

We have a chaotic morning that I capture with my stylus. Hayden’s mum rocks a pink boa on my phone screen. Feathers fly as we share breakfast around a crowded table. His sisters are a trio of preteen whirlwinds. I draw them spinning with excitement once they’ve finished eating. It’s cute how much of that excitement is aimed at Hayden—how they take it in turns to snuggle close—and I don’t blame them. I’d cuddle him too if he didn’t look so shellshocked—not because of my arrival. If anything, his feet locking around mine under the table suggest I’m an anchor.

Kirsty clues me into why. “Give your brother a chance to breathe, girls! He’s hardly had any sleep.” This is sympathetic. “I couldn’t sleep either. Which is how I heard you go out early, love.” I can guess the reason for his sleeplessness after she says, “Girls, your brother and I have phone calls to make, so go make yourselves busy by unpacking your suitcases.”

Hayden pays more attention. “Suitcases?” Kirsty gestures at the hallway, but all three of her girls speak before she can answer.

First is Emma, I think. She’s feisty. “Because we couldn’t have a birthday without you.”

Isla spins in a circle, her own boa losing fuchsia feathers. “We were going to come to Cornwall with your tent after the concert!”

Ava is the smallest. She shows no sign of moving from Hayden’s lap, her eyes as soft as his. Both sets look across the table at me as Ava asks, “Do you know how to pitch Hayden’s tent? It’s a really big one.”

It’s the wrong moment to laugh.

I can’t help it, and Kirsty joins in. Hayden makes the save by rumbling, “Rae was a quick learner.”

I learn fast again this morning. This time I get a crash course in genetic markers. In a family’s grief and their different coping strategies. Kirsty’s meant fighting for her family. “I made the academy cover the cost of rehab.” She guesses that Hayden’s coping strategy was providing. “Which was my responsibility, not yours,” she insists, but she says so with such familiar compassion that I’m a little bit amazed they aren’t blood relations. “I’ve always been able to take care of the girls, love.”

That seems to act as a reminder.

Hayden isn’t wearing his tool belt. He still finds a tape measure. He also sets Ava onto her feet. “How about I go measure your room for a new wardrobe? I could build it while I’m here.”

Ava skips away. “We already got one. James built it for us.” She holds out a hand to me. “Want to see?”

I don’t, but I see Kirsty nod, so I follow Ava to the foot of the staircase while her mum starts a conversation in the kitchen that she’s waited to have face-to-face with Hayden.

“James is a coach at the football camp, and so good with the kids. He wants to meet you, when you’re ready. To get to know the whole family.” This is quieter. “It isn’t anything serious. Not yet. But it could be. He isn’t a replacement, Hayden. He couldn’t ever be. It’s just⁠—”

“Time?” Hayden sighs, and if he says more, I don’t hear him.

Three little Swifties are waiting upstairs for me, and I want to get to know this whole family as well, so I climb the stairs to get that party started.

We escape later.

Hayden and I walk so closely that our shoulders brush. He’s quiet until we approach the practice grounds where shouts echo. A game is in progress behind walls too high for me to see over. “There’s nothing wrong with being competitive,” he says. “Nothing terrible about wanting to be the best that you can be.” He stops, and I do too. We stand on the other side of the street as kids hurry inside, the studs on their boots clattering. “There’s everything wrong with not noticing when one of your top prospects is drowning.”

I watch him stand up straighter instead of folding as he admits this. “Tramadol was legal in competition when they prescribed it. It isn’t now. Back then, testing positive wouldn’t have mattered.” He wets his lips, his gaze fixed on the academy doorway. “Only I needed so much that what they gave me stopped touching the sides.”

“Of your pain?”

He snorts. “Here’s the stupid thing. I was healed when I tested positive for whatever it was I took that day. I was fully recovered. Had been for months. Tell that to my body. Everything hurt, Rae. I couldn’t move without wanting to puke.”

He describes a skin-crawling craving I’ve witnessed firsthand, and I hate it for him.

“But I couldn’t risk not being able to play, so I asked an older player, and they hooked me up with someone. I took what they gave me, too fucking desperate to care what it was. Ket, I think. Not sure. Second worst day of my life.”

I can guess the first.

Our shoulders brush again. We’re close enough that I feel him flinch when someone blows a whistle. He doesn’t shy away from this. “I was about to suggest medication for you. Googled ADHD, and found a whole list of things to help with focus.”

“When?”

“Before I heard your talk. Don’t know what I was thinking.” He chuffs out a choked sound. “Suggest stimulants to you after your mum⁠—”

“Sent me out to score some for her? Mate, she didn’t take the prescription version. And I haven’t ruled it out. Almost started a course of treatment once, but I just couldn’t shake off this...” I don’t know how to phrase this without sounding irrational. “It isn’t that I thought I’d end up like her. I know stimulants don’t work that way on people like me. And there are several different options. I just…”

“Couldn’t help worrying you were wired the same way. Like I can’t help being shit scared that I’m wired the same way as Dad, even though it’s unlikely?”

I bet he’s picturing all the results and medical letters Kirsty dug out before we came on the walk together. “You feeling any better about that?”

He shrugs. His gaze is fixed on the sign above the academy doorway, and I’ll draw him in profile like this later. For now, I brush the back of his hand with mine, and I thank every star in the sky, even if they aren’t visible in daylight, that he doesn’t hide this tremble from me. I also get to hear him murmur, “No grass stains, no glory. No bruises, no story,” and I see him straighten again.

Here’s my protective giant.

My king of woods and water.

All that is missing is a crown as he faces me and asks, “Want to see where I did start to feel better?”

And me?

I’ve never said yes faster.

The timing couldn’t be better. We drop off four overexcited Novacs at a concert and drive away with the one and only tent Hayden kept. It doesn’t take too long before we leave the city behind and are faced with hills covered in trees. He follows a track into the heart of the kind of forest he once told me his dad liked the least.

“Managed for wood production. All a bit too tidy for him. And for me.”

He drives and drives, these straight lines of pine soldiers continuing for miles until he slows to a stop. “This part is more my speed. Can you open the gate?”

I do, and in the next few minutes, the landscape completely changes.

“All broadleaf species. All native.” He rolls down his window and sniffs. “Smells completely different. These woods are private.” They are also owned by someone with Cornish connections. “After what happened, Kirsty got in contact with the club at home. Must have told them everything.”

“How do you mean?”

“Because it’s the only way Justin could have heard what happened. No way would the academy want bad publicity. They said I’d failed a fitness test. Only the people Kirsty told knew the whole truth. And they closed ranks.”

Around him.

He stops the Land Rover and turns off the engine to tell me how. We sit in the last of the day’s fragmented light as he explains, even though it takes a while.

I’m not about to rush him now he’s relaxed in his seat and breathing easily for the first time in ages. I guess that’s the effect of the woods when he can say this without more of his earlier flinching.

“Kirsty asked for help. Told them I needed peace and privacy. A chance to regroup and retrain where no one knew me. The Polish network sprang into action, and that’s how I ended up here as Aleksander’s apprentice. I needed to be in the middle of nowhere.”

“Because?”

His gaze is as bare as some of these trees. “Because rehab is one thing. The outside world is another. I couldn’t trust myself to be any nearer to civilisation. Didn’t know myself anymore without football in my future. Missed Dad so fucking much. All over again, you know? That’s when I figured out I hadn’t really grieved him. Aleksander was older than him and as grumpy as fuck, but he reminded me of him every time he taught me what Dad would have if he’d been here.”

We leave the Land Rover behind, and Hayden walks me to a cabin fitting so well into this natural setting it might have grown here. He tries the door to find it padlocked. “This is where we lived through each winter. He lives with his son’s family now. Must be well into his seventies. Still sends me a Christmas card every year.”

We set up camp then—pitch the one tent he let himself keep—and then we drink smoky black tea on opposite sides of a campfire as he tells me, “Aleksander showed me how to manage the woods. And how to manage myself. Which I did, right up until…” He holds up a hand and then snorts. “Fucking typical that it’s steady now.” He admits this much more quietly. “He kept my brain too busy to think about what I’d done.” He amends that. “About what happened to all of us.”

“How?”

“He would only speak to me in Polish. Kept my hands busy too, but that only freed up brain space to see what happened at the academy for what it was—a kid trying too hard to fill his dad’s shoes.” He scrubs at the back of his neck. “I’m still working on that. The one thing he wouldn’t let me do was use his chainsaw. Made me use a crosscut saw with him instead. You know what I mean?”

I don’t, but I can picture it better when he explains the process of cutting down huge tree trunks into manageable logs and slices.

“It’s the kind of saw built for two. You can’t easily use it alone. It’s easier to push and pull together.” He snorts again, only more softly this time. “I can’t tell you how many times I faced him while we used that saw together.”

I draw the scene he describes on my phone, sketching a younger Hayden with his own protective giant, and Hayden comes to look. “The only thing missing is his mushroom basket.”

“Mushrooms?”

“Yeah. The woods are full of them this time of the year. Some of them will kill you stone dead. Others are fucking delicious. Aleksander knew the difference. I’m kinda surprised he isn’t here gathering them. Perfect time of year for it. He must have picked thousands while I was with him.”

“What did he do with them all?”

“Fried them for our breakfast. Did that so often I can almost smell them right now. He even sent me back to Cornwall with a bagful on the passenger seat of his old Land Rover.” His gaze slides to the vehicle behind me, and this smile is my favourite. “He taught me how to drive in it, then gave me the keys. Called it my apprentice wages.”

Even if we’re losing the light now, I can see enough to know he’s relaxed while remembering. I don’t know what the fuck it is about woodland that does it for him, but I’d capture it as well, if I could, for him to hold on to during shakier moments. Let him see for himself how far he’s come from the broken kid who arrived here, only first I need to kiss him.

His mouth is hot and sweet, smoky like the air is this close to the fire.

The breeze carries more smoke our way, and Hayden breaks off to stamp out the last embers. Then he extends a hand.

I take it, not caring if it shakes or if it’s steady. That’s all part of him, and I want the whole person with nothing hidden.

We kiss again inside a tent as bare as he has been. There is no stove here, no running water or home comforts traded for work by a man who wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to keep sending flowers or concert tickets or more. His family don’t need him as their provider. Or their shelter. They only wanted to be that for him when he needed, and he’s a different person for finally seeing it firsthand.

We only have camping mats instead of a honeymoon mattress, but I couldn’t care less when his mouth finds mine again, and our kiss deepens.

His tongue touches mine, and I know he stamped out the campfire. I just watched him do it. Something still smoulders. Inside me. It has for so long now I don’t know when it started or what struck the match that flares each time we do this. I just know I don’t want to stop, and him pulling me down onto a mat with him only makes me hotter. So does what he tells me while taking my clothes off.

“You came to find me.”

He rumbles that against my throat.

“I had to.” I tilt my head back, eyes closed, but I still see the last flickers of leaves and branches through this bell tent’s canvas. I can also still see that flicker of surprise from early this morning, and Hayden’s relief that we weren’t done yet with each other. “I thought I’d already drawn enough for an ending.”

He pulls back, shadowed and so good-looking even while creased with worry. “You didn’t?”

“No. Not for us.”

He responds as if he isn’t anywhere close to done yet either. His mouth is warm, his teeth sharp. They rasp lower down my body as he unfastens more buttons and pushes aside fabric. His beard is a soft-rough combination across my chest. My nipples tauten. So does my belly, while my fucking soul quakes with an aftershock of realisation—I could have walked away from him. Could have taken him at his short-term word. Relief I didn’t spills out. “Love you.”

He sucks my dick, and I love that too, along with his hand spreading on my stomach like he needs to hold me here to keep me.

Keep me?

I’m gonna tie him to this tent and never let him leave it.

Laughter bubbles up, fizzing, and I can’t stop it.

He looks up, and maybe it’s a strange time to be this joyful, but that’s what I am. I’m filled to the fucking brim because we’re getting to have this moment. This second chance. Together.

It’s my wildest ride yet.

I have no intention of stopping, but he breaks off, and I’m not so joyful about that, or about him sounding this raspy and real. “I still don’t⁠—”

Know what the future holds for him?

He comes out with something different.

“I still don’t know how I got a second shot. With you.” He kisses the head of my dick, still looking up at me. “This time, I won’t miss.” Then he sinks, taking me so deep I see heaven, and I bet there will be stars above this tent later. I have constellations all of my own now, and Hayden hung each star in them.

He also gets his clothes off in a hurry. We press together, and I don’t know which I want more—me in him or him in me.

Here’s what I want most.

I snuggle close and get back to kissing, and he doesn’t argue.

We kiss for fucking ever, and don’t ask me how it happens, but I see heaven again when he’s on his side and I get my dick between thighs built by years of soccer practice.

I reach around him, his cock a thick handful, and I love how it fills my fist. How the skin slides. How he’s iron-hard beneath that silk, and how we fit together like this.

I can’t stop saying it, but that’s okay. He groans and his legs tense, and what was already magic gets exponentially better. I can’t stop thrusting, can’t help tightening my hold on his dick, which gets slicker, and he comes with a shudder I follow.

We breathe together, each inhale and exhale a matched pair, until he turns to face me, and if I ever need a reference image for peace, now I have it.

This murmur is so quiet. He almost whispers, “I don’t want to find out what’s going on with me without you.”

“You won’t have to.”

That acceptance does something to him. He’s choked when he asks, “You really haven’t finished drawing?”

I shrug and settle back onto the same kind of camping mat and sleeping bag arrangement I slept on for months in France. “Just didn’t feel done yet to me. I’m not going back until I’m happy with the final image.”

His head rests against my chest. “What do you want to draw for it?”

“Not sure yet.” Hayden’s arm is a welcome weight across my belly. My eyelids are equally heavy. “It needs to be a real banger. Something to make readers turn back to the first page the moment they finish.” I say this around a yawn. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

His fingers spread to span my heart. “What’s your final deadline?”

I’m pretty sure I say there’s plenty of time left.

There are days and days to go until next Friday.

But when it comes to Hayden?

I’m actually aiming for forever.

23

HAYDEN

I sleep right through the night with Rae beside me.

He’s gone when I wake to flickering daylight and the scent of cooking. The smell of mushrooms frying is a strong reminder of so many autumn mornings, only unless he’s become an overnight foraging expert, he could well be about to serve us poison for our breakfast.

I can’t help being tickled that he’s tried to recreate what helped to rebuild me. How I came here a shattered soccer hopeful and left a complete woodsman. A skilled leśnik, like Novacs going back for generations in Poland. I saw myself differently for my stay here, and isn’t that the same process Rae has recreated since the summer? I got the second shot I needed to see myself as skilled and successful every single time he drew me.

That giant?

He can face whatever is coming. He’s got roots to hold him steady and wings to lift him higher. I might need those in the long term. In the short term, stopping Rae from dying of mushroom poisoning is a more urgent mission. I drag on my boxers to go and make that save, only the daylight is dazzling. I blink, and by the time I can see clearly, it isn’t Rae who looks back at me.

Man, I’ve missed Aleksander’s gruff morning greetings.

Rae is with him. He turns to me, still sleep-creased but smiling. “I’ve got no idea what he just said to you.”

Translating for him is so easy. “He wants to know what the fuck time I call this. He’s been up for hours already.”

I’m interrupted by more Polish, and I can’t help laughing, booming as loudly as Mitch, which feels brand new—and needed—like I’ve taken my first deep breath since finding Rae on my doorstep.

Rae is confused. “He sounds pissed off. What’s so funny?”

“He says he’s old, not stupid enough to leave anything he cares about unprotected.” I point at the cabin. “There’s a camera. Motion activated. He saw us coming.”

Rae quietly murmurs, “I fucking hope not. Good thing we slept in the tent.”

Aleksander chooses that moment to let Rae know there’s nothing wrong with his hearing or with his English. “You better believe I turned the camera off in a hurry when the snogging started.” He makes a kissy face at me, but offers Rae a handshake. “Aleksander Woźniak. Good to meet any friend of Hayden’s.”

He doesn’t extend a hand to me. He envelops me in a tight hug, which sets the tone for the morning. Rae gets a ringside seat, even if he can’t understand half of our conversation, although I guess he can figure out the subjects we catch up with. Rae’s hand lands on my thigh when my head hangs for a moment. Then he leaves us to it by going to get a sketchbook from the Land Rover. I can see him leaning in to look for his portfolio as Aleksander asks where I’ve been working since we last caught up at Christmas.

I tell him, and man, I wish I’d done that sooner.

I have to settle for dashing after Rae, and I’m still in my boxers so my bare chest plasters his back when I reach him.

“Steady,” he jokes. “Only one free show per old man.”

“Your portfolio.” I grasp the strap. “He needs to see it. Right now.”

So much for not knowing which image will be Rae’s last one.

He’d said he needed a real banger. Something to make readers turn back to the first page the moment they finished. He’d know it when he saw it.

Aleksander gives it to him by having nothing but empathy in his expression as he scans drawings of a child washed up by recent warfare. He also gives Rae what he needs by smiling at the giant version of me who holds hands with her. Then he blinks at the same giant offering a football to a Polish schoolboy with Glynn Harber in the background.

He flips pages faster then, seeing a pool of silver water. An otter and an owl. The tall chimneys of the school that is, and always will be, a haven for children who need a place of safety.

Now both journeys come full circle with me as the link between them. I’m in a clearing making the same mark with a hammer and nails as a Polish boy once did on the front of a diary.

“Olek W.”

Rae digs in his portfolio for a photocopy, and Aleksander touches childish handwriting with wonder. With recognition, I realise. With a fingertip that traces over the shortened version of his own name he once printed.

Aleksander says, “This is mine,” and Rae doesn’t only know a perfect final image when he sees it.

He goes ahead and draws it.

He spends days and days adding to his final drawing in this forest while I translate each time Aleksander gets emotional. His voice thickens often. Roughens. It’s good to return the favour by being here for him when memories are a combination of sweet to recall and tough to deal with.

“Yes,” Rae tells him. “The camp is still right there. Hayden cut a path into it for me. It’s pretty derelict now.”

I nod. “I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before. That Dad hadn’t ever shown me where it was hidden.”

Aleksander has a potential reason for that. “Maybe because his father had a bad time. Was injured here.” He touches his temple. “He stayed isolated. Integrating wasn’t easy. Still wasn’t for me, even though I was born there. My world stopped at the camp gates. Not because it was a prison. Because we weren’t always welcome. Until…”

He next touches the edge of a mosaic Rae copied from one all three of us have stood on.

“He didn’t have the help to learn English that I did. The chances to make friends outside the camp.” Old eyes meet mine, but this comes out sounding almost childlike. “They really found the time capsule?” Worry comes next. “It was buried in a foundation. The headmaster said he would plant it there like a seed. That we could set down roots there. Has the building been demolished?” He seems resigned to this. “It was already old when I was there. I heard there was a fire.”

“No, it’s still there.” Rae finds the school website on his phone and shows it to him. “Look. They just built a new library. Renovated the art building too. I think the sports hall is next.” He pauses over a photo of the school pitch, then scrolls again only to stop dead.

“What is it?” I lean closer to see why Rae’s finger takes a turn to shake. “That’s my clearing.” I read out the heading. “‘Welcome to our new Forest School.’”

Rae meets my eyes. “It says they need a teacher.”

He has sounded certain about a lot in the last two days. Certain about us, and how we don’t need a deadline for finding a way to link our futures. He is also sure enough about this to jab a finger at me.

“They’ve already got a teacher. I’m looking right at him. All you have to do is tell Luke you want it.” Then he’s understanding. “I get why you felt like you couldn’t commit.”

Dad didn’t get a whole lot of seasons after his diagnosis. I wasn’t sure I would either.

Rae is understanding with Kirsty too when she brings the girls to camp with us one evening. He gives us space to read reports from specialists confirming how unlikely it is I’ll follow in Dad’s footsteps. Rae keeps the girls distracted while she and I talk through possibilities, and I repeat what has been on my mind since my laugh boomed out like Mitch’s. “Did you know heading the ball on purpose has been banned in competition for kids?”

She nods.

“Do you know why?” She didn’t, so I list how repeated concussive events can accumulate only to show up later. How no one can turn back the clock on early damage forming, but it can be mitigated.

“What with?”

“Lifestyle adjustments.”

“Like?”

“Like reducing stress and getting more rest. And by having plenty of peace and quiet.” That describes the opposite of my noisy, stressful, feast-or-famine workload lately, most of which was self-inflicted. “I felt like I had to do as much as I could just in case…”

I can’t pretend to be a doctor, but my hands haven’t shaken since I let go of a shit ton of worry and slept like a log for days out here. The only shaky thing left is her smile. “We’ll find out the reason, love.” She sniffs. “We’ll face whatever it is together.”

Like sunflowers.

And like one of those giant blooms Dad used to plant, I seek my own sun by finding Rae in the cabin. He is wedged between my sisters on a sagging sofa with a book on his lap, and I don’t need to see the cover to know it will be star-filled. Isla turns a page to show a kid with skinny arms holding back a huge boulder.

For a first time, I get to see how this story pans out, and how, many pages later, this kid is joined by a father he thought he’d lost to addiction.

Ava interprets. “He got his daddy back?”

Rae meets my eye before nodding. “Took a while, but yeah. It doesn’t always happen, which is what these pages in between were all about.” He flicks back to the beginning, then meets my eyes. His are dark with compassion. “We don’t always get the things we hope for, do we? The things we’d give anything in the world for.”

I nod, and he continues.

“This kid’s boulder was made of hope, and hope can be the heaviest thing to hold on to.”

Page after page shows how he wasn’t alone—other people take turns to hold his boulder for him, and I thank fuck Rae got to see this example when his own arms were shaking.

He tells my sisters, “Even if he didn’t get what he hoped for, he found out that he didn’t have to get crushed. That getting on with having a good life would only make him stronger. Strong enough to take a turn at holding on to hope for other people.”

I hold on to some hope of my own on Friday.

Hold on to it?

There’s no fucking way I’ll drop this ball for Rae. I keep a death grip on it the whole way to London.

We take the train past fields empty of wheat, and that evidence of the farming cycle should pull at me—would leave me worried about finding work this winter if I didn’t have a text message on my phone from someone else who has been hoping.

For me.

Luke Lawson: Yes, I can get you a place on that course.

Luke Lawson: Find me after school starts again on Monday. We’ll talk.

For once, I don’t dread a conversation about the future. I’m looking forward even as Rae looks back before entering that publisher’s office.

His eyes don’t dance.

They are laser-focussed, and I love to see it. I love that he isn’t alone either. He has a lord beside him, and a mentor who made a transatlantic flight to help Rae get the answer he needs to keep his project going.

And when he leaves that office later?

Rae runs. Launches himself like a missile. At me.

I catch him, and fuck anyone who looks twice at a moment of triumph so bright it has to be visible from Cornwall. Or from France, which is his next destination.

We sit in the back of a cab next with London passing. I don’t see any of it. I only see him and I listen. “I have to do this. Buy supplies and get them to where they’re needed. But I’ve had an idea.”

“About?”

“About sharing the work.” He echoes what he must have heard Kirsty tell me. “It doesn’t all have to be down to me. And I think I know a way to⁠—”

“Give your arms a rest?”

Rae nods. “I’ll find a way to do it, and then I’ll come back. We can figure out how to make this work then.”

That’s what we both want.

He still rakes a lip with his teeth. “I don’t know how long it will take.”

“Then I’ll come to see you.”

Rae blinks. “You’d come to France?” He shakes his head at himself just as quickly and says, “Of course you would,” and we kiss for so long that I only break off when the cab reaches St. Pancras.

I walk with him as far as I can into the station.

We both stop, other Eurostar travellers parting around us like water while Rae asks, “You’ll let me know what happens?” He slides closer. Touches my forehead with his. “Tell me everything about your tests, Hayden. Pass or fail. Good news or bad. Easy or hard decisions. I want to hear it all.”

“You will.” I’m done with holding anything in. I’m also done with holding anything back. “I’ll call you every night, yeah. Tell you a bedtime story. So fucking proud yours is going to be printed.” I also repeat what Sol told me. “The miles don’t have to matter.”

His hand holds mine. Our fingers thread. He says, “Love you,” and then he’s gone, washed along by a current that carries him away from me, but that’s okay.

I’ve waded through water for him before, haven’t I?

When it comes to Rae, nothing can stop this giant.

EPILOGUE

Springtime at Glynn Harber

HAYDEN

Sound travels a long way in Glynn Harber’s valley. This group of hopeful student teachers can’t know that or they’d realise their voices also carry. I can hear some of their conversation from all the way across the clearing.

“I can’t see how this fits the curriculum, can you?” one of them asks another. “What is he actually doing?”

This candidate isn’t asking about me or about my mentor. His gaze is fixed on Asa, who has had the same growth spurt as every tree here now that winter is over. He’s flourishing, and I love to see it.

I don’t love to hear this said about my star student.

“Why don’t they make him pay attention? Both of the teachers are just letting him do whatever he wants.”

Being called a teacher is still new. My training has barely started. I’m taking this journey slowly, which suits me now a Doomsday clock isn’t ticking towards a diagnosis that used to scare me shitless—that terrified me into making hay for loved ones, even if it wasn’t what they ever needed from me. These student teachers hoping to ace their interviews and to score a spot here aren’t aware I’m barely more qualified than them, but here is something I don’t need a certificate to know all the way down to my bone marrow: Being here for three whole seasons has taught me how every brain is different and that Asa’s brain is wired for motion.

These observers also can’t know he’s worked hard all morning at sitting still and listening; at focussing on his work and not being a distraction to himself or to others in his classroom. This constant movement? It is vital to his self-regulation and is exactly what his brain needs to be ready for more classroom successes.

My bruised brain?

It needs the opposite to Asa’s giddy spinning, which Mitch mentions, and for once, his voice doesn’t boom out. Not because this is a secret. I’m done with keeping those from anybody. Mitch only murmurs instead of booming because he’s protective.

About me.

“You keep your arse parked exactly where it is.” He gets up from his crouch by my throne and lands a heavy hand on my shoulder to keep me seated and to drive his point home. Then he assigns a child to each prospective student teacher and comes back to me while the kids are busy showing off their knowledge. “Remind me why you’re taking it easy, big man.”

This is what Mitch does every single time he sees me fight what has actually been my key to healing. And that is what I’ve done since a whirlwind arrived in Cornwall at the end of last summer to draw me with bowed broad shoulders and burrs in my beard. I’ve had time to recover lately after taking a long and honest look at what Rae’s storybook mirror showed me. Now I get honest right in front of someone I used to hide from. “I’m taking it slow because Rae is coming home for the ceremony tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.

Part of me is beyond excited. Another part of me is nervous. Not about seeing Rae for the first time in over a month. I’ve got the collywobbles about planting a new time capsule with the whole school and some special guests watching.

I didn’t understand why Luke made organising this special event my job until I’d spent the winter collecting memories from each student and teacher at Glynn Harber to go inside it. Luke selected me as captain of the time-capsule project to weave me into the rest of his school. I can put a name to every single face here now. They are all my people, and these student teachers Mitch checks in on before he returns to my throne will be lucky to join a team like it.

His hand is heavy on my shoulder again as I admit, “I wanted to make sure everything was prepared. For the ceremony. And for Rae.”

“Because?” Mitch rumbles even though he already knows this answer. We’ve all seen the news. Rae’s never-ending tide of kids shows no sign of stopping.

“Because he needs a chance to recharge, you know? In a way that works the fastest for him because he won’t stay still for long. Which is why I went down to the headland last night to prep somewhere peaceful for him.” Mitch nods, so I guess he understands Asa isn’t alone in needing fresh air and space to decompress. Rae does as well. “I want him to have a good visit, and I don’t want to miss a moment of it.” Not when he’ll leave again just as quickly. “But last night, I tried to do too much after working all day, so I had to stop before I was finished.”

“Why?” Mitch asks quietly. Again, we both know this answer, but Mitch joining the ranks of my best coaches means I can say this and still feel accepted.

“Because injured brains need less stress and more rest. Need care, not extra pressure. I need to pace myself better than I used to.” I draw in a deep breath and make an honest self-assessment. “I’m good to go now. Thanks for coming to help, Mitch. It’s been a good session.”

He backs away. “And it’s good to see how fast you’re learning.”

I am learning. I had to after test results some people might see as disappointing. I’ll take having to make minor, if permanent, adaptations to my lifestyle over the other option. I’m lucky compared to so many other people, and I’m lucky I get to share what I love with these children, so you better believe I’ll pace myself for them too.

Which is why I pay attention right now, like I did last night on Stefan and Marc’s pretty headland where the moonlight was bright enough to see my own hands shaking. It was a signal to stop preparing for Rae’s visit. To rest, and to take it easy instead of going hell for leather like my days were numbered. But my slower pace today doesn’t mean I’m not teaching, so I go ahead and give these interview candidates a demonstration. I use a football to do that, and the moment I spin it on a steady finger, I have all their attention.

I also have Asa’s.

He still moves, only now I’m the centre of his orbit as I show him how the world doesn’t only turn through each day, it gradually tilts through seasons as well, like a sunflower seeking brightness. “In springtime, our part of the world tilts closer to the sun. What are the trees covered in now, Asa?”

“New leaves!”

“And what do those new leaves need to keep growing?” I tap my lips like I’ve seen Charles doing to indicate he is thinking, and Asa goes still for the first time this morning. He also has an answer for me.

“Leaves need light!” He looks up and points. “From the sun.” He spins again, but more slowly, which is his way of showing me he’s still thinking.

One of those prospective trainee teachers must notice the difference. He asks why light is needed and is enthusiastic about Asa’s answer. “Wow! You already know about photosynthesis. How does it work here?”

He listens to everything Asa has learned in this woodland, nodding along with his descriptions of chlorophyll and green leaves, and his enthusiasm about veins and roots and water. From oxygen to carbon dioxide and the atmosphere that surrounds us, Asa knows these woods and others like it are the lungs of the planet. He’s soaked up this learning for months and can now communicate it. Building on it is his next stage, and this smart teacher-to-be borrows my football to do it.

He rolls it to Asa. “What else spins like our planet does around the sun?”

I don’t mind giving up my throne for someone who tells a story and who uses actions to involve all the children. He demonstrates like Teo does at the football club we now run together, and this potential candidate can’t be much older than him. He also reminds me of Rae, because some people are born storytellers like him, and this candidate? He’s got the same energy that sparks question after question.

Pretty soon, a solar system spins in this clearing where children play at being planets as Luke arrives to collect his interviewees.

He stands to one side with me first and quietly asks, “How did they do?”

I look around at my busy children. All the adults with them are engrossed now despite their early mutters. “They seem fine. But that one…” I tilt my head towards the new sun Asa orbits. “He’s a natural teacher.”

“Who? Isaac? Oh, he isn’t here for a teaching spot. He applied for the school librarian vacancy. Bit of a risk. He hasn’t finished his degree yet.” He glances my way. “I made the wrong pick once already. I’m looking for an experienced librarian really, not someone unqualified. What do you think?”

He’s asking me to help make a team selection. To pick who stays on the bench or who will get a shot here, and who the fuck would have ever guessed I’d get to do that?

My throat is still thick when Luke leads them all away, the clearing emptying, although my work isn’t over. But pacing myself is my new thing, so I take a long break until the evening before I leave the school in my Land Rover and head to the farm to pick up from where I left off last night.

Sheep scatter when I park near the headland. One follows me on a walk with a stunning sunset backdrop and bleats as if it agrees with the statement I practise making.

“This can’t go on, Rae.”

This is what I need to tell him tomorrow based on how he looked the last time I saw him. Tired didn’t even come close. He slept like the dead and then told me he hadn’t had time or headspace to draw for weeks.

“Your well is empty, mate. Not a drop left in it to fill even a tiny vessel.”

I’ve learned all about that, and about candles burning from both ends lately. How they can flare brightly but then wink out twice as quickly. I don’t want the same for Rae, but I do want him to have a good visit.

I’m a practical person, better at actions than at waxing lyrical about love so deep I’ve given up trying to wade through it. I’m on this helter-skelter river ride with him for good, so I set aside trying to figure out how to say he doesn’t need to be everything to everybody, and I focus on the chores I need to finish.

The wood-fired hot tub still needs filling, and it takes a long time to heat. I could get it started early and fill the wood basket next to the stove. The evenings are still chilly, and⁠—

I stop at the highest point of the headland.

Smoke already rises from the woods behind it. I see that grey column, and for a startled moment, I mentally stutter.

Someone is already staying in the honeymoon tent?

Then I get moving, because yes, someone is already staying.

He got back early.

I find Rae already in bed, in a tent the stove has made warm and cosy, and despite practising what I need to tell him, I can’t say a single word when he rolls over and doesn’t only open tired eyes. He opens his arms, and I do exactly as he asks without speaking. I strip down to join him, and for all that I’ve got things to tell him before we have to say goodbye again, kissing Rae hello is more important.

RAE

Man, Hayden is a sight for sore eyes, and after the last month, mine have never been grittier. I’ll have to wait until later to rub them. Right now, my hands are busy. So is my mouth, but I guess that’s no surprise to this man who strips off his clothes with steady hands and slides under a thick quilt to join me. He knows how I tick—understands how once I have an impulse, I have to voice it.

“It’s only been four weeks.”

He nods, his face buried in the crook of my shoulder where his lips are soft and his beard can’t tickle now he’s clean-shaven. I’d miss his beard if this weren’t a signal he’s been kinder to himself lately—that he can risk a close shave with a razor because his hands will let him. I wriggle until I can kiss his jaw, my lips tingling at the faintest rasp of stubble before I let him get back to his nuzzling, and I keep talking.

“A single month, Hayden.”

He lifts his head away, and part of me is pissed off I opened my mouth and stopped him from continuing, but I’ve spent the last month planning this conversation, so I keep going. “Just thirty days, so why the fuck did it feel like forever?”

Hayden opens his mouth as if he has an answer. He shuts it just as quickly and dips his head again to pick up from where he left off, and when he sucks a taut stretch of skin where nerves always spark to life for him, I forget everything I had to tell him.

Or almost.

Here’s something we both learned after visits to specialists timed to coincide with my last few visits: When stress adds to damage already blocking a brain’s pathways, cognition can take wild detours. Put those short circuits under pressure and rationality takes a backseat. Primal drivers take the wheel, like panic and survival instincts, which are almost impossible to communicate your way out of while you’re busy glitching.

Explain how you think the world will end for everyone who is precious to you if you stop pushing a boulder uphill?

Irrational doesn’t even come close, but voicing any of it would be a lot. Too much. So silence becomes habitual, according to the doctors. And lonely, according to me, which means I need to let him know what I’ve made happen in the month since I last saw him, but first I need to push against his silence. I do that physically, both hands against his chest, and he rolls onto his back so easily for me. I prop myself up and look into eyes full of constellations I’d dot on paper if this weren’t more important. “You were about to say something, Hayden. What was it?”

This pause is long and drawn out, but that’s okay. It gives me time to map everything I’ve missed about his long and solid body. He’s still a lot while naked. Still firm in all the right places and soft where my fingers splay over evidence he’s slowed down enough lately to enjoy treats baked by Stefan’s mother. I kiss his bare belly and then get busy dragging off my own T-shirt and boxers before prompting him to spill whatever it was he almost told me.

“Go on. I’m listening.”

I also swing a leg over his hips, my cock against his, which sparks more heat than the stove. It’s good to rock there on him. To get even hotter. To kiss and sweat and lose time to this reconnection. Capturing his wrists is even better, because now I’ve really got him.

We’re chest-to-chest, both of us hard for each other, and soft too where it really matters. My heart must be, it squeezes so hard when he murmurs. “I was gonna say I missed you too.”

We kiss again, and fuck me but I’ll never tire of how well we fit together. His mouth is a warm and wet welcome home—or almost, because yes, we’ve spent plenty of winter nights here like honeymooners, but home this tent isn’t. I’ll talk to him about that just as soon as he spills what is really on his mind.

It will have to wait until after we get off now Hayden starts to fight my hold. His squirms tell me all he’s thinking about right now is us—me and him together—and about making me feel good, but he only has to look at me to do that.

My fingers flex over bones with old breaks and across muscle made by years of working hard for other people, and yeah, I’ve got a lot to discuss with him, but for now we’re fucking.

Only fucking isn’t the right word, is it? Not for this sudden roll and for me to be on my back laughing up at a giant who was only playacting that I could pin him.

Hayden smiles down at me, flushed but shadowed, and I have to see more of him. The lamp I reach for almost falls before casting him with a wash of warm gold. He’s molten and so is his mouth on my cock. He kneels between my legs and sets me alight, and I go straight from smouldering to an inferno, the same as ever, when he looks up. And this eye contact? This bond between us?

It’s everything.

I can’t let distance snap it.

Hayden sucks me down, only pulling off when the hand I run through his hair must clench without me knowing. He disentangles my fingers, then leans across me and gets busy with lube, and watching him open himself up for me like this will never get old.

I get my mouth on his cock while he’s two knuckles deep, and he lets out the kind of sound I’m pretty sure canvas walls can’t muffle.

We need bricks and mortar, and that’s on my list for later. Right now, I’m busy sliding a finger in alongside his, and his stomach hollows, quivering, and he squirms again. His hips lift, and I want my dick inside him more than breathing, so I do that.

I also want a whole lot more than fucking him like this in our future.

I want a front door to paint pink with him.

A bed no other newlyweds have slept in.

A place where my restless roots can sink into soil next to sunflowers we plant together.

For now, I show him how much I missed him, and he groans my name each time I fuck into him, like I’m the only person who exists for him. He’s everything to me as well—my reason for focussing harder lately than I have ever managed. I’m not saying medication and me are a marriage made in heaven, but trialling some this winter didn’t steal my art or my free will like I worried. It did help me zoom in on what’s important.

The tide I’ve been fighting?

It could drag me further from him, and I can’t let it.

I won’t.

My only reason for pulling away right now is to add more lube and to brace one of his long legs against my shoulder. Then I slide back inside, and he doesn’t groan my name this time. He shouts, and it comes with his fingers flexing, searching for mine, which he finds with his eyes closed and clasps as soon as I thread us together. And when I bottom out, his eyes open.

He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to. I see love, and yeah, that’s what I want to see so much more of, so tomorrow?

I’m gonna go all out to make it happen.

HAYDEN

The morning before the ceremony is busy. I barely see Rae, who is also busy helping Luke. I catch a glimpse of him each time I pass the library, where he sits on an interview panel, and I can’t think of a better person to help pick new staff members for Glynn Harber. The kids here need help with their journeys. No one knows that better than Rae. He’ll spot candidates with the right potential, and one of those candidates arrives to take his shot just as I’m about to head outside with more time-capsule contributions.

This interviewee hesitates in the school doorway on a mosaic tile welcome he can’t be certain applies to him, and I know that feeling. I hesitated last night about telling Rae something needs to change for us, and by the time I was ready, he was fast asleep on my chest.

I couldn’t wake him. Wouldn’t. I’m his giant, not an actual monster.

Maybe I’m also a great big softy, because I can’t help telling someone who reminds me even more of Teo today that he doesn’t have to let wanting something so much scare him.

“You’ve got this, Isaac.”

He clutches a carrier bag to his chest. “I really don’t.” He confesses what Luke already told me. “I don’t even have a degree, and I’ve never had an interview in front of a panel. I’m not prepared.” His hair was wild already. He runs a shaking hand through it and loses his hold on his bag in the process.

I catch what falls out one-handed. This bulging scrapbook is a reminder of one that made my mum sob and smile in equal measure. If it holds even half as much heart, it will go a long way to convincing Luke that Isaac belongs here. “You brought a book with you?”

“Yeah, but it isn’t a real book, which the interview instructions said to bring—a storybook mattering to me I could share with children. This is just something I put together with my brother.”

“You made it?” I give him another helping hand by asking what I’m pretty sure will be at the top of Luke’s list of questions. “Why?”

He tells me, and I’m already running late with my ceremony preparations, but I can’t hurry this story he spins, this epic journey he paints for me with words and emotion.

I get goose bumps, and for a second time in days, my throat thickens. “You don’t think you’re prepared?” He’s come armed with what so many of the kids here need. “You get in there, and you tell them exactly what you told me. Go. Give it your best shot.”

I head out, striding towards where I’ll plant a new time capsule full of similar survival stories as soon as our guests arrive, but thank fuck sound carries a long way in this valley. It means I hear a faint question.

“And if I miss it?”

I turn. “At this school?” A willow tree nods in the breeze as if agreeing with what I tell him. “You’ll always get a second.”

And that’s what I aim for once the interviews are over and I corner Rae in a now empty library.

I still don’t know how to phrase what I need to say as he shows me an advance copy of a book the rest of the world won’t see until next Christmas. Seeing myself drawn on the cover means the right words come to me in an instant. Not with a lightning bolt of inspiration. Calm descends the moment I ask, “Which name are you going to sign?”

“Sign?” He blinks. He also comes to the wrong conclusion. “Oh, Luke won’t have the contract ready yet, but I suppose I’ll have to use my legal name even if signing Lewis Raeburn never feels right.”

“Contract? What contract?”

We’re talking at cross purposes, which Rae clears up.

He leaves a book to shuffle me behind a full bookshelf. It takes a moment to tune into the fact that he’s nervous. The clues are that he talks a mile a minute and can’t make eye contact. “Yeah, the contract I just talked Luke into considering. For me to teach here.”

My jaw must drop.

He closes my mouth with a finger under my chin, then seals it with a quick kiss. “Not full time. A job share with Sol so he can travel. Only for a third of the year. I can’t abandon my project.” He sweeps a hand through his hair the same way a stressed candidate did earlier on the school doorstep. “But I can pace myself much better.” He meets my eyes, and I see stars like on the cover of a book on the shelves beside us. His twinkle. “You’ve been a good example. And an incentive to get my shit together.” He says what I’ve struggled to put into words, only he makes it sound so simple. “I want more time with you, Hayden. Much more. As much as I can get.”

His next kiss lasts for longer.

I’m a big man. A fit one. I’m still breathless when he breaks off to tell me, “So I spoke to the Safe Harbour team. I can officially partner with them. Pool resources to do the same work without all the pressure on my shoulders. Share it with Reece and Rex. We’ll each dedicate a third of the year to the foundation’s face-to-face work. That leaves a third to⁠—”

“Draw.” I know he has another book in him. I’ve seen a familiar giant in his recent doodles.

“Yeah, and to do whatever the fuck we want. Together.”

He swallows, then pulls something from his pocket, and I’ve had since the end of last summer to get to know his expressions. This is a new one to me. He holds out a key, and triumph mixes with worry, two turbulent rivers merging.

“The contract with the Safe Harbour foundation comes with year-round staff accommodation.” He swallows again and this is hoarser. “You see, there’s a little cottage between the school and the moors standing vacant, if you wanted to make this permanent with me? It even comes with goalposts⁠—”

I stop him with a kiss to say yes, but he has another question, and here’s a sign that he is less scattered lately—he’s thought through this new joint project from start to finish.

“Do you think that would be okay with Kirsty? Rex says he’ll think of something else if you and me setting up home there brings back bad memories for her. For you, too. I love you too much to ever want that. I’ll be happy in a tent forever as long as I’m with you. Or in the stables, only Luke⁠—”

“Needs the space for his new teachers. It’s okay. My old home won’t bring back bad memories.” Not when so many good ones were made there. “But we can check in with Mum.”

A horn sounding in the carpark suggests we won’t have to wait for long for an answer. That’s Sol arriving with the special guests he has collected from the station.

My whole family will be here along with Aleksander and someone new who is special to Mum. Rae’s mum will be here too, with his sister Mia, and I need to meet them for the first time, but I’m not nervous.

The calm I felt earlier when I saw Rae with his own book helps me to say, “I love you too.” I steer him back to the desk, where I take the key from him and make a suggestion. “So much so that if your real name doesn’t feel right, why not try signing another?”

“You mean Rae? I can’t on the teaching contract. It isn’t legal.”

“Novac could be.” I nudge a book with a giant on the cover and offer him a pen. “You could try it out inside the cover before we put it in the time capsule. See if you like the look of your name and mine together.”

The horn beeps outside again, telling me to hurry.

I can’t. Not when Rae takes the pen and signs his book before adding it to a time capsule that students will dig up one day in the future. That excavation is decades away. There will be years and years before it happens. An entire lifetime, I hope as he loops his arms around my neck and we kiss behind another bookshelf while that horn beeps again outside for us.

Our families and the whole school will have to wait for longer.

Rae and I are busy starting our next journey.

The End.

Thank you for reading!

Isaac’s second chance comes next: Second Story.

If you missed Rowan’s romance, it’s here: Second Song.

Find out more about Sol and Mitch here: Sol - Learning to Love #2

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ALSO BY CON RILEY

Christmas Collection

His Last Christmas in London

We Only Kiss at Christmas

His Until Christmas

His Series

His Horizon

His Compass

His Haven

Learning to Love

Charles

Sol

Luke

Austin

Heppel Ever After

Second Chance School

Second Song

Second Shot

Second Story

Shared-World Novels

Finding Mr. Fabulous

A Wedding in a Week

True Brit

Be My Best Man

*****

Older Titles Set in the US

Seattle Stories

After Ben

Saving Sean

Aiden’s Luck

Must Like Spinach

Salvage Series

Salvage

Recovery

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CON RILEY lives on the wild and wonderful Welsh coast, with her head in the clouds and her feet in the ocean.

Injury curtailed her enjoyment of outdoor pursuits, so writing fiction now fills her free time. Love, loss, and redemption shape her romance stories, and her characters are flawed in ways that make them live and breathe.

When not people-watching or reading, she spends time staring at the sea from her kitchen window. If you see her, don’t disturb her — she’s probably thinking up new plots.

I’m most chatty in my Facebook reader group: Con Riley’s Readers. Come and say hello!