Chapter 21

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.