Chapter 7

ROWAN

I don't leave Glynn Harber for a few hours. I take a tour of the campus. It's a touch ragged at its edges and a million miles from one of England's top private schools that my stepdad eventually sent me away from.

The padre leads this tour, showing me a practice room that holds a piecemeal drum kit and not much else. "Up until now, our music instruction has come from visiting teachers."

"Peripatetic." I touch the tip of a drumstick to a well-used high hat. "That was my mother's main gig. She taught kids from lots of different schools when I was younger. I always went with her." I answer an unasked question. "Home-schooled."

"Interesting. And when you were older?"

It's a quiet question asked as he leafs through sheets of music. I don't know why it's so hard to say this. "She stopped moving around. Taught in one school full time." I clear my throat. "Before that, we used to travel to music festivals all over Europe every summer. She ran drumming workshops for little ones." I can still almost hear that thumping chaos. Can still almost see her across a campfire circle from me, embers glowing and hot chocolate steaming. "And she ran toddler sessions in places like village halls when we were back in England." Those were the best fun. "She'd use anything to help them make noise."

The padre opens a supply cupboard holding a tangle of mic cables and cobwebs. "Whoever takes on our music provision might need to be as creative. The school had a tough time for a few years. It's turned a financial corner, but still needs investment." He next points out of a window where thick woodland almost hides the housing for the boarding students. "That's why the woods are a little out of control. Cash has been short, but now we have scope for extras like music and sport and nature."

He leads me past busy classroom after busy classroom. There are also plenty of quiet corners. "For respite," the padre tells me. "Many of our children need that more than anything else."

He's undemanding company, not seeming to mind my silence, although that's what he brings up in a library he says only has empty shelves because of a renovation project. Children are busy in there too, packing away the last of their books with their teacher, who turns it into a counting and sorting lesson.

The padre finds a stray book and leafs through it like he did those sheets of music. "Children need a chance to process just as much as we do." He taps the back of a green chair. "This colour means ‘you can talk to me.' The red ones?" He points to a beanbag seat in a far corner where a blond-haired boy sits, glowering at a book with Lowly Worm on the cover. "Red means ‘give me a moment.'"

And that's what he does for me as I find a vacant red seat, suddenly too wiped out to worry that the padre will see me needing a moment of my own as weakness. Maybe his attention is diverted by that blond boy leaving his red bean bag seat for a green one. "Feeling a bit better now, Tor? Ready to make friends again with Maisie if she's back to school on Monday?"

It's another patient moment in contrast to the school I left with an escape plan that crashed and burned along with me. This little boy crashes as well, only straight into angry tears in the arms of someone caring.

His voice hitches with so much feeling, and boy, that's familiar. "I d-don't want Maisie's daddy to b-break our library!"

The padre consoles him before making a low-pitched suggestion. "Did you see the renovation plans, Tor? The ones pinned up by the front door? How about if I ask Maisie's daddy to talk them through with you? Because yes, some of the library walls will come down, but he's getting someone very kind to do it. Someone very, very clever, who knows how much we all love this space. He's going to be so careful, and then your favourite part of the school will be bigger and even better. Because it is your favourite place, isn't it?"

He digs in his pocket for a hanky. I still have one from his husband in my pocket. Now the padre uses his own to dab away a little boy's tears.

"It's where you came for a story whenever your daddy was on deployment, remember? We read a lot of books here when you missed him, didn't we? Of course, it's a special place, so how about we talk to Maisie's daddy together?"

It's a low-pressure suggestion instead of a demand for good behaviour, and it leads to a fierce hug that almost knocks the padre backwards.

"That needed to come out," he tells me when his tour of the school continues and he leads me into those overgrown woods to a chapel.

Once there, he lifts the lid on an old piano. "And this probably needs tuning." He tidies away hymn books while I tap out a melody below a window. Only the padre and a stained-glass saint watch me play the accompaniment to a song I wrote for a contest finale but never got to sing in public. Now, I can't stop playing this tune, and I have no idea why it's easy to summon those notes here while being watched compared to at my last teaching placement. All I know is that an empty well fills inside me, one that this stressful day has depleted, and I feel…

"Better?" he murmurs from the doorway.

"Yes." It's true.

"I always feel that way here."

I'm not sure if he means in the chapel or in the school in general. The piano is near a curtained alcove, so maybe that's why what I say next feels like a confession. "I haven't played in a church since coming back to England for teacher training."

He hums as if interested while straightening a basket full of rolled-up rugs. Prayer mats, I realise.

"Do they belong in here?" I touch the frayed edge of an old curtain. "And this?"

"Depends who you ask," he says just as easily as he's answered each of my questions. "Glynn Harber welcomes children of all faiths. Or none. As long as they leave with faith in themselves and their community, this building serves its purpose."

Our next stop is the only building so far that isn't shabby. "Our art building," he says while showing me some stellar paintings. "The first stage of an extensive rebuilding programme." He doesn't need to sell this school's future to me. It's already exciting, like the children's artwork we leave behind, and his smile is a lopsided beam when I say so.

"I'll tell our art master, Solomon, when he gets back from his trip with some of his sixth-form students."

"Where are they?"

"In France. The school has close links with a refugee project. You already met one of its students, who has so much potential once he crosses a few personal hurdles." He adds, "Or when he crosses some final bridges, I suppose," and I guess which child he means. "That's why some of our teachers and older students are with children on French beaches right now. The right or wrong of the crossings their families want to make don't matter. Giving their children an education does, and art is universal, so we're a bit thin on the ground until they're home. Another six weeks and we'll be back to full strength."

Our tour next passes a sports hall as in need of renovation as that library, but the kids playing there don't seem to care if most of the facilities are subpar. The padre explains why. "We have to balance rebuilding with making sure we offer as many free places as possible to students in trouble." He adds something that plucks another tight string inside me. "Places for students who failed once already, like this school almost did. And like them, Glynn Harber has struggled but is ready to rise again."

"Like a phoenix."

"From ashes?" He nods. "Yes, so we can give even more children wings. Especially ones who don't think they'll ever get to fly. That means we need to train more educators how to meet those children exactly where they are, not where they should be according to a textbook or an exam schedule. Trainees like you, maybe."

I touch that card tucked in my jacket pocket. It shows hope I can't let myself feel.

Not yet.

Not until after our full circle brings us back to the car park and the padre says goodbye below those glinting windows. One window will belong to a headmaster's study, I guess, a place a past version of me would have avoided. Now I hope I'll be invited back so badly that my fists clench.

I let myself hold on to that hope a half hour later when I park again in that little fishing village.

That's where I do my best not to clutch a card that will cut into my palm if I keep squeezing. I focus on not letting it go rather than on what it would feel like to be a winner for once.

What if the headmaster does call back? He promised he would.

That's dangerously hopeful thinking. I've been here before, trusting when I shouldn't. Besides, it's Saturday tomorrow.

Will he even make work calls at the weekend?

At least I can kill time tomorrow by tracking down who else I need to see before leaving Cornwall.

I hold that thought until my bedroom door at the pub closes behind me. Then I sit on my bed, cradling that card, and let myself want it. Really want it. But only for a moment. Only for long enough so that hopeful drumming of my heart slows, and a different sound registers.

The bell over the door downstairs tinkles.

It tinkles for a second time a few minutes later, followed by footsteps climbing the stairs, which creak. So do the floorboards outside my bedroom. A quick knock comes next.

I open the door to find a chef holding out a carrier bag that swings between us. "Special delivery for you," he says, his eyes merry. "From someone tall, dark, and surly who asked me to make sure you got it." He leaves me, but not before making a suggestion. "He just left. You could catch him if you hurry."

The stairs creak again and he's gone, while I stand in my bedroom doorway and look in the bag to find a couple of items. The first is a container of hot chocolate, and that drumming in my chest picks up, banging away even faster when I unwrap tissue paper to find my glasses. I try them on, and apart from a few scuffs, they're undamaged. Spared like I was. Or saved by a real-life action hero.

I dart to my bedroom window, which overlooks the harbour, and there's mine.

I mean, there's Liam.

He strides away, and I've reacted instead of thinking twice today already, first when that lamb took a nosedive and then when I saw a small boy's panic. Now I move again on instinct and hope it's third time lucky.

I hammer down the stairs to catch him, and if they creak, I don't hear it. I only hear a clock ticking, but not for an interview. This time, I race to catch an ex-soldier with long legs that can cover ground a lot faster than me, but once that bell tinkles behind me, I gallop across cobbles and almost skid at the entrance to that alley.

"Wait!"

Liam doesn't.

"Stop!"

He keeps moving, long strides loping, already almost at the car park where I glimpse a white wave decal and hear a running engine. His friend must be waiting for him in Liam's camper. Why that spurts extra petrol into my tank, I can't say. All I know is that for a second time today, I bellow at him.

"Liam!"

This time, he hears me.

He swings around before glancing over his shoulder at the car park and at who waits for him there, I guess. Then he faces me full-on, straightening as if coming to attention, and I don't only spot a ghost of a smile as I close the distance. What I see now is complex, a tangle that I unravel while there are still a few steps left between us, and yes, this alleyway is shadowed, but I spy something almost bashful in his eyes, and my chest seizes.

He's not sure if I'm pleased to see him.

I am. So pleased. Of course, that comes with a burst of fuckwit laughter, but at least he joins in.

All of those emotion cards must have registered with me in that classroom. It's so easy to see his relief then, and it sucks that he's in shadow instead of underneath a spotlight. Or in front of a camera—I'd add this real smile to that deck so every single kid at Glynn Harber got to see what happy can also look like.

I have to make do with grabbing the front of his T-shirt and pulling him closer, which isn't my usual style—almost-virgin, remember, even if I've already kissed him. I'm more likely to run in the opposite direction of anything more, or search for hidden cameras, but the heat of his chest under my knuckles is just as warming as this smile edged in shyness.

Of course, I blurt something stupid instead of hello or thank you. "Why didn't you stop when I shouted?" That comes out so fucking huffy, but his smile only widens.

"Didn't hear you." He looks down, focussed on my fistful of desert-camo cotton, but he doesn't pull free or repeat what he last said while grass tickled me on the clifftop. I couldn't let go of him then. I can't let go now either. Instead, I wet my lips, and he watches.

Watches?

He's transfixed, captivated, but maybe I'm under a spell because I've never found breathing harder. He leans in first this time, and if that wasn't a clear go signal, him holding me by both hips is. He's close enough that our feet dovetail while tourists pass the alley entrance, but neither of us lets go.

I don't want to.

I want to kiss him again, only for longer. I do it right here, out in public, and finally get a taste of triumph.

For a hard man, his mouth is a soft prize, and fuck old nerves that prickle or my chest that chooses now to constrict tightly. It doesn't matter if performance anxiety steals my voice here. I don't need to speak to loop an arm around his neck and draw him closer.

Have I ever wanted someone this much or this fast? Ever needed them to kiss me back more than right now? I push against him, my mouth an open offer that he takes, and it's fucking epic.

His kiss is hot like the skin under his T-shirt, his tongue an invasion I don't retreat from. If anything, I fight for more, both of my hands in his hair now, his fade prickling my palms, longer strands clenched between my fingers, and he lets out a sound that rumbles through me. I'm half hard even before he hefts me against a wall, muscling me exactly where he wants me. Apparently, that's with my legs far enough apart that he can get between them, and forget retreats or invasions, we're on the same side, no white flags needed.

He hefts me even higher, grinding, and when I hook my legs around him, there's all that strength I remember. That power. I feel it again when he almost slips on these slick, damp cobbles but still doesn't drop me. The movement does bump my glasses against his nose, but he only sets me down while still kissing, then lifts my glasses away from my face, stealing my vision.

The last time I let that happen, my bottom became headlines. I should reel back and take my glasses with me, but here? With him? I surge forward, and what we did before wasn't kissing. It doesn't compare with his tongue being this deep in my mouth, and mine so deep in his, and I don't care if it leaves me gasping. So what if I never breathe again? Oxygen doesn't matter, and neither do more tourists chatting as they enjoy an unseasonably warm April evening. At least they don't matter to me, but Liam slides my glasses back into place and issues a quiet order.

"Stay right there."

He heads off, disappearing into the car park for one minute. Two. After three, my cock starts to deflate. So do I.

He's not coming back.

He does, thank fuck, only not to pick up where we left off. He takes my hand. His is rough, from that rope I guess, and he tugs me. Not towards the car park. He steers me a few steps towards the harbour while asking me something it takes a moment to parse. "You've got that room until tomorrow?"

This is where I should come to my senses—where I should take a step back instead of plunging headfirst, but here I am, Rowan Byrn, a prizewinner at making bad decisions.

Only this doesn't feel like my worst one.

Liam doesn't press me. Doesn't push. Doesn't back me into a corner or take advantage of having more power than me. He even lets go of my hand.

I'm free to leave. To say no. To change my mind and focus on why I really came to Cornwall.

"No pressure," he confirms quietly, and that's all it takes. I grab his hand, and who cares if he's the only one of us who's had army training?

I still march faster than him.