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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. Thesedays, 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.
Muchmore.
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 soundreallytravels.”
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!”
