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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 forlonger 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.”
