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“‘Once Upon a Dream’? That’s fromSleeping Beauty, isn’t it?” He tilts his head to the bathroom. “If it wasn’t you singing itin 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.Atleast, 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.”
