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Of me.
Him wearing the same now feels like another mirror held up right where I can’t avoid it. I just wish that fucking horn would stop its beeping so I could tell him I’m no hero or anyone’s giant.
Right now?
I’ve never felt smaller.
I can’t help meeting eyes that lock with mine as easily now as before I told him what ended my first shot for me. Now Rae’s tone lowers the same way as when he consoled Noah or supported Teo. “Hayden, exactly how much of my talk did you hear?”
I blink.
“How much of it?” More than enough to hear him sayno future, and to guess that my bright idea of meds to make his life easier might be the opposite of what he’d ever choose to swallow. I only skimmed a few websites but I’m pretty sure the amphetamines they mentioned are longhand for speed like his mother needed bumps of. And that she sent him out to score for her.
Suggest using anything like that to him?
I’d be as bad as a team doctor for only focussing on the end result instead of on the player’s welfare, so I settle for telling him this. “I heard your recap.” Which is why hustling him towards his ride is a better option than him taking advice from someone who didn’t even know he was addicted until his own supply stopped.
Rae digs his heels in like he isn’t done asking questions until another volley of honks rings out. Then he does let me hustle him, but he doesn’t release my hand while we hurry.
He holds fast all the way through the woods and past the chapel, his grip tightening the minute we get to the car park where a minibus waits. Sol is behind the steering wheel and he looks apologetic, but I get it. What I don’t expect is for Rae to bellow, “Give me one more minute,” before yanking me through another willow curtain.
This one offers little camouflage now that most of its leaves have fallen. Anyone walking past would see him finally let go of my hand to clasp my face. They would also witness him pull mecloser. Our foreheads connect like we’ve got all the time in the world for explanations.
We don’t.
He must know so. He sidesteps so the tree trunk blocks any view of us, and his kiss is the same surprise as the first time we ever did this. That was on the eve of a wedding. Now he makes a vow I’m certain he’ll break the minute he has time to think.
“We aren’t done talking. You didn’t hear my whole story.”
“I heard plenty.” My reminder is so, so gritty. “And we already said goodbye.”
Drawing a line here is for the best.
I know it.
I still make myself a liar by reaching for his face with fingers affected by emotion. “I told you I wasn’t a long-term prospect.”
This should be a full stop.
All I know is that Rae studies my face, and fuck knows what he sees. His eyes don’t dance as he repeats, “I’ve still got more to tell you.” He follows it with a quieter order, “Go the fuck home, Hayden. They really miss you.” He can’t know he next echoes Dad when he was too sick to come to matches. A chart used to spell this out for me. Now it’s Rae who says, “If you do go, let me know you got there safely, yeah?”
Then he’s gone.
Sol hits the horn again as the minibus leaves, this time tooting goodbye. I hear Sol’s final volley in time with what he told me.
Miles don’t have to matter.
Right now, with the minibus only halfway down the driveway, I already hate this distance.
Maybe that’swhy I cut another distance in half later in my Land Rover. Then I slice it into quarters by battling Friday traffic. Fraction by fraction, I leave Cornwall behind and close in on another confession I’ll have to make when I reach my destination.
I can’t keep hiding from Kirsty.
I do stop on the way for diesel, where I catch myself scanning pasties in a service station chiller. Every single one of them is wrapped in plastic, and I’ve never been more tempted to get in my vehicle to head back to Marc and Stefan’s. I could be at their kitchen table right now eating the real deal while they take the piss out of me.
Not for eating my body weight in home baking.
For falling so hard for Rae that I can’t stop wanting to be the giant he drew so often. A king. His hero.
