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He shrugs. His gaze is fixed on the sign above the academy doorway, and I’ll draw him in profile like this later. For now, I brush the back of his hand with mine, and I thank every star in the sky, even if they aren’t visible in daylight, that he doesn’t hide this tremble from me. I also get to hear him murmur, “No grass stains, no glory. No bruises, no story,” and I see him straighten again.
Here’s my protective giant.
My king of woods and water.
All that is missing is a crown as he faces me and asks, “Want to see where I did start to feel better?”
And me?
I’ve never said yes faster.
The timing couldn’t be better.We drop off four overexcited Novacs at a concert and drive away with the one and only tent Hayden kept. It doesn’t take too long before we leave the city behind and are faced with hills covered in trees. He follows a track into the heart of the kind of forest he once told me his dad liked the least.
“Managed for wood production. All a bit too tidy for him. And for me.”
He drives and drives, these straight lines of pine soldiers continuing for miles until he slows to a stop. “This part is more my speed. Can you open the gate?”
I do, and in the next few minutes, the landscape completely changes.
“All broadleaf species. All native.” He rolls down his window and sniffs. “Smells completely different. These woods are private.” They are also owned by someone with Cornish connections. “After what happened, Kirsty got in contact with the club at home. Must have told them everything.”
“How do you mean?”
“Because it’s the only way Justin could have heard what happened. No way would the academy want bad publicity. They said I’d failed a fitness test. Only the people Kirsty told knew the whole truth. And they closed ranks.”
Around him.
He stops the Land Rover and turns off the engine to tell me how. We sit in the last of the day’s fragmented light as he explains, even though it takes a while.
I’m not about to rush him now he’s relaxed in his seat and breathing easily for the first time in ages. I guess that’s the effect of the woods when he can say this without more of his earlier flinching.
“Kirsty asked for help. Told them I needed peace and privacy. A chance to regroup and retrain where no one knew me. The Polish network sprang into action, and that’s how I ended up here as Aleksander’s apprentice. I needed to be in the middle of nowhere.”
“Because?”
His gaze is as bare as some of these trees. “Because rehab is one thing. The outside world is another. I couldn’t trust myself to be any nearer to civilisation. Didn’t know myself anymore without football in my future. Missed Dad so fucking much. All over again, you know? That’s when I figured out I hadn’t really grieved him. Aleksander was older than him and as grumpy as fuck, but he reminded me of him every time he taught me what Dad would have if he’d been here.”
We leave the Land Rover behind, and Hayden walks me to a cabin fitting so well into this natural setting it might have grown here. He tries the door to find it padlocked. “This is where we lived through each winter. He lives with his son’s family now. Must be well into his seventies. Still sends me a Christmas card every year.”
We set up camp then—pitch the one tent he let himself keep—and then we drink smoky black tea on opposite sides of a campfire as he tells me, “Aleksander showed me how to manage the woods. And how to manage myself. Which I did, right up until…” He holds up a hand and then snorts. “Fucking typicalthat it’s steady now.” He admits this much more quietly. “He kept my brain too busy to think about what I’d done.” He amends that. “About what happened to all of us.”
“How?”
“He would only speak to me in Polish. Kept my hands busy too, but that only freed up brain space to see what happened at the academy for what it was—a kid trying too hard to fill his dad’s shoes.” He scrubs at the back of his neck. “I’m still working on that. The one thing he wouldn’t let me do was use his chainsaw. Made me use a crosscut saw with him instead. You know what I mean?”
I don’t, but I can picture it better when he explains the process of cutting down huge tree trunks into manageable logs and slices.
“It’s the kind of saw built for two. You can’t easily use it alone. It’s easier to push and pull together.” He snorts again, only more softly this time. “I can’t tell you how many times I faced him while we used that saw together.”
I draw the scene he describes on my phone, sketching a younger Hayden with his own protective giant, and Hayden comes to look. “The only thing missing is his mushroom basket.”
“Mushrooms?”
“Yeah. The woods are full of them this time of the year. Some of them will kill you stone dead. Others are fucking delicious. Aleksander knew the difference. I’m kinda surprised he isn’t here gathering them. Perfect time of year for it. He must have picked thousands while I was with him.”
“What did he do with them all?”
“Fried them for our breakfast. Did that so often I can almost smell them right now. He even sent me back to Cornwall with a bagful on the passenger seat of his old Land Rover.” His gaze slides to the vehicle behind me, and this smile is my favourite.“He taught me how to drive in it, then gave me the keys. Called it my apprentice wages.”
