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This murmur is so quiet. He almost whispers, “I don’t want to find out what’s going on with me without you.”
“You won’t have to.”
That acceptance does something to him. He’s choked when he asks, “You really haven’t finished drawing?”
I shrug and settle back onto the same kind of camping mat and sleeping bag arrangement I slept on for months in France. “Just didn’t feel done yet to me. I’m not going back until I’m happy with the final image.”
His head rests against my chest. “What do you want to draw for it?”
“Not sure yet.” Hayden’s arm is a welcome weight across my belly. My eyelids are equally heavy. “It needs to be a realbanger. Something to make readers turn back to the first page the moment they finish.” I say this around a yawn. “I’ll know it when I see it.”
His fingers spread to span my heart. “What’s your final deadline?”
I’m pretty sure I say there’s plenty of time left.
There are days and days to go until next Friday.
But when it comes to Hayden?
I’m actually aiming for forever.
23
HAYDEN
I sleep right through the night with Rae beside me.
He’s gone when I wake to flickering daylight and the scent of cooking. The smell of mushrooms frying is a strong reminder of so many autumn mornings, only unless he’s become an overnight foraging expert, he could well be about to serve us poison for our breakfast.
I can’t help being tickled that he’s tried to recreate what helped to rebuild me. How I came here a shattered soccer hopeful and left a complete woodsman. A skilled lesnik, like Novacs going back for generations in Poland. I saw myself differently for my stay here, and isn’t that the same process Rae has recreated since the summer? I got the second shot I needed to see myself as skilled and successful every single time he drew me.
That giant?
He can face whatever is coming. He’s got roots to hold him steady and wings to lift him higher. I might need those in the long term. In the short term, stopping Rae from dying of mushroom poisoning is a more urgent mission. I drag on myboxers to go and make that save, only the daylight is dazzling. I blink, and by the time I can see clearly, it isn’t Rae who looks back at me.
Man, I’ve missed Aleksander’s gruff morning greetings.
Rae is with him. He turns to me, still sleep-creased but smiling. “I’ve got no idea what he just said to you.”
Translating for him is so easy. “He wants to know what the fuck time I call this. He’s been up for hours already.”
I’m interrupted by more Polish, and I can’t help laughing, booming as loudly as Mitch, which feels brand new—and needed—like I’ve taken my first deep breath since finding Rae on my doorstep.
Rae is confused. “He sounds pissed off. What’s so funny?”
“He says he’s old, not stupid enough to leave anything he cares about unprotected.” I point at the cabin. “There’s a camera. Motion activated. He saw us coming.”
Rae quietly murmurs, “I fucking hope not. Good thing we slept in the tent.”
Aleksander chooses that moment to let Rae know there’s nothing wrong with his hearing or with his English. “You better believe I turned the camera off in a hurry when the snogging started.” He makes a kissy face at me, but offers Rae a handshake. “Aleksander Wozniak. Good to meet any friend of Hayden’s.”
He doesn’t extend a hand to me. He envelops me in a tight hug, which sets the tone for the morning. Rae gets a ringside seat, even if he can’t understand half of our conversation, although I guess he can figure out the subjects we catch up with. Rae’s hand lands on my thigh when my head hangs for a moment. Then he leaves us to it by going to get a sketchbook from the Land Rover. I can see him leaning in to look for his portfolio as Aleksander asks where I’ve been working since we last caught up at Christmas.
I tell him, and man, I wish I’d done that sooner.
I have to settle for dashing after Rae, and I’m still in my boxers so my bare chest plasters his back when I reach him.
“Steady,” he jokes. “Only one free show per old man.”
