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For now, I show him how much I missed him, and he groans my name each time I fuck into him, like I’m the only person who exists for him. He’s everything to me as well—my reason for focussing harder lately than I have ever managed. I’m not saying medication and me are a marriage made in heaven, but triallingsome this winter didn’t steal my art or my free will like I worried. It did help me zoom in on what’s important.
The tide I’ve been fighting?
It could drag me further from him, and I can’t let it.
I won’t.
My only reason for pulling away right now is to add more lube and to brace one of his long legs against my shoulder. Then I slide back inside, and he doesn’t groan my name this time. He shouts, and it comes with his fingers flexing, searching for mine, which he finds with his eyes closed and clasps as soon as I thread us together. And when I bottom out, his eyes open.
He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to. I see love, and yeah, that’s what I want to see so much more of, so tomorrow?
I’m gonna go all out to make it happen.
HAYDEN
The morning before the ceremony is busy. I barely see Rae, who is also busy helping Luke. I catch a glimpse of him each time I pass the library, where he sits on an interview panel, and I can’t think of a better person to help pick new staff members for Glynn Harber. The kids here need help with their journeys. No one knows that better than Rae. He’ll spot candidates with the right potential, and one of those candidates arrives to take his shot just as I’m about to head outside with more time-capsule contributions.
This interviewee hesitates in the school doorway on a mosaic tile welcome he can’t be certain applies to him, and I know that feeling. I hesitated last night about telling Rae something needs to change for us, and by the time I was ready, he was fast asleep on my chest.
I couldn’t wake him.Wouldn’t. I’m his giant, not an actual monster.
Maybe I’m also a great big softy, because I can’t help telling someone who reminds me even more of Teo today that he doesn’t have to let wanting something so much scare him.
“You’ve got this, Isaac.”
He clutches a carrier bag to his chest. “I really don’t.” He confesses what Luke already told me. “I don’t even have a degree, and I’ve never had an interview in front of a panel. I’m not prepared.” His hair was wild already. He runs a shaking hand through it and loses his hold on his bag in the process.
I catch what falls out one-handed. This bulging scrapbook is a reminder of one that made my mum sob and smile in equal measure. If it holds even half as much heart, it will go a long way to convincing Luke that Isaac belongs here. “You brought a book with you?”
“Yeah, but it isn’t a real book, which the interview instructions said to bring—a storybook mattering to me I could share with children. This is just something I put together with my brother.”
“You made it?” I give him another helping hand by asking what I’m pretty sure will be at the top of Luke’s list of questions. “Why?”
He tells me, and I’m already running late with my ceremony preparations, but I can’t hurry this story he spins, this epic journey he paints for me with words and emotion.
I get goose bumps, and for a second time in days, my throat thickens. “You don’t think you’re prepared?” He’s come armed with what so many of the kids here need. “You get in there, and you tell them exactly what you told me. Go. Give it your best shot.”
I head out, striding towards where I’ll plant a new time capsule full of similar survival stories as soon as our guestsarrive, but thank fuck sound carries a long way in this valley. It means I hear a faint question.
“And if I miss it?”
I turn. “At this school?” A willow tree nods in the breeze as if agreeing with what I tell him. “You’ll always get a second.”
And that’s what I aim for once the interviews are over and I corner Rae in a now empty library.
I still don’t know how to phrase what I need to say as he shows me an advance copy of a book the rest of the world won’t see until next Christmas. Seeing myself drawn on the cover means the right words come to me in an instant. Not with a lightning bolt of inspiration. Calm descends the moment I ask, “Which name are you going to sign?”
“Sign?” He blinks. He also comes to the wrong conclusion. “Oh, Luke won’t have the contract ready yet, but I suppose I’ll have to use my legal name even if signing Lewis Raeburn never feels right.”
“Contract? What contract?”
We’re talking at cross purposes, which Rae clears up.
He leaves a book to shuffle me behind a full bookshelf. It takes a moment to tune into the fact that he’s nervous. The clues are that he talks a mile a minute and can’t make eye contact. “Yeah, the contract I just talked Luke into considering. For me to teach here.”
My jaw must drop.
He closes my mouth with a finger under my chin, then seals it with a quick kiss. “Not full time. A job share with Sol so he can travel. Only for a third of the year. I can’t abandon my project.” He sweeps a hand through his hair the same way a stressed candidate did earlier on the school doorstep. “But Icanpace myself much better.” He meets my eyes, and I see stars like on the cover of a book on the shelves beside us. His twinkle. “You’ve been a good example. And an incentive to get my shit together.”He says what I’ve struggled to put into words, only he makes it sound so simple. “I want more time with you, Hayden. Much more. As much as I can get.”
