“I dread to think what she’s told them. But anyway, they’ve been at Zumba or whatever.”
“Great. So where do you practice?” He’d avoided it earlier, and in a way, I dreaded his answer. In all of this? I knew it wasn’t real. It wouldn’t last because these kinds of things? They never did.
“Brighton?” He was standing there, absolutely still, looking up from underneath his fringe. Ah. Okay. “I googled you earlier. It doesn’t look good, does it?”
I got it, of course I did. He lived in Brighton. The south coast. Pebble beaches and rock candy. South. Whereas myself? Kilmartin. North of Glasgow. We couldn’t have been placed further apart if we had tried.
“Could have been worse,” I tried. “If you ever fancy a trek up in the middle of fuck-end-of-nowhere? You’ll know where to find me.” I couldn’t even hide the disappointment in my voice. I should have known, though, him with his posh English accent and me with my messed-up speak.
“How the hell did you end up there? You’re not Scottish. You don’t sound it.”
“No. It’s a private school. Pay’s good. A mix of posh kids, army brats and wards of state. Doesn’t make it simple. The kids I deal with are either loaded, from great backgrounds or messed up to the nines. The pressure on them is insane, and I still haven’t got the resources to keep them fully on the straight and narrow. We board a hundred boys from all over the world.”
I had no idea why I was trying to quote from the school prospectus, standing here with my dick on display. I cleared my throat and tried to keep sane. Speak like a decent human. Dick still on display. I should wear pants. Honestly.
“I went there as a kid, then trained as a teacher and returned up there for the money. The private sector pays well, and I thought it would be good for me, you know. Go back. Face the demons of my youth. Thomas got a job in Glasgow. It was all really good for a while. Until…”
“I get it.”
“Yeah. He ran back down south as soon as I found out about…dickhead-child. The devil’s spawn. Couldn’t have cared less that Thomas was ina very obvious relationship. We had bloody couple’s photos on the walls and…”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
I loved how calm he was. I also hated that he wasn’t shouting at me and telling me to grow the fuck up and get over myself. I needed to hear it.
“I was an idiot. I made my bed. Worked away in the weeks and only came back at the weekends. Thought it was all good, and Thomas said he enjoyed it and it gave us space and freedom.”
“Fuck that.”
Now I grinned.
“Exactly. I don’t want fucking freedom. I want someone in my bed every night, and I want to be together and I want to get married and I fucking want kids one day, Noah. I want the goddamn fairytale.”
“Not easy when you live in the fuck-end-of-nowhere, or whatever you called it.”
“It’s beautiful. Serene and peaceful. I love the job, didn’t think I would, but I do. I absolutely adore the school and the boys. Great colleagues. Despite all that, I dread going back now because I’m still a wreck after the whole…Thomas thing. I live full time at the school now. Not quite the place to host hook-ups.”
“I see.” Okay. There it was. Disappointment. Good job, Fox. Great. I’d put my foot down then. This was going nowhere, and we both knew it.
“Suppose you have to trek down south and see me then.”
“Long distance is a disaster,” I said, before I could stop myself.
“Okay.”
So he agreed? Now I was starting to flail my arms and I was actually hungry and in a second, I would lose my balance standing here on one leg, and the fuck?
“Get dressed,” he huffed, pushing a pile of fabric in my arms. His clothes. Pants. T-shirt. Shorts with a drawstring. We were definitely not the same size, and now I was drowning in fabric, trying to tie the ropey thing around my waist.
“Sit,” he demanded, and I did what I was told. Sat.
Then Dr Fairweather was back in the room, carefully draping my foot in a sock as I breathed in and out through my teeth. Not comfortable, but I got the point of it. And shoes? A definite no-go.
“There,” he said, inspecting my ridiculous self. “I’ll have to carry you. Not far, it’s just about two hundred metres up the beach or so. And you weigh nothing.”
“I weigh plenty,” I grumped.
And then he just leant in and kissed me. Like this was something we did. That somehow the whole we-just-fuck-because scenario was no longer there and we were instead…what exactly?
