Page 25 of Only One Tour Bus

“She loves history. She was never able to go to university for it because there wasn’t enough money and she had to start working right out of school. She read voraciously as a way to learn more about the subject she loved. The first memories I have are her reading me history books about the Celts. They were her favorite.” He has a ghost of a smile on his face, then he shakes himself out of the memories. “Anyway, she would plan all our vacations, and Dad always said they were better organized than a military campaign, because she had a packed itinerary for every moment that museums and historic sites were open. But she forgot small things like mealtimes or a full night’s sleep. Dad always said he needed a vacation after her vacations.”

“And you loved it.”

“Yeah. Dad thought when they had me that he would have someone to vote on his side for a nice, relaxing beach trip to Malaga. He was less than pleased when I always sided with Mom.”

“I can just imagine a child you, in a little suit most likely, marching around Stonehenge. Yelling at people who had the audacity to laugh and take pictures instead of soaking in the monumental history. Probably shaking a ruler at them.”

He rolls his eyes at me. “I am not that bad. A few photos are fine. But when it gets out of hand and interferes with my tour, then I don’t like them.”

“Hmm.” I shouldn’t give him my real opinion. That would make our working relationship even more strained. “So you didn’t just do this because it was the first job you could find?”

He pauses, like he needs to think about how to answer that. “No. I guess not. I might have a little of Mom in me.”

“Is there something else that made you take the job?”

“What else would there be?”

“Ah. You can’t fool me. My mom is a lawyer, so I learned young that answering a question with another question is basic evasion.”

He pauses. So long that I don’t think he’s going to tell me more. But then he surprises me. “I wanted to be a professor, originally. Even got my PhD for it. But I got some rejections, and it was a bad job market. Not that there’s ever an ideal job market; it’s a hard field to get into. So I applied to other jobs and found this a few weeks later. I stopped looking for teaching positions.”

“Do you still want to be a professor? I think you’d be good at it.”

“If I wanted to bore my students out of loving history, maybe. I think it might have been the in-person interviews that sank my chances.”

“Nooooo,” I say it with enough extra Os to make it seem disingenuous even to my own ears.

“Thanks, Wee Sunshine, for your vote of confidence in me.”

“No.” I say it more firmly this time. “You have a passion for this that any student would be able to see and appreciate. It would make them more engaged. Now, are you going to be the most entertaining professor? Maybe not.” That glare is back on me, but it can’t be a surprise that he doesn’t have a career in viral social media videos waiting for him. “But you will be thoughtful and smart and teach the shit out of the kids.”

“It doesn’t matter. I have a job. And I’m too old to get another one now.”

I laugh directly in his face at that. “You’re in your late twenties, at most? I think there’s still time. And it’s not like being a professor is a young person’s game. Although you may need to publish some stuff. I don’t know how that works, to be honest. But they’d be lucky to have you.”

“And you’d be lucky to lose me.” He quirks an eyebrow at me and I’m about to protest when he starts talking again. “It’s a very competitive field.”

“I…the company would not be lucky.” My wishes are immaterial. And confusing.

But I’ve had professors in my groups before. Some keep in touch—the ones who don’t hate my tour style, at least. Maybe I can talk to them about jobs, and how Callum could go about applying to them.

We’ve been absentmindedly walking around the site while a light drizzle slowly and persistently drenches us. It’s a good thing we’re heading to Italy soon; it’ll help me dry out before I return and start the process all over again. “How do the people on these islands not have moss growing on them with all this moisture in the air all the time?”

Callum grunts at me, and I think I may have exhausted him, talking-wise. Or exhausted him by making him talk about something other than history, because that is the one subject he can go on for hours about.

No worries. I’ll pick up the slack, conversation-wise. “I’m from a desert in Southern California, and that was probably the biggest adjustment when I moved to Scotland for this job, but I learned quick to carry a rain jacket around. That and not having a car, even though the public transportation is amazing in Europe. Oooh, and the accents, although my dad’s actually from London, from Southall, so in between visits to our family here and watching old TV shows from the UK, that part wasn’t too hard to get used to.”

I launch into some more stories from my first few months in Edinburgh, checking in with Callum between stories to see if he’s irritated with me and I should stop. If I’m irritating him, I could always wander off and let him brood in silence. Especially since we’re close to the North Yorkshire Moors, the best environment (as shown in Wuthering Heights) for that activity.

But he doesn’t tell me to shove it. He doesn’t contribute much to the conversation, but at no point does he make any of his displeasure known. And he’s pretty famous among the tour leaders for making his displeasure known.

Nor does he just leave my side.

Even when I almost walk into that giant muddy puddle when I get wrapped up in the story I’m telling about how I almost got a group of thirty lost on my first tour. He gently grabs my elbow and nudges me a foot to the side, and then lets go when I’m clear. He grunts when I thank him.

But I can’t move on from how nice his hand feels on me, sliding against my skin with all the drizzle forming another layer on us that makes his hands slide and touch even more surface area than it would otherwise.

He even unbends enough to take a photo of me with the ruins without complaint when I shove my phone at him. Then I snap a selfie when he hands my phone back, because no one will believe I’m having an okay trip with Callum. Well, an okay trip once I ignore all his growls and glares. Having fun with him is not something I expected.