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“Why not?”
“I’d never be able to bring you home and look my mum in the face again.”
“You can always hang out on The Frederick. My houseboat.”
Elliot halted. “Your what now?”
“Dad and Jane and I live on a boat. I have no problems bringing you home and looking him in the face.”
“I don’t swim. I’m not hopping on a boat.”
Wentworth was once again leaning against a wall, one foot crossed over the other, arms folded, lazy smile tipping his lips. “If we cannae hang oot at your place, and you wullnae set foot on mine . . .”
“Exactly! Whatever weird fancy you had here, it’s a lost cause.”
Wentworth narrowed his eyes in concentration. “Elliot?”
He pushed off the wall; it halved the distance between them to a foot. One silly little foot, and it was both the shortest and the longest distance of Elliot’s life. Their eyes met. Such a brilliant, midnight blue . . .
“I’m a very stubborn guy. Think of me like an oak, roots deep in the ground. Immoveable. When I make my mind up about something, I see it through. And my mind was made up last night. I want—”
“To get to know me,” Elliot finished for him, hands on hips, frowning.
“Yes, but more than that.”
“You want to be my friend.”
“More than that.”
“My best friend?”
Wentworth shook his head.
Elliot froze and whispered, “My boyfriend?”
Wentworth paused, and again shook his head. Elliot wrung out a relieved breath. Electricity shot around his body at the mere thought of being Wentworth’s boyfriend. Unbearable.
Yes, unbearable. But . . . Also thrilling?
Wentworth met Elliot’s eye. “I want to be your husband.”
Elliot stared at Wentworth’s sincere expression. Navy eyes held his confidently, not a shade of a joke to be detected.
“You want to be my what?”
“Your husband. I made my mind up last night.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“Nevertheless.”
“I can’t be your husband. I’m seventeen.”
Wentworth waited. “Is that your only objection?”
Elliot spluttered. “No!”
“Well? Tell me the others so I can refute them all.”
“You don’t know anything about me. For instance, I’m an early bird. I get up at dawn, and I enjoy it. Could you really imagine sixty years of me flinging open the curtains at five-thirty in the morning?”
“I live on a boat. Dad loves to fish.” Wentworth’s grin riddled Elliot with more voltage. “I’m up at four.”
“I don’t know anything about you!”
“I live on a boat, I’m up at four, I can swim. Oh, and I like to sing.”
“See. There. You like to sing.”
Wentworth’s lips rocked up on one side. “Is that a deal breaker?”
“My mum ‘likes to sing’ and I’m barely surviving it. I would not voluntarily submit myself to another sixty years of that.”
“Righty. Follow me.”
Wentworth charged down the corridor like he owned it.
Elliot trotted to catch up, eying him suspiciously. “I don’t remember seeing you around school. When did you start?”
“I huvnae yet.”
Wentworth pushed open the door to the music room and held it as he waved Elliot inside.
“Then how did you know to lead me here?”
“The debate before yours didnae have you in it. I got bored so I poked aboot, and this and the art room were unlocked.”
“The adjudicators use the art room to make their decisions.” Elliot patted a rack of coats. “This room is used for storage.”
Wentworth seated himself at the piano across the room and Elliot couldn’t look away from his long, thick-knuckled fingers as they rested lightly atop ivory keys. Such large hands, so carefully poised. Elliot rested his forearms on the top of the piano case.
“I may not dazzle you the way watching you debate dazzled me,” Wentworth said. “But perhaps I can assuage your fear of my singing.”
Wentworth touched the keys and began, his fingers flying with easy grace as he played and sang. The melody vibrated through the piano and into Elliot’s chest: Rocketman.
This was not his mum’s half-remembered, off-key murmuring of lyrics.
This was . . . magic.
Wentworth finished, eyes shut, like he too had been transported somewhere else. When he reopened his eyes, they immediately adopted a twinkle. “What are your other objections?”
Elliot laughed. “You’re very sure of yourself. But, I admit, I like it.”
“Go on.”
“You sing and play beautifully.”
“I intend to be a songwriter. One day.”
“A famous songwriter, my husband . . . anything else you’ve decided for your future?”
“My own boat to live on, as soon as I turn eighteen.”
Elliot sighed in mock-misery. “We’ll never work.”
Wentworth swivelled on his stool, facing him. “Elliot.”
“Wentworth?”
“What are yer plans for this afternoon?”
“Convincing you that getting married would be a bad idea?”
“Just for the record, I dinnae mean to run off and apply for a marriage license today. I’m no that crazy.”
“Are you sure?”
A lopsided grin. “It is all very inconvenient.”
“Inconvenient?”
“It was never supposed to happen this way. Not until I was thirty, at least. But then last night. I just wanted a breath of fresh air and I look over the deck and . . . there you were. The most beautiful guy I’ve ever seen.”
