To Mend a Broken Wing, page 16
“I haven’t.” I squeezed his arse as he writhed against me. “Fuck knows why.”
“You were waiting for me.” He let out a breathy laugh around my mouth and, with a final grind of his hips, pulled away.
“Later,” he promised. “You and me. After cricket training.”
*
THE FOUR OF us found ourselves wandering around the open day together, seeing as the church graveyard conveniently sat only a hop, skip, and a jump away from the college. Surprise, surprise, the cheese shop was virtually opposite. With relief, I discovered I wasn’t the oldest prospective student, nor the only guy accompanied by his dad (although I bet I was the only one whose dad had done time for murder). On account of Marcel’s asthma, we perused the stands and classroom displays at a snail’s pace, Marcel winning the award for looking the least likely person interested in signing up for a motor vehicle maintenance course.
“It’s a bit pricey,” I observed sourly because, yes, even though each time I so much as glanced at Toby, my cock grew hard, I’d also regressed into the adolescent space that mushroomed in my head whenever I had to take a leap into the unknown. What I really meant, although no one managed to translate, was that the college and the course seemed fantastic, but I was scared I’d probably fuck it up and drop out after three months, exactly like the last time I attempted to make something of my life.
“That nice administrative lady said you’d be eligible for an adult-learner grant,” Toby offered, ignoring my moodiness. He was quite good at that. “That would go part of the way to covering it.”
I’d done the sums already. If I looked for a bar job with more hours, rented a cheap room somewhere in Allenmouth, like in a student house or something, then in a year or two, with the grant supplementing me, I could maybe afford the course. Better still, find a job in a garage and save up while learning the basics. Assuming I stuck at a job, of course.
“My bar work won’t be enough to cover the rest.”
Putting up barriers seemed to be my default. Each time one of the current students or enthusiastic tutors bounded over, I morphed into Kevin the Teenager. Interestingly, Guillaume appeared equally sullen; anyone would think we were related or something. Fortunately, Marcel and Toby negotiated every conversation with consummate ease—I learned a hell of a lot more about the course from their polite questioning of the tutors than I would ever have done on my own.
“I’ve already thought of that.” Marcel patted my shoulder. Guillaume sensibly stayed quiet. In fact, he’d been quiet the whole time. He’d thumbed through a few brochures and given the appearance of listening when one of the teachers ran through the Level Two modules, but other than that, nothing. I wondered what he was thinking. And then wondered why I cared. We hardly knew each other.
“You could take out a loan.”
I harrumphed. Marcel was a nice guy, but he lived in cloud cuckoo land. “Who the hell would give me a loan?”
I certainly wouldn’t. I wasn’t a safe bet. The bar job at the Rossingley Arms was the longest position I’d ever held, and if I hadn’t fallen in love with the vicar’s son, I’m not sure I’d still be doing that.
Shit, am I in love with the vicar’s son? I pictured Toby, red hair splayed out on the pillow behind his head, lips parted in anticipation of my mouth on his. And then I dared look across at him, patiently flicking through a brochure on how to diagnose chassis system faults. Sensing my eyes on him, he looked up and gave me a flash of dimples. Oh my God, I think I am. I gasped aloud as comprehension dawned.
“It’s not that stupid a suggestion,” Marcel added, seeing my alarm.
“No…um…it’s not that. It’s…um…I don’t think the bank would give me one.”
“I would though. And you can pay me back a bit at a time when you qualify and begin working properly. Like a bank, except I wouldn’t charge as much interest.”
“What if I dropped out and didn’t pay you back? Because I probably would drop out, you know. I never stick at anything.”
He shrugged. “All investments carry risk.” He shot his husband a sly smile. “But sometimes, I assure you, the gains can be enormous.”
The offer stunned me and, at the same time, felt like an enormous responsibility. Why on earth would he volunteer to do something like that? He’d done so much for me already, not least dipping into his pocket to bring me back to the UK and finding me a place to stay with Lucien. He’d be throwing good money after bad.
“I…um…”
“My dear, you don’t have to give me an answer today. The offer will stand for as long as you need it.”
Toby tore himself away from his thrilling reading material and jerked his head towards the exit. He gave me a tentative thumbs-up, and I nodded back, ready to leave too. My brain was full of all the things I wanted to share but didn’t know how to start—my feelings for Toby; Marcel’s generous offer; my sullen father and me, mirroring each other perfectly; committing to the bloody course…
Marcel took my arm with an apologetic look. “Do you mind if I use you as a crutch? Guillaume has his hands full.”
I glanced at Guillaume, who inexplicably had managed to spread carrying a small bag of cheese, Marcel’s coat, and a pile of brochures over both his hands. Toby had engaged him in a conversation about Stilton cheese. As we continued dawdling along, Marcel with his arm through mine and keeping up a running commentary, I realised I didn’t mind at all.
*
“HOW DO YOU think it went today?” asked Toby, lacing up his trainers. I tried not to stare, but it was difficult because he had an impressive technique of tucking the straight lace under his other foot to tauten it, then performing a very clever sleight of hand with his thumb and forefinger. For that feat alone, I needed to kiss him again, and maybe more, but it would have to wait because we had an audience, namely our shambolic estate cricket team.
“Yeah, good.” My word power required some work. Seemed I was yet to emerge from the teenage regression mode I’d adopted after spending the morning with Guillaume and Marcel. The thing was, I’d enjoyed myself—they were good company and so dorkishly sweet on each other it made me laugh. So why did I have this ball of stubbornness curled inside that prevented me from smiling and joining in, from behaving fucking normally around them like I did when I was alone with Toby? Why couldn’t I show them I could be lovable? Why did I hide the nice parts of myself away behind this tiresome shield of sullenness whenever they proffered the hand of friendship?
Because I’m an idiot, that’s why.
Watching the vicar’s son, who you have fallen in love with, covertly appreciating your father’s athletic physique was kind of annoying. Especially when your father looked so damn good for his age and barely seemed aware of the fact. Seeing as he was going to be on the team for the summer match, he’d joined us at cricket practice, and from the way he filled out a tracksuit, he still took his football and fitness seriously.
“What?” Toby smirked, when he spotted me pouting. “I’m only checking out how you’re gonna shape up in twenty years’ time.” His eyelashes lowered in a slow blink. “Not bad at all. Maybe you should visit me again tonight so I can compare notes.”
Blood rushed to my cheeks en route to my groin, then settled in downstairs for the foreseeable future. Which made for an uncomfortable jog around the south garden. How was I supposed to concentrate on improving my off-spin bowling after a comment like that?
My father demonstrated his high level of fitness by lapping us in the warmup. Followed by an exhibition of his apparent ease wielding a cricket bat before almost absently performing uninterrupted keepy-uppys with a cricket ball while awaiting his turn to bowl.
“Stop ogling him. He’s ancient. And I’m the jealous type, remember?”
Toby side-eyed me as he removed his cricket helmet. In unspoken agreement, we’d deliberately not spent the training session paired up. I might not have been able to keep my hands off him if we had.
“How much longer are we training for tonight?”
“Ages,” Toby groaned. “Your father joining the squad has given us a new lease of life. Jay is treating us to drinks down the pub afterwards to celebrate our newest team member. It’s a three-line whip.”
*
BEING ON THE customer side of the bar in the pub felt strange. Even more strange was being part a group of blokes. Not only was I part of them, but dressed in similar sports kit, I looked like I belonged too. And while I didn’t know everybody in the village, not like Toby, who had encyclopaedic knowledge of each inhabitant right down to their inside leg measurements, a few of the regulars gave me a nod in greeting before turning back to their pints.
Farmer Giles was there, of course, with his cronies. Toby’s spies had informed him the young farmers team had been practising hard too. Since I’d sent him packing, our paths had crossed a couple of times, and I half expected some sort of retaliation. But as Toby predicted, he merely blanked me because to acknowledge what I’d done would be tacit acknowledgement of a hell of a lot more. I almost, but not quite, felt sorry for him. I might not have much to my name—for example, I didn’t have two hundred and fifty head of cattle, a decent paying job, or a Land Rover—but neither did I live a lie every day, and I reckoned that had to count for something.
Seeing Guillaume squashed around a table, chinwagging with Reuben, also felt peculiar. Reuben, one slim leg elegantly crossed over the other, was smartly kitted out in high-end leisurewear, no doubt selected by Freddie. Guillaume, equally effortlessly chic and contained, sipped at a small cup of coffee. Every time Reuben demonstrated his point by madly waving his arms around, he nodded coolly and occasionally shrugged. Not a pint of ale or cheese-and-onion crisp between them. They couldn’t have stood out as French any more than if they’d worn berets and looped strings of onions around their necks.
I wondered what they talked about in their slurring, indecipherable language. A lot of shared history probably.
“It was okay, wasn’t it, being at the open day with Guillaume?”
Toby brought his gin and tonic over and took the stool next to me, no longer able to pretend he’d much rather listen to Joe and Lee arguing about who had the driest winter log store last year. His knee brushed against mine and stayed there, sending me a shivery preview of what was to come later. I glanced up to find Reuben gifting me a knowing raised eyebrow. Sometimes it felt as if this village was populated by MI5 agents.
“Yeah.” I nodded because, weirdly, it had been. Although Guillaume had spent the morning as quiet and grumpy-looking as I’d probably sounded.
“He didn’t seem to enjoy it though. He just followed Marcel around. So I don’t know why he bothered coming, really.”
“Yes, he did!” Toby contradicted. “But if you think about it, he’s missed out on a lot of normal stuff that people do by being in prison. You know, like going to college, job-seeking, etcetera. It was as new for him as it was for you.”
To be fair, that had never occurred to me. He threw me a sly grin. “And also, he was probably concentrating on not saying the wrong thing, such as ‘Noah, please sign up for the bloody course because I want you to have a career and be secure and happy’. All parents, even unpractised ones like Guillaume, know that if they offer an opinion, their kids will likely do the exact opposite.”
I shook my head at him; he reminded me of Eliza at breakfast this morning, explaining her five different excuses as to why she hadn’t done her reading practice. Always with an answer for everything.
“And how could you possibly know that? Are you a mind reader now?”
Toby’s look informed me I’d asked a stupid question—Eliza was quite adept at that too. “Listen. The defensive, hostile, pouty thing Guillaume had going all morning—like he’d got a set of knuckle dusters in his pocket he was itching to find an excuse to put to good use—was his ‘I protect my own or die trying’ face.”
“You’re ridiculous.” I took a swig of beer to disguise how funny I found him.
He shrugged carelessly and hummed. “I suppose it could have been his ‘I’m going to fuck you incredibly slowly and precisely until you beg and scream’ face—I bet the two are quite similar. But I suspect he’d already done fucking that morning, judging from how his expression changed utterly every time he smiled at Marcel. So, by process of elimination, it must have been the ‘you mess with my son, and I’ll mess with you’ version.”
Snorting with laughter, I lifted my beer glass and attempted to swallow another mouthful without it spurting out of my nose. Fucking hell. Discussing my ex-con father’s sex life with the son of the vicar. In a pub full of blokes, droning on about organic fertiliser and the price of red diesel. And both our fathers sitting not three feet away.
“You are so going to pay for that slow fucking comment later, Toby. You have been warned!”
“Can’t wait,” he teased, and nor could I. I really, really wanted to finish my pint and drag him back home so I could show him, slowly and precisely myself, exactly how I’d make him pay. Needing to touch him, I chanced a hand on his thigh under the table and let my fingers drift to the inner edge of his tracksuit bottoms, travelling along the rough seam. Which made my own trouser situation even worse, so I stopped before Reuben noticed.
The really funny thing was, Toby had bloody nailed Guillaume to a tee. Hostile and defensive was an excellent way to describe his behaviour that morning. And he was bang on about everything else too; all of Guillaume’s expressions were exceedingly fierce unless aimed at Marcel. I grinned at Toby and let my foot rest lightly over his, but only because kissing him was not currently an option.
“And you are convinced of the reasons behind Guillaume’s fucking scary expression at the open day how exactly?”
He shrugged again, and his lips quirked as he leaned closer, so his breath brushed my temple as he spoke. Suddenly, I didn’t care if Reuben, Farmer Giles, or my father saw us together and drew conclusions. “Because, Noah, it’s the same as the face you made when you tried to suffocate Joe with his own sweater for taking the piss out of me at training. And when you smacked Rob around the jaw.”
A flush of scarlet swept across his cheeks. “The pouty look you gave me afterwards was the same too.” He blushed even more. “You’re giving it me now.”
“I don’t pout!”
“Yes, you do. You’re pouting now.”
Chapter Seventeen
Toby
HOW WAS IT that I could read the same four-page baby book with Orlando over and over, and never experience a smidgen of impatience, yet found watching the cricket team finish off their last pints at a glacial pace as tedious as hearing my mum’s Easter sermon for at least the thousandth time?
I knew why, of course. Noah’s innocent expression whenever his foot pressed down on top of mine under the table. And the bob of his Adam’s apple each time he swallowed a mouthful of Guinness, followed by the mesmerising slow sweep of a thumb across his wet lower lip afterwards. His sinful dark eyes, the same colour as the ale he drank, snapped up to mine every time he did it, knowing exactly the effect it damn well had. Even the presence of both our fathers, my uncle, and Reuben, waffling on about the impact of climate change on crop harvesting times in southwestern France couldn’t dampen my anticipation of what was to come later.
That frustrating tedium was nothing compared to the lift home in Jay’s Land Rover, squashed in the back between Reuben, Guillaume, and a kid’s booster seat, while Noah sat in the front with Jay, discussing the pros and cons of electric cars. An established alcoholic lightweight, Reuben had reached his absolute hard limit of two pints of lager and drunkenly embarked on a monologue in his native tongue, which from his lewd hand gestures, appeared to be an outline of Freddie’s welcome home from his modelling assignment tomorrow.
“I’d love to, sounds great,” I heard Noah respond to Jay over the din of Reuben and Guillaume’s spontaneous French sing-along. He twisted around in his seat and smirked at me.
“Would you be able to take my bag inside? Jay’s going to show me under the bonnet of the E-Type.”
“Cool,” I replied through gritted teeth and pulled a face behind his back as he fiddled with his phone. My own vibrated in my pocket a second later.
Warm the bed up for me.
*
BY THE TIME Noah crept into my room, my body dangled by a thread off the far end of a spectrum progressing from sexually frustrated to volcanic eruption. A vigorous sneeze would have been enough to trigger my balls to explode. Thank God Noah was on the same page.
“That Jag is bloody awesome, but fuck, not tonight,” he said, kicking my bedroom door closed behind him. He strode over to where I lay propped up on pillows and carelessly toed off his trainers. “For all I was taking it in, Jay could have been showing me a Reliant Robin.”
Staring with restless eyes, he licked his lips. “God, Toby. I’ve thought about this all day.”
Whereas last night had been all tender exploration and politely keeping his hands to himself, tonight, Noah had worked out that men didn’t require a carefully choreographed dance prior to sex; they just needed to have a pulse and be breathing in and out. Straddling my hips, he dove straight for my mouth.
I inhaled the scent of warm beer and clean skin until his no-holds-barred kiss systematically cleared my mind of everything except the sweet sensation of his mouth invading mine. Could I come from being kissed by him alone? Probably. As his hands clawed my hair and panting noises of utter relief escaped both of us, I barely held on and thrust up through the duvet to find relief.
“Noah,” I managed to get out. “I’m gonna…”
“Me too.”
Pausing in his quest to suck out my tonsils, he tugged the duvet aside, then sat back and, in one swift movement, ripped off his sweater and T-shirt, revealing an acre of flawless caramel skin. A vibrant tattoo swept across his right shoulder down to the point of his elbow. In the dim light, I made out an open tiger’s jaw swallowing black Celtic writing inside a green sundial or something. Who the fuck cared? The whole package was fucking glorious. If the brief separation of our bodies was meant to calm us down, it was having the opposite effect.
