Page 44 of Second Song

He makes a good suggestion. “You’ve got time for a short hike, at least. There’s nothing like the moors for blowing the week away, especially up on the tors.”

His favourite place, I remember. He qualifies that.

“You probably won’t have time to climb High Tor, but Whisper Tor has some unique acoustics you might enjoy.”

“Acoustics?” Rowan drifts closer, something in his box jingling. “What do you mean?”

“Go and find out for yourself. Make some noise at its base and see what happens. Just watch out for the quarry.” He nods at the box Rowan carries. “What’s this?”

“All the child-sized percussion instruments I’ve found so far.” Rowan tilts it towards us. There aren’t many. “Wish I had Mum’s old box of tricks.”

His students leave for the day and, after a quick dash back to his rooms to change, he meets me back at the barrier. His hair is shower damp, water trickling down his neck that he wipes at. “Sorry, sorry. I was a mess. Busy afternoon crafting. Now I just need to grab my boots from the classroom.” He does, only to hesitate as soon as the door closes behind him with a loud click.

He suddenly stills, his smile gone, and if I didn’t already know that he’s too fearless for his own good, I’d guess he was nervous. That makes me speak up. “What was in your mum’s box of tricks, then?”

“Oh.” He’s back to smiling, although this one is wistful. “All kinds of things to make noise with. Some beautiful wooden instruments, but some simple ones that we made together as well.”

“Like?”

“Like empty Pringles tubes. She’d get me to fill them with dried peas. I’d always spill them in the van.” He laughs, and that’s better. Whatever cloud covered his sunshine is gone. “I’d forgotten that.”

I steer him towards the car park. “Why’d she get you to do that?”

“Fill Pringles tubes with peas? Probably to keep me busy on road trips.”

“To those music festivals you mentioned?”

We reach my van, where he looks back over his shoulder. “Yes,” he says once he turns back. “She ran kids’ music sessions at loads of them every summer.” He also spills the real reason for that hesitation. “We really don’t have to do what Luke suggested. My… my rooms are that way. If you came back to?—”

“To pick up where we left off?” I do want him naked in the worst way, but it seems like he needs to hear this even more. “I’ve been thinking about that all week.” I’ve also been thinking of what led up to me getting to my knees for him—about how he’d walked me through a garden and then listened to everything that flooded out, and fuck me, there’d been plenty. But floods are what happen when dams breaks, aren’t they?

That’s what I’ve had to face all week long with only tinnitus for company.

The truth is that I’ve been running away from the meetup offer Matt keeps extending.

Six or seven hours to Blackpool? I’d have driven to the moon to avoid going back to Devon with him. Meanwhile, Rowan just keeps sprinting up to the edge of what should scare him. He does it right now by darting in for one of his too-quick kisses and saying, “Let’s go find this quarry.” Death wish, I tell you. “And you can tell me how your week went in Blackpool.”

“You want to hear about it?” What I really want is his dazzling smile back. It re-emerges as soon as I start talking and is still there every time I glance sideways on the drive to the moors.

Rowan listens all the way, and I wouldn’t have said I had a lot to tell him, but his attention means I talk him through my week and find extra detail even after parking, like how it felt to be on the outside of a work crew compared to Dom’s teasing welcome. That’s when he speaks up.

“His little girl is a sweetheart.” He gets out of the van. “She must get it from somewhere. I bet his crew makes you just as welcome when you get started with them.” He rounds the van to join me. “They’ll include you.”

I don’t tell him that the men I worked with this week tried to. It’s me who can’t ever wait to leave wherever I wash up. I settle for crossing moorland with Rowan beside me.

“You’re quiet,” he says after a while.

“Just being careful.” This moorland terrain roughens as it climbs towards rocky outcrops, and Luke Lawson was right, we’ll have to save High Tor for a different day. One when the sun is brighter, instead of setting like now, so it’s easier to spot rocks hidden by bracken. Rowan still finds each one like he’s trying to break both ankles.

I slide an arm around him. “You might want to try that once in a while.”

“Being careful?” He snorts, but he’s also a good reason to keep one eye on the edge of the deep quarry we come to. That’s where I hold him tighter. It’s also where we kiss in the shadow of a sleeping granite giant, and I’m glad I turned down the York job. It means I get to see what happens after we walk some more, and I turn him to face the base of a tor his boss suggested would surprise him. “You want to try something risky? Go ahead and make some noise. Go for it, Row. Sing your fucking heart out.”

“I don’t. Can’t,” he says bleakly. “Performance issues, remember? I don’t sing in front of people.” He hurries to add, “Not that you’re the same as ‘people.’ You’re…” His forehead creases, and I can’t let him struggle to describe this difference. It’s only what I’ve had hours to mull over on the way back.

This is different.

We’re different to every hookup I’ve had while running from my old life, so that’s what I tell him. “You know how many people I’d drive all the way back only to spend an hour or two with?”

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