Page 49 of Second Song

This comes out thickly. “Thought you were worried about being a mentor?”

Charles beams just as someone else calls out my name.

Liam.

He’s on the other side of the new worksite barrier, and he isn’t empty-handed. “Got something for you.” He holds out a new and shiny hard hat. “You know, just in case you get the urge to get yourself in trouble.”

I’m still on the far side of the sandpit, still with an audience of Charles and all the children. I can’t help powering straight across it, only I use the plank bridge to avoid trampling Asa’s hard work and what Charles sketched as being half empty.

Empty?

I’m full to the brim with praise and with something else that tingles once I reach the fence and stretch but can’t quite reach what Liam offers. I laugh and go up on tiptoes, leaning out even further, still not quite able to reach or to name what bubbles over when he vaults that extra barrier between us.

Liam stops me from overbalancing with one hand while crowning me with his other, and sure, he does that with a hard hat, not with something gold or sparkly, but it settles on my head to a chorus of admiring ohs and ahs, which is just as well. The children’s cooing masks his quiet, “Stop trying to break your bloody neck, will you?”

He hasn’t let go of my shoulder. Isn’t done adjusting the hard hat. Won’t quit smiling with only his eyes, and I didn’t know that was possible until he showed me so often. It’s like I walked around with my eyes closed until I met him. “You’ll need this.” He taps my new hat. “If you want to see what I just dug up.” His gaze shifts over my shoulder. “I know you’re busy, but I found something pretty special. Made me think of you right away. Come and find me after school finishes if you aren’t on duty?”

He backs away as the bell rings for lunchtime, and the rest of Dominic Dymond’s crew pass by with their lunch boxes. Liam doesn’t join them at the picnic benches where they gather. He heads away in the other direction.

To be on his own.

I don’t need to turn back to Charles to check if this is the right decision. He’s already told me I’ve got good instincts.

Wait until school is over?

I go to find Liam much sooner.

19

ROWAN

Charles excuses me from my lunch duty. “No problem. I know Teo will help if I need extra hands. Just don’t forget to be safe.”

Maybe I’m as bad as Liam, jumping to a protective conclusion. “I’m one hundred percent safe with Liam.” I’ve never been more certain.

Charles only smiles. “I meant, be safe if you’re going anywhere you might actually need this.” He taps my hard hat. “But that’s very good to know about him.”

The hat almost falls off when I run after Liam, slipping over my eyes when I duck under a barrier cordoning off the library hallway. Light spills through a window at its far end, spotlighting where Liam leans against a wall built from the same stone I’m reminded of each time I see him—and whenever I’m alone, to be honest. There really is something so substantial about him. Something incredibly strong and solid.

He must be having a good tinnitus day—he hears me coming.

Liam straightens and it’s still surprising how such a small shift in his expression can make huge changes. He’s on high alert, entirely focussed on me hurrying down the hallway towards him, so of course I almost stumble. My hat does fall. He catches it before it can strike floor tile gritty with evidence that Maisie was right about work inside the library already starting. He places the hat back on my head, ignoring my attempt to straighten it myself. “Look up.”

I do, which means I catch the moment where he stops studying the fit and his gaze drops.

To me.

He lets out a small sound, and sure, I’ve got a musical vocab to rival the emotional one Charles threads through his classroom, but describing that not quite oh? This almost-sigh? I don’t have words for Liam, full stop. I just know I want to hear more from him and I can, now that almost everyone is in the dining hall or in the playground.

A final few students hurry in that direction. Their footsteps cut off as that hallway door closes behind them, and for once its thud doesn’t register. I only go still because Liam’s gaze is fixed on my mouth, and I’m nowhere close to frozen.

I’m splashed with warmth that comes from more than the puddle of sunshine we stand in. A sudden flush only makes me warmer the moment I blurt, “I can’t kiss you.”

His eyebrows rise as if to ask, “No?”

I shake my head, almost sure he’s teasing me even without speaking. “No. No kissing. Not when I’m technically on duty.”

More footsteps echo—proving my point, I guess, because he backs off, but only to move a barrier. He also lifts yellow and black tape that spells stay away as vividly as wasp stripes. His hand around mine doesn’t send the same back-off message. It pulls me into a library empty of books and missing its shelves. It does have a new supporting wall and steel beams. The only sign of demolition is that gap in the back wall. It’s bigger now, shrouded with thicker construction fabric than last week’s netting, and that’s where he leads me.

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