Page 91 of Kiss Me Honey Hone

“We’re meant to be in the shadows. Unnoticeable.”

“You’re on my campus. I’m bound to bump into my students. I’m often here. It won’t be a surprise or a deterrent to see me sitting on a bench. Actually.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “There you go.” He waggled it. “Now I look like any other person hanging around.”

Jack snorted as Kenny went into his phone, using the time to read through a few emails, but his gaze kept lifting to the shop window, where Mel was now at the counter, and Aaron clambered across to give her a hug. They exchanged words, as well as a vape flavouring, which she paid for, then they chatted during a lull where Aaron threw his head back in laughter. God, he was stunning. Absolutely soul destroyinglystunning.

“You’ve been on that email a while,” Jack said, tucking his hands in his pockets. “Must be hard to read when your eyes are elsewhere.”

“Fuck off,” Kenny mumbled under his breath, then went back to reading his email.

A few seconds later, a shadow approached. “Dr Lyons?”

Kenny peered up at Melanie. “Hmm?”

Mel handed him a Cadbury’s Crème Egg, then hitched a thumb over her shoulder. “Aaron said he saw you out here and that’s your usual go to. Said he found it in a box out the back.”

Kenny accepted the chocolate, then peered around Mel to the window. Aaron winked, then went straight back to serving the next customer. Kenny’s heart leapt.Ridiculously.

“Thanks, Mel.”

Mel smiled and skipped off, strawberry flavoured vapour spreading around her.

“Didn’t it used to be apples?” Jack said from the other end of the bench.

“Did what?”

“What you gave a teacher to be their pet?” Jack nodded toward the shop. “Now it’s Crème Eggs and blowjobs.”

“Knows what I like, then.” Kenny unwrapped the foil of the egg and bit through the chocolate to lick out the sweet, creamy centre.

Jack scoffed and looked away, then after a moment, turned back. “Do you really think it’ll last?”

Kenny swallowed the gooey centre. “No.”

Jack blinked, as if not expecting that. “Then what are you doing?”

Kenny took his time finishing the egg, then tossed the foil wrapper into the bin beside him. “Doing what I do with those things every year. Having it while I can.”

Jack shook his head. “What, like some midlife crisis thing? You want to know if you, at forty-one, can still bang a hot twink of twenty?”

“No.” Kenny gazed at Aaron through the shop window. “I mean, sure, if you want to strip it down to its absolute simplicity. If that makes it easier for you to digest.”

“None of what you are doing is easy to digest.”

“Luckily, I’m not feeding it to you. Nor anyone else.Youare the one asking.”

“I just can’t understand it. What is it? Between you and him?”

“Something I have no control over.”

“Don’t bullshit me with that.”

Kenny sighed. “When you first met Fraser, was it fireworks and belly flutters?”

“Yes.”

“And when you met me?”

“There should have been alarm bells.”

---