Page 4 of Second Story

Whoever has come out for a midnight beach walk could fill the pages of one of the romance novels Mum used to mainline. He’s broad enough to be a hero until his shoulders bow and he stops stargazing, like he doesn’t deserve any of tonight’s glitter. That’s a fantasy I can roll with, especially when he runs both hands through thick, dark hair and shakes his head.

Because he’s angry?

Maybe yes—he breaks into a shadowboxing stance, light on his feet for a big guy, and I get a glimpse of raised fists and tattooed forearms guarding his profile when he gives the nightair a volley of swift one-two punches followed by a mighty roundhouse.

Perhaps no—his guard drops and his head hangs again in a silhouette of disappointment instead of anger. I always appreciate a tortured soul in my bedtime reading, someone who needs all his angst banged out of his system.

I could help him with that.

I hold in a snort at my imagination running rampant as he walks away. He reaches the water’s edge, where I fully expect this story to end with him turning back and for the full moon to spotlight an average person instead of fictional boyfriend material.

Only he doesn’t turn back.

He peels his clothes off instead.

His T-shirt goes first, meaty biceps bunching then flexing as he shakes out tangled fabric. The moon showcases more ink splashed across his back before he peels jeans over the kind of quads sported by Lenny’s action figure. They’re thick. So is my blood circulation. It slows even more when he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of clinging jersey boxers, then bends, and I quickly check that Lenny is out for the count before taking a good long look at the second full moon of the evening.

Stop staring.

What I actually do is lean closer to the windscreen and swallow, my mouth as dry as my sex life since I became a de facto dad with zero warning. Lenny’s needed me this whole year. To growl at social workers. To snarl whenever they suggested foster care might be better for him. To be his lion—apart from the one and only time I let anyone see that I’m actually as weak as a fucking kitten.

That had been a disaster.

This striptease feels like a glimpse into a different future until I grasp exactly what I’m seeing.

He’s leaving everything behind.

Alarm bells ring at that neat pile of clothing. At him crouching beside it and crossing himself. And at his head hanging one last time before he stands to wade into night-dark water.

Almost a week ago, I sat in a library and wished someone would save me from drowning.

I can’t let a real one happen.

At least Lenny still sleeps. That means I can slide out of the van, quietly close the door, and take off running.

I pelt down a concrete slipway, skidding on dry sand, my arms wheeling for balance until I reach the beach, where I pound over firmer sand. It’s the second time today I’ve sprinted. The first was after getting news of a machete. I find some more fuel in my tank for another burst of speed and enough air to shout, “Stop!”

He doesn’t.

He wades out further, hip-deep now, and maybe unable to hear me over waves that crash like my harsh breathing.

“Hey! Stop!” I sprint past that pile of clothing, and I know what it’s like to be left with nothing but the contents of a wardrobe. To miss the person who should wear those left-behind clothes. I also know what a librarian once taught me—I find my voice and roar for a complete stranger.

“Don’t you fucking dare!”

He stops wading. Then he shakes his head as if I’m a buzzing wasp instead of someone with a hidden scar like Luke Lawson mentioned.

I couldn’t tell Glynn Harber’s headmaster what happened a year ago to Mum and has kept me on high alert ever since, trusting no one since Joe. Now the aftermath spills out, and forget me roaring like a big cat.

This rips from my soul the same way the police ripped Mum away from us with no warning.

“Someone’s gonna miss you.”

The breeze whips me with salted water. My eyes sting for a different reason.

“And they’ll wish to fuck they’d had a chance to turn the clock back. Don’t do that to them.”

I yell what a long twelve months with an increasingly quiet brother has taught me.

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