Page 75 of Second Story

What I actually do is deliver a little boy to his red-eyed daddy along with a simple puzzle for twins to solve together. Then I go spend a morning helping Hugo.

Before I know it, it’s afternoon and time for the introductory talk Luke suggested ahead of agreeing to more workshops. A trial of my own, I guess.

These sixth-form students are all London transplants, boys and girls who could give me a run for my past-crimes money. Noah sits in the back row of the classroom. He’s warmed up around me lately, but here, flanked by kids I know share our accent, he’s silent. So are they. Even my usual dad jokes get me nowhere. Girls sigh, so unimpressed, and boys yawn. It doesn’t help that the windows in this classroom give me a primo view of Isaac.

He isn’t in his library. He’s in that outdoor classroom, and if he reads a story, he does it empty-handed, leading little ones on a journey of discovery. Of dance, while Rowan plays a penny whistle. Of imagination, that involves the kids building something out of cardboard boxes.

“A car.”

“You what, sir?”

I’m dragged back to the reality of this classroom and a sea of the same expressions I used to mirror, back when being seen as a hard man was all that mattered. These kids are just as flinty, just as icy, until Luke pops in to see how we’re doing.

Most of them melt in a hurry for him.

That’s what I need them to do with me, and soon, if Luke is gonna agree to more than one talk from me. And after the last few weeks, I want that so much. Fuck it, I’ve wanted to be closer to Isaac for a whole lot longer if I count the first time I saw him rise to a caring challenge.

He’s my inspiration, my reason for getting brutally honest in a hurry, all while his new boss sits in to listen.

“I said a car because that’s what got me on the road to earning these.” I slip out of my jacket and roll up my shirt sleeves, aware of sharp inhalations. For once, I want to hear them. Need to, if I’m going to leave a lasting impression on kids who could so easily follow in my wannabe top-boy footsteps or fall victim to the same exploitation as Emma Webber. “The first time I got arrested was for TWOCing. Taking a car without consent.”

I didn’t need to translate that shorthand. They all speak my language. A few of them lean forward, so I keep going.

“I stole it as a way to prove myself to a gang that used to hang out at a boxing club. I was never much of a fighter, but I wanted to be noticed, so I served them up a shiny Range Rover without thinking ahead.”

A hard-faced girl squints at the ruin of my scar tissue. “You crash it?”

I guess the reason for that question. “No. These burns aren’t from a car fire. And all I learned that first time was to avoid stealing motors with built-in trackers.” I snort softly at past-me who had wanted to belong so badly. “Might as well have driven it straight to the feds instead of to their chop shop. It took me a few more years and a string of arrests to earn these.” I touch the spatter of marks on the back of my hand, but it’s little Adam I picture, with his pile of puzzle boxes. “Each arrest stacked up. Got me closer to the top of a hierarchy I thought meant I was finally accepted. You know what all that trying to be a big man really was?”

I look at that sea of faces. They’re still noncommittal. Still sitting behind desks with their arms crossed. A tough crowd to warm up, unlike Isaac’s kids outside in early summer sunshine.

That gets me moving.

“I’d tell you, but showing you is probably better. If we can take this conversation outside?”

Because that’s what this needs to be—a two-way discussion, not a lecture.

Luke nods, and we end up at the front door of the school, the playground to one side, the car park to the other, and I head for a van parked in the shade of a tall willow. I get them to wait there while hurrying to the outdoor classroom. “Can I borrow your van for a demonstration?”

Isaac blinks but doesn’t need convincing, and I tuck that trust away along with this morning’s saved kiss before stopping him from digging in his own pocket. “I don’t need the keys.” I do need tools, which Glynn Harber’s resident giant lends to me.

“Thanks, Hayden.” I jog back to the van with a borrowed toolbox and a question for this group of unimpressed teens.

“One of you try the door. Is it locked or unlocked?”

Noah finds out for me. “Locked.”

“And the other side?” Another student finds out the same, and I’m sure Luke must wonder what the fuck I’m doing by demonstrating how to pop locks, but they stop hanging back the moment I open the driver side door and make that look easy. “Every sentence I served as a youth offender only taught me new skills like this.”

I don’t need a key to start the engine. I work my car-thief magic until it coughs and hiccups, which lets me show these kids what it took more than acid to burn into me.

“You know what would have been more useful than serving time each time I was arrested?” I kill an engine that already sounds at death’s door and go sit in the opening of the side door. That’s where I grab a couple of books from a collection that Isaac curated for kids sentenced to missing a parent. “It would have been better for me to learn how to deal with losing my Mum at thirteen.” I add more books to my stack. “Or how to grieve in a family of men who don’t do emotion.”

Adding another book to my stack comes with Luke nodding from behind these kids who have stopped hanging back. They edge closer to hear me spit facts. “If I’d known how to deal with that, it might have been easier to deal with the reality of being gay in a world where being a hard man mattered.” I shake my head. “So there I was, with two strikes against me. Some of you have more than that already. Believe me, finding sketchy ways to fit in didn’t work out for me. Neither did overcompensating.”

I top my stack with a fourth book and with a final confession.

“Everything I did was to stop hurting. I didn’t know enough to ask myself if the people I was desperate to fit in with would help me climb life’s ladders or if they wanted to knock me down a few rungs to prove they were more powerful.” Hindsight has me shaking my head. “The thing is, once you’re in too deep, digging yourself out isn’t easy. Sound familiar?”

---