Page 76 of The Fete of Summer

“Bollocks.”

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t that,” said Nathan, chuckling to himself. “Fonder, I think the word is.”

Apparently, Jaymes was not feeling the humour.

“Absence from you has made me angry and frustrated. I should never have taken the job.”

“Jay, you’d already accepted the position before we met. And I know you love what you do from the way you talk about it.”

“I still do. But there’s never been a conflict before.”

Nathan didn’t know how to respond, so wrapped an arm across Jaymes’ midriff and kissed his chest. A loud grumble of hunger issued from Jaymes’ stomach, vibrating through Nathan’s arm and causing him to chuckle.

“We need to get you fed. You must be famished. When are you flying back?”

“Next Saturday. We have the whole week.”

“I’m surprised they agreed to let you have time away. You’ve barely completed two months. How did you manage to pull that off?”

Finally, a faint smile touched Jaymes’ lips as he stared at the ceiling.

“A very insightful question that has a less-than-simple answer. In theory, I’m actually here for work. Hence, I had to use a lot of the flight time to get something hastily put together. A day after I got to Malaysia, I received an email from the president of the London Royal University. She’s good friends with the head of operations in Kota Kinabalu. We’ve spoken many times in the past, mainly on an informal basis, about the work I’ve been doing. Next week they have this global conference going on over here, and they’d originally asked me to provide a one-hour video-link lecture. Last week she asked the head if they could fly me over to provide four one-hour lectures on Monday, followed by my participation in workshops the rest of the week.”

“Which also meant you could be here. That turned out well.”

“Not without a bit of careful manipulating. You see, I know she wants to have a serious talk with me about the position as a lecturer in their Natural Sciences faculty. My contacts tell me the position is still vacant. She’s been on at me about doing this for the past few years. And if she—the faculty—wants me, I’m going to accept.”

“Of course they’ll still want you,” said Nathan, sitting up quickly and facing Jaymes, astonished. “Back here in the UK? When would that be? And where is this Royal University? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Jaymes smiled and gently pulled Nathan’s head back onto his shoulder.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The campus is in London. I don’t know the full details yet, but I have a suspicion they’ll want me to start at the beginning of the new term, next September.”

“What about Malaysia? And New Zealand?”

“I’ll still have those commitments. But I’ll also have a base here in England. And the college position would give me plenty of free time between terms, which I’d hope to use to continue my field research, something I’m fairly sure the college would actively encourage.”

“I thought travelling the world and working outside for a living was your dream.”

This time Jaymes leant down to bring their lips together and kissed Nathan almost chastely.

“Dreams change.”

The kiss became something more. Jaymes pulled Nathan on top of him, pulling their bodies together until Jaymes’ stomach rumbled and growled again so loudly that both of them laughed and lost the moment.

“You know what? I figured this day would be a long one. So I knocked up a batch of chilli and made some baked jacket potatoes. In case Polly or any others came back. How about I heat those for us while you go and shower?”

“How about we prepare food together once we’rebothshowered?”

“Still the same shower, Jay, I’m afraid. Gonna be a huge squeeze with both of us in there.”

“Excellent. Another one I can cross off my ‘missing Nate’ list.”

* * * *

Later, dressed in sweatshirts and pants, they sat in comfortable silence at Nathan’s small dining room table, enjoying soft music on the radio. A bowl of chilli and a bottle of cold beer sat in front of each of them. Nathan marvelled at how much he had missed this simple, quiet time together. As he sat smiling at Jaymes who had released a satiated sigh and pushed away from the table, a warm bare foot landed gently on his own. Eventually, Nathan broke the silence.

“You still haven’t answered my question. About who was in on this covert operation.”

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