Page 66 of He's the One

“If you feel tired, or get a headache, we go back, okay?”Please want to go back.“This time last night you were getting your head bashed in.”

“Thank you for reminding me.”

“You’re welcome.”Don’t look right.At least Col was between him and his nemesis.

“There’s a covered place up ahead. We can sit and look at the water.”

“If we can’t find anything better to do.”

Col chuckled.

“If you’re feeling okay tomorrow, come at ten and I’ll take you to see James.”

“Going to hold my hand?”

James would probably be delighted but… “Apart from Robert, why have you broken up with yournot a lotof boyfriends?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“So I don’t do something to annoy you.”

Col smiled. “They were nothing like you. They all turned out to be arseholes.”

“Present company excepted?”

“I’m reserving judgement.”

“Eek. That was a manly squeak in case you wondered.”

“Stop worrying. So far, so good.”

“Were you good at art when you were at school?” Theo asked.A safer topic.

“Not the best but not bad. I worked really hard. Dominic wanted me to do well. He put more pressure on me than Mum and Dad. They always saidjust do your best, no one can ask for more.Dominic wanted me to succeed because he couldn’t. He was clever. Not that our birth parents cared. He took exams inside the young offender institute he was sent to, and he got top grades even though he’d had to teach himself for several months. He wanted me to go to university, but that was a step too far. He wasn’t pleased. He still isn’t. But I love what I do. What I did.”

“Despite not wanting to go to university because I was scared of the social side of it, let alone the academic side, the attraction of not living at home for several months of the year was appealing. But I sort of twisted the truth when I said I wasn’t singled out at school. I mostly wasn’t, but I wasn’t clever. Not the worst in the class because there was no way I could let that happen, but… One of my teachers said he thought I might have some sort of learning disability.”

“Why couldn’t you cope?” Col pulled him into the promenade shelter and they sat down, thigh to thigh, still holding hands.

Theo kept his gaze down, away from the sea. “I was okay with GCSEs—mostly, because I could memorise what I needed to know, though it took me hours, a lot of them spent under the covers of my bed with a torch, but once I started studying for A levels, I came unstuck. The teachers went too fast for me to take legible notes and by the end of the lesson I was doodling in my book. I struggled with the quantity of information they gave us. Remembering it all was impossible, and I couldn’t distinguish between what wehadto know and what was additional detail for the bright kids. I’d struggled with chemistry and I suddenly found A Level geography had chemistry in it. Soil composition and… I freaked out. It was too complicated. I fell behind, then I fellwaybehind. I dropped one subject—marketing, to give me more time for the other two—geography and history. Everyone had to do General Studies. I got three Ds. Some universities would have taken me, but not ones my parents approved of, and not to do any subject I was interested in. So the official line was that I’d be staying at home, learning the role I’d one day have to take on.”

“An apprenticeship, like me.”

“You’re right.”

“In a different world, what would you like to be?”

“Ah. Don’t laugh.”

Col caught hold of Theo’s chin and lifted his head so they were facing each other. “I would never tread on someone’s dreams.”

Theo swallowed at the lump in his throat. “Do you want a realistic answer or an—if I was super clever—answer?”

“Both.”

“If I was super clever, I’d be a vet. If I wasn’t who I was, maybe I’d run an animal sanctuary. I don’t mean to imply you don’t need to be super clever to run an animal sanctuary, but you don’t have to spend several years studying for a degree. I don’t think. I wanted to have a sanctuary at the hall. I was tasked with suggesting ways for Asquith to attract more visitors and that was one of my suggestions. Shot down, as were the others. That’s what I’d been doing the day you saved me from that falling stone, listening to my parents—my mother mostly—say no to just about everything I suggested.”

“Tell me,” Col said and pulled him in closer, wrapping his arm over Theo’s shoulders.

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