Page 50 of Hold On

“Why not? You’d make a better job of it than the last few we’ve had.”

“I wouldn’t ever want to do a job like that. Though I would like to do something that would make a difference to people’s lives. Once I’ve worked out a way to support myself, I’ll find something to volunteer for. Lifeboat crew, animal shelter, soup kitchen. Assuming they’d have me. I suspect they wouldn’t.”

Ren had never thought of doing anything like that.

“I wish I had IT skills. I might look for training in that. I could only do so much inside with no internet access. I understand why they don’t allow it in prison but you’d have thought they could have blocked certain sites or activities.”

“My IT skills are legendary. I could teach you.”

Dominic shot him a glance. “There’s a lot you could teach me. You’ve already started.”

Ren’s heart thumped. “How to whoop?”

“That was my first whoop in a long while. I’m hoping for many more.”

Ren chuckled.

“Even though I knew it was going to be difficult when I was released, it was still a shock to understand that for all the exams I’ve passed, for all the information I’ve absorbed, I’ve never done the most basic things: washing windows, using a hoover, ironing, passing the time of day with strangers, driving, shopping, making a choice over the simplest thing…”

“Enjoying yourself.”

Dominic looked straight at him. “Yes. It seemed low on my list of priorities, but that was a mistake. I had fun at the beach.”

“You only had fun at the beach? There wasn’t a wood somewhere that you had fun in?”

Dominic’s wide smile warmed Ren’s heart. “I was hoping for a hill to have fun on too.”

“Where are we going to find one of those!”

But Ren was already moving stuff aside so he could get closer to Dominic. He pushed him down and lay beside him, their faces close together.

“I have the feeling it’s impossible not to have fun with you,” Dominic whispered. “I’m beginning to wonder if I stepped in front of your bike on purpose.”

Ren felt as if his heart had cracked in two. “It was my fault and if you weren’t bruised to shit, I’d be glad it happened. Fuck it. Iamglad. Sorry. But we wouldn’t have met, would we? And I’m happy we did.”

“All’s well that ends well.”

“This isn’t ending yet. It’s only just beginning.”

The look of raw hope on Dominic’s face made Ren wish he’d not said that. What could he promise? What right did he have to give Dominic hope when Ren hadn’t even told him the truth? Especially about what he’d done that he shouldn’t have.

Maybe Dominic saw something on his face that worried him because Ren felt him withdrawing. Not physically, but in his head. Not what Ren wanted.

“I feel you should know that I’ve kissed you more than I’ve kissed anyone in the last ten years,” Ren said quietly. “I might have been able to sayin foreverbut we’re not going for that record because I took part in a how-long-can-you-keep-kissing contest in a gay club when I was twenty. It was not easy. Nor was it romantic.”

“How long did you manage to keep going?”

“Twenty-two hours and thirty-six minutes before Jason Blount fell asleep—the bastard—and we lost.”

“Oh my God.”

“That was the first and last time I kissed him. We thought it would be easier if we didn’t fancy each other. Maybe it was but I hadn’t counted on him falling asleep. I was devastated.”

Dominic’s smile was giving him goose bumps.

“Devastated because you lost the contest or because someone could fall asleep while you were kissing them?”

“Free drinks for a year? My heart broke.”

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