Believe: A Skins Novel

by Garrett Leigh

  “That makes me sound like a melodramatic bitch. Like I’m acting as though you’ve died or something.”

  Jevon snorted. “I know you’re not a drama queen, son.”

  “Thanks, but still.” Rhys shrugged helplessly. “It’s so hard. I don’t want you to go, but at the same time, I know it’s so right that you do. I’m confused.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Jevon kissed Rhys’s forehead. His eyes were still hooded and sleepy, but empathy laced every gentle touch. “I wish you knew how much my heart is screaming at me not to go—to stay here with you—but—”

  “Don’t.” Rhys stopped him with a kiss of his own. “I get it. It’s killing me, but I know how important your work is—I’ve seen it.”

  “Seen it?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been YouTubing the fuck out of you the last few weeks.” A blush stole over Rhys’s face but he held Jevon’s gaze. “I saw the videos from Calais and Idomeni. What you do is amazing—it’s part of you—and I’d never ask you to give it up.”

  Jevon shrugged. “I could contribute from here, in the hospitals and the detention centres.”

  Rhys’s heart leapt as he considered the prospect but sank again just as fast. “I don’t think you could. I’m not saying that side of it isn’t important, but what about those kids getting off the boats in Greece? The ones that don’t make it to the UK? There’s plenty of clowns in this country, Jevon, but there ain’t many waiting on the beaches at Lesbos.”

  “Wow. You really have done your research.”

  “Not on purpose. I just missed you and wanted to know more about you than what makes you come.”

  Jevon sighed, shaking his head slightly at Rhys’s weak attempt at humour. “You’re right. I can’t give it up. Those kids, man . . . they need their childhood back, even if it’s just a few moments of laughter. I’m not a one-man band—there’s a crew of us, a troupe—but however much it’s going to kill me to leave you behind, I couldn’t live with myself if I walked away.”

  It was nothing Rhys hadn’t known already, but it hurt all the same. All the more because he knew Jevon was right. A Jevon who left his life’s work by the wayside wasn’t the man who’d stolen his heart. The hard way was the only way. “Can I ask you something?”

  Jevon sat up for real and tied his dreads back from his face. “Of course.”

  “How on earth did you end up being a clown? I mean, you’ve already told me how you got to working with kids and in the camps and stuff, but you never said how the clown skin became your vehicle for that.”

  Jevon smiled and shook his head. “I thought you were going to ask me why I chose the butt plug from your box.”

  “Nope. You don’t need to verbally explain that to me. I’ve seen it.”

  “Git.” Jevon rolled his eyes, but his expression fell serious again as he considered Rhys’s question. “I s’pose I should probably start by clarifying that I’m not just a clown, and definitely not the type people have nightmares about. It’s the easiest way to explain it when people ask, but I do other circus acts—acrobatics, trapeze, stuff like that.”

  Rhys groaned. “Stop. I’ve got such a fetish for acrobats.”

  “Lucky me. Anyway, it started when I was about six, I think? My sister was really ill for a long time. Clowning around and making her laugh was the only thing I could do to make her feel better. And . . . later, when I was at school and kids just wanted to touch my hair, throwing myself around was a good way of distracting them.”

  “And combining it with social work was a natural progression?”

  “I guess,” Jevon said. “It took a while because school didn’t pan out, but I went back and got a masters from the Open University eventually.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “Not really. It’s kind of sad we don’t have an education system that works for children who don’t fit in certain boxes, but that’s a rant for another day.”

  I could love him. “What’s your sister’s name?”

  The wry humour faded from Jevon’s face. “Melody, but she died when I was fourteen. Leukaemia.”

  “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  “Me too,” Jevon said. “She was a year older than me, but we were like twins until she got sick. After that, I grew up at her bedside.”

  “So you know first hand how much it means to make sick and sad children smile.”

  It wasn’t a question. More a realisation of what made this incredible man tick. And in any case, Jevon shook his head. “What I do now isn’t about me. It’s so much bigger, but at the same time painfully simple. Every child has the right to be anything they want to be. My job is to help them believe that.”

  Maybe I do love him.

  And maybe Jevon knew. He coaxed Rhys into laying his head in his lap and toyed with his hair, rubbed his neck, and stroked his face until Rhys’s mind quieted.

  He leaned down and put his lips to Rhys’s ear. “Go back to sleep. I’ve got you.”

  Camden was so Jevon. Vibrant. Alive. Rhys ambled beside him, their hands brushing with every step, and tried not to stare as Jevon drank it all in.

  “I should come here more,” Jevon said. “I’ve got cousins around here, and I’ve always loved it.”

  “You’ve got cousins everywhere.”

  Jevon laughed. “Big family, on my dad’s side, at least. My nan cooks Christmas dinner for thirty-plus people every year.”

  “We banned my mum from cooking. She’s awful at it, and Harry didn’t particularly like eating for a while.”

  Jevon shot Rhys a sideways look. “You never talk about your family.”

  “We’ve talked about Harry loads.”

  “Only because of Angelo.”

  Rhys hummed and stopped to buy some hot, spiced nuts from the Bolivian bloke who always seemed to be opposite the hemp stalls. Cradling the warm paper cup, they set off on their aimless wandering while Rhys pondered Jevon’s words. “I guess I don’t talk about them much because there’s not much to say. Me and Harry were proper mummy’s boys growing up, but it evolved into something else after my dad was gone. We didn’t all need to protect each other anymore, so we didn’t. We split off to live our own lives.”

  “Do you talk to your mum?”

  “Not often. Harry does.”

  “And you don’t talk to him either?”

  “I do talk to him, just not when he’s bugging me about stuff.”

  “What stuff?”

  Rhys flicked a cashew nut at Jevon. “Just stuff. What’s with the inquisition? You think my tragic childhood will make up for me being a wanker? Because it won’t. Sometimes I’m just a wanker.”

  “No, you think you’re a wanker, and you hide behind that when you don’t want to admit something upsets you. Like your dad. I know he hurt you.”

  Rhys couldn’t deny it. Didn’t want to. But he didn’t want to dissect it either. He scooped a handful of nuts out of the paper cup and crammed them into Jevon’s mouth. When he was satisfied Jevon would be chewing for a while, he gave him the short version of the truth. “My dad was a nightmare. A big drinker, a bully . . . everything you don’t want in a father. He kicked the shit out of all of us, and he went to prison in the end for breaking my ribs . . . stamping on my fingers, but by then Harry had grown into the Hulk and started hitting him back, so it didn’t matter anyway. Happy now?”

  Jevon swallowed. “I’m happy that you shared it with me. Not that it happened. Do you think that’s why you became a paramedic? To regain some control over caring for people? Protecting people? Because you couldn’t do it at home?”

  “Not in the slightest. I told you before, it’s just a job to me.”

  Jevon’s scepticism was as obvious as the chill in the frosty air, but he let it go. And Rhys was relieved. They’d constructed an unspoken agreement to make the most of the time they had left. He wasn’t going to waste a moment talking about his father or anything else he didn’t give a shit about.

  They walked past the markets and under the bri
dge. When they emerged, they found themselves surrounded by the kind of street performers you only saw in London. Beat poets fought for space with mime artists, jugglers, and buskers. Jevon drifted towards an old man playing a banjo, sitting on the pavement, his back to the wall of a burger bar.

  “Whatcha playing, mate?”

  “Marley, son.”

  Jevon eyed the collection of instruments piled up beside the man. “Got any bongos?”

  Of course he had. The man seemed to have everything spilling out of his tatty bag. He supplied Jevon with a set of bongo drums and struck up a funky rendition of “Is This Love.” Jevon played along for a while. Then he swapped his bongos for a more portable drum and began to dance.

  The sway of his hips was the sexiest thing Rhys had ever seen, and his smile was glorious. Infectious. A small crowd grew as Rhys moved aside to lean on a nearby lamp post. Children were drawn to Jevon. He beckoned them closer and said something to the old man, who nodded. Instruments were passed out, and suddenly the whole street was in motion—singing, dancing, laughing.

  Jevon got up in Rhys’s face, brandishing a set of maracas, but Rhys shook his head. “I ain’t Bez from the Happy Mondays.”

  Jevon’s laugh rang out even over the impromptu party he’d started on Camden High Street, and he danced away, taking more of Rhys’s heart with each step.

  Three songs later, and Rhys had a chill in his bones that could only be shifted by a drink, a blowjob, or a hot dinner.

  The burger bar offered two out of three, although the beer was the overpriced hipster slosh Rhys usually tried to avoid. “What’s in a Brixton bap?”

  “No idea.” Jevon handed his menu back to the server. “Guess we’ll find out, eh?”

  Rhys shrugged and ordered the Thai chicken patty. When the server had gone, he rested his elbows on the table. “I’m glad we came out.”

  “Me too. As much fun as losing a day to your bed is.”

  Rhys sniggered and drank some expensive beer. “We do have fun, don’t we?”

  “We do.”

  Jevon stirred the ice in his rum and Coke. “It’s nice to see you smile, too. I reckon we should—”

  A panicked scream and the screech of chairs being pushed back cut him off. Instinct turned Rhys around, his gaze quickly zeroing in on a table six feet away from them. A child strapped into a high chair was coughing, and the adults at the table were losing it.

  “He’s choking!” A man lurched to his feet and moved to stick his fingers down the child’s throat.

  Shit. Rhys dashed across the crowded restaurant, his stool crashing to the floor behind him. He reached the man before he could blink and shoved him away. “No! You’ll push the blockage further down.”

  The child had fallen silent, coughing cut off by whatever was lodged in his throat. Rhys unbuckled the high chair straps. “How old?”

  “Ten months,” the woman closest to the child gasped. “He’s ten months.”

  Rhys pulled the baby from the high chair and laid him face down on his bent leg, supporting his head, and aimed five firm blows with the heel of his hand between the child’s shoulder blades.

  Nothing happened.

  Rhys tried again, but whatever was blocking the baby’s airway wouldn’t budge. He tried to remember the last time he’d performed abdominal thrusts on a living patient this small but came up blank. He’d seen Marc do it, but Marc was pretty much God.

  Focus. Rhys sensed Jevon behind him and drew strength from the calmness that seeped from him anytime he was nearby with his clothes on. He turned the baby over and found the breastbone, pressing down sharply with two fingers. Again, nothing happened, but on the second cycle, finally, something moved. The baby coughed. Rhys turned him over and gently knocked his back until the wadded lump of bread spilled out of his mouth.

  The entire scene had unfolded in less than a minute, but when Rhys looked up, it seemed like a lifetime had passed. “You still need an ambulance,” he said to the circle of adults around him. “There might be more that hasn’t come out yet.”

  “I’m on the line with them now,” a man said. “They want to talk to you.”

  Rhys took the phone and gave his details to the 999 operator, smiling inwardly at the relief in the baby’s loved ones when they realised he was an actual paramedic, not some nutter who’d snatched their kid and lumped it one.

  A street crew was on their way. Rhys could’ve passed the baby back and returned to his dinner, but he didn’t, and he was still rubbing the tiny boy’s back when the ambulance rolled up a few minutes later.

  It was a crew he knew. He handed the baby over, debriefed them, and only then did he go back to his table.

  Jevon was waiting for him, new drinks and full plates of food ready. He was smirking.

  “What?” Rhys asked tiredly.

  “Nothing, brother. Eat your dinner.”

  Rhys shook his head and did as he was told. Sometimes regaining control came from someone else taking the reins, and the burgers were good. Rhys was hoovering up the last of the chips when a tall, broad-shouldered blond man emerged from the staff door of the restaurant and approached the table with a bottle of ridiculously expensive champagne.

  “Tom Fearnes—I’m one of the owners of Misfits.” He extended his hand. “Oh hey, Jevon. I didn’t realise it was your table that saved the day.”

  “Not me.” Jevon slapped the man—Tom—on the back. “It was Rhys.”

  “Well, whoever it was, trust me, you’re not paying for your meal.” Tom turned to Rhys. “Thank you. I can’t even contemplate what could’ve happened if you hadn’t been here. Our team are first aid trained, but I’m not sure any of them could’ve handled it the way you did.”

  Rhys shrugged. “Comes with the job. I can cook burgers at home, but not for a hundred people.”

  “Still.” Tom held out the champagne. “We’d like to give you this as a tiny token of our appreciation. It’s people like you that remind us what really matters.”

  He shook their hands again and walked away. Rhys watched him disappear into the kitchen, though he clearly wasn’t a chef, then cast a quizzical look at Jevon. “How do you know that hottie?”

  “Tom?”

  “No, the other blond hunk handing out the bubbly.”

  Jevon laughed. “He’s Efe’s boss. He owns the pizza place we were at the other week, this place, and a bunch of others in the city. Urban Soul? Ever heard of them?”

  “Nope.”

  “Fair enough. I don’t know him that well, to be honest. Just that he’s pretty awesome to Efe, and he has, like, two boyfriends.”

  “Two?”

  “Yup. Cass and Jake. I’ve never met them, but Efe says they’re every bit as hot as Tom.”

  A month ago, Rhys would’ve been fascinated, but his world had narrowed to just Jevon, and as sweet as the story was, he wasn’t interested. He drained his beer and pulled Jevon in for a surreptitious kiss. “Can we get out of here?”

  “Sure, but I can’t come back to yours. I’ve got to go home and start packing my life up.”

  Rhys nodded, ignoring the dread that slashed through him. “I’ll come to the station with you.”

  King’s Cross was on Rhys’s way home anyway, and they parted ways outside the over-ground platform that would take Jevon back to Bedford. “Look,” Rhys said. “I know I’m a bit of a drag when I go into one, but you were right earlier—I don’t want to waste the next few days sulking about you going.”

  “Make the most of it, eh?”

  “For sure.” Rhys tugged Jevon close and wrapped his arms round his waist. They kissed long and slow, but mindful of their public location, Rhys broke away before things got too hot. “I’ve got an early shift the day after tomorrow. Maybe I can come over?”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Jevon nuzzled Rhys’s jaw, then backed off. “Bring that champagne. We’ll have some fun.”

  He began to walk away. Rhys watched him go, lost in the elegant rise and fall of his lithe body. He a
lmost didn’t hear Jevon when he stopped at the ticket barriers and called his name. “What?”

  Jevon dragged an oyster card from his back pocket and swiped the barrier. “I said, if that shit you pulled in the restaurant is just a job, then I’m quitting mine to sell car insurance.”

  Fourteen

  Gearing up for an overseas deployment had always been a no brainer. The camps were where Jevon was meant to be, and he’d never questioned it. But it was different now. There was a line down his heart, blurred and cruel, and whichever way he turned, people got hurt. He got hurt.

  It didn’t help that time seemed to be slipping through his fingers. Two weeks had turned into one, and now he had only days left before he boarded the plane to Greece. Excitement warred with sadness, and the ominous dread in his bones got heavier with every passing day.

  Still, he’d promised Rhys they wouldn’t get bogged down in their impending separation, and that apparently meant pretending it wasn’t happening. Pretending this wouldn’t be Jevon’s last trip to London before he left.

  He got off the train at King’s Cross and walked straight into Rhys’s open arms, his smile wide enough to split his cheeks. “’Sup. You all good?”

  Rhys hummed. “Nothing a week’s kip wouldn’t cure.”

  “You haven’t slept?”

  “Nah. The overnight ran, uh, over. I haven’t been home.”

  Jevon stepped back, belatedly noticing the bag at Rhys’s feet and the clothes he often wore to and from the air ambulance base. “Damn. What do you want to do? Go home and rest for a while?”

  They had loose plans to visit Efe and go out for a few drinks before they returned to Rhys’s flat for the night, but Jevon would be as happy to hold Rhys in his arms as he slept. Happy to be anywhere as long as they were together.

  But Rhys shook his head. “I’m good. Just need a shower and a change of clothes and I’ll be right as rain.”

  On another day, Jevon might’ve argued that a shower couldn’t repair the damage from a twenty-four-hour shift, but this wasn’t an ordinary day.