Mrs Williams either didn’t notice or didn’t care and steamrollered right over the pair of them. “—that you’ve been having some bullying issues, and these lads have decided our Cian might be a good way to get at you?”
Max swallowed.
Cian apparently hadn’t known. His eyes widened, and he shot an incredulous look at Max.
“Seriously?” he said. “That gobby one thinks he can pull one over on me?”
“It’s not him you need to worry about,” Max mumbled.
It wasn’t. Cian could—would—kick Jazz into next year.
“Which one is it, then?”
“The one with the boots.”
“Oh, right. Tim.”
“Tom.”
“Tim sounds better.”
“Zip it,” Mrs Williams trilled, and Cian rolled his eyes but closed his mouth. “Why is…Tom…?”
“Yeah.”
“Why is he a problem?”
“He likes to kick people in the head. With his boots on,” Max said.
“I see.”
“He pushed a kid down the stairs last year and broke him. And he’s shoved my head in urinals and—”
He said it too fast, too much, and shut his mouth.
“He’s violent,” Aunt Donna said. “He’s been expelled from Max’s school after the last incident, which landed Max in the hospital.”
Mrs Williams’ smile dimmed and then suddenly returned.
“We’re not unfamiliar with such problems,” she said tactfully, and Cian groaned.
“Mum.”
“Cian’s had his fair share,” she continued, as though he’d never spoken. “Has there been anything specific said?”
Fuck her.
“No,” Max said. “Not really.”
Well, it wasn’t really. It wasn’t a threat—just the sort of generic stupid crap Jazz would come out with about any girl.
Only…
“Um.”
Max glanced at Cian. Back at Cian’s mum. At Aunt Donna. Could he say it? Could he just—
“Can I talk to Cian on our own?”
“You’re hardly in a locked room, dear.”
He flushed hotly but squared his shoulders and glanced at Cian, who shrugged and levered himself out of the chair like it was an effort. They crossed the room in step, slipped out onto the dark metal stairs, and closed the door behind them like it was a closet and a crowd was waiting inside.
“What?” Cian said.
“I might have let slip you’re trans.”
Cian frowned. “What, to Jazz?”
“Yeah. He said—he said he’d fuck you up, or fuck you, and I said that made him gay because you’re a boy. Only you’d said you were a lesbian, so—”
“But you didn’t say the T-word?”
“No.”
“Reckon he’s smart enough to figure it out?”
“Yeah,” Max admitted. “He did—uh. Well. Said. You know—‘tranny.’ He’s not totally thick. Aidan and Tom are, but not Jazz.”
Cian shrugged. “Okay. Well. It’s not exactly dead secret round our way. Some people know. Some people who’ve tried to give me shit for it know.”
“Your mum knows though, right?”
Cian snorted. “Well, yeah.”
“I don’t know!”
“Yeah, she does. Is that it?”
“Well, yeah…”
“Good, it’s cold.”
Cian wandered back inside like nothing had happened, and Max followed. Aunt Donna and Mrs Williams were discussing the matter as though there’d been no interruption, and Cian collapsed back into his selected chair with a thump.
“I know what Tom looks like,” he told his mother. “I’ll just avoid him. No problem.”
“If Tom wants to talk to you, he talks to you,” Max said.
“Then I’ll break his nose,” Cian said, shrugging. “It’ll be just like Ryan Cutter.”
“Who?”
“This kid who tried to touch me up at school once. I broke his arm in three places.”
“You also got suspended,” Mrs Williams said dryly, but then she chuckled and looked at Aunt Donna. “I do appreciate the warning, but my brood tend to be a bit more…wildfire than your Max, I suspect. We tend to have a bit of a brutal approach to bullying.”
Aunt Donna’s mouth twitched. “Maybe Max could do with a bit of wildfire. He’s a little too reluctant to engage.”
“Cian could do with some reluctance now and then.”
“Hey!” Cian objected.
“Don’t make me tell them what happened in Year Seven,” his mother warned and then rustled to her feet. Like Max, she had to haul herself upright. Unlike Max, she didn’t seem to be in the least bit self-conscious about it. “Come on, dear. Time to get home. You know the bumblebees will be kicking up a fuss if they don’t get fed and watered by seven.”
She shepherded Cian out effortlessly, Cian waving a casual goodbye before starting to bend her ear about Saturday and someone called David, and then—just like that—they were gone.
“Bumblebees?” Aunt Donna asked.
“I don’t know,” Max mumbled.
“She seems nice.”
“Um. Yeah? I guess?”
“Always good to have a nice mother-in-law.”
“Aunt Donna!”
THAT NIGHT, MAX found himself going through the moves he knew in his head, one by one. Sweeps. Shin strikes. Body kicks. Push kicks. Always ending with that elbow strike. The devastating blow that could fell the enemy with one thump of bone and a whole lot of blood.
He cycled through them, always ending with that blow, over and over.
What if he did grade on Saturday?
It would be the first time he’d ever done anything like that. Over the years, Aunt Donna had signed him up for every sports club going, but he’d never achieved anything. He’d dropped out of swimming club before the team trials, too ashamed to show his bulk in public. He’d never even shown up at the football club. And his times at the athletics club had been so poor they’d never even recorded them. Why bother? Might as well have labelled him Last by Miles Max.
But he might grade on Saturday.
It seemed absurdly soon to Max. It had only been six weeks. But then he’d been going five times a week, minimum. And Lewis had said he ought to start the proper classes.
Staring up at the HMS Bulwark in the dark—the very first ship he and Grandpa had built, when Max had only been seven years old—Max felt a lump forming in his throat.
If he could do this, maybe…maybe he wasn’t the failure of the family after all.
Maybe there was something Fatso Farrier could be good at.
“If I grade,” he told the ship, “then—then I’ll go to the proper class.”
If.
“Promise, Grandpa.”
The ship—and, of course, Grandpa—didn’t reply.
Chapter Fifteen
MAX FIGURED OUT the next day that Cian didn’t listen to his mum very much.
Because when he shuffled out of school expecting his afternoon to consist of going home, eating a couple of packets of biscuits in front of the telly, and getting the evening off from training as usual, he instead found Cian sitting on the wall opposite the main entrance.
“Hey,” he said and grinned.
“What are you doing here?” Max demanded.
Cian shrugged. “Want to hang out?”
Max’s eyes raked the crowd of school uniforms. “What if Jazz sees you!” he hissed.
“So what if he does,” Cian said and slid off the wall. He was wearing military combat trousers and a tight white T-shirt that was…distracting. At best.
“Uh,” Max said.
“So? Want to hang out? No training today.”
“You always have training.”
“Not today. Come out to play, Max!” he added in a sing-song voice, and thin fingers seized around Max’s wrist, digging into the flesh. Max’s arm sizzled. “Come on; let’s go do something.�
��
“Like what?” Max asked stupidly.
“I don’t know. Anything. Cinema? There’s some good stuff showing. Or bad stuff, if you want to make fun of it.”
For some reason, with Cian’s fingers wrapped around his wrist like that, Max’s only objection was: “In my uniform?”
Cian laughed. “All right, fine. Your place first so I can ogle you while you change, and then we can go do something?”
The idea of anyone—least of all Cian—ogling him in a good way while he changed made Max’s belly squirm. Not altogether unpleasantly.
“Okay,” he heard himself saying.
And then Cian’s hand was in his.
Max stared.
They were…holding hands. Cian’s fingers were intertwined with his own. Long. Thin. Pale against his pink sausage-fingers. And then they squeezed, and Max’s entire arm jumped as if he’d been electrocuted.
“You have to lead this train,” Cian said, grinning. “I don’t know where your house is.”
“Uh—”
Usually, it was a bus ride away. Two miles, which was one point nine miles more than Max ever walked anywhere. But with Cian’s hand in his…
“It’s a long walk.”
“It’s a nice day,” Cian countered.
His thumb was rubbing the side of Max’s knuckle.
Max swallowed. His throat rasped.
“Yeah,” he mumbled and started to walk.
Nobody looked twice. The tight T-shirt meant there was a sort of…bump on Cian’s chest where Max imagined he had…uh. A chest. But nobody stared as they cut through the town centre, which meant they thought Cian was a girl, only—
Only he didn’t look it.
He had biceps inching out of the tight sleeves. His hair was all sticking up and crazy like he’d washed it and just run a hand through it as a means of combing it. And he walked in long strides like Max’s, fluid and idle.
Max’s chest squeezed.
He looked like—he.
A boy.
Max was holding hands with a boy.
And he wanted to—
Well.
He wanted to do lots of things. Like…like kiss him. Or touch that little slip of skin that appeared between trousers and T-shirt occasionally. Or—and this one made Max’s heart beat a little too out of control—put his mouth on the jut of hip that was pushing at the combats every time Cian’s right leg was in front of the left.
There was a freckle there. On the hip bone. And Max wanted to touch it.
And—the stuff below it.
On someone who looked just like a boy, right at that moment, and Max still wanted to do it.
“I’m bisexual,” he mumbled.
“What?” Cian asked, cutting off mid-flow about some story about his day.
Max’s face flooded with heat despite the coolness of the trees as they entered the park. The shadowed paths and soft, salt-tinged breeze soothed every part of his skin except for the burning in his face and the electric hum where Cian’s fingers touched his own.
“Nothing.”
“You’re bi?”
“Um. Yeah. Must be.”
“Must be?”
Max huffed, blowing up into his hair in an attempt to stop flushing.
“You look like a boy right now,” he told the air determinedly. “Really like a boy. And I still want to—do stuff. So. Yeah. Must be.”
Cian said nothing.
Then he stopped walking, and Max was pulled to a stop by the iron grip on his hand. Another hand was pushing his shoulder, and there was tree bark at his back and grass under his shoes.
And then there were two hands on his neck and none in his hands.
Cian’s body was long and firm as he moulded himself up against Max, all rough clothes and hard frame underneath.
But his lips were soft and sweet on Max’s mouth and tasted like the sea. Salt and summer.
Max put his sweaty palms on Cian’s trouser-clad hips—to dry them, just to dry them, nothing else—and…
Breathed.
Felt.
Basked.
The shade of the trees was cool.
Everything else burned.
“I DON’T THINK I should come in,” Cian said.
They were standing outside Max’s front door. His skin was going pink in the blazing sun. And that freckle on his hip wouldn’t leave Max’s mind.
“Why?” Max asked.
They were joined at the hands again, and Max’s mouth was buzzing like they were still joined at the mouth in the shade of the trees.
“Because if I do,” Cian said, “then you’re going to get changed. And I’ll be in the same room. And then I’ll want to—do stuff.”
Max licked his lips.
“We could do stuff,” he said quietly.
Cian shook his head. “No. We couldn’t.”
He didn’t want to ask. But he did want to ask. But—
“So—wait here?”
Cian wanted to hold his hand. Cian wanted to kiss him. Cian wanted—and didn’t, at the same time, but still wanted—to do other stuff involving…being inside and Max getting changed.
It was all a bit dizzying, and Max’s heart was pounding against his ribs harder than it did in the gym.
“Wait here?” he repeated. “I’ll be quick. Promise.”
Cian slowly stepped back. His fingers pulled free, in tiny tugs like they didn’t want to slip free. Max swore he could feel the very whorls of fingerprints on his skin.
Then Cian pulled himself up on the gate and sat there.
“Okay.”
Max turned—and barrelled into the house.
He slammed the front door so hard he heard Mum yelp in the kitchen. He pounded up the stairs, dropping his bag, tie, and shoes on individual steps. He burst into his room with a speed he’d not managed since he was nine and shed the rest of his clothes across the carpet as he yanked open drawers for replacements. A black T-shirt was shoved over his head—maybe it would hide the pit stains from this oppressive summer—and he found his favourite jeans, designed in a combat style with additional pockets down the legs that went some way to disguising his bulk. The waistband felt loose, and he huffed before finding a belt. Mum must have stretched them in the wash or something.
“Max? Is that you?”
“Yeah, going out again, just getting changed!” he yelled.
“There’s someone on the gate, darling!”
“It’s Cian!”
“You can’t leave him there!”
“We’re going out!” he hollered as he found the new trainers Aunt Donna had bought him for Christmas. He’d not broken them to pieces under his weight yet, and they were stripey. Blue and white. Nice.
The front door opened again, and he heard Mum’s soft voice rumbling gently. He paused a second to peer in the mirror, spiking up his hair with his hands hopefully before taking a deep breath.
Jesus.
He’d had to leave a boy outside because said boy would want to do things with him.
Sexy type things.
Jesus.
“You got this,” Max told his reflection, for maybe the first time ever, and took another deep breath before walking out of his room, calm as though he did this every day.
Mum stared as he casually walked back downstairs. Cian, still sitting on the gate, beamed and gave him a very obvious once-over that made the now-loose jeans just a little bit tighter.
“Let’s go,” Max said, ignoring his mother.
“Oh, I see,” Mum said, and he knew from the way she said it that she was smiling. “Well. Got your phone, dear?”
“Yeah.”
“Have fun.”
Then she shut the door behind him, and Cian laughed.
“Your mum’s awesome.”
Max shrugged. “Yeah, well. She’s okay.”
“She’s awesome, man, no wonder she turned out you.” Cian slid off the gate. He held out his hand again, fingers spread. Palm open.
Max w
ound their fingers together, tight and sure.
“Is this a—thing?” he asked.
“A thing?”
“A date-type thing.”
“I don’t know,” Cian said, but the grin was taking up most of his face. “I think it’s pretty clear I like you. I get the idea you like me. I guess it depends on what kind of film you want to see.”
Max swallowed.
He shouldn’t do it. Fatso Farriers didn’t get the gir—guy.
Only—Cian was holding his hand. Had kissed him against a tree for thirteen whole minutes. Where anybody could see. Cian wanted him, however crazy it was.
“Something we’ve both seen before, or we don’t actually want to see anyway,” he said.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. You know. I won’t be watching it anyway.”
Cian’s fingers squeezed tight.
“Then yeah,” he said. “I guess this is a date-type thing.”
Chapter Sixteen
HE HAD A boyfriend.
Fatso Farrier, the most pathetic lump west of Portsmouth, had a boyfriend. Was dating. Could change his Facebook status to ‘in a relationship.’
Not that he would, because word would get back to Jazz and co., but still. He could have done.
He had a boyfriend.
And to top it off, his boyfriend was fit and funny and wanted to touch Max even when he was sweaty and shagged out at class.
Especially when he was sweaty and shagged out.
That sort of thing just didn’t happen to people like Max. Nobody wanted their boyfriends to be fat, useless nobodies.
Only then Cian had said all that stuff when they’d first kissed, and for a brief moment—just a second, when he smiled—Max had believed him.
And every time Cian turned that smile on him or kissed him or twisted his fingers into Max’s like they belonged there, Max believed him just a little bit more.
Which was why, when Mrs Pellow called him aside at the end of history on Friday afternoon and said, “Your form teacher says you haven’t put your options forms in,” Max—rather than walking out or making excuses—hesitated.
The options form.
A single sheet of paper on which he was supposed to list what courses he wanted to do in the sixth form. For the last two years of school he was desperate to get out of. For the last two years that would just be more torment by Jazz and his crew, and of no use to a nobody like Max anyway.
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