No.
He hadn’t put it in.
Of course he hadn’t. It was at home, sitting on the desk in his bedroom under a stack of other things he hadn’t done. What did he want to do A-Levels and BTECs for? What use would they be to him behind the counter in Aunt Donna’s shop, selling spark plugs and screwdrivers for the rest of his life?
Yet none of it came tripping off Max’s tongue.
He opened his mouth and nothing came out at all.
“You’re better than this, Max,” Mrs Pellow said quietly. “You’re smart. You’ve got the passion for it. Put your form in. Do something with your ability.”
She sounded like Lewis.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what you want to do yet—”
He was grading on Saturday. He had a boyfriend. And now Mrs Pellow wanted his options form, and Max couldn’t find the words.
What was going on?
“Navy.”
It slipped out. Just slithered out around his tongue like someone else had put it there.
Instantly, he recoiled. No. Stupid. A boyfriend and a boxing club didn’t mean he was going to end up a bloody admiral. He was being ridiculous.
“Doesn’t matter,” he backtracked quickly. “Navy wouldn’t want someone like me.”
“Someone clever with a passion for naval history?” Mrs Pellow countered. “Someone who is deliberately failing geography because he sits next to Thomas Fallowfield and doesn’t want to be an even bigger target than he already is?”
Max’s head shot up to stare at her.
“We know, Max. You lot don’t give us teachers enough credit.”
“It—it doesn’t matter—”
“Tom isn’t here anymore,” she said softly. “And you have a bright future ahead of you if you’d only grasp it. Put your form in.”
Max dropped his head again and shrugged awkwardly.
“Don’t want to do two more years.”
“So to avoid it, you’ll throw away university? A good career? An officer’s position?”
Officer.
It rang over Max’s skin, bright and gaudy. An officer. Like Dad. Like Grandpa.
He shook it off, an anger starting to bubble up in his chest. It wouldn’t happen. No matter how many qualifications he had, the Navy didn’t want shit from some fat lump like him.
“They wouldn’t have me. And I’ve got Aunt Donna’s shop.”
“Your potential—”
“What good’s potential when they wouldn’t take me anyway?” he demanded.
“Why wouldn’t they?”
Max felt his lip curl.
“Fatso Farrier.”
She flinched.
“I’d sink a ship if I boarded it.”
“Really.” Her voice was suddenly wintry, and Max shivered as though the room had frozen over. “I think maybe it’s time you had a good, long look in the mirror, Max. It’s been dropping off you for weeks. And if you put the boy in that mirror to task, body and brain, the Navy would snatch you up and never let go.”
Max scoffed at the floor. “What would you know?”
Silence. His palms felt slippery. His breathing was too fast. He’d never spoken back before. Not ever.
Then Mrs Pellow said, “Put your form in, Max.”
“Can I go?”
She sighed. Heavily. Something like guilt twinged in Max’s gut, but he didn’t yield. What was the point? If he started dreaming about the Navy like he had before Grandpa had died, then he’d just be setting himself up to fail. Better not to cause himself any more grief than he already had to deal with.
After all, two more years of school, two more years of Jazz and Aidan and Tom, two more years of eating his lunch on the sly in the library to avoid them, two more years of constantly looking over his shoulder—and for what?
So the Navy could reject a fat, qualified loser instead of an unqualified one.
No.
“Go on, then.”
Something like tears was blurring his vision, and something like shame was flooding his face with heat as he stumbled out of the classroom. The corridors were quiet. Mostly empty. He’d be late. Aunt Donna would be waiting.
He scrubbed at his eyes as he reached the bottom of the stairs—and so he never saw the boot.
But he felt it.
He tripped on it and went crashing to the floor. His phone flew out of his blazer pocket and skidded across the tiles. The crunch of glass, the squeak of rubber, said where it had landed.
And the voice cut through the heat in his head like an ice pick.
“You’re late, Fatso.”
The guilt and shame turned to anger, and Max shoved himself to his feet. He kicked at the shoe, too, and retrieved the battered phone.
“Whoa! Hold your horses, Fatso, I’m talking to you!”
A hand grabbed at his shoulder, but he shrugged it off and ploughed for the end of the corridor. Screw the locker. He’d just get yelled at for not turning in his homework next week. What did it matter? It never mattered.
The hand came back. His shoes squealed on the floor. The crunch of metal in his back was jarring.
And the fist in his gut doubled him up.
“I said,” Jazz hissed in his ear, hot and fetid, “that I’m talking to you.”
Max coughed, burbling uselessly.
“Say you’re sorry.”
His guts rolled. Jazz’s elbow hooked under his neck, the point nudging Max’s throat.
And Max sealed his lips shut.
“Say you’re fucking sorry, Fatso.”
No.
It was an insidious little whisper in the back of his head. And it sounded like Cian. No. Why should he? Mrs Pellow had no business telling him to put up with this for two more years. And Jazz had no business doing it.
“Fine.” The sneer deepened. “Guess we’ll have to teach you some manners.”
Max braced.
And—
Pain.
It exploded through his groin, and he dropped with a strangled cough. The elbow scraped his throat. Dizzying. Dangerous. The knee hit his face then. Bone crunched, hot and wet inside somewhere. Then—
Temple.
Both sides. A bone on one. Metal on the other. A deafening bang as his skull was smashed between leg and locker, again and again and again.
From very far away, he could hear Jazz shouting.
“You think you’re fucking better than me, Fatso? Do you? Do you?”
There was blood in his mouth. Thick and stringy. He tasted iron.
“You’re nothing, Fatso Farrier. You’re fucking nothing.”
Max—blinked.
There was a ringing in his ears, but the banging had stopped. There was a puddle of foamy, pink-tinged sick on the floor between his shaking hands. He was kneeling. All fours. Like a dog.
And there were shoes on the other side of the sick, and a smirk.
Jazz was squatting down to smirk at him, and one of the shoes was bloodied.
“Tom says hi,” Jazz breathed.
Max blinked again, but the image stayed the same.
“Do that again, and next time I won’t stop when you piss yourself. Got it, Fatso?”
Max nodded. His vision danced. The corridor swirled. So did his stomach.
“You know what happens to snitches, Fatso?”
Very carefully, Max shook his head.
“Snitches get stitches. You got me? Snitches. Get. Stitches.”
He was going to hurl.
“What happened here?”
The question was dangerously soft. And Max knew the answer off by heart.
“I tripped.”
“And?”
“Banged my head.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“Good. ’Cause if it’s something, something else will happen to your dyke bitch too. Got it?”
Max opened his mouth and spat. A glob of bloody sputum hit the floor.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Shoes squeaked. The spit floated in the sick, bobbing like a little bloody boat.
When the doors at the end of the corridor opened and closed, Max pushed himself to his feet. Swaying. Shaking. The soaked front of his trousers clung, heavy and clammy. His skin felt cold too. Sweaty. His hands scrabbled for purchase on the lockers, and he closed his eyes for a long minute to prevent himself from throwing up.
The corridor was still tinged pink. Everything was pink.
And—and if he said anything—
Cian.
He was going to be late for training.
When Max finally shuffled out to Aunt Donna’s idling van, he’d catalogued it all. Broken nose. Bruises. Cut head. He’d match Cian after Max had clobbered him in class.
Only that had been an—
“What the hell happened?” Aunt Donna demanded.
“Accident.”
She frowned. “What?”
“Tripped.”
“And?”
“Banged my head.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
Chapter Seventeen
MUM WAS CRYING.
Max could hear her from his room. Her and Aunt Donna arguing about what to do, and crying. Well, Mum. Aunt Donna was just swearing.
And Max felt—
Angry.
Mum would ignore him and Aunt Donna, tell the school, and Jazz would beat him up again for snitching. If he said nothing, Jazz would just keep doing it. And if he ratted Jazz out, Jazz would keep doing it anyway, because school wouldn’t stop him.
And Max hadn’t stopped him.
All Aunt Donna’s plans about boxing helping hadn’t done anything. He’d just let Jazz do it, because Fatso Farrier couldn’t even defend himself.
“Well, we’ll have to find somewhere else,” Mum shouted downstairs.
Max scowled at his ships and muttered, “There is nowhere else,” in time with Aunt Donna’s bellowed reply.
He knew how this would go. More crying. More arguing. Aunt Donna would suggest something else—tennis, karate, whatever—and Mum would shout that he wasn’t fat. He was just growing. Aunt Donna would shout, “Sideways!” And then Mum would scream that he wasn’t Donna’s son, and everything would go quiet before Aunt Donna stormed out.
Max was tired of it.
He was fat. He was pathetic. No amount of boxing or swimming or bloody Weight Watchers was going to change that. And no amount of talking to the school or moving around was ever going to get the target off his back rolls.
Suddenly he didn’t want to hear it.
The bed creaked as he heaved himself free. The rowing downstairs was so loud that, for the first time, he was able to shuffle down to the hall, shove his feet into his shoes, and slip outside without being caught.
Then he stood in the warm, dark night, face and head still aching, alone.
Now what?
IT WAS GONE nine when he got to the gym.
The last class was clearing out, and Max hovered by the courtyard gates, watching them. He’d walked up on a whim. He didn’t know if—
There.
It was the flash of fair hair that caught his eye, as Cian jogged down the stairs, weaving between the other boxers.
Max crept forward into the crack-pitted yard and yelled his name.
The rush of heat up his neck as everyone paused to stare—this fat intruder in a super-fit world—was bad. But the way Cian’s face changed when he smiled made the heat go away.
Well, not away. Just south.
“Hey,” Cian said, jogging over. “Lewis said you cancelled, and you’re not grading tomorrow. Is your face something to do with that?”
“Yeah, something,” Max said. “I tripped.”
“Uh-huh.”
Max rolled his eyes. Why bother? Cian kicked people in the head for sport. Like Jazz, but generally without his shoes on. And at least Cian only did it in the gym with people who’d given permission on the insurance forms.
Probably.
“Fine. Jazz kicked me. A lot. And I let him.”
“Oh, right. FYI, not my kink.”
The casual joke caught Max off guard, and he barked a stunned laugh.
“Did you kick him back?”
The laugh faded.
“No. Just fucking let him. Boxing’s not doing shit. I’m gonna quit.” Mum had said he could, before this. She’d definitely let him now, and not let Aunt Donna punish him for it.
“You’re not allowed to quit.”
“Yeah, well, Mum’s not going to let Aunt Donna make me come anymore, not no—hey!”
The slap flashed out of nowhere. The crack of Max’s palm, smashing Cian’s hand away before it could make contact, was loud in the gloom.
And Cian smiled.
“It’s working fine. Come anyway.”
Max frowned.
“I didn’t defend myself against Jazz.” He looked at his own hand like it didn’t belong to him. He hadn’t thought about the parry. He’d just…done it.
“You’re scared of him.”
Max opened his mouth to deny it—and then closed it again. What was the point? He was. Everybody knew it.
Including Jazz.
“Keep coming,” Cian said softly and then smirked again. “If you don’t, that’s one hundred percent less sweaty semi-nudity in your life. And mine. Not cool.”
Max huffed another laugh, feeling the heat starting to creep back up his neck but with an entirely different sensation.
“Speaking of nudity—” Cian’s fingers caught at his own. “Coming over?”
Max swallowed nervously. Go to Cian’s? To do—stuff? Like…?
“Er…”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Cian said and pulled.
Chapter Eighteen
CIAN LIVED AT the top of the hill.
It explained the rock-hard lines of his calves, Max decided, as they finally came over the crest into a nest of hedgerows and old cottages, and Cian got out a set of keys.
“Check out the view,” he said and turned on his heel to face the way they’d come.
Max should have cracked some cheesy line while obviously looking at Cian, but—well, it was hard to flirt with his face on fire and his legs turning to rubber underneath him. His lungs were doing a fair job of trying to explode out of his chest too.
So instead, he simply turned to look at said view.
And—froze.
Below them lay the town, its dirt and dinginess drawn away by distance. It nestled in the bay, suddenly beautiful. And beyond it—
A great, glittering expanse. The shimmer of the rising moon off the Channel was hypnotic. This far out, the sea was still but for that waver of light over water. In the distance, the soft lights of a ship were sailing serenely across the darkness.
Max’s breath caught in his chest.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Cian murmured.
It was more than beautiful. It was alluring. Coy. Dangerous—because from way up here, the sea looked so quiet and tame. So peaceful and powerless.
And she was anything but.
“I love the sea,” Cian said and Max’s gut clenched.
“Me too. My—my whole family’s in the Navy.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
Cian laughed softly. “So’s my stepdad. He’s out there right now. Somewhere.”
“You don’t know where?”
“No. Mum worries more if she knows. So he doesn’t say. We have to guess from his souvenirs when he comes home. What about yours?”
The peace and beauty was disturbed by the sharp pain in Max’s throat.
He swallowed.
“Dead.”
“Oh. Oh shit. I’m sorry, I—”
“I don’t remember him,” Max continued. “I was only three. But his whole family were in the Navy. All my uncles. Grandpa—”
His throat closed entirely.
Softly, Cian said, “Navy, too?”
“W
ar,” Max choked out, nodding.
“It’s in your blood, then?”
He nodded again, rendered mute by the sudden wave of sheer loss as he stared out at the water. The water his father and grandfather had crossed a thousand times. The water he’d never be able to feel surging under a deck beneath his feet.
“Lucky,” Cian said wistfully.
“What?”
“You. You’re lucky. I’ve always wanted to go to sea.”
“Really?”
“Mm. I could swim before I could walk. I love the water. But Mum never liked the idea of me going into the Navy. Not the place for people like me, you know? Took Dad two years of working on her just to get her to agree to letting me join the cadets.”
Max’s brain stalled.
“You’re in cadets?”
“Yeah.”
“Like—Sea Cadets?”
“Well, yeah.”
Max finally tore his eyes from the shimmering sea and fixed them firmly on Cian. Imagining the uniform. The beret. Out on exercises, getting w—
His throat closed again for a wholly different reason.
“Why don’t you join, if you like the sea and the Navy so much?” Cian asked.
“Cian.”
“You could join up, no problem, we always have space. And the Navy like taking on ex-cadets. And—”
“Cian.”
“What?”
“Can we go inside now?” Max asked.
Because his throat was dry and his palms were sweaty. And his body suddenly cared nothing for the hill and Jazz’s boots. It cared only about the boy in front of it, who had a cadet’s uniform somewhere in his house and talked about the sea like other people talked about love affairs.
Max was interested.
Visibly so.
Cian’s gaze flickered down and he briefly smirked.
Then slowly put the keys back in his pocket.
“No,” he said softly and then bit his lip. Max wanted to pull it and kiss him, and he shifted his weight uncomfortably. “But…”
“But?” Max prompted.
Cian’s gaze flicked down again.
Then he turned and began to walk along the little lane. Away from the cottages.
“Come on,” he said. “There’s a place where nobody will find us.”
AT THE END of the lane was a gate.
Beyond the gate was a path through a wood.
Big Man Page 10