“How hard?”
“Uh. Might have…loosened a tooth or two.”
“Mm, not bad. We’ll have to work on that, though.”
“Work on it?”
Why was Cian so close, yet still talking?
“Yeah. Next time, I fully expect you to break his jaw.”
“Just to defend your honour?”
He was right there.
“Yeah. That’s it. My honour.”
Max licked his lips. Cian’s gaze flickered down.
“It’s only proper,” Max murmured. “Can’t have him talking smack about my boyfriend.”
Cian grinned. “Right. So—”
Fuck it.
Max cupped that pale, freckled face in both hands and kissed him.
Said everything he wanted to, right there. Said everything he felt, right there. In the sun. Joined like they could never be parted. The sea rumbling beyond the wall. Gulls screaming in the air.
Katie’s sharp little shoe smacked him in the leg again, but Max didn’t stop.
If he could do this forever—just this, right here, forever—then he would.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
MRS WILLIAMS CAME to get Katie at four.
“But I don’t want to go to ballet!” the entire town was informed at the top of Katie’s lungs, and Cian pulled a face.
“I’ll get the bus back,” he said. “Enjoy the noise.”
The look his mother threw him could have turned milk, and Max sniggered as she drove off.
“I don’t think she’s your biggest fan right now,” he said.
“Wait ’til Katie tells her how many Starbursts I let her have.” Cian shuffled a little closer on the wall. “So.”
Max put his hand on Cian’s back pocket. Manners and all that.
“So,” he echoed.
“How about…”
Cian’s fingers were caught in the neck of Max’s T-shirt. Toying with his skin. Despite the heat, Max could feel goosebumps rising in their wake.
“…you and me…”
Cian’s sunburn had morphed into a new layer of freckles, and there was one right by his lower lip. Like, touching it. Max’s tongue itched to touch it too.
“…go somewhere quiet and play a game?”
“What kind of game?”
Cian’s eyebrows jumped up his face. “I dunno,” he whispered—and then grinned. Broke the spell. “Hide the sausage?”
Max burst out laughing. Cian yelped as they nearly overbalanced and then laughed and clung to Max’s shoulders, sniggering into his neck. Hot and warm and right there—
Oh hell, the spell was back.
“You said next time we’d need a hot tub.”
“Mm, good point. Could hide it somewhere else, though?”
Max’s fingers skittered in shock on Cian’s arse.
“Uh—really?”
“Sure.”
Max swallowed, throat dry. “Um. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Uh—”
Cian laughed. He was all sun-white hair and bright blue eyes, made of muscle on a wire frame inside his combat cut-offs and tight T-shirt. Max wanted them gone. Wanted Cian. All of him. All of the time too.
“This isn’t fair,” he complained.
“What’s not?”
“I get all dumb and flustered when you’re around, and you don’t.”
Cian snorted. “Uh, yes I do.”
Max eyed him sceptically.
“What?” Cian asked, shrugging. He slid his fingers through Max’s hair, spiking it up, and the grin widened. “My interest just isn’t as visible as yours. Trust me. If you had your hands in the right places, you’d know about it.”
Max’s brain stalled.
“Uh—”
“Wanna feel it?”
“Um. Yes. Yes. But—you don’t—it makes you feel—”
“Let me worry about that,” Cian said and tugged on his hair. “So? You want to stay here and have some PG-13 fun, or do you want to take this somewhere more private?”
“Uh—”
“Well, a bit. I quite like getting you to come undone in public.”
“You could skip ‘undone’ and it’d still work,” Max groused and Cian laughed.
Kissed the corner of his lip.
Placed Max’s hands on the bare crook of Cian’s knee.
“Come on, Max.” The wheedle in his ear was breathy, delicate, and pure sex. “Let’s go and play.”
Max gulped. Oh, God.
“All right, lovebirds?”
His heart stopped.
The cry was like a bucket of ice water over the head. His lungs seized up. His hands clutched tight at Cian’s waist. And he couldn’t breathe.
Cian could, though. The heavy sigh and magnificent eye-roll spoke of no such issues. He pulled back. Glanced idly down from the wall. Sneered a “What?” as though answering an annoying child.
Jazz sneered right back.
“That’s really nice, that. Here we are, saying hello—”
“Yeah, hi, now piss off,” Cian said.
The sneer deepened into a scowl.
“You’re as rude as he is,” Jazz snapped.
“I’m not the one interrupting a private conversation,” Cian returned. “Why don’t you lot naff off and leave us in peace, yeah?”
Jazz snorted. Tom, at his right shoulder, gave Cian’s legs a very visible once-over.
“Nice legs,” he said.
“Thanks. Go away.”
“I don’t mind a girl who doesn’t shave.”
The next eye-roll threatened to pop something. “How very progressive of you.” Somewhere in the back of Max’s frozen brain, he registered something.
Cian could sneer worse than Jazz.
Damn.
“Tom’s good with girls,” Jazz snapped. “Maybe you ought to try a real man.”
“Got one. Cheers for the tip. Shove it.”
“What, Fatso Farrier? What’s he got?” Jazz sniggered.
Cian disengaged. His hands crept back. He turned on the wall. Leaned forward.
And his eyes narrowed in a way that Max recognised from Jazz himself.
A predator. That had seen prey. And was homing in fast.
Completely inappropriately, Max’s blood thawed and began to head south.
“What’s he got?” Cian echoed softly. “Depends what we’re measuring against. You about to tell me that Boots here has got a ten-inch dick and all the girls love it?”
Jazz’s eyes narrowed in reply.
“What, you like fat cock, do you?”
Cian smiled.
No.
Beamed.
“Oh, I dunno…”
The movement was so fast, so sharp, so clean, that Max almost missed it.
No part of Cian’s body moved except his right knee. One minute, it was bent, both trainers flat against the wall—and the next, the knee was straight.
The trainer—pointed, perfect, a ballet-worthy angle—struck Jazz with an audible thud.
Jazz howled.
Doubled. Collapsed. Clutching at his groin with an animalistic agony.
“He’s definitely got better than you,” Cian finished sweetly and then turned cold blue eyes on Tom and Aidan. “Wanna try a ride, boys? Tell you what. If you can touch the button on my shorts, you can have ’em off. Wanna try that?”
Aidan backed off. Eyeing Jazz. Frowning.
But Tom snarled and started forwards.
And Cian shoved off the wall with a yell. Just—flew. Dived. Shot off it like it was a launch pad.
Max knew what he was going to do long before he did it.
He’d jumped high. Legs out straight behind him. One fist up, by his face. Guarding. The other arm bent in half. The shoulder rolled. The elbow came up. High. Straight.
And down.
The crack was like a gunshot. They crashed to the ground, Cian nearly bouncing up again, shaking out a bloodied elbow with a manic grin and wide blue eyes. Tom—did not.
Tom stayed down.
And bellowed.
“Fuck,” Max breathed—and jumped. He leapt down and seized Cian’s wrist. Pulled. People were staring. There was going to be trouble. And then, when Jazz stopped nursing his ’nads, there was going to be more trouble.
“Oi! You two!”
“Leg it!” Max hissed.
Blood was streaked up Cian’s arm—and over the cobbles, over Tom’s face, everywhere. Tom was still yelling. People were starting to run over.
So Max pulled.
And they ran.
And near enough a half mile later, in the crooked side streets and shadows of the approaching evening, Max lunged. Caught both arms around Cian’s waist and lifted him, small as a doll, delicate and tiny.
Slammed him up against a wall and caught his grinning mouth with Max’s own.
Cian clutched back, all limbs and laughter, hard. Strong. Powerful.
Max’s.
“Let’s go to mine,” Max breathed between their faces, breathless with the run and some kind of strange euphoria in his veins. “Fuck, they’ll kill us. Fuck it. Fuck it. I wanna—”
Cian laughed.
“Fuck.” He squeezed his thighs tight around Max’s waist. “Yeah. Sounds good. Then later? When they come to kill us? I’ll just kill ’em all over again.”
“THAT WAS AMAZING,” Max whispered, awed.
Cian laughed, stretched out beside him in the grass. “Thank you?”
“Not that.”
“Oh.”
“Though that was too.”
“Nice save,” Cian said and rolled over. He propped himself up on his elbow, grinning. “So? What was so amazing?”
“You.”
“When?”
“I don’t know,” Max said sarcastically. “When you kicked Jazz so hard he’ll never have kids. And when you split Tom’s skull like an egg.”
“I didn’t break him,” Cian chided and then chuckled. “I’m not heavy enough. And it’d break my arm to try.”
“It was still amazing.”
“Thanks.”
Max rolled over too and craned his neck for a kiss. Cian smelled of them, and Max lingered, nose against one thin cheek, to breathe.
“You know,” Cian whispered, “if you’d try it once in a while, they’d be less of an issue.”
“What?”
“Kicking some balls and elbowing some faces.”
“They wouldn’t,” Max said. “Told you, I loosened one of Jazz’s teeth.”
“Uh-huh. Had they beaten you up before then?”
Max swallowed.
“That’s a yes, then.”
“Yeah,” he mumbled.
“Did you see the weaselly one?”
The switch threw him. “What?”
“The one who didn’t talk.”
“Aidan?”
“If that’s his name.”
“No, why?”
“I kicked your mate Jazz-Hands and he backed off. Aidan, that is. He didn’t want to try.”
“Tom did though. And Tom’s the real problem.”
“Tom has a real problem. It’s three inches long and going to need stitches.”
Max laughed and kissed him again.
“Seriously though,” Cian murmured there, soft and sweet. “Don’t wait next time. Don’t make it about me. Next time—just go for broke.”
The cold ball of fear in Max’s gut tightened.
“I can’t,” he breathed. “They’ll kill me.”
“Sure,” Cian said and grinned. “Like three fishing boats taking on the Bulwark. Don’t try that one, big man. You got this. You just keep telling yourself you don’t.”
Max opened his mouth—
And closed it.
“I got this,” he murmured to himself.
“Yup. And hey—” Cian wriggled, naked in the grass, and successfully ruined any chance Max had at coherent thought. “—Lewis will be back tomorrow. And he texted me this morning.”
“About what?”
“About you.”
“Me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What about me?”
“Oh, you’ll see,” Cian said and turned over. Stretched.
Completely and utterly naked, save for his T-shirt arranged carefully over his—shapes.
Max stared.
“If you do everything Lewis says tomorrow,” Cian said, staring resolutely at the sky, “then I’ll let you.”
“Uh. Let me. Let me—what?”
“Look.”
“Uh.”
“And if you do it well,” Cian said, turning back over and kissing Max full on the mouth, “then I’ll even let you touch.”
Lewis had to have something awful planned.
But…yeah. Power of boners.
So Max said, “Okay.”
And knew that, whatever it was, Cian would make it worth it.
Chapter Thirty
“GRADING.”
What.
“No,” Max said.
Cian stretched both arms over his head and stuck his hips out until his spine creaked.
“Bastard,” Max muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. Nothing…”
“You’re ready. They’re ready. So. In you go,” Lewis said, jabbing a finger at the main gym door. “Get graded. Get your armband. And get back out here.”
“No.”
“You stop training with us in two weeks, Max. After that, you can do whatever you want.”
“I can do whatever I want in here!”
“Sure you can,” Lewis said. “But a deal’s a deal. You grade, or no reference.”
Max’s chest seized.
No reference. Oh crap, he’d forgotten all about it. Between the school form and exams and Jazz and Tom and Cian—God, Cian—he’d totally forgotten the deal.
And—two weeks?
Was that all he had left?
“Grading. Go.”
Max opened his mouth. Protested. Looked at Lewis’s impassive face.
Looked at Cian’s. And his body. All long and lean and stretched out. With the pink lines from swimming naked and—
Max swallowed.
Okay. So….
Tonight, he could see. If he did what Lewis said.
Only that was a class full of fit students grading, and Max was—
Broad shoulders. Big feet. Extra centimetres because he was growing all over the place. Going to…going to do A-Levels. Maybe university. The Navy.
He sucked in a breath—and his gut—and turned. Pushed on the door. Heard it swing shut behind him.
Heads turned.
His stomach rolled sickeningly.
And—the heads turned back to the front. He slipped into a gap, already sweating.
And up at the front, Josh beamed.
“All right,” he said. “That’s everyone. Let’s do this.”
MAX WAS DYING.
He was convinced of it. Lying flat on his back and staring at the eaves, he was going to die. Right here. With his chest exploding, his legs on fire, and every last thought coming back around to a simple, singular conclusion.
Fuck Aunt Donna.
In fact—as he reeled in more oxygen past a rasping throat and into spasming lungs—fuck Lewis too. Lewis had made him do this. And fuck Cian for standing by and not helping. Max was going to die, right here, right now, because of the three of them.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw feet.
Then knees.
“All right, kid?”
He gurgled uselessly. Josh chuckled.
“You really put the work in there.”
Work? Sure. Had it worked? N—
“Congratulations.”
“W-what?” Max spluttered.
“You heard.”
Max squinted at Josh’s face. He was smiling. Not smirking. Just—smiling.
“I passed?”
“Sure did.”
“Like—I scraped it, or—?”
“Nope. Flying colour
s. Heck, that elbow strike on its own would have taken you over the top.”
Max’s arm throbbed in memory.
As many push-ups as possible in a minute. As many sit-ups as possible in another minute. As many burpees, a third minute. Then a bleep test. Then demonstrate every move on command to some invisible opponent. Then spar with Josh for three minutes.
And then die, in Max’s opinion, because that was just ridiculous.
He’d wobbled and sweated his way through it all. His hands were so slick that the gloves had nearly come off. He’d not landed a single punch, and Josh’s push kick had broken through Max’s guard and nearly made him hurl.
“But—” he panted. “I didn’t even do ten push-ups.”
“Uh-huh. How many could you do when you started?”
Max opened his mouth.
Oh.
“Two,” he admitted. And that had been through sheer force of will, not…well, actual ability.
“Next grading, you have to do more than you did today,” Josh said, shrugging. “Same for the other exercises. Just beat your last grading every time. That’s it.”
That’s it, he said. While Max was drowning in a puddle of sweat on the floor.
“I—passed?”
“Yep. Come to the front desk once you’ve had a drink and a shower, and we’ll get you your armband.”
With that, he was gone. Max levered himself up on his sore elbows and watched as Josh padded across to a girl with a long rope of blonde hair in a plait and began to talk to her. She had an armband already, a woven pattern of cloth that looked kind of like a weird friendship bracelet for the bicep.
Did—did Max get one of those?
Something weird and tense unfurled in his chest.
He’d done it.
He’d passed. He’d succeeded. He’d not done a Fatso Farrier Failure. He’d nearly died, but he’d done it.
His stomach clenched.
Heaving himself to his feet—and then bracing his hands on his knees to prevent himself from falling over at the shriek of pain in his thighs—Max found himself peering down his sweaty legs to those boat-sized feet, bare as baby whales on the mats. Big feet. Big man.
Not fat feet.
Not fat man.
He’d done it. He’d graded.
Everything hurt—from feet to face—but he’d done it. He had something to show for these months of torture. He had something to be pro—
Max swallowed.
Pride.
He’d forgotten what it felt like to be proud.
Big Man Page 17