But it didn’t stop Jude from looking over his shoulder.
The only thing that did stop him was the man now currently leaning in his classroom doorway, rapping his knuckles lightly on the frame while Jude’s Year Tens clattered to leave.
Jude’s chest eased the moment he saw him. Warren. Standard PE kit—those scandalous shorts, polo stretched across his frame, hoodie hanging loose, socks shoved into trainers. Locs tied back neat. He looked like he could anchor the entire room without saying a word. Jude caught himself smiling before he even knew it. That man had been keeping him warm all week. Keeping him together.
Rumours were bound to be circling by now. How could they not? They drove in together. Shared lunches in this classroom, always the same café bags on the desk between them. It passed as routine, but Jude knew better. Their stolen half-hours had become something else. Questions and confessions traded in place of touches, restraint stretched thin when Warren perched on the desk close enough for his thigh to brush Jude’s knee.
The more Jude learned about Warren Beckford, the further he tipped. Not just attraction. Not just distraction. Something heavier. Dangerous in its simplicity. Falling. But he still had to keep the walls up. Had to keep the act going. Pretence was the only shield left. So he schooled his face, even as warmth tugged at his mouth.
“Mr Bailey.”
Warren’s answering grin was infuriatingly easy. “Mr Ellison.”
The ritual almost made him laugh. And he turned back to his class so as not to blush. “Homework for Monday. Essay on the causes of the First World War. I want research, I want evidence, and proper citations this time.” His tongue tripped on the word evidence, catching in his chest. Because it wasn’t only his students who’d be gathering it this weekend.
And he couldn’t, in all honesty, promise he’d be here to read those reports.
“Alright, sir?” Reuban lingered at the door, grinning at Warren. “We still got that game next week?”
“Yeah,” Warren folded his arms. “Northbridge. Big one. You’ll want to work on your place kicks.” He dropped his gaze to Reuban’s spotless trainers poking out of his ruck sack. “Not in those, though, eh?”
The boys shoved each other on their way out, laughter ricocheting down the corridor. Jude’s gaze snagged on Warren’s. He swallowed hard. Another reminder of why he had to follow this through. Those spotless trainers weren’t bought with shifts at Maccie D’s. And no single mum on benefits could stretch that far either. They were paid for another way. Quiet money. A side hustle wrapped in promises and silence.
Radley lines.
The last of the kids filtered out, chatter fading down the corridor. Silence fell with the door clicking shut, leaving Jude alone with the hum of the projector cooling down and the stacks of marking he doubted he’d ever get through. He shut off the PC, gathered the papers into uneven piles, and wondered, not for the first time, if he was being dramatic. Was the gnawing sense that things were ending real, or just the dread of not knowing where Warren would be after this weekend? A future without him already felt too close, too certain.
“You ready?” Warren perched onto the front row, casual in a way that made Jude’s chest ache.
Jude glanced up, half a smile tugging at his mouth. “Can’t we just stay here?”
Warren held his gaze for a beat, then stood, rubbed his hands together. “Alright.” He slid behind the desk row, pulled out a chair, then sat properly, tucking himself in like one of Jude’s students. “Teach me something.”
Jude arched an eyebrow.
“Not what you’ve been teaching me at home.” Warren quirked a brow.
“For which I owe you a sticker.” Jude tugged open his desk drawer, slipping out the sheet of novelty stickers he kept for the few students who still cared about such things. He peeled one free, held it balanced on the edge of his thumb and read the label, “Excellent Progress.”
Warren’s laugh came low, eyes dropping for a moment, then looked up again.
“Alright, then. Give me a point in history we can work from. Do or die. A quote.” He gestured loosely to the classroom walls, to the maps and timelines pinned in crooked rows. “One of your chosen ones summing up what we’re about to do.”
Jude drew in a long breath. Adjusted his glasses, stalling for time, the truth pressing hard in his chest. After tonight—after the wire, the raid, the chaos following—there might be nothing left. Not of the plan. Not of them. He thought of his students. The lessons he drilled into them about men who had stood on the edge of endings and chosen to step forward anyway.
“General Wolfe, before the Plains of Abraham,” he said. “‘You know too well the disorder of our troops, the folly of opposing our bayonets to their horse. But the thing is determined. Death or victory.’”
The silence after it rang louder than the quote itself.
Warren nodded once, understanding lambent in his eyes. “Death or victory.” He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “We’ll take victory.”
Is he talking about Radley—or us?
“’If you’re going through hell… keep going’.” He forced a wink, though his chest felt too tight. “Churchill, 1940.” He stacked his papers into a messy pile, masking the tremor in his hands. “So let’s keep going.”
Warren’s gaze softened. “You know I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know you wouldn’t want anything to happen to me.” Jude’s smile tilted, fragile but sure. “And you’ll do whatever you can. But I’m in there alone. And I’m fully coming to terms with that.”
