“Fuck sake.”
That’s all he says, but he chuckles, and that Icanwork with.
As soon as he closes the living room door behind him, I lean closer to Dair and whisper, “Help me?”
Dair doesn’t ask how. Or why. He nods right away.
I glance back at the closed door between us and an Ex. “Keep him talking for me?”
He yelps again. “Me?”
“Yeah, just while I’m getting dressed, because I…” This label still feels like wearing clothes the wrong size for me. “I’m meant to be keeping the group together for a while. Leading it. That means I need to come up with a way to get Blake and one of the other Exes talking again.”
“What’s the plan?”
There isn’t one. Dair looks at me like I got all the answers, so I blurt, “Getting him to Covent Garden. The other Ex is working as a barista there, but Blake’s talking about bailing on us going out this evening.” I glance away. “Thing is, he helped me outonce. Now it’s his turn on the struggle bus. I want to help him get off it way sooner than I did.”
Dair does that melting thing I’d almost forgotten. And I think he does his best to melt Blake too. I hear him trying once I’m dressed, and I return to a living room that isn’t quite so empty now that Dair sits on one dining chair and Blake sits on the other. Something in my chest clenches at him trying to make conversation and at how he does his best to help me out by saying, “The only thing that will get me through my care shift tonight is coffee.”
That isn’t the truth. He doesn’t drink it. He told me so in his own hallway. That nose wrinkle of his played on a loop while I was up-county. Now I grasp hold of the lifeline his white lie offers.
“You’re heading for Holborn, right? We can find somewhere on the way.” All three of us have to know there are thousands of coffee shops in this city, but as soon as I say, “Covent Garden is the stop right before it,” Blake is combat-ready.
“I know a place.” He launches into action, hustling me into my coat, grabbing his own, and setting off in a hurry.
Dair’s legs aren’t as long as either of ours. He works hard to keep up, then works even harder to keep Blake talking. Each question he asks prompts Blake to spill more intel about someone he misses.
“Adey shouldn’t be working there.”
“Because?”
“Because he got a second chance, but he won’t take it.”
“A second chance to do what?” Dair stops in the way of commuters streaming out of the station exit. He’s at risk of getting trampled until I shield him, and I stay close once we head inside together.
“A second chance to teach.” Blake marches even faster. “He scored a spot on a gateway course.”
“A gateway to what?”
“To get him back into classrooms.”
I can’t imagine anything worse, but Blake describes school as if it’s the best place on the planet. “That’s where he should be, but he’s walking away from the chance. And if I ask him why, he won’t tell me. Can’t look me in the eye either, and I know what that means. Had enough interrogation training to know he’s lying about teaching not being for him anymore. That fucker won awards. Turned lives around. Saved so many kids.”
Once we’re crowded together in a Tube carriage, Blake scrubs at the back of his neck. “But will he accept that second-chance spot to do what he’s really good at?” Bleak eyes meet mine over Dair’s head between us. “No, he fucking will not. Shuts me down whenever I ask about it. Stopped talking to me, full stop.” This almost gets lost in the bustle as we switch Tube lines. “It would be good for him to take it.” Blake saves his reasoning for the next train we board together. “Someone like him shouldn’t be working for minimum wage.”
Dair straightens. “Because minimum-wage work doesn’t matter?” He’s the shorter of us. It’s hard to see him that way when he raises a hand to a heart-shaped logo on his jacket. “I don’t agree.” He shifts, getting between me and Blake as if I’m in need of shielding, and his chin rises. “Caring matters. So does lifting and carrying. Or serving coffee.”
Blake’s mouth opens. Snaps closed. He grasps hold of a handrail, fingers curling around it the same way Dair’s fingers do around mine. No one in this crowded carriage can see him reach back to do it. I guess this quick squeeze is him saying sorry for silencing Blake when I’d asked for his help to keep him talking.
I can’t be sorry about Dair standing up for himself. And for me. But Dair’s quick glance my way telegraphs real worry until Blake says, “Sorry, sorry. That came out all wrong. And yeah, Iagree. Just ask any new trooper about their pay scale. Doesn’t exactly reflect being prepared to lay down your life for King and Country.”
Once we’re above ground again and all three of us stand across the street from a coffee shop that could pass for Elizabethan, right down to diamond pane windows, he picks up from where he left off. “I just meant that Adey could be stopping more kids from ending up in prison. That’s gotta be worth more than what he’s doing right now.”
We cross the street, and I have to speak up over the rumble of passing traffic. “Prison?”
“Yeah.” Blake peers through one of those diamond panes. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t notice what is second nature for me—I instantly count the chairs and tables inside as if I’m gonna have to shift them from one high-rise to another.
This place really is bougie—none of the chairs or tables match each other. Blake describes kids who weren’t standard-issue either.
