“Adey worked with youth offenders at a pupil referral unit.” I’ve got so many questions. I’m silenced by him adding, “Some of those kids could barely read or write when he got them. Thought they had no future. He told them they could go places and made them believe it. Took them out in the wilds and helped them find their way back.” He snorts, although it doesn’t sound too happy. “You’ve seen his maps, right?”
The windowpanes reflect Dair shaking his head, but I can guess which maps Blake means. I’ve seen them snaking up Adey’s forearms. “You mean his tattoos?”
“Yeah. They’re topographic. Show the highs and lows of each journey he made with a tough nut to crack before he got them back to a real classroom. Believe me, I know the type of kids who didn’t. Taught too many of them how to saddle a horse and hold a sword only for them to end up as cannon fod?—”
He stops speaking, and I see why.
Adey drifts close to the window, absorbed in collecting empty cups and glasses from those mismatched tables until he looks up to find all three of us watching.
No.
He just sees Blake, and these two magnets don’t repel each other.
They attract.
Strongly, I’d say, given how quickly Blake reacts when I suggest, “How about you go in and order for us? We’ll wait out here.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that right now.” He faces Dair. “What do you want?”
“Me?” Dair looks panicked, his white lie come home to roost. “Uh…” He peers through the window at a hand-chalked menu above the counter. It’s covered in so many options. I don’t need to read any of them—my usual order is plain and simple. “I’ll have an Americano. No sugar,” and Dair jumps on that suggestion.
“Same.”
I pull out my wallet, which Blake waves off, already heading inside.
Dair waits for the door to close before murmuring a teasing, “Thought you said you weren’t cut out for leading.”
“I’m not.”
“And yet, look who just got a soldier to follow his orders.” His teasing tone drops. “You’re so smart, Vincent.”
I’m not that person either.
Not even a little. Just ask any of my teachers.
This evening, Dair sounds so convinced I could almost believe him.
7
I’m catchingup on group-chat gossip the next morning when the doorbell drowns out the audio on my phone and surprises me into dropping a chocolate Hobnob into my teacup. I can’t be too sad about that when I swing the front door open to find the furniture fairy has paid another visit.
I point at what Dair has arrived with this time. “That’s a drop-leaf table.”
Thank fuck Blake isn’t here. He’d say something likeNo shit, Sherlock. Harry might smile oh so gently, the trenches of his smile lines deepening. Dair just laughs, the sound as bright as today’s winter sunshine, which doesn’t only find fire in his hair. It also hints that spring is right around the corner.
That’s an unexpected reminder of the patch of land where ferns didn’t just curl tight when I poked them. Tulips grew there, planted by a woman who told me they didn’t need to be smart to know when it was their time to flower.
Like those spring bulbs, something dormant inside me sends out shoots, and all because Dair jokes about me being someone special. “Not only a born leader but a furniture expert too.”
“That’s me.” I lean against the doorframe and cross my arms. His gaze lingers on my biceps, which are the sole real qualification I need in my line of work. “Just don’t ask to see any exam certificates to prove it.”
Dair must have really listened during our conversations. “Because you left them in your cousin’s spare room?” His fingertips skim the surface of the table between us. “Or do you keep your exam certificates in a storage unit?”
“I don’t keep them anywhere. I meant you shouldn’t ask to see them because they don’t exist.” I uncross my arms to pick up the table. “I learned on the job, not at school. Couldn’t wait to leave the place.”
“Oh, me too,” he says with feeling that echoes in my hallway once we’re inside. I carry the table into the living room and set it between the chairs he already gave me. It doesn’t match either of them, and I’m okay with that. Like it, even.
“Very bougie.”
