Dair tells me, “Your friend,” and a few weeks back, I wouldn’t have jumped to this conclusion.
“Blake?”
“No, the other one. Adey?”
I wouldn’t exactly call Adey a friend. Me and teachers don’t have the best track record, but he is the Ex who Harry asked me to take special care of. “Really? Adey from the coffee shop?”
“The one with the map tattoos?” Dair sketches lines and swirls on his own forearm, still not looking back at me. “He said he was about to go for a run through Hyde Park, but he helped me carry everything here first. I didn’t know he lived in Kensington.”
“He doesn’t. Not even close. But I was hoping he’d turn up at the V&A today instead of keeping his distance. He hasn’t replied in the group chat, so I guess he isn’t coming like Harry wanted. It matters to him.”
“And Harry matters to you.” Dair must have paid attention to me to know that. Now he pays attention to something else. He cranes his neck, still not making eye contact with me. “You could ask him again to come along. He’s still here. Look.”
I do, and Dair’s right. Adey is at the far end of the street, looking to the left and then to the right like he isn’t sure of his next direction. That indecision is familiar. A reminder of me hesitating so many times outside restaurants full of Exes.
This glimpse of Adey doing the same gets me moving. I open the window and lower the tone of this posh postcode.
“Oi, oi!”
Adey turns, and I see exactly what Harry mentioned.Lostis right. I get an even closer look after Adey jogs back to my doorstep, where he shows me whatclosed offlooks like on him as well—his arms cross tightly.
I don’t know how to make him uncross them.
All I got is a dumb-as-fuck question.
“You okay, mate?”
Of course he isn’t okay, even if he denies it.
“Me? I’m fine.” Brown eyes a few shades darker than Dair’s flick to one side, avoiding mine for a split second. “Never been better.” He’s lying. I know because an interrogation expert told me the signs and signals. Adey gives me more proof by avoiding my gaze again. “Just fancied a run through Hyde Park.”
I believe that about as much as I believe his choice of place to run through is coincidental. He’s picked the one park Blake always visits to check in on his troopers.
He wants to see him.
Coming to the meet-up would let Adey do that. “Did you see my message about meeting today?”
“I saw it, but I can’t come. Have a good time.”
Adey backs off before I can think of how to convince him. Thank fuck Dair thinks faster than me.
“You’re running through Hyde Park?” He looks up at me, his eyes still a little pink around the edges. “Vincent, isn’t that very close to where we’re going?”
It is, even if what I had planned first was a good long session of testing the comfort of my new armchair with Dair on my lap until his eyes lost their dampness. That will have to wait. Besides, his eyes have dried now that he has someone right in front of him who needs a bit of the TLC he’s so good at giving. Dair focusses on Adey like he can feel his pain and wants to cure it. I grab my jacket and let him work his magic on the way to our destination.
The museum is hardly any distance. “Why maps?” Dair asks as we walk together, even though Blake already told us. I get to hear all over again about Adey’s first vocation before cappuccinos became his new calling. By the time we’re opposite a building where tourists queue for entry, I’ve heard all about kids other teachers gave up on and all about the journeys they shared back to classrooms together.
Our own journey stops abruptly.
Adey grinds to a halt opposite the museum’s Cromwell Street entrance, and I see what slammed his brakes on. Blake guards a milling herd of Exes, his arms crossed just as tightly as Adey’s had been outside my place.
I do a quick head count. Almost a dozen men have turned up. That finally gets my mouth working. “Now that you’re here, you might as well come inside with us.”
“No.” Adey backs off. “Sorry. I can’t. I, uh… I’ve got things to do.”
He does the exact same kind of backing away bullshit as I used to, about to isolate himself like I did before I sent an SOS to the wrong chat. After that, Harry wouldn’t give up trying to include me. Dair looks up at me like he thinks I won’t give up on Adey either.
If Kev was here, I know what he’d tell me.
