Charles by Con Riley

7

For a few glorious moments, Charles wondered if his stars had aligned, or maybe spending time with Hugo had rubbed off like pollen did on a bee, dusting him with some of that divine intervention he’d needed. “Did you change your mind about the job?” he asked, hope surging.

“No,” Luke said, dashing it as fast as it had risen. “But I’d still like a word with you.”

Charles pinned on a smile, and swallowed down rejection that, frankly, he was sick of tasting.

He slipped his shoes on—shoes that Hugo must have wiped clean while he’d been in the bathroom, he noticed, damp, but no longer muddy. Charles followed Luke outside, but turned back before crossing the threshold. “Thanks, Hugo.”

“No. Thank you, Charles.” For someone whose face had at first seemed static, Charles saw how Hugo’s smile had been there all along now he knew to wait for it. Even the hint of it was enough to switch his own smile from forced to genuine, and maybe Hugo saw that difference. His own stopped hiding, his whole face animating.

That’s better.

A lot better.

“Um, if you’ll come with me,” Luke prompted.

Charles went with him, crossing the stable threshold and taking a few steps into the courtyard before asking, “Are you going back to your study?”

Luke nodded.

“Then can I follow you in a moment?” He turned back to find that Hugo had followed them out, one hand on the doorjamb. “There’s something I haven’t finished.”

He heard Luke agree, and the sound of his steps over the courtyard along with the click of a door closing at its far side, but Charles didn’t take his eyes off Hugo, noticing something else he might not have at first glance—Hugo didn’t just rest a hand on the frame of the door, he gripped it, his knuckles white with effort.

So much for not needing his stick much longer.

Charles recognised a brave face when he saw one.

Sympathy swamped him, empathy running close behind it—hadn’t he done the same more often that he could count before his dyslexia diagnosis, acting as if help was the last thing he’d needed?

The compassion Hugo had modelled several times already was easy to mirror. It drew Charles back to the doorway where he covered Hugo’s white-knuckled hand with his for a second, giving it a quick squeeze. “Good luck with….” He didn’t quite know how to finish. He settled on saying, “Good luck with whatever you decide to do with your future. Only….”

“Only?”

From this close, Charles had zero trouble seeing what Hugo needed—his stick still leant against the coat rack. He reached past Hugo and grabbed it. “Only you don’t need to make life hard for yourself while you’re deciding.” He glanced skywards. “Pretty sure your boss wants you to be happy and healthy, not injured even more because you feel like you shouldn’t still need help. For everything there is a season, right?” He reminded Hugo of what he’d promised. “This is your season for leaning”—he unpeeled Hugo’s hand from the doorjamb and curled both their hands around the insignia topping his stick—“so why not accept help until you’re steadier?”

Hugo nodded, letting the stick help him balance. “Thanks,” he said. “Sorry about the job. Having you here would have been….”

Charles nodded. It could have been so many good things. “Not my season,” he said, shrugging, gazing skywards one more time, hoping Hugo knew he was teasing, not knocking a faith he didn’t particularly share beyond Easter eggs and Christmas presents, but that he also had no desire to diminish. “I hope he lets you know soon. Shows you a sign, or something. Slaps you with a thunderbolt so huge you can’t ignore it.”

“A thunderbolt? Why?”

“So that you feel better about changing direction.” Charles scanned a face that wouldn’t have caught his eye once. Now it had somehow sunk hooks that tugged out some more words. “So that you believe you’re allowed to enjoy whatever you choose next.”

He leaned forwards as if saying goodbye to a friend, meaning to brush a brief kiss to his cheek as he would with Keir, but somehow their mouths met.

Hugo must have moved, Charles decided; turned his head just at the right time so that their lips connected.

It was accidental.

Should’ve felt platonic.

It didn’t.

Hugo gasped, his breath warm, only millimetres between their mouths before he leant in to close the distance again, clasping Charles by one shoulder and pulling him towards him. Their chests met too, his as solid as Charles remembered from that moment in the woods.

That time, Hugo had stopped Charles from falling.

This embrace felt different; the opposite; Charles tipping head-first while still standing, tumbling, even though he was steady on his feet, yet somehow in a free-fall that got his heart pounding, his blood fizzing.

Charles reached up, locking both arms around Hugo’s neck without thinking, his lips mirroring the way Hugo’s parted.

God, but his mouth was hot—so hot—and searching, the tip of his tongue there against his for a warm, slick second before Hugo leaned back.

Charles let out a small sound, needy, as if this was the first time a man had kissed him, not the thousandth. It slipped out, too late to swallow back, but it didn’t matter because Hugo responded.

He surged forwards to close the gap and kissed him again, and each cell in Charles paid attention, his heart doing more than pound. It thundered, every inch of his skin singing, wanting to feel more of Hugo’s mouth on him.

Maybe Hugo felt the same urge. His kiss got firmer, commanding, when by rights Charles should’ve been the one leading. After all, this was a dance Hugo couldn’t know the steps to half as well as Charles did. Should have been stumbling through.

But Hugo didn’t trip or fumble.

He took charge.

This deep kiss was a counterpoint to his first hesitation, which his next move confirmed. Charles felt Hugo cup his face to hold it. To keep him right there where he wanted instead of letting Charles leave.

Leave.

I’m leaving.

Charles didn’t want to. Wished he could drown in feeling this wanted. Was happy to let the current between them take him as long as Hugo kissed him like this. Then he blinked, aware that the air was cool on his wet lips, more space between them now.

“I suppose that’s how you say goodbye to everyone,” Hugo said, his pupils immense black pools. Charles felt the brush of his thumb on the hinge of his jaw and wanted more than anything to kiss him again. Perhaps that showed, because Hugo swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he leaned in.

“No,” Charles said, cursing himself because Hugo pulled back. “I mean, no, I absolutely don’t say goodbye to everyone this way.” But the moment was gone.

Maybe that’s for the best.

“I should go.” Charles glanced over his shoulder at the door the headmaster had taken.“Better not keep him waiting. It was”—how to summarise the last hour?—“it was good to meet you,” he offered, not sure if he smiled or looked as winded as he felt. “Take care of that knee,” he said, backing across the courtyard. He paused, sketching a last salute to Hugo.

The door opened behind him. The headmaster said, “I wondered if you got lost.”

“Just saying goodbye. Sorry to keep you, headmaster.”

“Luke, please,” he said. “We’re not interviewing now, so no need to be formal. We’ll go this way.” He gestured to a staircase.

Charles almost followed, telling himself not to look back before the door closed behind him.

He won’t still be watching.

But he couldn’t stop himself from checking.

Hugo hadn’t moved. He stared at Charles, intent, as if wanting to capture the moment, and he lifted a hand, not saluting this time, but giving Charles a brief wave. And that was all it was, a quick waggle of his fingers that dropped just as fast as they’d risen, almost as though he hadn’t given his hand permission, appearing as flustered as Charles had felt several times already.

Charles wanted to go back and kiss that fluster away. Kiss him, and then take him inside, and—

Behind Charles, Luke cleared his throat. “If you’re ready?”

Charles entered the school, catching a glimpse of himself in the glass of a trophy cabinet. He quickly smoothed back hair that stood up as if he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. Or had been kissed by someone who hadn’t wanted him to leave either.

He told himself not to be stupid—it had been an accidental kiss that had got out of hand, that was all, fuelled by a day chock-full of strong emotion, not some kind of sign that they’d shared a connection.

Charles didn’t have time to examine why that thought didn’t ring true because they arrived back at the room where he’d been rejected.

For the second time in only a few hours, he found himself reading the door plaque—Knock and wait—but at least this time he wasn’t left cooling his heels for ages. Luke ushered him inside instead of leaving him nervous and waiting.

“Please, sit,” he said, taking his own seat behind his desk, but then seeming to think twice before Charles had a chance to do so. “Or maybe, over here instead,” he said, getting up again and gesturing to the other side of the room where a laptop stood open on a coffee table next to a Chesterfield sofa.

It was a reminder of the sofa in his father’s study, Charles decided, except that one was faded, its leather scuffed by Labradors and Heppel offspring. Instead of relaxing on it as he would have at home, Charles sat on its edge, stiff-backed, avoiding the laptop screen where a gap on his CV had damned him.

Perhaps Luke noticed. He sat too, but seemed conflicted as though waging an internal battle.

Charles battled too, only he fought an urge to fill the silence, a fight he lost after a few seconds. “I did come clean to my last head teacher,” he blurted.

“I’m sorry?”

Charles clarified. “I came clean when I lost sight of my class. On the train, like I told Tor’s teacher. I do know how to plan and follow a risk assessment, so I’d made sure to run through what the children should do if we were split up. We role-played how they should stick together, and each one of them did beautifully.”

“You expected to lose them?”

“Well, no. I mean, I don’t make a habit of losing children, but if they’re ever going to do more than stare at the same four classroom walls, they need to know how to manage the real world, don’t they?”

“The real world?”

“Yes.” Charles drew in a breath, aware that Luke’s expression had shifted again, hard to tell whether towards the softer end of the scale or harder. He kept going, because even if there was no chance of a job here, he wasn’t going to leave without showing who he was instead of letting a gap on his CV do all the telling.

“The real world’s important,” he said as if Luke had argued with him instead of sitting in silence. Maybe that was down to a kiss he could still feel fizzing, every nerve still pulling towards Hugo. “And yes I could have pretended to go on a train in the classroom, but it’s nothing like the real thing.”

“Even if you lose them.” But Luke didn’t phrase that as a question, and when Charles lifted his head it was to find him nodding. “We do the same with our High Tor challenge.” He gestured to a silver shield above the fireplace. “Take students from the sixth form onto the moor in teams, and challenge them to navigate a course between tors together.”

“Well, I can’t say that I’d recommend it with five-year olds,” Charles admitted. “Not if you want to keep your blood pressure anywhere near normal, but they do love a challenge too, and they trusted that I’d come for them.”

That trust wasn’t ever on a job description, but it should’ve been, he thought, right at the top of the list, instead of a teaching degree he could never hope for. He gestured at the laptop, as if his CV was still on its screen. “I shouldn’t have left off that job, but Miss Godalming shouldn’t have left me managing a class all on my own when I wasn’t qualified to do it.”

Luke leaned forwards, his elbows on his knees, listening rather than judging, it felt to Charles, so he continued.

“The truth is that I do know my limits. I support play. I’m not a teacher, but that’s what she wanted, on the cheap, along with a title to impress paying parents. My father’s an earl, so like I told you when I interviewed, I get to tag ‘honourable’ in front of my name.” He shrugged. “So pointless, because what does honourable mean these days, really?” That reminded him of his brother. But his thoughts also turned to Hugo—to his faith, and to wounds he’d earned maybe putting that word into action. “The toughest decisions I make relate to paint and glue and glitter.”

Luke cracked a smile, which he quickly stifled. He pulled his laptop towards him. “I checked your other references.”

“And?” There was no reason for his heart to be in his throat when Charles knew he’d left his other jobs on good terms. They’d been temporary, that was all, each employer saying they would have kept him if not for…. “They mentioned my dyslexia, I suppose.”

“They mentioned quite a lot about you.” He turned the laptop to face Charles and then turned it away again just as fast. “Sorry, I…”

It took a moment before Charles grasped why he’d done that. “I can read,” he said. “You must know how dyslexia works,” he said quietly.

Luke nodded, turning the laptop again. “Yes. Of course. We have several children on that spectrum.”

These days really were light years from when Charles had been Tor’s age. “Then you’ll know we process differently, that’s all. In my case”—this was always hardest to voice—“I score lowest on working memory. And not just with reading. I struggle to hold onto all kinds of things.” Words, numbers, and the conceptual links between them. “So I break tasks down to smaller components.”

“One thing at a time,” Luke said, nodding.

“Exactly.” Biting off just as much as he could chew was his only way through life without feeling like he was failing. “I’ve had enough years of practice to know how to compensate”—he almost said for my failings, but he channelled what Keir called them instead—“for my challenges. I make good use of tech now, but I know my limits,” like fighting through anything handwritten beyond printing. “But I’ll never forget how I had to do twice the work of my classmates to still lag behind them.” He lifted his chin. “I think that makes me useful. Who better to notice the early signs in children?” He switched his gaze to the laptop screen. “Can I adjust the font?” He did so, and started reading. “Oh,” he said. “That’s….”

“Very high praise?” Luke murmured. “About someone who I wrote off?”

Charles looked up.

Luke met his eyes, his own appearing warmer; softer, and much less icy. “Praise-filled references about someone whose actions today only confirmed them?”

“You mean finding Tor? Anyone would have done that.”

“Yes, I mean finding Tor. And I mean about going the extra mile to bolster his confidence when he must have been scared. And your thinking about what would make him feel secure, and making sure that happened by carrying him all the way to his classroom. But….”

His hesitation drew out.

“But what?”

“But I also noticed something else that means I hope you’ll believe I’m sorry for making that snap judgement about you earlier. Would you be interested if I made you an offer?”

“But…?” Hadn’t he just said that he hadn’t changed his mind about the job Charles had first applied for?

Had he misunderstood him? It wouldn’t be the first time.

“You do want me here?”

Luke thought before answering. “What you did this afternoon showed me a lot about you.” He seemed to wrestle with something before admitting, “It also showed me something that I’ve missed seeing. Missed seeing a lot, as it turns out.” Worry creased his forehead. “I’ve missed seeing Hugo look so happy. Didn’t realise until I heard him laughing with you, and saw him grinning like he used to.”

“At me?” Charles said, not quite knowing what to do with what felt like praise that also sounded painful. Instinctively, he tried to lighten a moment that had turned sombre. “You didn’t hear what I confessed to him in the chapel. Pretty sure I’m going to hell for spilling the beans about being a complete man-who—” He slammed on the brakes before finishing. “About being a man who sees no reason not to enjoy life.”

Because that was what Charles did; had been determined to do from the moment he’d realised that fun was all he’d ever excel at.

“If you heard him laugh, it was probably at how badly I got lost in the woods by walking in circles.” Was Hugo laughing now, Charles wondered, about that accidental kiss between them?

“Whatever you did, it worked.” Luke’s gaze turned direct. Piercing. “You said you had time on your hands?”

Charles nodded.

“Then that’s what I want to employ you for. Or, it’s one of the things I’d like you to do for me at Glynn Harber.”

“One of the things?”

“Yes.” Luke swept a hand over his face, tiredness apparent for the first time Charles had noticed. “I was looking for a qualified teacher to help Ruth so that they could slide seamlessly into her role when her maternity leave starts. Give the children some continuity. No one I interviewed today had an ethos in line with Glynn Harber, apart from—”

“Me?”

Luke nodded.

“But I’m not qualified. Why did you even interview me?”

“Because I didn’t get enough applicants to discount you. I took on Glynn Harber knowing it was in trouble. At real risk of closure.” He straightened his shoulders. “I don’t intend to let that happen, but I’m guessing that the word’s out. Hence so few job applicants.” His gaze turned frank. “Would you shackle to something failing? To somewhere that might not make it, long-term?”

“Like you have?”

Luke let out a soft snort. “I had my own reasons.” He leaned forwards, his elbows on his knees. “I do need to keep looking for qualified cover for Ruth, but you could definitely help her until I find someone. Only that’s not the main reason I want you here.”

Charles opened his mouth, and then closed it, replaying their conversation, but no closer to trusting that he understood completely. He leaned forwards too, mirroring Luke’s posture. “You don’t need me to work with the children, but you’ll let me until you find someone better because…?” He gathered threads of the conversation and knotted them together. “This is to do with Hugo? About his change in direction?”

“He told you about that?” For some reason, Luke’s surprise only seemed to make him more certain. “Yes. That’s exactly why. Hugo coming here wasn’t planned, and it happened right when I was much busier than I could have predicted. I still haven’t enough headspace or time for him.”

“I’m sure he understands that you’re busy. Are you…. Are you worried that he’s lonely?” He saw Luke’s quick nod. “But he has friends. I saw letters from them.”

“Yes. One in particular he’s still involved with, who shared a flat with us at uni. They’re still close,” Luke admitted, his grimace at odds with his words. “But Nathan’s out of the country. Besides, I’m not sure even he could do what you’ve managed.”

“Me?” Had Luke come back in time to see them kissing? “You mean…?”

“You made him laugh, Charles. He needs more of that. So much more. If having you live-in with him until the summer makes him smile more often, it’s got to be worth trying.”

“You want me to move in with him?”

“I do.” Luke hesitated as if not sure of the deal he offered. “Help Ruth with her class until I can hire someone qualified. Stay with Hugo until we break for summer, and try to show him the brighter side of his decision. Do exactly whatever it was you did to him today.”

The thing about goodbye kisses was that they weren’t meant to be repeated.

Were they?

Charles cast his mind back to so many men he’d kissed and then closed the door on, wondering why this felt different.

“I’m really not sure he’d want me…”

“I am.” Luke sounded certain.

Would Hugo welcome this, or would it just be awkward?

Part of that earlier strange fizz came back, but he tried to ignore it. “I don’t…”

“Listen,” Luke said. “Hugo’s made a tough choice. One he won’t go back on. I don’t care how you do it, but if you can teach him to be happier with his decision…”

He stood and headed for the door, so Charles followed.

“…I’ll give you such a glowing reference that hole in your CV won’t matter.”