Chapter 17
When he woke up at the alarm the next morning, Deacon was gone, but he could hear him on a conference call with various voices, and Rafe wasn’t ready to hear anything else about what was happening in Deacon’s real life. Not yet. He showered, shaved, and dressed in neat pants, a shirt and tie, and for the longest time he stared at himself in the mirror, wondering if people would notice any change in him when he got to school. Only when he was sure that Rafe Martinez had been pushed back and Craig Jenkins was at the forefront of his thoughts did he leave the bedroom. The conference call was done, Deacon dressed in his usual jeans and a tee shirt.
Rafe wanted another kiss, needed it more than the next breath. He slid his hand up and laid it against Deacon’s cheek, looking into his hazel eyes, and then in a smooth move he kissed him. There were no walls to press him against, no chance of friction or more than just a kiss, but all he needed was one taste of Deacon and everything would make sense. At least for a while.
Deacon rested his hands on Rafe’s hips and held him close as they kissed – lazy, searching kisses that were everything that Rafe needed right now. When they eased apart, Deacon was smiling that enigmatic half smile that sent shivers down Rafe’s spine.
Abruptly, inside him, all the hidden secrets and everything he hadn’t felt he could say spilled out in a hurried, blurted, “I love you.”
He waited for Deacon’s smile to drop, for him to become all business and dismiss his feelings as a link they had because of proximity, or danger, or some other nonsense that Rafe had been thinking himself. Instead Deacon kissed him again, and when they parted it was Deacon’s turn to say something.
“I love you too,” he murmured. “I’ll walk you to school.”
One last kiss, and finally they couldn’t avoid leaving the apartment any longer.
The colder night air hadn’t dissipated much, the bite of winter in the cool breeze that skipped along Main and channeled into the alley that held the entrance to the apartment. The school was a five minutes’ walk, ten when he added in getting coffee and a Danish for breakfast.
Why break routine? He needed the stability of the things he usually did, or he’d be a basket case before he got to school.
Johan had his order ready, but there was a delay when Deacon ordered his black coffee and selected his own Danish. Johan nodded and said he’d add that to the normal morning order.
Deacon was his boyfriend, and Johan knew that. So did Anna, who was just going into the grocery store for formula, and several other regular town people who spoke to Rafe. Every time he stopped, Deacon was at his side, sipping his coffee, although the Danish was untouched so far.
The town looked as normal now as it had done that day weeks ago when he’d been walking to school and a car had sped down Main and headed straight for him. The sense memory of the pain when it had hit him had him hesitating at the lights.
“Okay?” Deacon asked.
“The car, the one that hit me. I was remembering.”
“What about it? Details?”
“No, I don’t even recall the color of it – I just remember it hitting me. I never saw it, or heard it, or knew the driver, didn’t matter how much anyone asked. When I woke up in the hospital, all I could think was that I wasn’t feeling pain at all. The meds were good.” Rafe needed to lighten the explanation. “We don’t know for sure it was Felix; I mean, it could have been anyone, and him getting away from the place he was in was just a freaky coincidence.”
“It was him,” Deacon said without hesitation. “I know that for sure.”
And Rafe knew as well.
The school was still the same. The large, sprawling building was home to a range of students, from the little ones to those about to go on to their senior high school years, the typical school that fed many small towns. Rafe loved teaching there, and that had been the most positive thing in his life since WitSec, or whatever he was part of, had decided he needed to be hidden away. Gone were the dreams of being a lawyer, but instead, he was a teacher of the littlest of the kids, and he loved every minute of it.
The teacher’s lounge was usually split into three distinct groups of teachers and TAs. The primary school teachers in one corner, the junior high teachers in the other, and in the middle the ones who didn’t care and wanted to chat. Today was completely different. Everyone crowded around Rafe, shaking his hand, hugging him, his absence after the “accident” had been noticed and mourned over. He had to get used to being called Craig Jenkins again; he’d got used to being called Rafe by Deacon.
This was like getting back into character, and it was hard, until abruptly he was feeling being Mr. Craig Jenkins, teacher, back from a sabbatical.
“I had to cover the Apples,” muttered one of his fellow primary teachers, Oscar Ebson. The Apples were the five-year-olds, a group of fifteen precocious, adventurous, challenging, inquisitive kids. They were Rafe’s class, and he wanted them back. “Glad you’re here, Jenkins,” Oscar added, and held out his fist for a bump.
“Good to be back,” Rafe answered, and bumped him back.
The staff room cleared as teachers left for their lessons, and he refilled his coffee before heading for his classroom.
His TA, a young girl called Melissa, was waiting at the door. “Welcome back Mr. J,” she said with a grin. “You ready for this?” She gestured to his leg, and he nodded ruefully. It wasn’t his leg he was worried about, but the pain in his side.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“They said they’d be super good for you today, but Billy has already made Michael cry once this morning because he’s started ballet lessons and Billy…” She didn’t need to say anymore. Billy came from a family that wasn’t known for its tolerance, and Michael was a kid who loved art and dancing. The two were either going to kill each other or become best friends. That was what Rafe loved most about the job; seeing the kids change in their first year in school, making it the best he could for them. Hopefully he’d show Michael that dancing and art were good things to love and be good at, and he’d show Billy that he didn’t have to be like his older brothers, all five of them, and to be tolerant of differences.
I don’t ever want this to stop.
He waited, his hand on the doorknob.
“You okay, Mr. J?”
Rafe nodded. “I’m fine,” he said out loud, not letting his doubts seep into his voice. “Let’s do this.”
He opened the door, and fifteen kids crowded tight around him.
“We did a poster!”
“Why can’t we see your cast? Will you take your pants off?”
“Why were you away so long?”
“Did the car hurt when it hit you?”
“My mum says you coulda died, Mr. Jenkins. Is that true?”
He held a hand above his head, and one by the one the class fell silent. “Let’s go sit on the mat and I’ll tell you everything.”
Well, almost everything, at least.
Recess came and went. They’d covered most of the questions, apart from whether or not the car hitting him had hurt. He’d broken up a squabble over Lego, worked on the letter B, and accepted three apples from the kids.
The rest of the morning was uneventful, lunch was quiet, and he saw no sign of Deacon. He wondered what he was doing with himself. Billy was now the one crying – turned out he didn’t want to go home – and Michael was the one hugging him, along with Louise, who hugged everyone all the time.
He settled them in for the closing story, opening the giant copy of a brightly colored book featuring a boy and a bear and lots of water. A perennial favorite with all the kids.
Fifteen minutes to end of the day and the kids were flagging, and he made a point of allowing some extra time for packing up their lunchboxes and bags. He always tried to get his class out of the school first so he had time for the parents, so they weren’t caught up with the older kids who messed everything up. Melissa was an awesome TA and had them all corralled at the door with ten minutes to spare.
Today had been a good day. Being back here was exactly what he needed.
When he walked out of the school, Deacon was waiting, and Rafe decided he could get used to it.