Chapter 34
It was an hour’s journey by train from home to Southampton, a hour of flat views over flat fields, long grass rippling in the wake of the train, swallows diving from Hawaiian-blue skies and beginning to cluster, ready for the inevitable flocking south. Autumn was coming, but it hadn’t arrived yet.
That summer broke all the records. Heat, humidity, hours of sunshine, the lot. It had been a roasting hot summer, and Jayden had hated every last minute of it. He didn’t want freckles, and he didn’t want to be stuck in an office while it was so gorgeous outside, and he didn’t want to be missing the streaks of copper forming in Darren’s dark curls. Or Darren’s freckles in weird places.
Jayden had made the best of the aborted year. He’d secured himself a volunteer placement on the pho
