Home and Away (8 page)

 “We do have to see your mum today,” Rupert began slowly. Oliver’s arms tightened around his neck and Rupert stroked his back, rubbing Oliver’s spine like he’d seen Callum do. “I don’t want to rush you, but I need to know what you want. Can you tell me?”

Oliver shook his head and Rupert silently pleaded with Callum for help.

“Ollie,” Callum said, “you know Rupert would never do anything to hurt you, right? That he only wants to do what’s best for you?”

Oliver hesitated for a moment and Rupert’s heart broke. Then Oliver nodded.

Rupert swallowed hard. How had he ever believed there was more than one possible outcome for this trip? At least as far as he was concerned. But he thought he should ask Oliver what he wanted, even while fearing it was too great a responsibility to put on a boy so young.

He decided to risk it. Callum had been honest with Oliver, and maybe that was the best approach.

“Oliver, if you had a choice, would you rather stay here with your mum, or come live with me?”

Oliver’s head popped up and he looked right at Rupert, his blue eyes huge in his too-thin face.

“
You
.”

Callum smiled, almost dizzy with relief to hear that word,
any word
, come from Oliver’s mouth. A huge grin spread across Rupert’s face, and Callum’s stomach did that funny twist.

“Great,” Rupert said. He sounded hoarse, but like he really meant it. Rupert’s expression dimmed, though, after a moment. “We still have to go see some people. And your mum will be there.”

Oliver looked over his shoulder at Callum and frowned.

Callum smiled encouragingly. “Do you want to see her?”

Oliver shrugged, having apparently reverted to silence. Callum strongly suspected the answer was no, but that wasn’t something a child could admit to easily. Oliver kept looking at Callum expectantly.

“Would you like me to go with you?” Callum guessed.

Oliver nodded quickly.

“Okay. I’ll stay with you the entire time,” he promised, silently vowing to keep his cool and do whatever he could to keep Oliver from witnessing the worst of what was likely to come. “And afterwards, we can go shopping. I thought we might buy you some new clothes. Maybe a book or two.”

Oliver perked up at that suggestion and, with a little encouragement from Rupert, returned to his seat and started in on his breakfast again. Rupert and Callum shared another smile, but Rupert was quiet for the rest of the meal, mostly looking like he was preparing for battle. Callum let him be and told Oliver all about Moncton and the wonderful things he’d see and do there, searching for interesting stuff on his phone when he ran out of ideas.

By the end of breakfast, Callum thought when his hockey career ended, he could probably apply for a job with the Maritimes tourism board. Rupert, meanwhile, looked calm and resolved.

“Let’s get this done with,” Rupert said after he’d signed the bill.

They stood and Oliver grabbed Rupert’s hand, attempting to climb him as he had Callum. Rupert staggered, obviously unprepared and having no idea how to help. Callum caught his elbow and steadied them against his chest as he boosted Oliver into place.

“Thanks,” Rupert said as he shifted Oliver into a more comfortable position. Then he grimaced. “How’s your back holding up?”

“Fine,” Callum said. “Want me to take him?”

Rupert held on tighter. “No. Not yet.”

Callum smiled and ran a hand over Oliver’s hair. “Okay.”

They caught a cab into the heart of the city, all too soon pulling up to an office building at the address Rupert had given. Oliver crawled from Rupert’s lap into Callum’s, and they climbed out of the car to stand on the sidewalk. Callum took a moment to collect himself, not unlike what he did to prepare for a big game. He needed to be calm. Focused. Centered.

This would be more complicated than time on the ice. There, he knew what people expected of him. What shots his opponents were likely to try. Here, all he knew was that he needed to be whatever Rupert and Oliver needed him to be.

And he had no idea what that was.

Callum pulled Rupert closer, so that they stared at each other over the top of Oliver’s head. Rupert curled his hands around Callum’s biceps.

“I have no idea how this is going to go down,” Rupert admitted.

“I know. We’ll figure it out as we go. I’ve got your back.”

Rupert smiled gratefully. “Thank you. But I think maybe…”

“What?”

Rupert’s grip tightened. “I want you to promise that no matter what happens, you’ll do whatever you think is best for him, not me.” He looked down at Oliver. “Even if it means leaving with him. Walk right out. Just don’t let him hear or see—”

“I got it. I promise.” Some of Callum’s hard-won equilibrium slipped. “We’ll meet you back at the hotel.”

Rupert shook his head. “No. If you have to leave, meet me in the Harrods Food Hall.”

“I don’t know where that is.” Callum’s nerves jumped he pieced together Rupert’s intent. If they had to leave, Rupert didn’t want them to be easily found. Not by anyone but him.

“Any taxi in this city will get you there. You can shop while you wait. Eat if you need to. I’ll find you. Near the chocolates.”

“Do they have kid’s stuff? Aside from chocolate, that is.”

Rupert laughed. “It’s Harrods. You can buy an entire wardrobe, a house, a horse, the saddle, and a trailer. Oh, and lunch.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of three outfits in size four,” Callum said dryly.

Rupert smiled. “That, too.”

“Okay,” Callum said, wrapping one hand around Rupert’s back and hugging Oliver between them. “Let’s do this.”

Rupert squeezed back, then they marched into the building like they knew what the fuck they were doing.

The receptionist leapt to her feet when Rupert entered the plush lobby on the top floor. “My lo—”

“Yes. Hello,” Rupert said quickly, not even letting her finish. “I believe we are expected.”

“Yes, of course.”

They were immediately ushered into a huge office with deep pile carpets and dark wood paneling. The view of St. Paul’s out the window was stunning, but Callum hardly spared it a glance. He only had eyes for the incredibly young, beautiful woman leaping to her feet.

“Oliver!”

The boy in his arms turned to look at her, but his grip on Callum never wavered. Callum worried he might be forced to pry Oliver loose so he could say hello to his mother, but after that one maternal outburst, Lydia turned to the other men in the room without even attempting to hug Oliver, let alone check him over.

Callum hung back, hovering close to the door with his hands pressed across Oliver’s back, as if he could shield him from the barrage of voices climbing higher in volume with each passing minute. After a particularly loud snipe from his mother, Oliver pressed his face to Callum’s neck, and Callum tucked his chin to speak quietly to Oliver. He told him that Rupert would see to everything. That his brother loved him and wouldn’t let anything bad happen. That if Oliver wanted to say anything, or tell Rupert something, he could.

Oliver gave no reaction, but Callum kept up the litany of reassurance, hoping to comfort the boy or, if nothing else, drown out the conversation swirling around them.

“Enough!” Rupert barked, slamming his hand down on the desk and bringing the conversation and everyone in the room to a halt. He was mesmerizing. Then Callum recognized the bright spots of pink on Rupert’s cheeks, the set of his jaw, and knew shit was about to get real.

Callum started humming his father’s favorite folk song into Oliver’s ear. It sounded better when it was in tune. And on bagpipes. But Callum knew it backwards and forwards and could keep it going with half a thought.

Rupert looked at them. “You okay?”

Callum arched an eyebrow, but nodded. Rupert seemed to understand.

He turned back to the room. “There’s a child in this room. The very boy you all are discussing as if he were so much chattel to be bargained for.”

The men Callum didn’t know, the ones he assumed were the lawyers, had the grace to appear embarrassed.

Lydia rolled her eyes. “He’s just a baby, you idiot. He doesn’t understand anything.”

Callum’s song skipped a beat, then continued. Louder.

It took Rupert a moment to get himself under control. Even Callum had never seen Rupert turn this particular shade of pink.

Callum was now singing loudly enough to be heard across the room. Lydia looked at him as if he were insane and probably very stupid. The attorneys exercised only marginally more restraint.

Rupert turned to the man whose office they appeared to be standing in, his face a mask of fury, his voice wintery. “Charles, is there any way in hell this woman can win custody?”

“It’s unlikely,” Charles began. He launched into a dissertation on the ins and outs of the law, barely audible over Lydia’s screeching, her attorney keeping harmony only an octave lower.

Rupert turned his back on the circus and walked to Callum and Oliver.

“Oliver,” Rupert said quietly, ducking his head to look into Oliver’s face. “Do you want to say anything to your mum before you go?”

Oliver shook his head. Rupert smiled and ran his hand over Oliver’s head, then grabbed Callum’s shoulder and squeezed. “I’ll find you,” he said softly.

Callum didn’t move. The weight of his promise battled with the worry of leaving Rupert to deal with this on his own.

Rupert sighed. “I know I’ve given you cause to think I’m a wimp,” he began.

“No, I—”

“They can’t touch me. They’re not—
they
don’t frighten me.”

Callum was surprised by Rupert’s tacit admission that
somebody
did, but saved his questions for another time. What mattered now was that it wasn’t this pack of jackals. “I don’t think you’re a wimp,” he said fiercely. “I just want you to feel safe.”

Rupert’s expression softened, and the hand on Callum’s shoulder slid to his neck and squeezed. “Thank you,” Rupert whispered. He glanced back at the rest of the room, then reached behind Callum and opened the door.

“Now run.”

Callum did, already halfway down the hallway before the slamming door cut off the cacophony of shouting voices.

Three hours later, Rupert practically fell out of the taxi in front of Harrods. It had taken too damn long to get Lydia to agree to his offer, far longer than he ever would have guessed. She’d threatened lawsuits, kidnapping charges, and everything else she could think of.

But she’d never once asked the name of the man who’d taken Oliver away. Or where they’d gone. Or if Oliver was okay.

Rupert could have resolved their stand-off a lot faster by throwing more money at her. He had it to throw, and there was no worthier cause than making that hateful woman go away, but he couldn’t stomach the idea of what felt like nothing more than
buying
Oliver from her.

His phone had rung two hours into their negotiations, and he’d been delighted to take the call from Nick. He’d found Grainne. And Mary. Both had been more than happy to receive their back wages from Rupert and tell Nick, in exacting detail, what Oliver’s life had been like for the past months.

Rupert had only heard the highlights, but he considered it a towering achievement not to have flown across the room and wrung Lydia’s neck. She wasn’t worth it. She wasn’t anything. She’d spent the sum total of approximately two weeks in Oliver’s company, and now she was, thank god,
gone for good.
With nothing more than whatever she had tucked away in her bank accounts to show for it.

Good riddance.

His only consolation was that after hours of questioning, Nick was confident that neither of Oliver’s caretakers—a term used loosely in this case, to be sure—had ever physically harmed him, or allowed anyone else to, either.

Rupert had made one quick stop at his father’s—and now his, he supposed—bank to retrieve Oliver’s passport and the official custodial documents from the safe deposit box. Even those additional fifteen minutes had been far too long. He should have come straight here.

Rupert ran into the Food Halls, dodging past the pastries and into the candy section, scanning the crowd. He found he desperately wanted to see them, to just lay eyes on Oliver and know that he was safe. Not that he doubted Callum for a moment, but he hated that he might have to wait. They were probably off doing some shopping. He’d only just texted Callum from the bank to say that everything was settled and he was on his way. He hadn’t received any message back.

He almost missed Callum’s familiar head of brown curls above broad, thick shoulders. He wove through the throngs of people and practically fell on Callum, who was sitting at a small cafe table, his feet stretched out before him, and Oliver passed out on his chest.

Callum looked up and smiled, and Rupert was struck dumb.

“How’d it go?” Callum asked.

Rupert shook his head to clear it and focused on Oliver, amazed the boy could sleep through the racket around them.

He belonged with Rupert now. Forever.

Rupert suddenly needed to sit down. It was good there was a chair behind him, because his legs didn’t give him any choice. He landed with a thud.

Callum put a hand over Rupert’s. “You okay?”

Rupert nodded slowly. “Yeah.” Callum caught his eye, his steady gaze calming. “Yes,” Rupert said more confidently. “It’s done. We can take him home.”

Callum smiled. “Congratulations.”

Rupert swallowed hard. He’d never been so elated. Or so terrified.

Callum tried to give Rupert some space while Callum and Oliver packed up the new clothes, books, and toys they’d picked out into Oliver’s brand-new suitcase.

The little boy was still silent, but managed to convey his enthusiasm for the adventure of their trip to Canada. He was smiling more, even sitting and playing on his own, with some encouragement. But there was always one eye on Callum or Rupert. A hand on their knee. And the moment he thought he could get away with it, he was back in one of their laps, tucked up as close as he could get.

Callum didn’t mind, and Rupert appeared to be enjoying it, though he still seemed surprised every time Oliver bounded into his lap or took his hand. Callum couldn’t decide which was cuter, Rupert’s flushed cheeks or Oliver’s pleased smile.