Wild Summer (10 page)

I’ll be there as soon as I can. Please meet me at the station. I’ll text you when I’m nearby
. Sitting on his bed, Crash sent the text.

Without really thinking he shoved a few random items of clothing that were strewn about his bedroom floor into a holdall. Downstairs, Kay was waiting for him, car keys in her hand.

I’ll drive you into central London,
she signed.
You should be able to get a train out from there.

I’m sorry.

It’s okay.
Kay took his hand. He knew she was worried about him.
Come on, or you’ll never get there.

Crash didn’t get a response to any of the texts he sent to Summer the whole train journey to Essex. He anxiously formulated a plan to find him that was probably little better than the one he’d had coming here last week. He now knew he could find Summer at Ren’s house if he needed to, but that would be the very last resort.

But when Crash stepped off the train onto the platform at the station, the last hour he’d spent worrying was instantly forgotten. Summer was sitting on a bench in the middle of the platform. Crash’s heart thumped at how utterly unmissable he was, how he stood out like a bright light in the dark—even if that light was now faded.

At first Summer didn’t see him, though he seemed to scan the small crowd getting off the train with hopeful desperation. As he got closer, Crash could see how wrung out Summer looked, as if he’d not slept in days—his eyes red-rimmed, his face blotchy from crying, every movement jerky with exhaustion. When Crash held up his hand in greeting, Summer leaped up off the bench and just about ran into him, hugging him with a ferocity Crash had never been hugged with before, but one which he readily returned.

It was a very different welcome than last week’s at the café. Crash only wished it had been under different circumstances.

Summer pulled away first.

You came
, he signed, swallowing as if he were choking back tears.

Crash frowned.
You didn’t get my texts?

Summer wouldn’t meet his eyes.
After I texted you last night, Ren dropped my phone in the fishbowl. I hoped you’d come… but I wasn’t certain.

Crash folded Summer in his arms again. It was so much easier than talking, than saying the wrong thing, and where Ren was concerned, Crash was sure he only had wrong things to say. Things that would probably have Summer pushing him away and vanishing down those concrete steps behind him.

The platform emptied around them, but Crash didn’t care less who stopped and stared. He’d longed for this boy in his arms for the last four years. Even if he had managed to suppress his feelings for a while, they’d never left him, and now they had returned in full force.

Summer’s heartbeat slowed against Crash’s chest. Crash was a good head taller, and he loved the way the top of Summer’s head fit in the gap between his neck and his shoulder, the way Summer’s nose pressed against his collarbone, so he could feel warm breath against his skin. Crash closed his eyes and inhaled the sweet apple scent of Summer’s shampoo. He never wanted to move again, but he needed to. Reluctantly he stepped away.

Kay said she was going to phone Estella, a social worker we know. She might be able to help us.

Us.
Crash couldn’t believe the slip he’d made, but Summer didn’t even blink. He pulled Crash back over to the bench, and they sat down.

She’s your foster mum, right? Should I call her?
The anxiety that had retreated when Crash held him seemed to be returning, making Summer’s hands shake.

Although they weren’t technically his foster parents any longer—Kay and Peter had adopted him a year ago—Crash just nodded and handed Summer his phone, the number already dialed. He hoped there would be time to tell each other what had happened in their lives later, after they’d found Sky safe and well.

He didn’t want to imagine any other outcome.

As Summer spoke he kept flicking his gaze over Crash and sucking his damn lip ring into his mouth, something Crash remembered him doing whenever he was nervous. And Crash was certain Summer didn’t mean it to be, given the circumstances, but it was sexy as hell.
God,
everything Summer did was.

Crash closed his eyes, trying to work out what on earth was
wrong
with him. He was sick with worry about Sky, probably almost as worried as Summer was, and at the same time, could think of nothing he wanted more than to book into a hotel room and lose himself in the comfort of Summer’s hot mouth and warm skin until they forgot everything.

What did she say?
Crash asked when Summer handed him back his phone. Working out the words of half a conversation didn’t always make much sense, and Summer hadn’t said much more than
okay
anyway.

Estella is going to call me in a bit.
Summer’s hand found his and entwined their fingers. The shaking had gone away a little.
She’s nice, your foster mum. Think she wanted to reassure me
.

I told her about you.

I’m surprised she was willing to speak to me at all, then.
He smiled ruefully, wrapping the hand that wasn’t holding Crash’s around his chest.

“I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose her.” Summer gasped suddenly, his mouth open as if he couldn’t breathe.

“You’re not going to lose her. We’re going to find her. I swear. I’m not leaving you until we do.”

“Why would you help me? After all this time, after
everything?
Why do you even care?” The questions were so honest, Summer’s bright tearful gaze holding his so openly, that Crash couldn’t say anything but the truth.

“I still care about you. I’ve hated myself for not… for not standing up for you against Ren, for not being there for you. There’s never been anyone else.”

Of course there were people who would always have a place in his heart, like Romeo, his best friend, and Sophie, who’d taken care of him his first time on the streets. And then there was Laurence, whom he’d climbed buildings with and run with and had a crush on since they’d first met. But those feelings were different—they didn’t set him on fire. Nothing touched the intensity he felt for Summer.

Withdrawing his hand from Crash’s, Summer looked away across the train tracks. He looked so lost and far away that Crash had no idea what he was thinking. It hurt, but then, what didn’t? He’d never expected Summer to profess his undying love to him. Whatever went on in Summer’s heart, Crash was sure it was complicated.

Becoming lost in his own thoughts, Crash only knew the phone was ringing when Summer grasped it and brought it to his ear, an almost hopeful look on his face, but….

They hadn’t found her yet.

Crash could tell by the way Summer seemed to collapse inside. Summer hardly said a word in response to whatever Estella was telling him.

His fringe fell into his eyes as he sagged, and Crash reached across and with careful fingers brushed it aside. He knew he probably shouldn’t push it with Summer. Touching him like this was overly familiar, and he had no right to do it, but whenever he was in Summer’s presence, Crash felt such a surge of protectiveness, he was too weak to stop himself.

Summer ended the call and, as though it was too heavy to hold any longer, placed the phone on the bench between them.

I want to be there. I want to search for her
, he signed.

Okay.
Crash could understand that. And they still had a few hours of daylight left.
Where?

London. Holborn.
Summer dragged a hand across his eyes, wiping the wetness away, his expression becoming defiant.
It’s why I was there that day you saw me. I was trying to see her, but they didn’t let me. They said it would upset her too much. They said I should leave her to settle in. But she shouldn’t have been there in the first place. She should have been with me!

The next train back into London wasn’t for another hour. Full of nervous energy, Summer paced the platform like a perpetually wound-up toy. Crash considered just blowing his savings on a taxi, but driving into central London, even on a Sunday, probably wouldn’t get them there any quicker. The café was closed, so he used the last of his coins to buy a hot chocolate from the drinks machine outside it. He pushed it into Summer’s hand and guided him back to the bench.

You’re an amazing dancer,
Crash signed, desperately trying to think of something to talk about to distract Summer from his all-consuming anxiety.
I saw you at the club the other night.

“
It’s how Ren insisted I pay my rent,” Summer replied, his knee jogging up and down. The hot chocolate in his hand spilled over a little.

Do you enjoy it?

“Dancing? At that fucking club?” Summer squeezed his eyes shut, putting the hot chocolate on the floor and balling his hands into fists in his lap.

“What if she’s been kidnapped? What if she’s hurt?” he mouthed, distressed. “What if she’s scared and she’s calling for me and I don’t come?”

Crash could see Summer was panicking, could see the way he was becoming wound tighter and tighter like a coiled spring, focusing on the absolute worst that could happen.

Romeo suffered from panic attacks. He had told Crash about them once, trying to explain how out of control and terrifying it felt. Crash thought back to the other morning lying out on the grass—his awful worry as he waited for Summer to contact him, unable to do anything because everything was beyond his control—and he knew sitting here waiting for the train wasn’t helping.

“Summer?” Crash took Summer’s trembling hand in his. “What’s the next station down the line?”

Shakily Summer told him.

“Does Tom have a car?”

“I don’t know. Without my phone I don’t even have his number!”

Okay, taxi it would be. With Summer’s hand in his, Crash grabbed a copy of the train timetable, and they exited the station.

But as they descended the sun-bleached concrete steps toward the street, something else occurred to Crash, and he stopped.

Where had he always run to when he’d walked out on one foster family after another? Where had he always bought a train ticket to? Where was everything and everyone he knew? London. He’d gone back there because it was familiar, because he belonged there, because it was
home
.

Wouldn’t Sky want to go somewhere she knew? Wouldn’t she head here? Wouldn’t she run home?

We should try your house before we go,
Crash signed.

Summer’s eyes grew wide with understanding, and without saying a word, he took off at a run down the high street, toward the playing fields, toward home.

C
LOUDS
WERE
gathering over the sea, the horizon awash with gray weather. For the first time in weeks, it looked as though it was finally going to rain.

Crash sprinted across the playing fields after Summer, surprised at how quickly the distance closed between them. His climbing and free running had made a bigger difference to his speed than he had realized. And maybe it was his height too. Summer could barely be five foot nine, but Crash was now six foot four and counting.

They reached the row of maisonettes, and Summer immediately darted around the back. When Crash reached him, he was fiddling with the window of the room that had once been his.

The lock is loose. Shake it, and it gives,
Summer signed.
Sky knows how to get in.

Crash hoisted Summer up to give him better access. Within seconds he had prized the window open and was inside. Crash glanced around at the overgrown walkway, making sure no one was around to see, and followed him.

The house smelled as gloomy as it looked—half-damp, half-stale, a little forgotten. Summer’s room seemed so much smaller and darker without any furniture in it, empty and devoid of the light it had once known. Crash wondered what had happened to all Summer’s textbooks, if he’d taken them with him to Ren’s. It seemed unlikely. Summer had probably kept those dreams hidden deep inside himself—even when he lived here, he’d hardly let them show.

Looking around for any movement in the shadows, Crash made his way onto the landing. He had no idea where Summer had disappeared to. He was probably pulling the house apart room by room. Cautiously Crash pushed open the door opposite. The bathroom. He’d forgotten. Then again, he supposed his whole focus when he was last here had been on Summer. Stupidly it still probably was. He closed the door to the room to shut out the smell and the sight of the mold creeping like ivy across the ceiling.

The door at the end of the landing was wide open. Crash walked toward it, sensing
something
…. Sometimes he wondered if he did actually sense anything at all in situations like these, or if it was just his brain compensating for his lack of one sense by filling the space it left, like the tingling people sometimes spoke of in a lost limb.

But when he saw Summer on his knees in the middle of the floor, an even slighter figure curled in his arms, it didn’t matter what he sensed…. Sky was here, sobbing in her brother’s arms, and Crash took a deep shuddery breath of relief.

Without turning around Summer held out his arm and beckoned Crash toward them, pulling him down when he was close enough, then crushing their three bodies together.

Feeling his protective instincts kick in, Crash stretched his arms around them, imagining he could gather them up and carry them home with him somehow. Keep them safe there and look after them.

After Sky had calmed a little, Summer phoned Estella to tell her to call off the search, that Sky was safe. Crash got up and backed away to give them a little space. He looked around Sky’s old room at the peeling wallpaper and posters half falling from the walls.

I remember you.
Sky signed to him when he looked back at her.
You played games, but you never came back.