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Zeph came out of the exam on machine learning with José chattering at his side. He’d never known anyone who talked so much. It was a miracle the Venezuelan had kept quiet in the exam.

“Aren’t you fascinated by the applications of kernel methods? I’m just so into it. But I don’t know what to pick for another topic. Convex optimisation, statistical learning theory, transfer learning, meta learning? There’s so much to choose from. What do you think?”

Zeph’s head was too full for anymore today. “I’ve not made my mind up yet.”

That didn’t stop José rattling on about the exam questions. Zeph liked José. He was a bit of a nerd like him, but Zeph didn’t like hearing about what others had made of exams he’d just done. It always led him to second guessing his answers.

“Did you put that?” José asked.

“I can’t remember.” He could and he hadn’t. Zeph had thought it was a trap, but maybe… Don’t think about it.

“Oh, there’s Ramon. I’ll ask him what he thought. See you.”

Zeph’s heart twisted at José’s final words.

The last words Jack had thrown at him at the bandstand.

He’d never seen him again. He’d told himself not to search for Jack but he had.

Zeph had dug deep and illegally to try and trace Thomas and Jack Steel and found nothing.

Which in itself told him something. To leave no trace online seemed almost impossible.

Unless maybe they were in witness protection.

It had been the only thing he could think of to explain why they’d left so suddenly and Jack not being allowed to keep in touch.

He could be wrong but it was the best solution he could come up with.

If it was true, then no way was Zeph going to step into that particular minefield.

He didn’t want to endanger them. He’d had to take precautions to avoid being traced from the sites he had looked at.

The last thing he needed was to come to the attention of the police.

Today’s exam on machine learning was the final one of his second year at Cambridge.

It was a relief knowing he could stop cramming his head for a while.

He made his way out of college, walked past the Fitzwilliam Museum, then down to the river where he was paid to punt tourists along the Cam.

He had a convoluted work schedule because of lectures, supervisions and exams, and he didn’t do many hours each week but the pay was good, punting was excellent exercise and he enjoyed it.

Zeph ate the sandwich he’d packed as he walked.

Cambridge hadn’t turned out to be quite what he’d expected socially, but he loved what he was studying.

And he’d made some friends. Not quite the friends he’d expected but part of that was Jack’s fault.

Zeph carried him in his heart. He couldn’t seem to let him go.

He’d finished eating by the time he approached the punting company’s depot. Delia was in the cabin and smiled as he went in.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“It went. All done. Yippee. Can I leave my bag with you?”

“Of course.”

Zeph was already wearing the obligatory dark blue trousers—shorts in the summer but it wasn’t warm today—and a white shirt. He took one of the company’s red logoed waistcoats off the rail along with a boater with a red band from the shelf.

“Have fun,” Delia told him. “And no—”

“Falling in. I know.” Zeph laughed and made his way out onto the quay.

Richard, the station manager, directed him to the punt he’d been assigned.

People were already boarding. Eight adults and a dog.

He hoped the dog was going to behave itself.

The last one had jumped into the river after a duck.

The passengers settled on the blanketed seats with their cameras out.

Zeph’s phone was in his bag. He wasn’t going to risk losing it in the water. He’d seen it happen.

“Afternoon, everyone!” Zeph changed gear. People were paying for him to be happy, cheerful and amusing. That’s what he gave them. “Welcome aboard the Titanic.” Everyone laughed. “Don’t worry too much. No icebergs have been seen today.”

Punting wasn’t as easy as it looked, but once Zeph had trained to do this, he found it fun. He stood slightly to one side on the back, and pushed the pole into the water behind him to propel the punt forwards. Leaving it trailing meant it worked like a rudder to steer. He’d built up muscle.

“The journey should take about fifty minutes. Longer if anyone falls in.”

He liked to stick to the middle of the river where the gravel bed meant the pole was less likely to get stuck, but there were so many punts out today, that he’d have to share the central path and head towards the bank at times.

“Just a warning about the swans. They can be vicious. Especially that one.” He pointed out the one he’d nicknamed Goliath. Then told them about Mr Asbo.

The running commentary he gave as he propelled the punt along was long-practised but usually made people laugh where they were supposed to. He gave the history of the colleges they passed.

“Magdalene was the last college to admit women in 1988. In protest, some of the students donned black armbands and carried a coffin around town.” Times had changed.

“Are there more men at Cambridge than women?” someone asked.

“Roughly equal as in most UK universities. But in some subjects here like maths, it’s 85% male, 15% female.”

Zeph liked the bridges, especially the Bridge of Sighs and the Mathematical Bridge and had lots to say about those.

“The original mathematical bridge was supposed to have been designed by Isaac Newton as a structure without bolts. It’s said that students took it apart and couldn’t get it to work without metal supports. But sadly, Newton didn’t design it. He died before the first bridge was erected.”

Zeph was able to talk about the engineering of the bridge, which was fascinating, unlike Clare Bridge, about which he’d had little to say.

But after he’d turned the punt and was on his way back to the depot, he looked up at Clare Bridge and his heart stopped.

Uninteresting had turned into remarkable.

Though he had to be wrong. That couldn’t be who he thought it was standing there looking down at him, cheek bones more prominent, but the same hard jaw.

Zeph clenched the pole so tightly, his knuckles turned white.

It was as if a bolt of electricity had zapped up his spine and rattled his vertebrae hard enough to make his legs shake.

He steered the punt under the bridge and turned to look back when he emerged the other side. Oh God, Jack. It is you.

He looked at him for as long as he could and Jack stared at Zeph just as intently, though he made no move to acknowledge him.

Zeph needed to face forwards or there’d be a collision, but it was hard turning his face away from someone he’d spent so much time thinking about.

All those hours lying in bed. Hours that added up to weeks…

how much of his life had he spent hoping for this moment?

All the way back to Magdalene, he thought he’d see Jack waiting when he got there.

But he wasn’t. If common sense hadn’t told him that Jack would be long gone if Zeph walked out of his job mid-shift and ran to Clare Bridge, that’s exactly what he would have done.

Instead, he thanked his passengers for the tips they gave him, stroked the well-behaved, waggy-tailed dog, and tidied the punt ready for the next load.

He suspected that the tours after seeing Jack were not the best he’d done. He gave the same spiel but his mind was racing. Was it really Jack? Had he come to Cambridge to see him? Did Zeph want to see him?

Jack had broken his heart. Even if he’d had no choice about leaving, he’d had a choice about keeping in touch.

Zeph wasn’t hard to find. But as damaged as his heart had been, it had been bandaged by moments of joy.

When he’d been offered a place at Cambridge, when he’d achieved four A*s that ensured he’d be going there, when he’d earned distinction in grade eight on the piano never having taken a piano exam before, and the happiness he’d seen on the faces of Martin and Paulo, the unflinching, generous support they’d given him, the pride they felt in his achievements…

Sometimes Zeph could fool himself into thinking that his heart had never cracked at all.

Only when he was in bed, drowning in a sea of loneliness, only then did he let himself remember how Jack had made him feel.

But he’d stopped longing for Jack and pushed away his hope, only allowing it out for occasional excursions into self-pity.

Instead, he’d just longed for someone to care for, someone to care for him.

Cambridge hadn’t provided that someone—yet.

But there was still time. How dare Jack come back into his life now? What did he want?

He swallowed hard as he realised how quickly he’d shifted from excitement to annoyance.

Zeph’s was the last boat back as the business shut down for the night. He was relieved to get his tipsy passengers to shore without incident. He sorted out the punt and moved the bottles to the recycling bin.

“They drank all that?” Richard asked.

“They ran out and were really upset I wouldn’t stop to let them buy more.”

He put his waistcoat and hat back in the shed and retrieved his backpack. It was chilly now, so he took out his sweater and pulled it on.

“See you tomorrow,” Richard called.

Zeph nodded. He had another three-hour shift tomorrow afternoon, then nothing until next week. He told himself not to even think about walking to Clare Bridge. It wasn’t on his way home. Jack wouldn’t be there and why should Zeph be chasing after him?