Page 8 of Forgiven

“Before my accident.” He threaded his fingers together. “My point is that you have to live your life foryou, not for your parents. Making that break can be hard, believe me, I know.”

Callum stared straight ahead, his eyes losing focus. “I don’t want my mum to hate me.”

“And you think she will if you get a job in a gay bar?”

“I know she will.” Callum dipped his chin. “I hate how that sounds. I hate that I need her acceptance, even though she’s one of the least accepting people I know, but I do. Did—” He cleared his throat to dislodge the sickly feeling that had settled there. “Did your parents accept your decision not to go into law?”

“Eventually.”

“What if they hadn’t?”

Jared shrugged. “I’d have lived with that. It’s my life to live, not theirs to dictate.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“It’s not. Ask Kyrone. He struggled with a similar thing.”

“He did?”

“Come to lunch and ask him about it yourself.”

They both looked up at the sound of someone coming down the stairs. Ezra came into view. He paused on the bottom step and looked at them both.

“I’m interrupting,” he said.

“We were about to go for lunch,” Jared said. “As you stood Callum up.”

Ezra laughed, but there was a concerned edge to the sound. “Yeah, sorry about that. I’m not finished, I was just coming down to grab something. Are you okay?”

Callum nodded.

“Enjoy lunch.”

“Kyrone’s going to meet us at Trinity Kitchens. It’s not far,” Jared said, standing. “But we’ve already kept him waiting, so we should probably go.”

Callum stared at Jared for a few seconds before following his lead. Not being rejected or treated with contempt was a weird sensation—nice, but unfamiliar.

They turned left out of the shop, through the shopping arcade to a wide pedestrianised street. Callum had a job interview in one of the shops along the street the day before. Thank God for the map app on his phone, which had showed him how to get there from where Ezra’s narrowboat was docked, so he got there on time. Not that it had mattered in the end.

“Are you sure I’m not gate-crashing?” Callum asked.

“I’m sure.”

“Has Ezra told you why I came to stay with him, or why I’m struggling to get a job?”

“No.”

“I’ve got a criminal record.”

Jared glanced at him. “You didn’t need to tell me that.”

“You’re being nice to me and you wanted to be a law student at one point. You probably don’t want to hang out with a criminal.”

“That was another life.” Jared frowned. “It feels like you’re trying to push me away, which is fine if that’s really what you want. Icantake a hint.”

“It’s not that it’s—” Callum shook his head. “People tend to form an opinion of me as soon as they find out I’ve got a record.”

Jared smiled. “Then that’s their loss. For what it’s worth, I think you’re brave.”