Page 51 of The Unlikely Heir

I turn my focus to my pie, savoring the sweet, buttery crust and the tartness of the apples underneath.

“So, how is your pudding, anyway?” I ask inanely.

Callum turns his attention to his apple crumble. “I have a theory that if you drown anything in custard, it has to taste good.”

I nod. “I like that theory. I might have to give it a thorough testing though.”

“Do you want to try some?” He slides his plate over towards me.

“All right then.”

I go to take a spoonful just as Callum reaches for another, and our spoons click together.

Callum tries to shove my spoon out of the way, and it turns into a short but heated spoon battle that makes me laugh again.

Callum uses my distraction to get the large bit of crumble we were fighting over. I can’t help watching his mouth as he polishes off the spoon.

I look away, trying to compose myself.

“I used to come to greasy spoons like this with my grandparents,” I say. “It would be our treat to come on a Sunday and have the full English.”

“You were raised by your grandparents, right?”

“Yes, I was,” I reply.

It’s currently two a.m., and I’m knackered. I should be heading home to get some sleep. I’ve got a country to run tomorrow, after all. I’m teetering on dangerous territory here, but I can’t make myself leave.

Instead, I find myself telling Callum stories about my grandparents. Things I’ve never told anyone. I never shared much of my childhood with Garett. The gap between his posh childhood on a country estate and mine was an impossible distance to bridge. We had the shared territory of Oxford and our lives as young London professionals, which seemed like enough at the time.

Whenever I mention my childhood now, it’s only to underscore my working-class credentials. Free school meals, scrappy fights in the council estate, and rummaging in the charity shop for secondhand clothes.

But I now find myself telling Callum small, seemingly insignificant stories. How one Christmas, Nan said she wanted a new apron, and Grandad dispatched me to get a floral one he knew she’d love. But as a lark, he told me to also purchase one of those saucy ones with a naked female body on it, and that was the first one we handed her to unwrap on Christmas morning.

Nan was so angry that we’d spent money on it that she wore it through Christmas Day and refused to wear the proper one, and it became such a family joke that she’d wear it without thinking, even when we had company over.

I tell him of the hours I spent in dimly lit arcades, where whose name was at the top of the scoring board inMortal Kombat IIgave you ultimate bragging rights.

I even tell him about the moment I told my grandad I was gay, which was the most nerve-wracking moment of my life up to that point.

I’d been a shaking, sweaty mess. I’d contemplated writing a letter, but repeated drafts had ended up being devoured by the bin.

Eventually, I’d run out of patience and blurted it out while sitting next to him on the settee as he played Patience on the coffee table, his oxygen tubes in his nostrils.

I’d mumbled the whole thing to the couch cushions. “You-need-to-know-something-about-me. I’m-gay-and-no-it’s-not-something-I-can-change.”

My grandad had stopped slapping cards down on the table, and for a moment, there was nothing but canned laughter coming from the telly.

The silence from my grandad had been measured by the thumping of my heart.

“Ollie,” he’d said finally.

I couldn’t raise my eyes to meet his.

He’d put his hand on my chin and jerked my chin up so I was forced to meet his gaze.

I’d flinched because I’d seen a flicker of anger there, and the thought of disappointing this man who’d raised me, my grandad who had taught me everything I knew about what it meant to be a man, caused me to wither inside.

His eyes pierced me. “Look me in the eye when you’re telling me. Not looking me in the eye makes me think you’re ashamed. And you should never be ashamed of who you are.”