Chapter Eight Pass the Baton #2
Mrs Turner’s smile was brisk. “You’re in luck.” She tapped Warren lightly on the arm. “Mr Bailey has offered to step in for your Year Ten trip to Portchester Castle. I’ve signed it off.”
“Oh. Right.” Jude scratched the back of his neck. “Great. Thanks. The class will be pleased it can go ahead.”
She gave Warren a light pat on the back. “I’ll leave you two to sort the finer details. And Jude? Let’s get those parent letters out today, hm?”
“Yeah. Sure. Will do.”
With that, she swept out.
Warren lingered. Then stepped fully into the room, filling it without meaning to. Too broad. Too confident. Too… much. At least for Jude right then.
He grinned, spreading his arms theatrically. “Looks like I’m your knight in shining armour.”
Jude inhaled too fast, caught off guard.
What would he give to have a real knight in shining armour swoop in and save him from the wreck of his life? But that was fantasy. Not reality. And Jude only dealt in facts and truths. Not fiction and hope.
Warren dropped his arms as if picking up on Jude’s hesitation. “I meant…the castle thing, right? The trip. It’s… a castle? Knights and kings and queens stuff.”
Jude cleared his throat. “Yeah. Castles. Very witty.”
Warren’s smile tipped sideways, a little less sure of itself now.
Jude couldn’t handle that look. So he staggered back into his chair, turned on the PC, and focused hard on the boot-up screen.
Warren didn’t leave.
He drifted through the classroom, easy steps carrying him past display boards and laminated posters, leftover remnants of better teaching days.
Student essays pinned at odd angles. World War propaganda.
Timeline maps. Jude’s carefully chosen quotes tacked across the walls.
And Jude watched him from behind the safety of his screen, the glow of the monitor reflecting in his glasses.
Warren bent to read something, close enough to squint at a caption, and nodded as if it meant something to him.
Smiled to himself. And Jude’s gaze dipped.
Helplessly. Warren was in running shorts.
Those clingy, shiny things PE teachers seemed to think passed for professional attire.
They hugged his thighs, revealing thick muscle and definition that was utterly unfair for a man who was technically working.
Jude blinked. Once. Twice.
Tried to focus on the keyboard in front of him.
Warren turned. Caught him mid-glance. And Jude dragged his gaze up to meet his face, but that wasn’t much safer. Because he was as handsome as he was broad. And by the look of his smirk, he’d seen where Jude had been looking.
Jude swallowed hard. Brilliant. Just brilliant. He hated himself.
Warren pointed to the quote above the whiteboard behind Jude’s head.
“‘History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it,’” he read aloud, then met Jude’s gaze. “Churchill, right?”
“Yeah. One of his… less problematic moments.”
Warren grinned. “Cocky bastard, though. You’ve got a type.”
Jude arched an eyebrow. “A type?”
Warren gestured around the classroom. “All these quotes. Makes me wonder if you go for men who like to rewrite the ending.”
There it was again. That pull. Subtle. Certain. Dangerous.
Jude looked away. Back to the screen. Pretended he was still typing.
He wasn’t.
His fingers had stilled, but his chest hadn’t.
It was too tight, rising and falling too fast since Warren had walked in.
Jude couldn’t deny his attraction. It had been there from the start.
Probably the moment he first laid eyes on him across the school hall.
Then again during that bit of banter at the back of staff training.
And every moment since, it had grown. Quietly.
Steadily. The pub quiz had cemented it. He’d even berated himself for not accepting that lift home.
But caution had always been his shield. His safety net.
It had kept him upright. Kept him safe. But he’d never been safe at all.
And this pull he felt towards Warren?
It wasn’t romantic.
It was reckless.
“You took History, then?” he asked, aiming for neutral.
Warren stepped closer. “Er, nah. Geography.”
Jude glanced up. And there he was. Right there. Close enough for Jude to catch the faint scent of him. Clean sweat, something citrus, maybe soap or shampoo. It slid into his senses like a memory he didn’t want to have.
“The geography field trip was to Durdle Door in Dorset.” Warren lifted one leg to casually perch on the edge of Jude’s desk. Half-seated, fully confident. “First time I saw the sea. Grew up in South London. Closest I’d come before that was the EastEnders theme tune.”
Jude let out a quiet breath of amusement.
“And the History lot got stuck with some boring old castle.”
Jude arched an eyebrow.
Warren chuckled. “Which I now fully support, obviously. Love a good drawbridge. Big fan of moat-based learning.”
Jude shook his head, laughter low and unexpected in his throat.
The silence following wasn’t uncomfortable. But it was… charged. Jude kept typing, letting the screen shield him, feeling Warren’s presence wrapping around him like a weighted blanket. Warm. Solid. Unapologetically there.
It was oddly comforting.
On another day, in another life, Jude might have leaned into that.
Might’ve tested the air between them. Maybe even found a way to ask, casually, if Warren was sitting there because he wanted to be…
or playing polite. If the offer of the lift home on Friday had been because he, too, felt something brewing between them bigger than the classroom walls or if he was simply a decent human being, them having been in short supply of late.
But now Callum was back, and those feelers had to remain firmly retracted.
Warren hooked a thumb over his shoulder, back towards the corridor. “That was Alfie Carter earlier, right?”
Jude paused mid-keystroke. He rolled his neck, cracking out the tension. “Yeah.”
Warren tapped his knees. “Good footballer. Quiet, though.”
“He’s been through a lot.”
Warren titled his neck. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Jude left that there. It wasn’t his story to tell.
Warren rubbed his hands together and gave a grin pulling them back to lighter ground. “Alright then. Where we going? And, more importantly, do I get to fire a cannon?”
“Portchester Castle. And no, unfortunately. No live ammunition.”
Warren pouted. “Shame. Maybe next time. So what has it got?”
“Roman foundations. Rebuilt by the Normans. Used right up through the Napoleonic Wars. Still got intact walls, sea views, a working portcullis… all your classic castle fantasy boxes ticked.”
Warren raised a brow. “So this trip includes scenic coastline, a medieval fortress, and you in full ‘teacher voice’ mode?”
Jude shot him a look. “Contain yourself. It’s an overnight stay with fifteen-year-olds who think they’re eighteen and will spend all night sneaking into each other’s rooms thinking we’ve never been fifteen.”
“Ah to be young and stupid again.” Warren grinned, then nudged Jude’s arm. “So we’ll be sleep-deprived and emotionally broken by day two. I’ll bring the playing cards.”
Jude shook his head, but the warmth in his expression was real this time.
Warren’s tone softened, a hint of curiosity filtering in. “What makes this castle stand out, then? You’ve got, like, fifty on your walls.”
Jude hesitated. Then looked away. “They used it as a prisoner-of-war camp. Napoleonic era. Captured soldiers were locked in the keep, close enough to see the sea, hear it, even… but never reach it.” He let that sit for a moment.
Then added, almost offhand, “That kind of torment… it stays with a place. And a person.”
Warren’s smile faded.
But Jude didn’t explain the shift in his tone.
He went back to typing. The sound of the keyboard filling the space.
As if he hadn’t confessed something. As if he hadn’t peeled back a truth too close to the bone.
Because he knew what that felt like. To see freedom through stone bars.
Be part of a war he didn’t want to be in.
To stand within reach of something beautiful and know it would never truly be his.
To feel trapped. In his home. His skin. His own history.
And still smile.
Type.
Pretend.
Jude pressed print, and the machine on his desk whirred to life, spitting out a couple of freshly inked pages. He grabbed one and handed it to Warren.
“All the details are there. Dates, times, groupings, coach pick-up, emergency contacts.” He reached for his blazer slung over the back of the chair and slipped it on. “I’ll run this up to Admin so they can format it properly and send it out.”
Warren skimmed the page with a nod. “Right. So we’re staying in a hotel?”
“Yeah. Premier Inn have given us a corridor. Two kids to a room. Same sex sharing as per safeguarding policy. We’ll be each end of the corridor to listen out for…well, fifteen-year-olds being fifteen-year-olds.”
“Got it.”
Jude offered a tight smile, then stepped around him, edging towards the door.
“Hey, Jude.”
Jude paused. Turned.
Warren smiled, soft and self-aware. “How many people sing that line at you?”
Jude drew in a sharp breath before he could stop himself. An involuntary reaction to a question that was trying to be friendly. “Too many.”
“I’ll bet.” Warren folded the sheet of paper and tucked it into his pocket. “So, we made a good team at the quiz, right? You up for another go this week? Maybe I could pick you up? If that car of yours is still in the garage?”
Jude stilled.
How could he possibly let that happen?
He couldn’t have Warren anywhere near his house.
Couldn’t risk it. Not now. Not while Callum was there, whether for the short term or something far worse.
The idea of Warren pulling up outside, knocking on the door…
it was absurd. Dangerous. For now, making it to work each day would be a win.
Anything beyond that? A luxury he couldn’t afford.
So he forced a smile, light and easy, and searched for the right excuse. Something that wouldn’t raise suspicion. Or sound like fear.
“I’m afraid I have to pass the baton of the quiz team captaincy.”
“Oh.” Warren’s brow creased. “How come?”
“I’m…not in the right headspace. I’ve too many other things going on, and the baton was sort of forced upon me anyway.”
“Right.” Warren’s gaze held his. If Jude didn’t know any better, he’d swear the man looked disappointed. And Christ, that hurt more than it should have.
“You want to take it on?” Jude asked quietly.
“The captaincy, I mean. Staff like you. Be a good way to, you know… get in with them all.” A night out.
A few laughs. New friends in a new town.
That’s what Warren wanted. Not to spend time with him.
A broken shell of a man drowning in his own past to even reach the sea.
Warren blinked, as if weighing the words. Then he stood. “Giving it up that easy, huh?”
“Not much of a leader anyway,” Jude muttered, looking away.
When he glanced back, Warren was still watching him.
And the look in his eyes made Jude’s chest twist. For a heartbeat, he wanted to close the distance between them.
To fall into the warmth of someone who looked at him like that and whisper help me.
But it was futile. Pointless. There was no knight in shining armour here.
“I could help you,” Warren said, voice catching as if there was something underneath the offer. “If you need a hand?”
Jude blinked. Then exhaled sharply. “I just need it gone.”
Warren drew a breath, chest rising. Then, with a quick pivot, he turned his back and jogged on the spot, holding one hand out behind him as if mid–hundred metre relay. The motion pulled his T-shirt taut across his shoulders, those running shorts clinging shamelessly to the curve of his arse.
“Go on then.” He peered over his shoulder, palm open. “Pass the baton.”
Jude startled out a laugh.
Warren waggled his fingers. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
Jude chuckled despite himself, which almost made the tears fall. But he reached over to the plastic tray by the printer, grabbed a pencil, and stepped forward. He slipped it into Warren’s open palm and when Warren closed his fingers around it, his clasped Jude’s in the exchange.
They both stilled.
For a breath. Maybe two.
Warren tilted his neck, holding Jude’s gaze the way he did his fingers. “You sure you’re okay with this?”
Jude swallowed. Then pulled his hand free. “Good luck, Mr Bailey.”
He then left the classroom, flexing his fingers as if he could shake off the memory of Warren’s touch. But it clung stubbornly. God, when was the last time someone had reached for him and meant it? When had someone asked him if he was sure. If he was okay? If he needed help?
He pressed his hand to his chest and forced a breath through the tightness.
Maybe he’d passed more than a baton into Warren’s hand.
Maybe he’d given him his hope.