Page 18 of Last Track

He found Martin's pencil that evening, tucked into the outer pocket of the guitar case where he'd put it without asking, the same pencil he'd used every night of the run to mark a fingering he kept forgetting. He turned it over once, the way he might have handled a lyric he hadn't finished writing, and saw that he'd taken it the same way Martin had cleared a corner for his guitar: quietly, on faith, trusting that the taking would simply be allowed.

Neither of them had ever asked for anything outright. That, Galen thought, was precisely the problem the two of them had built together.

The final fee came in clean and on time. Ferras confirmed the autumn dates, fewer than offered, the exact number Galen had actually wanted, with a gap now sitting open in front of him for the first time in years, entirely his to fill. He sat in Nina afterward with the sat nav glowing faintly on the dashboard, the route to his Bristol room already plotted, the familiar pause before he arranged whatever came next.

He cleared the route and entered Ashcombe instead.

Nina climbed out of Bristol steady and uncomplaining, temperature needle holding right where it should, and stayed that way for every mile back toward Wrenwood. No warning light. No knock. No excuse handed to him by the van, the weather, or anyone else's convenience. The evening had turned mild enough that he drove with the window cracked, warm air moving over his arm the whole way, undemanding and entirely pleasant — the first weather all week he hadn't needed to check twice. Every mile toward Ashcombe was entirely his own choosing — which was, Galen recognised, exactly why her repair had mattered so much in the first place.

He had spent ten days proving, to Ferras and to himself, that he could still keep leaving.

He turned down the Ashcombe lane to ask for what he wanted.

10

MARTIN

The flock was managed. The accounts were current. Martin slept, worked, and ate at the farmhouse table as always, but the cottage had become too quiet. Nobody hummed while he worked; tools stayed where he set them down, the chair remained shifted beside the stove, and the corner stayed empty.

He had typed three messages he never sent: When are you coming back. The cottage is too quiet. I miss you. Each had felt like a claim he had not earned, so he deleted it and answered Galen with the practical truths instead: glad it went well, drive carefully, glad Ferras were pleased with him.

Jacks found him at the gate on the tenth evening, watching the lane with an attention no gatepost had ever required.

"You expecting someone?"

"No."

"Then stop looking offended every time it isn't him." She didn't wait for a response, and didn't look up from whatever she was doing to the latch. "Run ends tonight, doesn't it."

"So he said."

"That still wasn't what I asked."

Martin had no better answer for her. Jacks went back to the latch. Hazel passed a few minutes later with an armful of washing and said she'd set four places for supper.

He heard the engine before he saw Nina, climbing the lane clean and steady. Galen had finished the work, been paid, and had every road in England available to him. Nothing had forced him back to Ashcombe. Martin walked to meet him rather than waiting by the cottage, because standing still had already cost them both enough.

Galen climbed out tired from the drive, guitar case visible behind the seat, and didn't reach for a practical excuse the way Martin half expected — no mention of Peter wanting to check her under load, no reason borrowed from anyone else's convenience.

"I came back."

"I can see that."

"That isn't what I'm asking you to see."

Martin looked at him properly and understood that whatever came next had to be said plainly. He considered asking about the M40 or the state of the yard, but neither refuge survived the thought.

Martin made himself say the true thing first, before he could organise it into something safer. "I thought making it easy for you to leave was the decent thing to do."

"I know."

"I made it so easy you couldn't tell whether I wanted you back."

Galen didn't argue the point. He looked, for a moment, like a man deciding whether to spend the whole question at once or in careful instalments, and then he asked it whole.

"Do you want me here?"

"Yes. I want you here after the next booking, and the one after that. I want to know when you're coming home."