It's the summer break, and for the first time in his life, Mike would rather stay in the bloody classroom.<br><br>It's wedding season, and Mike is doomed to spend all summer sipping cheap champagne and pretending he likes tiny portions of posh food. From the passive-aggressive torment of Mike's mother-in-law to the insulting incredulity of his colleagues over what his mysterious husband actually looks like, Mike would voluntarily teach sex education to fourteen-year-olds for the rest of his life if it would only get him out of one more wedding. Even his husband in a kilt isn't going to save this one.<br><br>But there's nothing like watching someone else get hitched to remind him of where he's come from ... and where he's determined to go from here.

Married Ones

They stopped by the supermarket for some flowers—some yellow carnations that Mike thought were hideous but were his dad’s favourites for some reason—and then headed up to the church. It was an old stone creature, brooding on the side of the main road through Attercliffe, where Mike’s dad had been brought up. There were Parrys scattered throughout the graveyard, and Mike’s dad had a prime spot, raised on a little hillock and sheltered by a great yew tree. Perfectly tended. Never, as the words insisted on the stone, forgotten.


Stephen parked up and waited, turning the engine off and getting his latest book out of the glovebox. Mike kissed him on the cheek, always feeling a bit oddly fragile here, and got out with the flowers.


Chapter 30