by Con Riley
“No point.” Rob rubbed at his eyes. “There’s no way I’ll sleep tonight.”
“I said come to bed,” Jude repeated, before clarifying. “I didn’t say anything about sleeping.”
17
It was beyond dark in the boatyard, clouds covering the moon leaving the way deeply shadowed. Rob held out his phone, flashlight app a white beam that sliced through the darkness, his other hand in Jude’s, fingers laced as they walked in silence. It lit the ceiling when he placed it at the head of the bed, the portholes dark circles above them. He stayed quiet until Jude lay flat on his bunk. “One thing,” he then said, after kneeling over him. “Just to check.” Rob dipped down for a kiss, lips barely touching Jude’s before he pulled back a scant inch. “You didn’t help yourself to a finger or two of cognac from the bar before coming to find me, did you?” His knees were so close to the edge of Jude’s bunk that he slipped after straddling him.
Jude grabbed him with one hand on each of his hips, raising his knees to keep Rob steady. Once he was, Jude slid both hands under Rob’s T-shirt, hands travelling up and around to appreciate where his back broadened. “You think I’d need to be drunk to want this? Why?”
Rob’s gaze skittered away.
It wasn’t easy to switch position. “Jesus, you’re a lump.” Jude pushed up while twisting, rolling them over so Rob was beneath him. “Why, Rob? You really think my judgement needs to be impaired to want you?”
“No… I… well, yes.” Rob’s hands skimmed Jude’s hips, his waist, the curve of pectorals that were more pronounced after a year’s sailing. “To be fair, I have had months of Lou telling me about how you never do this.”
“This?”
“It’s nothing.” Rob’s touch was distracting, but Jude stayed on topic.
“Tell me. What did Lou say I never do?”
Even in the dim light, Rob’s mask slipping again was visible. “Let people get close.” He squirmed, awkward before adding, “Besides, have you seen you?” He pushed Jude’s shirt higher. “Some people might say I’m punching a teensy bit above my weight.” He glanced down at that last word to where Jude had one hand on his belly. Rob’s skin was soft and giving. “Too many second breakfasts.”
“You’re gorgeous,” Jude said, and he meant it. Had done from their first meeting. “Annoying, but gorgeous.”
Rob pulled him closer and Jude sank into it, lying instead of kneeling, kissing instead of thinking about what might come tomorrow. With his eyes closed, and Rob’s arms around him, Jude was back in London, after the contest semi-finals, only this time—now—he wasn’t about to stop at kissing. No, if he’d learned anything this year, it was to take as much as he could, because tomorrow could get washed away without any warning.
He popped open the buttons of Rob’s jeans and got a hand in, awkward at this angle, the back of his fingers skimming where Rob’s skin felt hottest. “I want this,” Jude said.
They both struggled out of their clothes to press together, naked in a bunk he’d built with his dad’s help, and had never expected to feel half this good in. Certainly, he never expected to share it with someone like Rob, whose grip was now tight on the edge of the mattress, his breath shuddering as Jude kissed his way down his belly.
As Jude moved even lower, Rob’s cock nudged his cheek. He got his mouth on him then while Rob groaned. Jude closed his eyes to better focus on the coarse brush of pubes against his palm, the wide crown that parted his lips, the scent of Rob—sexual and strong—as Jude did what he’d dreamed of so often aboard the Aphrodite. There, he’d wondered, but here he knew—this was everything they both needed.
Jude moved when Rob pushed, guided, steered him where he wanted until he was flat on his back. “Fuck, look at you,” Rob said. He held Jude’s cock and knelt over him to return the favour, the slickness of his mouth intense; perfect. Jude’s orgasm roared close. Rob slowed the bob of his head, but Jude’s climax started to crest, crashing through him as Rob pulled off and stroked him instead. The moment Jude stopped spilling, his semen a stark contrast against the tan of his stomach, Rob stroked himself off too. Jude braced him as he added to streaks that glistened in the light cast by his phone.
There was the smile that had been missing since he’d heard about Guy Parsons’ visit.
He didn’t realise that he must have smiled back just as widely until Rob lay at his side, still panting, and touched his face with one finger. “I didn’t know you had a dimple,” he said, followed by a quiet, “Shit,” when the light died, his phone’s battery depleted. “I wanted to be sure to get up early.” Rob made as if to get out, hampered by Jude who still sprawled, boneless and contented. “Shift yourself, so I can get up, will you?”
“Why?” Even if the bunk was too small, Jude didn’t want to move, relaxed with Rob so close to him, even if they were a little sweaty. He finally shifted slightly sideways as Rob persisted in sitting. “Where are you going?”
“Back to the office. Get my phone charger. Unless…” he pulled aside one of the pothole curtains, the moon lighting his face as he studied Jude’s. “Could you set an alarm on yours?”
“On my phone? Nope. I haven’t even charged it since I got back.” Jude sat up and reached for the top sheet to wipe off them both. He dropped it to the floor and then rummaged through his duffle to retrieve one of the bright rolls of fabric that he’d brought back from his travels. He pulled at Rob’s shoulder, urging him to lie back before covering them both with the light-weight fabric. “We’ll wake up plenty early enough without it,” he promised, his head finding a perfect spot between Rob’s neck and shoulder to nestle.
“Didn’t have you pegged as a cuddler,” Rob said, not exactly sounding snippy as he pressed a kiss against the top of Jude’s head. His next question was muffled. “Why haven’t you charged it?”
“My phone? Because it’s pointless. Got it wet one time too many. Didn’t seem much point in buying another when I didn’t have any news worth sharing.”
“So you really didn’t stay in contact with the rest of the world while you were away?”
“Only with Lou. There’s a satellite phone on the Aphrodite.”
“But you didn’t stay in touch with anyone else? Not even via Facebook?”
Logging on to read about normal life continuing in England had been too much to handle when he was on what felt like another planet. “No. No, I didn’t.”
“Ah.” Rob’s following huff was quiet. “I thought it was only me.”
“Only you, what?” That he’d thought about daily?
“That you left without saying goodbye to, and then completely ghosted.”
Jude twisted to find Rob’s mouth in the dark and kissed it. “No. I just… I couldn’t… Not when it was my fault they….”
“Stop that.” Rob chided him with two words and then supported him with three more. “It absolutely wasn’t.”
“I am sorry though. I couldn’t deal with anything other than searching.”
Rob kissed him into silence, their foreheads still touching once he broke off.
“It doesn’t matter now.” The way Rob could let go was a lesson. His last kiss lingered, languid until Jude registered a small shift in tension. Rob asked, “So that means you also didn’t catch any coverage of the last stage of the contest?”
“No.” It seemed unimportant compared to his mission, trivial next to scanning each horizon. “Why?”
Rob relaxed, the sigh he let out somehow relieved. “No reason, I just wondered.”
“Well hurry up and wonder yourself to sleep. Someone’s got to be a star chef in the morning, and apparently, you’re the best new one in Britain.”
For someone who usually didn’t need an excuse to preen, Rob sounded strangely subdued. “Don’t remind me.”
18
Three things struck Jude the next morning. The first was that it was very bright compared to when he usually woke up. The second was that burying his face into the pillow to block the sun’s glare was h
ard while Rob hogged so much of it. The third realisation came right on the heels of the kiss he pressed on Rob’s bare shoulder: it was bright because the door stood wide open, Louise framed in it for a second before lurching backwards.
Scrambling free from Rob’s hold was hard while he still slept, only waking when Jude extricated himself.
“Time’s it?” Rob mumbled sleepily, his expression as rumpled as the fabric covering him from the hips down. Jude didn’t answer. He grabbed another bright roll of material from the top of his open duffle, knotting it sarong-like around his hips as he wove between the stacks of chairs and tables to follow his sister.
“Lou,” he called out as soon as he emerged into full daylight. “Lou!”
The ground was gritty under his bare feet, but he hardly noticed, too intent on catching up with his sister. This time, she didn’t run far, stopping way before she got back to the Anchor, waiting for him at the gap in the sea wall where steps led down to the water. Jude stopped a few steps behind her. “Lou?”
She sounded shaky. “S-sorry. I don’t know why I didn’t knock and then wait until one of you answered.” She gazed down as if the harbour water was compelling. “I-I don’t know why I took off like that either. It was… it was silly. I-I’m sorry.”
Jude stood beside her. “It’s okay. I….” He what? Was sorry as well?
He really, truly wasn’t.
In those few seconds before reality intruded, waking up with Rob had been the best part of the whole last year. “I imagine it was a surprise.”
“Yes.” She nodded, gaze still angled downward. Below them, small waves formed by Carl’s trawler caused seaweed to sway underwater. He called a gruff hello at them from his vessel, and Louise looked up and waved. “I imagine Carl’s a bit surprised to see you in a pink skirt too,” she muttered. She glanced at the fuchsia fabric tied at his hip before making direct eye contact. “I am sorry, Jude.”
“It’s okay.”
“No… no, it isn’t.” She sat down on the stone flight of steps, patting the space that remained beside her. “It really isn’t.” Jude sat too, his sarong a splash of brightness contrasting with the granite. A flush the same shade stained her cheeks. “I’m….”
“What, Lou?” He prompted her. “You’re what, exactly?”
“I’m embarrassed.”
Where to go with that statement was a tough decision. Jude smoothed the thin fabric over his thighs, focusing on it rather than look at her. Whoever had printed the fabric had poured wax in a pattern that resembled birds in flight. He’d later learned that each batik pattern told a story. Maybe this one described his own when he’d first escaped Porthperrin for college.
How far had that flight got him?
Staying as far away as he could rather than confront this kind of judgement had only added distance between him and people who mattered. Dealing with the fallout of being honest would have been difficult—maybe hopeless—but regret was a dog with a strong bite, its jaws locked tight on his heart however far he travelled. There had been a strength in spreading his wings, in making a life somewhere he could start to feel somewhat honest, but now real strength meant standing his ground, right here where he’d started. “You’re embarrassed?” He shook his head. “I’m fucking mortified you found me like that. With him.”
“Oh,” Rob said from behind them, barefoot too, and only half-dressed, expressive face sliding much like the beach and campgrounds must have after the storm, into devastation. Jude watched him work hard to slow its slip, Rob’s Adam’s apple bobbing a couple of times before he got out an “I- I see,” that sounded strangled.
No. He really didn’t. Jude finished what he’d started saying. He spoke to Louise first. “I’m fucking mortified that both of us grew up thinking there was anything wrong with what you walked in on.” He gathered the sarong fabric as he stood. “What did you see, Lou?”
“I….” She shook her head.
“No. Tell me exactly what you saw.”
“Jude….”
He answered for her. “You walked in on two people sleeping, Lou. Two human beings, not aliens from another planet.” How often had he felt like an observer studying the way his dad reacted to some of their summer tourists, desperate to figure out how not to ping that same radar. “I’m embarrassed I have to explain that like I’m mortified Dad couldn’t grasp that even when his so-called best friend was punished for doing the same thing. Isn’t it shameful to you that he couldn’t put himself in that man’s shoes, not even for a minute? Dad lost his end-of-contract bonus, but his friend must have lost more, Lou. Fuck it, he had a name, only we never got to hear it. Trevor,” he bit out. “His name was Trevor Mirren, and I would have liked to know him.”
Louise blinked up at him, and then nodded, surprising Jude into tugging loose another thread of anger that had knotted his insides throughout childhood. “Can you even imagine what that would have been like for me? If I could have grown up with a role model instead of feeling…” Every descriptor left a bad taste before he could say it, words his dad might have chosen if he hadn’t so often been silent. “So what if Trevor slept with someone? He was only human. Last time I checked, wanting sex isn’t unusual. It’s normal.” He tilted his head Rob’s way. “People sleep together for a ton of different reasons. Sometimes it’s just sex. Sometimes it’s more important. There’s nothing wrong with either.”
Rob let out another small sound, but Jude wasn’t finished. “The only wrong thing was the law back then for merchant seamen, and Dad for not moving on with his thinking. That’s what’s fucking shameful.” He almost shouted until Rob wrapped a hand around his wrist and squeezed. Jude took a deep breath. “I’m so embarrassed that I let any of that keep me away. Any of it. From here, and from you, Lou. But I won’t say I’m sorry for protecting myself that way. It’s a shame, but it wasn’t entirely my doing. Staying here and saying nothing was a box that Dad shut the lid on, not me.” His voice lowered. “Mum let it happen, as well.” So many memories took on new meaning while he travelled. She’d known, he was now certain. She’d known and still loved him, only with a silence that echoed his father’s, both versions leaving him voiceless. “It’s a real shame I never got to tell her out loud.” His smile felt painful. “About me. About who I am, which is a decent fucking person. I’m like you, Lou: someone who tries as hard as they can, and doesn’t easily give up.” His eyes welled, mirroring his sister’s. “That’s the real shame,” he finished hoarsely.
“Hey.” Rob’s voice was steadier, if still quiet. “Come here.” The hug he pulled Jude into came with a kiss to his temple right as Carl chugged past again on his way out of the harbour. Jude caught a glimpse of Carl’s familiar dour expression fracturing for a second before Jude thought fuck it and kissed Rob square on the lips. “You know why I was embarrassed, don’t you?” he asked, after they broke off. “About Lou finding us like that?”
“No.” Rob glanced between Jude and his sister. “I really don’t.”
Blurting the truth was easy now he’d started. “It wasn’t because she walked in on us.” He gestured up at one of the Anchor’s bedroom windows and finished what he started. “It was the location.” Something about seeing relief flit across Rob’s features made his voice as gritty as the granite under his feet. “After all of the work you’ve put in? You deserve the best room in the Anchor, not the worst bed we’ve got to offer.”
Rob’s smile was slow to spread and so sweet. Of course, he had to spoil the moment. “Well, duh.” His chest puffed up in a way that would make Jude sigh if his didn’t do the same with growing fondness. “You’re not completely awful, either.”
Louise let out a choked sound. Jude looked her way, both of Rob’s hands now clasped tightly in his, to see that her smile was surprised rather than forced. “Rob. You liked him already.”
“When?” Rob asked.
“When you two were in that contest together.”
Rob nodded, his turn to blush.
“If I�
��d known….” Her face twisted.
“If you’d known what?”
“That you liked him.”
“You’d have what?” Jude asked. Changed their dad’s fixed mindset? One the man had hung onto for decades? It would never have happened, and they both knew it, just like Jude knew one more thing for certain.
Liking Rob this much would only make leaving at the end of the summer so much harder.
19
“We’re okay now, aren’t we?” Lou asked, anxious. “Only there’s not much time before Guy Parsons gets here for lunch.”
Shit. Jude had completely forgotten.
Louise gestured at his sarong. “And I’m not saying that pink isn’t a good colour on you, but maybe you could both get dressed before he gets here?”
“I don’t know,” Rob grazed the skin above the knot holding the fabric together. “Every business needs a unique selling point. Serving food this way might even take a critic’s mind off being quite so scathing.” His face clouded before only slightly clearing. “It’s going to be okay,” he promised as if convincing himself. “He’s only booked for lunch. The menu is solid, and if by some miracle he decides to stay over, his room looks perfect. There’s nothing for him to bitch about, just as long as we stick to the plan.” He led the way back to the boatshed where they both got ready, Jude’s sarong a puddle of pink fabric that Rob picked up and folded into a neat oblong.
Jude took the cloth Rob held out, turning it over in his hands as he said, “I picked up several of these in markets around Indonesia. I used to take photos of my parents ashore. Show them to the locals. Mum loved markets almost as much as you seem to.”
“Did you ever find anyone who—?”
“Saw them? No.” Jude pulled more lengths from his duffle in shades of vivid blue, yellow, and orange. “She likes…liked souvenirs, kept every single one that Lou and I brought home from school trips, so I bought these for her; thought they’d be what she would have chosen to bring home. You know…. Bright and cheerful?” He didn’t use the words that Rob no doubt would have—gaudy tat—sure that he was thinking them regardless. “I’m not sure why I bothered. It’s not as if they’ll come to any use now.”
