by Con Riley
Guy nodded, thoughtful. “So it was some kind of statement? A rebellion?”
“It was selfish.” Rob choked out a laugh. “I just wanted a reaction from Jude. For him to ask me why I’d done it, only he wouldn’t answer his phone, wouldn’t reply to my emails. It was like he dropped off the face of the planet. The minute I found out why—that he’d walked away from a contest that could set him up with his own business to search for his family, even though that was hope—” He verbally stumbled. “I mean there was this terrible typhoon. Even the coastguard stopped looking for them, but he wouldn’t give up. He still hasn’t. I… I had to do something. Put at least one thing right, if I could.”
Guy Parsons leant forwards as did Carl and Susan, all three caught on the same hook, line, and sinker. “By investing the money he should have won, if he stayed,” Guy prompted. “You propped up his family’s business because you had a guilty conscience?” He nudged his phone closer, capturing Rob’s quiet confession.
“Yes.” Rob stood. “I wasn’t ever the real winner. He won it the first time he put those ingredients together. He won the contest and me from the first week. From the first day, to be honest, even if that was only superficial.”
“Superficial?”
Rob said, “Have you seen him?” pausing when Susan snorted. “I was so attracted to him, but I couldn’t distract him, and believe me I tried. I never met anyone so committed, so incredibly determined. It was always his money, not mine.” He pushed back his chair and got up, taking a few steps towards the harbour-side door. “I never expected to actually win because it didn’t matter what I tried, my version of his main course still lacked something. I couldn’t figure out what was missing until I saw him cook it for you just now. Of course”—he opened the door, sea breeze blowing the candle out completely—“it was an ingredient right on the Anchor’s doorstep.”
He turned before leaving, stopping dead at Jude watching from the opposite doorway.
Guy spoke as if Jude wasn’t present. “Would you do it again, in the same situation?”
Rob met Jude’s gaze then and held it. “Would I?”
The moment drew out, Jude oblivious to Carl reaching across the table to hold his wife’s hand, and to Ian lifting his camera. Nothing else registered while Rob filled his field of vision.
“Yes. I’d do it again,” Rob said. “I’d do it all again from start to finish, and I wouldn’t want to miss a single minute.” Rob lifted his chin and spoke directly to him. “Jude, there have been plenty of moments when I thought we’d go under before we got a chance to reopen. So many times that I thought you wouldn’t ever come back, and if you did you’d hate me for this”—he gestured at the table covered in empty dishes—“and for all of the changes. But trying to put things right has made me happier than I ever imagined. So happy that I forgot about why I came here in the first place.” He stopped and swallowed. “Porthperrin feels like home now. My home, regardless of whether we make it now that you know what I did.” He lowered his voice as he backed out onto the harbour. “The only thing that would make me happier is for you to believe that.”
For the third time in the last hour, Rob had his back to Jude, only this time he leaned heavily on the harbour wall, as if standing straight without its support was beyond him.
“Rob?”
His glance Jude’s way was fleeting. Something out on the water must’ve been captivating, his stare at it unwavering when Jude let the snug door close behind him and crossed the cobbles to join him. Jude followed where his gaze led, Carl’s fishing boat bobbing gently.
“You heard all of that?”
“I heard enough.”
“Enough for what? To believe me?” Rob hung his head. “Or to send me packing?”
“Enough to know that people do things that look bad from the outside when they have the best of intentions. Did I…? Did I ever tell you how dad taught me to cope in deep water?”
That change of subject got Rob’s full attention. “No.”
“He threw both me and Lou off the sea wall.” He pointed to where waves frothed at the mouth of the harbour. “Over there, where it gets rough.”
That got a reaction. “What? Why? How old were you?” Rob looked at the tall, white-tipped waves foaming in the distance. “Jesus. That sounds terrifying.”
“I don’t remember how old we were. Young, I guess. Five- or six-years-old, maybe. It was pretty scary.”
“I don’t get it.” Rob shook his head with some more force. “Why would he scare the shit out of you like that? Jesus, no wonder you felt like you couldn’t trust him. You know….? Be honest about yourself with him, and yet…”
“And yet what?”
“And yet you dropped everything to try to find him. Why do that for someone who—?” He gestured at the steep drop from the far sea wall.
That was a no-brainer, so easy for Jude to answer. “Of course I’d drop everything to find him. Knowing how to react in deep water saved my life more than a few times as a kid and as an adult. Living around here, it was a skill he knew I needed. Him loving me enough to do it, even though I hated it to start with, is all that really matters.”
“To start with?” Rob’s tone was disbelieving. “You mean you liked it, eventually? Falling all that way?”
“I loved it after the first time.” Even now, the thrill of his dad swinging him up so high before letting him go woke him from dreams sometimes, sure that he was flying. “Even if I’d hated it, keeping me and Lou safe was all he ever wanted.” Then he asked something that Rob usually avoided. “Why do you think your dad wants you to take over his restaurants?” He didn’t respond, so Jude asked another question. “Why did he want you to drive his Range Rover instead of Betsy?”
Rob watched a seagull circling before he responded, grudging. “He said it was much safer.”
“Would you call that being a bad dad?”
“No. Of course I wouldn’t.”
“But you don’t want to be in a box he made, either? Do you see yourself in the kitchen forever?”
Rob’s sigh was another long gust. “No. Not for Dad. Not anywhere, if I’m honest. Front of house is much more my speed.”
Of course it was. “So I can’t help thinking that you cooked my menu to make more than one point.” Jude moved until they were shoulder to shoulder, and he lowered his voice. “Sounds like you know exactly how I can love and hate at the same time.”
“Yeah,” Rob admitted.
“And I’m pretty sure I just heard you admit that I’m much better in the kitchen than you.”
“Maybe. Just a little.”
There was that small quirk of a smile. Jude did his best to help it extend, something inside warming at seeing Rob turn bashful. “And it sounds like you really missed me.”
“Don’t go getting a big head. Maybe I still just want your body.”
“It’s all yours.” It was easy to say that out here in a place he thought he’d never get to be open, just like it was easier than he ever imagined to slide an arm around Rob’s shoulder, to pull and nudge until he turned to face him, their feet slotted together. “You didn’t cosy up to me in London just to nick my best dish, did you?”
The roll of Rob’s eyes was one answer. Him leaning his forehead against Jude’s, one hand coming up to touch his face was another. “You have to know how I feel about you.” He traced Jude’s lower lip with the pad of his thumb, his kiss fast and fleeting, his forehead resting against Jude’s again everything he’d ever wanted. “Pretty sure everyone in the Anchor does now, to be honest.”
“I wish…” The lump in Jude’s throat came from nowhere. “I wish I had a chance to tell them. About you, I mean.” Right now, Rob knowing this was all that mattered. “I would have wanted them to meet you, if…” That sentence had no easy conclusion. “I’d want them to like you as much as I do. As much as Lou does.” And it would have been easier, he decided, to have shown them who he was rather than tell them. “I’d give anything—everythi
ng—to have had a chance to do that.”
Rob kissed him then, once, twice, and then for so much longer as seagulls swooped around them. All he knew was that Rob felt so right in his arms.
Jude had felt underwater for so long, drowning. When Rob smiled at him, so happy, he finally broke surface.
23
Jude barely thought of anything else other than getting somewhere private as he left the Anchor behind and strode towards the boatyard, Rob’s hand tight in his. Guy Parsons could go hang for all he cared. The whole rest of the world could. The moment the boatshed door swung closed behind them, Jude stood close, arms around Rob’s waist and face tucked into the divot between his neck and his shoulder, breathing him in.
“Not that I want you to stop doing that,” Rob said breathless, laughing. “But they’re all still probably waiting for their dessert.”
“I’m not stopping you from going back to serve it.” Jude kissed the side of Rob’s neck, lips skimming south to north as Rob leaned into him, very close to clinging.
Rob’s next laugh came with a shudder. “Oh, I think that you are.” He gripped one of Jude’s wrists, pulling his hand down to where his cock was firming. “Any more of that and you’ll have to lend me your apron. Cover up what you do to me.”
Jude kept his hand where Rob had placed it, tracing what he wanted to explore when Rob had fewer clothes on.
“No, really.” Rob shuddered. His breath was so warm across the shell of Jude’s ear, his lips dragging as he added, “We have to finish what we started.”
“Yeah.” Jude wanted to finish as well. Finish all over Rob, if he’d let him. In him, if that was up for discussion. He walked Rob backwards, wanting nothing more complex than a mattress to stretch him out on.
Behind Rob, a tower of stacked chairs wobbled.
“Steady as she goes, sailor.” Rob kissed the hinge of his jaw, arms wound tight around him. “The door’s in the other direction.”
The door would do, Jude decided, turning Rob sharply enough that his breath caught, only for him to expel it in a huff. Jude pushed him up against it and tugged at the buttons of his chef’s jacket. There. Skin he could get his mouth on.
“Oh, my God.” Rob squirmed as Jude’s kisses turned to bruising sucks. “Anyone would think it’s been ages instead of only last night since you got off.”
It had been ages though; ages that he’d wished Rob wanted him even half as much as Jude had, dreaming of him while the Aphrodite bobbed beneath his back. “You wanted me too.” He was certain of that now where before he’d guessed Rob flirted with everyone the same way. A tremble under his palms had him checking. “You do now? Want me?”
“God, yes. But—” the sound of Rob’s head hitting the door barely registered, nor did the rest of his sentence “—we have to go back.”
There was no going back for Jude. No returning to the way he’d felt for so long—adrift, alone, and wishing so hard for Rob to lighten moments of almost complete darkness. Waiting for the sun to rise each morning to scour each new horizon for sails, or each beach for wreckage might have been more bearable with Rob beside him.
Jude yanked open more of Rob’s jacket buttons, annoyed that an undershirt hampered his exploration. Dropping to his knees made that easier, as did pushing fabric up from Rob’s waist to bare his belly. Following the path of hair from his navel to the waistband of his jeans with his lips was as simple as breathing, even if Rob seemed to struggle with his own inhalations. His breaths shuddered, stopped and started as Jude ran his palms up Rob’s legs from shins to knees, and then up his thighs, quads tensing under his palms when he reached their juncture. Jude pressed the swell of Rob’s cock with one hand while wrestling with his belt buckle, an urge to get his mouth on him relentless, a wave that was unstoppable until Rob yelped the sole word that could stop him.
“Louise!”
Jude’s fingers tightened around the leather he’d been about to free from its loops. He looked up to find Rob as dazed as he felt, eyes pitch-black and glinting, colour as hectic as if he was just as turned on as Jude before he’d slammed on the brakes. “Did you really just mix me up with my sister?”
Rob’s next yelp was of laughter. “No. For fuck sake. She’s much prettier than you. It’s just…. We have to go back,” he panted, breathless. “For her. For Louise. To make sure Guy Parsons isn’t giving her a hard time.” His back was still pressed to the door as he slipped down, ending in a crouch that brought his mouth within kissing distance. “It’s not that I don’t want…” he held Jude’s face in both hands, and Jude saw himself reflected in his wide pupils, just as starstruck. “The minute I get you alone….” Rob’s kiss was a filthy promise of where they’d pick up when this crisis was done with.
For good or for bad now, no matter how Guy framed his review, at least they’d still get to have this.
“The very first minute, Jude.” It almost sounded like a warning that came with a hint of frustration as Rob looked over Jude’s shoulder at the narrow bunks where they slept. “I only wish we had somewhere…”
Better?
He’d thought the same only that morning about giving Rob the best room in the place rather than the worst one.
Bigger?
A wider mattress would make stretching Rob across it much easier.
“Private,” Rob admitted as he pulled Jude upright, his hold tightening on Jude’s hand as they left the boatshed. “Can’t help feeling a bit under a microscope here.” Susan and Carl confirmed that, waving at them both from the far end of the harbour, hand-in-hand too on their way home. “Since we put on a show,” he said under his breath as Marc exited the pub with Louise, one arm slung around her shoulder that he removed the moment he saw Jude in the distance. “I feel like they’re all watching.” He inclined his head in the direction of the harbour opening where Guy Parsons posed, Byronic hair whipping wildly as Ian crouched with his camera. “They’re all waiting for something to happen.” His grip on Jude’s hand loosened as they drew closer to the Anchor, his tone reverting to teasing. “Not gonna lie. It’s all giving me a tiny bit of performance anxiety.” He winked, but Jude wondered if there wasn’t something truthful buried beneath that humour.
“Hey.” Jude wouldn’t let go of Rob’s hand. Instead, he stopped and pulled him closer. “You know I’d give you that, don’t you? Privacy, I mean. I’d take you away in a heartbeat if I could.” The kiss he pressed to Rob’s lips came with a whisper. “Take you anywhere on the planet. Sail you, fly you, walk you there if I had to, if that made you happy.”
“Wow.” Rob blinked. “Romantic.”
“Maybe there’s something in the water.” He nodded again in Guy Parsons’ direction, who now stood with Ian’s back to his chest, chin resting on his photographer’s shoulder as he pointed out to sea.
“I see your sister’s drunk it as well,” Rob noted when she edged closer to Marc.
“I’m pretending not to notice,” Jude said, but it was hard to sound too grumpy.
They headed inside to finally serve some dessert that Guy Parsons ate with obvious pleasure, agreeing to stay the night so that he could sample a New Anchor breakfast as well.
Jude cleared the kitchen later while Rob went to work on something in the office, but fragments of their conversation circled, returning to Jude when he found the office empty and the laptop open later. A map of the nearby coastline filled the screen, a hand-written list of boutique hotels in St Ives beside it. Jude sat down and searched a few of the hotels listed, all of them pricey and perhaps worth emulating. And wasn’t that something? Even after a stress-filled few days, Rob was still investing in research to secure the Anchor’s future.
That was an investment Jude badly wanted to pay back, and not, he had to admit, because he wanted Rob out of their business in a hurry. He recalled Rob’s blink of surprise after Jude had said he’d whisk him away if he could, and that memory had him opening a brand-new tab to check his bank balance. Jude murmured a prayer of thanks that Tom had
paid him for a full month instead of the bare week he’d last sailed.
Before, he would have hoarded every penny to pay for flights between islands, only spending his cash on a search that had never paid off.
Now, Jude checked Rob’s research list of hotels and made a new investment.
24
“Are you kidnapping me?” Rob puffed as Jude dragged him out of the back door the next afternoon, and across the small pub garden on the way to the car park. “Because I think that only works if you’ve got a getaway car lined up.”
“I already thought of that.” Jude fished into a pocket with his free hand and held out Rob’s car keys. “Stole Betsy’s keys while you were busy schmoozing Guy Parsons over lunch.”
“I wasn’t schmoozing.” Rob held out his hand for them. “I was giving him relationship advice before he left. One older man to another.”
Jude refused to hand the keys over. Instead, he unlocked the car and held the passenger side door open. “You think you’re qualified to do that? You know… given that you’re immature on a good day?” He joked, but the afternoon sunlight revealed smudges of tiredness under Rob’s eyes that did make him look a touch older. Jude’s voice softened. “What are you? A year or two older than me, at most?”
“One year, three months and six days,” Rob said easily like Jude’s birthday was something else he’d researched. He got in and asked, “Where are you taking me?”
“Wouldn’t be much of a kidnapper if I told you, would I?” Jude rounded the car and climbed in, luxuriating all over again at the scent of leather as he fastened his seatbelt. “Pretty sure that was in the rulebook.”
“There’s a kidnapping rulebook?” Rob sounded intrigued as Jude backed out of the near-empty car park, still devoid of tourists. “What else can’t you tell me?” he asked as Jude eased the car around each tight turn between cottages and nursed her over bumpy cobbles on the steep climb out of the village.
