by Con Riley
“He told us what happened.”
“Ah,” Trevor folded his hands around the cards. “Different times, boys. Difficult ones. For both of us.” He closed his eyes. “Simon was so angry when we were both dismissed.”
Jude couldn’t help it. He shouted, “He shouldn’t have been angry with you. You didn’t do anything worth losing everything like that—your jobs, your bonuses. He shouldn’t have been angry with you.”
Trevor looked between Jude and Rob then, brows drawn before saying. “He wasn’t. Angry at me, I mean.” He turned a little in his seat. “It took me a while to work out afterwards that he was angry with himself, furious that he let me down when I was the one who should have been more cautious. That was the environment we worked in, you see, but I was young and….” He faltered. “I was in love. Simon used to help by clearing out of our cabin. I put both our jobs at risk, I knew it, but he said that if I was half as in love as he was with your mother….” He drew in a deep breath. “He gave us space. All he asked was that I was careful.”
For an extended moment, he said nothing. Then his back straightened. “He never wanted to stand in what amounted to a courtroom where he had to deny being my best friend to my face. He knew exactly what I was, and never held it against me until I suggested that it might be better if he did.” Jude let out a small sound of denial, and Trevor paused before saying, “I insisted. What was the point in both of us losing our jobs? I told him to lay it on thick about how the sight of me left him sick to his stomach when we both knew we’d grown as close as brothers. I coached him,” Trevor admitted. “Gave him all the answers they’d want to hear about how he wished he’d never known me. But it was all for nothing. I tried to see him afterwards, several times until he asked me to stop. After a while, I did. I didn’t realise it was because he was ashamed of himself; ashamed of what he’d said about me, even though it was my idea in the first place.”
Ashamed of himself? Jude reeled. Ashamed of himself instead of disgusted, for real?
Trevor nodded as if Jude had spoken aloud. “I didn’t truly realise that he couldn’t forgive himself for what he’d said. Not until he got back in touch and sent these.” He fanned out the postcards.
The first one he read aloud was short. “Today I remembered how long it took you to get your sea legs, Trev. Angie’s not a fan of the Bay of Biscay either! Hope she stops puking quicker than you did, otherwise this trip will be as messy as our first one.”
It was wonderful and awful to hear his dad’s words like this—wonderful to know he’d reached out; awful to have it confirmed that his mum had been as seasick as Jude predicted—but the Bay of Biscay’s choppy waters would have been plain sailing compared to the last storm they must have encountered.
Jude ducked his head, forearms braced on his knees, his lips pressed together to stop their sudden trembling.
Trevor didn’t appear to notice while reading from another postcard. “Remember this big guy?” he read, “And the monkey that stole your wallet?” Trevor turned over the postcard to show the massive Buddha Jude last saw in his dad’s study. Then he continued reading. “This time, one tried to steal Angie’s hair comb!”
Fuck. He couldn’t hear this. Jude shook his head very slightly.
Rob noticed and interceded. “Trevor? I wonder if we could come back another time to hear the rest?”
“Of course. Please, please do. For breakfast tomorrow, perhaps?” His voice softened. “I imagine this is a lot to deal with.”
Jude nodded, gaze still fixed on the floor.
“Only, maybe read these before you go.” He shuffled through the stack of cards, retrieving a couple that Rob took from him. “I’ll leave you boys for a few minutes.”
The moment the door closed behind him, Rob offered the postcards and said, “Do you want to—”
Jude shook his head again. Reading would be impossible with his eyes so blurry. “You,” was all that he could get out. He closed his eyes as soon as Rob started reading, his voice steady and low, one hand on Jude the whole time.
His dad had written so many more words onto each card, the further he travelled. “Angie’s doing fantastic,” was a highlight of this one. “Was meant to be me and Jude on this voyage, but now I think both Angie and I are glad that she took his place—turns out she’s a cracking sailor. Forty years with the woman, and she’s still full of surprises.” Rob cleared his throat before he read the closing sentences. “Keep thinking about seeing all these places with you for the first time, mate. You know I’m sorry, don’t you, Trev? Have been every day since I last saw you. I know you wanted me to lie so we wouldn’t both get the boot, but the biggest regret of my life was that I didn’t tell them all to get stuffed. I remember you and that day every single time I meet anyone else gay.”
His dad’s silence about the subject took on a brand new context.
Jude had more regrets about that than he knew what to do with.
Rob read the last postcard while wiping away easy tears that Jude almost envied, his own trapped behind a steep wall he’d spent years building brick-by-brick, maybe for no reason.
“When we get back, I want to talk to you about Jude,” Rob read, sounding about as choked as Jude felt. “Angie’s mentioned a few things about him that make a lot of sense, now I think about them. Maybe you could come to London with me? Book a table at that fancy restaurant he works at and get him talking. You know I’m rubbish with words—that’s Angie’s jurisdiction—but maybe if he sees I’ve got a gay friend, he’ll want to come home more often.”
“He knew.” Rob set the cards down before kneeling between Jude’s legs, shoring him up when that brick wall finally crumbled.
Rob whispered, “Your dad knew, and of course he still loved you,” while Jude sobbed like a baby.
27
The walk back to the hotel was a blur, Jude’s eyes as sore as his heart while Rob steered him in the right direction. He barely registered Rob opening the door to their suite while murmuring what-do-you-need questions that Jude couldn’t respond to, neither hungry nor thirsty when Rob asked. Stepping into the bath Rob ran for him was much simpler than speaking, his head tilted back against the curved rim of the tub as Rob sat on the floor, talking about nothing important, filling the silence as he ran careful fingers through Jude’s damp hair, as though he could feel his tension. Jude even stood still, passive as Rob dried him, blotting water with a towel like Jude was bruised rather than a grown man who should get his shit together.
Rob’s quiet, “Bed now?” was at least one question he could nod to, shedding the towel around his waist in the bedroom, sliding under sheets as soft as his sigh the moment his face met his pillow. Rob kissing his forehead then might have felt childlike if he hadn’t shed his clothes too and slid under the same sheets, their bare skin making contact from forehead to their toe-tips, his arms wrapped tight around Jude, hands sweeping up and down his back until a tide of sleep somehow washed in.
Waking later was confusing. Jude’s eyes were still sore and gritty, his throat parched from a dream of sailing into the wind, shouting for help the whole time.
“You thirsty?” Rob was right there, the moonlight casting the surface of the glass of water he held a shimmering silver. He took the glass back once Jude had finished. “What else do you need?”
What did he need?
Jude lay against the pillows again, pulling Rob down with him until their mouths met.
This.
This was what he needed more than anything on the planet: Rob braced on one elbow above him, kissing him sometime between midnight and dawn, his thumb sweeping under Jude’s eye like he might find more tears there. His lips touched the same place, salty where he kissed Jude next, flavour fainter as Jude opened his mouth, Rob’s tongue lush against his. His kisses were generous, always giving, time stopping as they twined tight—arms, legs, and their fingers all threading together.
Rob kissed his way down his body, his broad shoulders milky in the moonlight, his
mouth descending Jude’s chest and ribs and belly. Jude found words for what he needed. “Suck me.” His toes curled when Rob listened, his mouth on Jude there shattering. Jude shuddered, sensation canting his pelvis up and up and oh God until Rob choked and pulled back, eyes dark and as damp as Jude’s had been. They swam with so much emotion as he urged Jude to surge up all over again until he was close to coming.
Rob pulled off and rolled away. Jude hated the distance. He said so, gasping, wanting Rob’s touch more than air in his lungs, even the hairs on his legs and arms standing as if commanded, straining to bridge their separation. Rob’s mouth was on his again in seconds, kissing until Jude’s gasping breaths steadied, only shifting this time to swear as the lube he’d retrieved slipped through his fingers. His voice was lower than Jude had ever heard it, more serious as well. He asked, “Is this what you need, Jude?” His fingers slid behind Jude’s balls, pressing where Jude opened. He didn’t yet make ingress, but fireworks glittered regardless, blooming behind Jude’s screwed-shut eyelids.
“Yes.” One word was all Jude could manage, pressure in his chest building when Rob pressed a finger inside him, electrical circuit closing as he took Jude’s cock back into his mouth and sucked. Each bob of his head synchronised with that slow, deep press, somehow carving Jude’s chest wide open, his heart leaping hard enough to burst out. Jude kept his eyes closed, but could still see Rob, images of his man—his glorious man—who prepped him as if there was no reason on earth to hurry.
He’d have done anything to keep Rob right there, humming as he explored, sucking like he loved to give as much as receive, face indistinct once Jude managed to open his eyes just as clouds covered the moon outside, clearer again once they passed to show Rob’s gaze an adoring mirror. Rob pulled off, his lips glistening and so plush, and Jude promised him everything he had to give, anything he wanted, if he’d only continue.
“Whatever I want?” Rob asked, his voice husky. “Might take a while. I’ve been thinking about you—about this—for ages.” Still, he bent his head and kissed Jude’s shaft, tongue mapping veins from the base to the tip where his tongue curled, wicked and so right that Jude almost wept for a brand new reason. He screwed his eyes closed once more as Rob took him apart, two knuckles wide at his rim, their slow twist a threat that he might die from pleasure. Jude’s breath caught, his groan a prolonged exhale as Rob withdrew both fingers. Rob then touched the head of his cock to where his fingers had been, and whispered, “Yes to this, as well?”
Jude nodded and held tight to Rob’s shoulders, mouthing another yes against his throat and feeling Rob’s pleasure vibrate there—a purring rumble that finished with an almost pained curse as Rob pushed inside.
There was nothing left in Jude’s world then but sensation, no avoiding this flood of feeling.
Jude drowned, and he loved it, lifting his legs to lock Rob to him even as sweat made them both slippery, their mouths meeting, hot and wet too, as they fucked.
Their kiss broke as Rob pulled out completely, urging him to roll over. Jude shouted as he thrust back in one long slide, Rob’s cock fitting where it felt best, and Jude’s own trapped between the bed and his belly. It was hard to move while Rob held him in place, a hand flat on each of Jude’s shoulder blades, but Jude still struggled to lift himself higher, desperate to take it all, everything and anything, that Rob had to give him.
More was what he needed right then.
He said so very loudly, moaning when Rob’s grip moved to his hips, vice-like as Jude got his knees under him, his chest heaving, control coming loose like a knot as Rob sliced through everything that had him tethered.
“Harder.” Jude’s voice cracked. Rob tugged him upright, his teeth pressed into the meat of Jude’s shoulder muffling a deep groan as Jude sank even lower, Rob’s cock surely so deep he must have felt his heart beating.
“Yes,” Rob agreed, thrusting up, powerful, relentless in a way that had Jude yelping, shoving him deeper into sensation than he ever remembered, only saved as Rob held him to his chest and stroked him off.
“Lo- love,” Rob stuttered, gasping as Jude came, his whole body tensing before throbbing as Rob said, “Love this with you.” Rob’s orgasm followed, sending them both sprawling forwards where Jude sank into the pillows, panting.
Eventually, he found the energy to face Rob and kiss him. Rob smiled between each of Jude’s subsequent long, slow blinks. He wiped them clean and pulled a sheet up as the gap between those blinks extended.
“Sleep,” Rob said for the second time that evening.
Jude did.
If he dreamt, this time it wasn’t about sailing into a wind that left his throat sore and eyes streaming. It was about Rob, his hand heavy over Jude’s chest, his leg a warm weight that anchored him so Jude could, finally, rest safely without drifting.
Jude next woke relaxed and so warm in a puddle of golden sunlight spilling over the bed through wide-open curtains. A knock on the door to their suite was about as soft as the sound of Rob’s answer in the next room.
Jude stretched and ran a self-assessment: he was pleasantly sore, but yesterday’s sick headache was gone, thank goodness, as if a rusted valve had released. The absence of that pain was blissful. He stretched again and sat up, something in his lower back popping, realigning, adding to a belief that strengthened as the sun warmed his shoulders—he felt better than he had done in ages. That dense tangle at the centre of his chest was still there, he decided, but right now it felt different. Shifted, perhaps, rather than gone. Unravelling. Maybe he’d have to live with it forever, along with the loss that had lodged it in place, but as he got up to look out of the window, he noticed another startling difference.
He could breathe around it; could take in the view without the knot of guilt at its core reminding him to blame himself for its existence.
Yes, he could breathe now that he knew his parents had been happy—with him, and with their final journey.
That was still hard to believe, so he drew in another small breath, testing, and yes, that one was easier, as well. He drew in one more breath, inhaling deeper this time as he took in the view of the bay. Today, the compulsion to scan the horizon didn’t tug at his heart as usual. Now, only sparse tendrils of that desperate feeling remained, like this morning’s sea mist that left the bay below mysterious and lovely. Ships passed through misty patches in the distance. Tankers maybe, like Trevor navigated around the far side of the planet, or trawlers perhaps, like Carl’s fishing vessel, earning a much more local living. Some yachts scudded between misty strands too. Before, he would have wished for Tom’s binoculars to check if their sails billowed above the One for Luck. Now, all he wanted to see this morning was the man who’d made him ache in such a good way.
He turned as the door between their rooms opened a few more inches, a freshly showered Rob checking before he swung it open. “I take back everything that I said about being awful in a past life,” he teased, his gaze making a lingering descent of Jude’s body. “I must have been bloody amazing,” he said under his breath before crossing to the window. “But let’s have none of that staring-at-nothing nonsense today, sailor.” He closed the curtains before inspecting Jude from up close. “And let’s have much more of this, instead.” He cupped Jude’s face and kissed him, quietly serious as he asked, “How are you doing?”
“Fine.” That weight in his chest shifted again when Rob raised a single eyebrow and Jude recalled almost needing carrying up the hill last night, like one of the weeping toddlers they’d passed on their way down.
Rob was close enough to read that shift in his expression, his voice a low warning vibration that Jude felt as well as heard. “And let’s have none of that virtually silent nonsense either.” His next kiss defined softness. “Tell me how you’re really feeling.”
“Honestly, much better.” Jude did. This easy breathing was addictive, considering he hadn’t noticed how treading emotional water used to leave him constantly winded. He tested it again with an
other deep breath, then tried to verbalise the difference. “I used to wake up feeling like I’d taken a kick to the ribs. They ached, you know?” He continued before Rob could answer, and perhaps hearing so many of his dad’s words yesterday lent Jude a few more of his own. “Not all the time, but often. And maybe not kicked, exactly—” he stretched for the right descriptor “—more like... something heavy got in the way?” Rob’s nod and rare silence encouraged him to add more. “It’s not completely gone, but it feels....”
“Easier?” Rob offered.
“Yeah.” He glanced sideways at the remaining sliver of the view this new morning had brought him, then made sure to face Rob full on. “It is. Much easier. Thank you.”
“I’m not sure there’s anything to thank me for.” Rob worried at his lower lip for a second. “Meeting Trevor was intense. No wonder you crashed out the moment your head hit the pillow.” He looked over his shoulder at the bed, a drop of water falling from his damp hair. He turned back quickly, scattering more droplets. “Then we—” Him blushing was unexpected. “I woke up worried that I shouldn’t have….”
“Oh, you definitely should have.” Jude curled a hand around the nape of Rob’s neck, fingers sliding through his wet hair, reminded suddenly of what Rob said before he passed out. “I loved it as well.”
“You don’t have to say that just because I—” Rob abruptly changed the subject. “Listen, we said we’d meet Trevor for breakfast.”
What Jude wanted most of all now had nothing to do with bacon and eggs. “I did love it, Rob.” Now he’d found out how to access them, more words kept on coming. Like sliding downhill in winter when Porthperrin was icy, they picked up momentum. “Like I love what you’ve done for me... with me…. For us. I know that Lou does as well.”
