by Con Riley
Jude was thrown by Rob sounding wounded. “I’m sorry.”
“No need.” Rob shoved his phone into his pocket. “We had a one-time thing. Not even that. One kiss. That’s nothing, is it? It’s not like we were dating. I got over you just fine.”
That wasn’t what Louise had said last night unless she’d been talking about someone else Rob had been involved with during the contest, but surely Rob couldn’t have kept his mouth shut if he already had a partner? Somehow, imagining that stung like seawater in a small cut—sharp and unexpected. Jude made himself continue. “You’re right. I should have found some way to talk to you, but…” Finding the vocabulary to explain took everything that he had, draining him as he admitted, “I-I don’t know if you can imagine what it was like to get the news that we did. There was so much to take care of, and nobody had any answers.”
“I would have helped.” The wind almost blew Rob’s next words away before Jude heard them. “I would have wanted to. But that was before you ghosted me. I get it, even if I thought ghosting was only for randoms—for hookups you regretted rather than for someone—” Rob huffed and then strode off, picking up speed once he got past the last of the treacherous rock pools.
Jude hurried behind him. “Rob…”
“Forget about it,” Rob insisted, clambering up the headland. “I have.”
“So why are you still here?” Jude followed, taking Rob’s outstretched hand near the top.
“Because of this,” Rob said as he pulled Jude up the final steep step. He then stood next to Louise, both of them watching as Jude took in the view of the beach for the first time.
Rather than a glorious cove, all he saw was devastation, not a single grain of sand left.
Instead of a campsite behind low dunes, ravines gouged the landscape.
Gone was the beach that had attracted families year after year for generations, eradicated so completely it might have never existed.
If Jude had sailed home in full daylight, he would have noticed its absence. Now, from the vantage point of the headland, it looked like the coast bled, ferrous-red soil bloodying the seawater as if the land were wounded. The lane that linked the main road to the campground was empty, no way for tourists to traverse the fissures at its entrance. Even if they could, there was nowhere left to pitch their tents, and no safe way for them to reach the coast path that would bring them to the Anchor.
“Th- that storm…” Jude stuttered. “That storm you showed me, online…”
“Yes,” Louise said simply. “That storm changed everything here, overnight, and with no warning, just like the typhoon that took…” she left the rest of that sentence unspoken. “Jude,” she said, much quieter. “Jude, it was the storm that broke the Anchor, not me.”
“Almost broke it.” Rob’s voice carried the kind of confidence that could make a whole kitchen listen. He sounded so like his dad at that moment that Jude almost said so until Rob looked right at him. “There’s no way to fix this aspect.” He gestured to a scene of devastation Jude could hardly stand to look at. “There’s no way to beat nature, or to magic back the Anchor’s old customer base of low-budget campers.”
He was right. “There’s nothing here for them now.” Jude took his sister’s hand in his. And this had all happened shortly after he’d left? “Why didn’t you…?” He choked on his words, imagining Louise waking up for a second time to disaster so soon after their parents had gone missing, and this time he hadn’t been here for her to lean on. “How did you…?”
“Manage?” Louise offered, bleak and teary for the third time since he’d returned. “I didn’t. Couldn’t. Not on my own. I couldn’t manage any of this.” She gestured to where the beach had once curved, now cordoned off like a crime scene. “But I knew that you couldn’t either. There was no point calling you back. I could have dealt with the insurance paperwork if there’d been storm damage to the pub just as well as you could have. But if there’s an insurance policy to cover losing all of our trade like this, for so long, Mum and Dad never bought one.”
“So what did you do next?” Jude asked, louder, as the wind picked up and blustered.
“What did I do?” Finally, Louise brightened. “I did exactly what Dad always taught us if we got in trouble in deep water.” She grasped Rob’s hand, her own tiny in his. “I called for help, and then tried my best to stay afloat until Rob came to save me.”
5
They took a longer route back to the pub, following the coast path instead of taking the shortcut through the rock pools again. It brought them into the village a few streets up from the harbour. Louise explained more as they walked past vacant cottages and boarded-up gift shops.
“Hardly any businesses stayed open after the storm. There weren’t any of the usual winter tourists. Without them, there wasn’t enough trade to sustain them.” She stopped outside a large granite-faced cottage that had once belonged to a family of artists. “Marc runs his parents’ art gallery now, but his mum and dad moved back to France.” Maybe she noticed how Jude bristled at that name. “I know Marc wasn’t your favourite person at school, although I have no idea why. He came back after the storm to help his parents move out. Then he stayed.” There was a strange edge to her tone that sounded close to worry. “I don’t know if there will be enough to keep him here much longer. T-tourists I mean, to keep the gallery open. He lives in the flat above it now, and his parents’ old place is empty. I think they’ll sell it as a holiday rental. A posh one.” She cupped her hands against a windowpane and peered in.
Jude joined her, hardly able to make out the interior, which had been vibrant like its owners, the whole family expressive and flamboyant in a way that Jude instinctively avoided. “They painted Porthperrin right onto the walls. Massive murals in each room,” he remembered.
“Someone will paint over it all,” Louise said. “Make it neutral,” which reminded Jude of the all-white bedrooms at the Anchor. “That’s the new market for us,” Louise finished. “People who want a luxury getaway rather than a cheap camping vacation next to the beach.”
Jude’s breath fogged the glass pane. “I suppose that does explain the fine-dining menu I found in my bedroom.” He straightened and acknowledged Rob directly, still feeling as if the ground was shifting underfoot, sliding him, like their lost beach, seaward. “And I guess it explains the lobster you bought from Carl this morning, but I still don’t see where you fit in.” The mention of food had his stomach rumbling loud enough for Louise to notice.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s talk over breakfast.” They passed more vacant cottages on the way as well as a couple more shops with no sign of life inside. “After the storm, I thought—we all did—that the tourists would come back anyway. Maybe they’d camp a bit further away, but they’d still come into the village to eat and to spend their vacation money.” She gestured as they walked to the car park behind the pub. Just a few cars were parked there where usually it would have been packed to bursting. “We don’t even get many day-trippers, these days. Turns out that people prefer easy places to get to rather than a long walk along the coast path from the next village, and without the beach, there’s not much here for their kids.”
They rounded the corner, seagulls watching them from the sea wall.
“Of course,” Louise continued. “It’s still gorgeous here, but without the volume of numbers, it stands to reason that the pub needs to make more money from each person who finds us.”
Rob unlocked the pub door. Seeing his mum’s keys in his hand still felt weird. He bit his tongue rather than say so. Jude followed Rob silently to the kitchen, nodding when Louise asked, “You want a bacon butty?” She flicked on the kettle on her way to a new walk-in refrigerator, passing the bacon she found inside over to Rob who set it frying. She then sliced bread that he buttered, both working in easy, practised tandem.
“I’ll make the tea,” Jude said gruffly.
“No milk for Rob,” Louise said as if she knew him better than Jude. S
he did, he had to acknowledge, still struggling to wrap his head around so many changes, like bowls being stacked where he’d expected to find mugs, the cupboard next door holding plates that were also in the wrong place.
“Here.” Rob opened another cupboard, his gaze cautious. At least the spoons were where Jude expected. He stirred the tea, only adding a splash of milk to his sister’s.
“You take yours black now too?” Louise explained to Rob, “He used to take his tea so milky, he’d get through pints and pints, and then put the empty bottles back in the fridge. Used to drive Mum—” When Louise abruptly stopped speaking, Rob filled the sudden silence.
“My mother too.” His voice was a distraction from the reminder of who was missing from this kitchen. “Only mine yelled about me drinking all of the juice.” His smile was wide like Jude remembered, fond as he added something that resonated with Jude. “She loved fresh juice, but I drank it all so often without thinking. Now I’d squeeze a hundred oranges every morning if she asked me…” He caught Jude staring. Rob’s eyebrows rose a fraction and he asked, “You want?”
Did Jude still want?
He’d never stopped wanting Rob, was the real truth, not for a single minute.
“Juice?” Rob shook a carton at him. “Do you want some juice with your sandwich?”
“No,” Jude eventually got out. A glance in Louise’s direction showed a small frown that deepened as her gaze swung between him and Rob. He needed to stop her from thinking about them any harder. “Come on. Let’s eat in the bar.”
Jude carried a tray loaded with bacon sandwiches into the bar where he’d helped his dad serve customers so often. A sigh slipped out at the sight of yet more changes. “Where are the maps?” They used to cover one wall, a pin left by each new customer to show where they’d come from. Now, yet more seascapes were mounted in the same spot, along with price tags.
“The maps? They got a bit wet, but I made sure to store them safely once they dried out. They’re in the boatshed.”
“With the rest of the tat,” Rob added.
Tat?
For such a small word, it had a huge impact. Jude wrestled down another instinctive urge to come out verbally swinging. Did Rob have to sound so snooty about where Jude had grown up, highlighting the difference in their backgrounds? This bar might not have had the most tasteful of decoration, but it had reflected his parents’ interests, showcasing what they loved best about Porthperrin and sailing. Jude sat at the nearest table and crammed his mouth full of his sandwich rather than tell Rob where to get off. He’d bite his tongue until Louise explained how come Rob had any say in how to run the Anchor.
Being around him was a nightmare, Jude despaired as he chewed, the fierce want that months apart hadn’t dampened, mixing equally with worry as he ploughed through his breakfast. He chewed fast so they could get this conversation over with.
“Someone’s hungry.”
Jude didn’t have to look up to picture Rob’s amusement. He didn’t slow his chewing either, chasing the last crumbs around his plate with the tip of a licked finger. “It’s been a long time since dinner.” And that meal had been dire, the new hire able to burn even the pasta water. God knew what he’d put together for Tom’s breakfast, let alone for his next clients.
For a long, desperate moment, Jude wished himself back aboard the Aphrodite, miles from this pub he barely recognised and lost beach that spelt financial disaster.
“Come on.” Rob pulled Jude’s empty plate towards him. “That didn’t touch the sides. I’ll make you another.” His offer was phrased like a command. Jude almost dug his heels in until he took in a quick shift in Rob’s expression that was almost beseeching. He followed him to the kitchen in silence, Rob speaking once the door shut.
“You’re going to tell me to piss off out of your pub,” Rob said as he buttered more bread with more force than was needed. “I can see it written all over your face. Have done several times this morning already, and somehow I just annoyed you again.” He sounded calm, but when he set the knife down, Jude saw his hand was shaking. “You know that I wondered for ages what the fuck it was that I’d said to make you up and leave without talking to me, don’t you?”
It hadn’t been Rob’s fault that Jude had left London so fast; his swift departure had been circumstantial, driven by a shock that meant family had to come first. It had to. He tried to say so again, but Rob was still mid-flow, refusing to make eye contact. He covered the bread with a layer of bacon slices while asking, “Do you have any idea how many times I replayed our last conversation?”
Jude shook his head.
“Too many to count, trying to figure out where I went wrong with you.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I must have. We’d just got through the semi-finals of the contest, but I already thought I’d won the first prize because that was the day I got to kiss you.”
Jude’s mind went blank, surprised into silence.
“I got to kiss you,” Rob repeated like that was the real prize he treasured, not the cash that Jude had needed. “After months of chatting you up, I finally made my move, but then you disappeared the next day before I got to take you out on a date.”
Jude remembered how amazing it had felt to kiss Rob after wondering for so long if his flirting was a contest tactic designed to throw him, or yet another way for Rob to needle his father.
“Something I said must have come across wrong for you to leave without talking to me.” Rob suddenly stood much closer, getting in Jude’s space, threading the fingers of one hand through his. “I’d take it back if I knew, Jude. I’d clear up whatever it was that made you think I wouldn’t be willing to help you. But it’s been months and months, and I had to move on.” His grip on Jude’s hand contradicted those words. He pressed his forehead to Jude’s for a split second before he pulled back to say, “So if you’re still set on telling me to piss off, this time I want a proper goodbye from you first.” His lips almost brushed Jude’s, as soft as he remembered. “Can I?” he asked. “Please?”
Jude nodded. The press of Rob’s lips was tentative, at first, but still sent sparks that quickly heated as Rob shifted his grip, releasing Jude’s hand to wrap both arms around him, fingers sliding through the hair at the nape of his neck. He groaned. Jude parted his lips, their kiss deepening, both holding on for dear life, and both giving and taking.
How many times had Jude recalled their one kiss while scanning distant horizons, never believing for a moment that Rob might have been doing the same back in Britain?
How often had he wished they’d kissed much sooner just so he could have had more to remember about the way Rob’s touch lit him?
So what if what they’d been on the verge of starting only lasted for as long as the contest? Jude had already guessed he’d be dropped as soon as it was over. After all, Rob moved in a different social circle; the heir to London’s restaurant royalty dating someone at the lowest rung of the restaurant ladder seemed unlikely, long-term. Besides, Jude could never have brought Rob home to Porthperrin.
Yet here he was in a kitchen that bore no relation to the one Jude had learned to cook in.
Here he was, kissing Jude as though he never wanted to stop, only pulling back to drag in a deep breath.
Rob cupped Jude’s face, drawing him in for another kiss before changing his mind and pushing him against the workbench, his hands just below Jude’s arse as he hefted him onto its surface. He stood between Jude’s spread legs, hands roaming from his thighs to Jude’s chest before dropping to tug at the hem of Jude’s shirt. He slid a hand under the fabric, mapping skin that soaked up his touch like a sponge would water. Rob kissed Jude like he was drowning, desperate as if Jude was the air he needed. He groaned and clutched hard, pulling Jude to the edge of the worktop, hips pressed against where Jude’s legs parted.
Finally, Jude got to slide his hands into hair that was just as silky as he remembered. Rob pulled away, his chest heaving, and it slipped
through his fingers.
“That’s how I would have done it,” Rob said, his voice gritty. He leaned in one more time, stubble a soft prickle as his lips brushed Jude’s jawline. His breath was so warm across Jude’s ear as he whispered. “That’s how I would have said goodbye last time if you’d let me.”
His final kiss was barely there, the slightest of touches, gone before Jude could respond.
The kitchen door swung closed behind Rob, leaving Jude half-hard and winded.
6
Jude returned to the table, his sister finishing the last of her sandwich as he placed his second on the table. Taking a bite was a challenge while Rob sat opposite, eyes following his every movement until Jude lifted it to his mouth. Rob glanced away then, hand rising to rub at his lips, a little redder now than earlier. His hair was more dishevelled too after Jude had run his hands through it. Jude’s scrutiny lingered long enough for Rob to notice and smooth stray strands from his forehead.