Chapter 16
A fter reading that message, Jude drove back, very aware that Rob sat beside him in uncharacteristic silence. He finally spoke when the Porthperrin turnoff came into sight, his curt tone another signal that something was up.
“Pull over. There.”
“Why?” A food critic’s arrival meant they’d need to pull together, even if Lou had asked for some space.
It was likely a good thing; a chance to show her that they could still work together.
“Why don’t we go straight ho—” Jude cut off his question after he glanced Rob’s way, almost fooled for a moment that he sat next to a stranger.
Jude stopped at the next lay-by. “What is it?”
“I need to make a quick call before the signal gets too patchy.” Rob selected a name from his contacts and held the phone to his ear, his body angled away and shoulders hunching.
Someone answered. There was no salutation, no mention of a name to help Jude guess who Rob had called.
All he said was, “Who did you send?” Then he straightened his shoulders.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know why I’m calling.
I know it must have been you.” He listened for a moment.
“You’re telling me that a busy critic like Guy Parsons would come all the way from London for pub grub without you calling in a favour? ”
Guy Parsons? When he wrote up a restaurant, the whole of London took notice, but that wasn’t the part of the conversation that had Jude frowning. Rob calling his menu pub grub had sounded dismissive.
Rob used the same phrase again. “Because pub grub is what you said I’ll be stuck serving, remember?
Pub grub, until the Anchor folded? A complete waste of my training, let alone the prize-winnings.
” Rob’s voice rose. “Is that why you’ve done this?
So we’ll get a terrible write-up before we even get a chance to reopen? ”
Jude quietly let himself out of the driver-side door.
Through a break in the hedgerow, the harbour was visible, its sea wall a protective curve around what was left of Porthperrin.
Then he glanced over his shoulder, breath catching at the sight of Rob white with anger.
Even when other chefs had pulled stunts to wreck each other’s chances, Jude had only ever seen Rob laugh as if nothing mattered.
Now, Jude saw visible fury and heard it too in the loud slam of Rob’s car door after he ended his call.
“That fucking, fucking….” Rob ran out of adjectives as he stalked over to Jude.
Jude supplied a noun. “Your dad?”
Rob’s phone rang in his hand. He thumbed it off without looking.
“You sure you don’t want to answer that?” It might have been Louise calling. Jude’s gaze strayed to the break in the hedge, and Rob’s, of course, followed.
“Oh, trust me. That won’t have been Lou.
She’ll be too busy frantically clearing the last of the crap to call either of us right now.
” He didn’t censor his thoughts, making zero attempt to sugarcoat them.
“We still had a couple of weeks before the summer season kicked off,” he said, despairing.
“There’s still so much shit to clear out.
So much decorating still to do just to make it even half-way decent. ”
“What’s any of that got to do with your dad?”
“Because he’s the reason we’re going to be forced to face criticism before we’re anywhere near ready.
” He raked his fingers through his hair, pushing it away from his face and leaving his expression unguarded.
Anger now warred with despair. “He says he did it as a favour. A village pub in the middle of nowhere isn’t most restaurant critics’ first choice of destination.
It might keep us afloat if we get a good write-up. ”
“And if we don’t,” Jude asked, although, in his heart, he knew the answer.
“Then we’re sunk before we’ve started.”
The next few days passed in a blur of preparations.
All three of them ploughed through Louise’s chore list, Rob, in particular, working like a machine without an off-switch.
No scuffed wall was safe from his paintbrush, no corner of the kitchen that didn’t gleam after he scoured it.
When he didn’t come to bed in the boatshed by one o’clock on the third night, Jude went to find him.
The laptop screen in the office lit Rob’s face as he clicked between online reviews that Guy Parsons had written.
“He’s going to slaughter us,” he sighed without looking away from the screen.
Gone was the determined automaton Jude had witnessed over and over, striving hard to create perfection.
Instead, a beaten man replaced him before the battle had even commenced.
“Then I’ll just tell him he’s not welcome.” Jude moved to close the laptop lid.
Rob stopped him. “Doing that would make it worse.”
“How.” Jude hesitated for a second before placing a hand on Rob’s shoulder.
“I could go to the station early,” he suggested.
“Tell him that his booking’s cancelled before he gets off the train from London.
” He’d do it in a heartbeat if that dragged Rob back from a cliff edge he acted as if was his alone to jump from.
“Seriously. This is our place. Ours. All of us.” And wasn’t that easier to admit now he’d witnessed Rob working flat out?
“We get the final say. He can’t exactly write a review if he hasn’t eaten or slept here, so what’s the worst that could happen if I sent him packing? ”
“The worst?” Rob’s chuckle was hollow. “Oh, the reviews where he hasn’t even eaten a bite are his most popular by a mile. We wouldn’t be the first place he broke before getting a single booking. He doesn’t even need to cross the threshold.”
Rob clicked open a scathing review. Jude read, his mouth drying. “Wow.” He read some more as Rob paged down to the comments, hundreds of readers agreeing online to never darken that business’ doorway. “At least not everyone reads Sunday papers these days.”
Rob scrolled to the bottom of the page and clicked on a blue bird icon.
“This isn’t the only place his reviews post. And you don’t get hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter by being boring.
Syndicating this kind of review—” he clicked open another review that decimated a fledgling business “—is how he makes his living.”
“So we’re screwed if we don’t let him come here, and screwed if we do?”
“Maybe.” Rob let out a deep sigh. “Probably, if I’m honest.” The look he cast Jude’s way was defeated. “I’m so sorry.”
Jude had seen and heard more than enough of that from Rob lately. He tightened his grip on Rob’s shoulder. “You don’t have a single thing to be sorry about.”
The next sound Rob let out was a groan, muscles knotted until Jude gripped his other shoulder as well, and Rob’s head fell forward. He gasped, “How much do I need to pay you to do that forever?” his voice muffled as he rested his forehead on arms he’d crossed over the desktop.
“No charge.” Jude kneaded another whimper from Rob as he chased tremors across Rob’s shoulders, smoothing them away. “But seriously,” he said as he squeezed. “No one could have worked harder than you.”
“Don’t.” Rob’s voice was so quiet even after he turned his face to one side. “Don’t say that.” His eyes were closed, the light from the PC screen painting his face technicolour. Jude didn’t like that any better than his former pallor.
He did shut the laptop then, leaving them both in near darkness, faint light spilling through the gap where the door stood ajar to the hallway.
“Why not, Rob?” That light fell across a sheet of creamy card— the new menu Rob kept revising, featuring the showy signature dish he’d first watched Rob practice for the contest finale.
He knelt by Rob’s side. “You have worked hard.” Harder here than Jude had ever seen him work during the contest, getting through each heat based on what Jude had guessed was nepotism, holding onto his dad’s famous coattails.
Of course, he’d been wrong about that. Rob had cooked well enough to win the title, after all.
“So why shouldn’t I tell you the truth?”
“Because…” Rob opened eyes that were inky and shadowed. “You and Lou wouldn’t be under all this pressure if I hadn’t come here.”
“If you hadn’t come…?” Jude could only imagine how Louise had felt watching their home swamped, livelihood washed away while all alone, without him.
“Rob, if you hadn’t come here, I’m not sure there would have been anything left by the time I got back.
” The banks would certainly have called in all of the debts, creditors lined up to carve the Anchor into slices long before he could have got home to make any difference.
Jude let go of the last of his shame at finding the Anchor saved due to Rob’s investment; now gratitude made him honest as well.
“I don’t care what happens with that critic.
What you’ve done is more important. Yes, you’ve made the Anchor different, and yes I didn’t like that at first, but for the first time in my life, I get to be me here.
Me. Exactly as I am, without hiding.” His gaze drifted to the colourful leaflets they’d brought home from their breakfast date.
“You’ll bring this whole village back from the brink.
” Then he tried to insert a touch of Rob’s humour.
“Don’t forget, you’re Britain’s best new chef, for God’s sake,” a title Jude once would have killed for.
“If this Guy wanker can’t see any of that…
If he doesn’t like your menu or what you and Lou have done with the rooms here, that’s his loss.
” He leaned in and repeated, “You earned that title. He’s lucky you’re letting him eat here before anyone else gets to.
” The urge to kiss away the crease in Rob’s brow was almost overwhelming.
That crease deepened. “Don’t.” Rob’s breath shuddered. “Don’t be nice to me, Jude.”
“Why not?” From this close, Jude saw Rob quiver as though all of the muscles he’d worked hard to relax had pulled tight in concert. Him closing his eyes again gave Jude courage. “Come to bed.”
“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.”