Chapter 18
T hree 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 hard 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.