Chapter 30
L ater, slightly tipsy on terrible cognac they’d shared to toast the New Anchor’s bookings, Louise caught up with Jude as he washed the glasses in the kitchen.
She wrapped her arms tight around his middle, her face pressed into his back, so her voice was muffled.
“Leave the pans to soak. I’ll do them first thing tomorrow. ”
“No need.” Jude couldn’t imagine ever sleeping.
Not after watching their bookings spill over into September and October, the office phone ringing off the hook with hopeful enquiries that they might conjure more rooms out of nowhere.
“Besides, I’ll be up before you. I want to catch Carl.
” He’d already mentally run through what increased bookings meant to his fish order.
At least now they could pay him market value.
“I’ll be up just as early,” she said, her tone dreamy, her head a dead weight between the blades of his shoulder, suggesting that might be wishful thinking until she added, “Marc’s got some canvasses arriving on the early train.”
“What does him getting up early have to do with you?” Jude teased until she landed a headbutt.
“Ow! Okay, okay. You’re going to his place tonight.
I get it.” He glanced over his shoulder where only the top of her hair was visible.
Marc clearly saw something different to the unruly frizz she hated, if those images in his studio truly were of her, Jude remembered.
Marc had painted it as shimmering and stunning.
Of course she’d want to spend the night—this amazing night—with someone who saw her as special.
This much joy and relief was meant to be shared with someone who mattered.
She read his mind. “Where’s Rob?”
“He went back to the office. Said something about making changes to that business plan of his.” Jude added more hot water to his sink of dishes, then stood, doing nothing except enjoy the weight of his sister leaning on him.
She seemed relaxed for once, boneless and trusting that he’d stick around to support her for as long as she needed, maybe for the first time since he’d come back.
Perhaps that was down to the booze he’d sipped while she gulped, gasping and laughing as she finally agreed that it did taste awful.
No matter the reason, Jude also found it easier to set down his armour.
He dropped a mental shield he’d held for too long and said exactly what he was thinking.
“Did I tell you that you’re amazing?” She was, securing the Anchor’s transformation so much better than he ever could have during a crisis.
What had he done when he’d felt pressurised in this same place?
He’d put as much distance between him and home as he could manage. Fuck it; hadn’t he done that twice, running first to London before hiding out in the Aphrodite ’s galley?
He could have come home so much sooner.
Should have.
Louise read his mind a second time in as many minutes.
“You would have done the same if I hadn’t been here to keep the business running.
And before that, you had other reasons not to be here.
Understandable ones.” This time, the knock of her forehead against his shoulder blade was gentle.
“I get that now.” She went quiet, perhaps recalling the postcard Jude had saved showing her until last. She said, “Anyway, I couldn’t have done what you did either.
Any of it. Be seasick twenty-four-seven while on a hopeless search?
No thanks.” Her voice was hoarse and her grip around his middle tightened.
“I’m sorry you had to do that alone. It must have been so hard. ”
They both stood in reflective silence while soapsuds in the sink clustered like the islands he’d scoured from shore to shore while searching.
Each island of suds diminished, individual bubbles popping as Louise leaned and Jude let her, for once the quiet not loaded with secrets.
Eventually, she unpeeled herself and brought him back to the present by saying, “We do need to talk about the bedroom situation, Jude. I bet I know which numbers Rob’s running, right now. ”
Jude dried his hands and waited. If he’d learned one thing lately it was that tipsy or not, those two knew this business.
“The photos... the ones with the review? They made it look like Mum and Dad’s room was available to book.
That’s what the majority of phone callers wanted.
To book their bedroom, I mean. ‘That bohemian room’, one of them called it,” she said.
“And another caller called it ‘unique’, instead of full of Mum’s tat.
Who knew that would be what people would be prepared to pay the most for? ”
Jude did, after St Ives. “Should we?” he asked, aware even as he spoke that he sounded strangled. “Should we let it out like the others?”
For a moment she looked all of fourteen again, instead of a businesswoman. “What do you think?”
Letting go was still so hard. Only seeing her eyes well let him.
A line mooring him to the reunion he’d hoped for with their parents finally uncoiled, slipping through fingers that he couldn’t clasp any longer.
“They’d understand,” he said, his voice now a dry rasp.
“They’d want us to do whatever we thought was best. Best for us, not for them.
Whatever we can live with, long-term, Lou.
” And this was a gift Trevor’s postcards had offered.
“They were happy. Despite everything. They were happy at the end, and they’d want us to do whatever made us happy as well.
” He waited as Louise blinked fast a few times.
“You want to stay here, don’t you? At the Anchor?
Even if it’s different to how they ran it? ”
“Yes.” Louise blotted her face with a tea towel. “Of course I do. And of course I’d rather I didn’t have to run it without them. Not yet, anyway.” It was her turn to struggle to speak. “I thought there would be more years.”
Jude tugged the cloth away and surveyed her face. The same passion his parents had for the Anchor was right there on its surface. “Then we should go ahead and let out their room. Ask twice as much for it as any of the others.”
“My room too,” Louise said, rushing to add, “Might as well make hay while the sun shines. M-Marc said I could stay at the gallery with him for the summer. ”
“Just for the summer?” Jude could hardly tease her when sharing the boatshed with Rob was the best part of this whole situation. If Marc gave her even a fraction of the same comfort, Jude would do anything to help her grab it while he was home. “Or for longer?”
Lou looked up, most of her make-up cried off, and she nodded.
“Then let’s all four of us make a start tomorrow.”
After Louise left for the night, Rob found Jude still leaning against the sink in the kitchen, the last of the soapsuds gone.
He didn’t speak. Instead, he corralled Jude, standing behind him like Lou had, only Rob reached around to unbutton his chef’s jacket, slipping a hand inside and under his T-shirt to map Jude’s belly and chest. His mouth was as warm as his palm and roaming fingers, lips soft at the side of his throat while his hold on Jude’s hip was firm. He moved his other hand even lower.
“H- hello to you, too,” Jude stuttered, his cock firming fast under the grazing press of Rob’s palm, his inhale sharp when Rob let go of his hip to tug at his belt, unfastening it fast.
Jude turned in Rob’s arms. “You in a rush for some reason?”
Rob didn’t answer, the residual cognac flavour heady rather than cheap when shared via a deep kiss, his mouth opening right away, nothing light or teasing about the insistent, slick slide of his tongue or the grip he now had on Jude’s hair, hemming him against the counter with an intent that had Jude’s knees weakening.
It felt like hours rather than minutes before they broke for breath, Jude’s chest rising and falling as fast as Rob’s.
“Did you fix the bed?” Rob asked, pupils huge despite the kitchen’s bright light. Jude nodded. Rob took his hand and pulled, crowding him against the front door when Jude stopped to lock it. He said, “Come on,” almost in a growl. The same happened at the boat shed door too.
“Not that I’m complaining,” Jude said, breathless again.
“But I’d move a whole lot faster if you weren’t doing such a good impression of a limpet.
” Rob’s grip on him only tightened, his face now pressed to Jude’s throat.
“Hey. I’m not going anywhere, you know?” Jude said, tilting Rob’s face so he could see it washed pale in the moonlight. “You okay?”
Rob’s hold loosened, his exhale a shudder.
He said, “Yeah. Come on, Jude. Hurry.” Then he backed off, pulling his shirt over his head even before the door shut behind them, jeans puddled at his ankles that he kicked to one side, stripping out of his underwear and socks as he took the last few steps backwards, his face in complete shadow until he reached the bunk under the portholes.
Rob turned away to climb onto the larger sleeping space Jude had spent the afternoon rebuilding.
Flat on his belly with one knee drawn up, and marbled by moonlight, he looked as good as when Jude first found him, his first night back in Cornwall.
“You’re so gorgeous,” Jude said.