Chapter 31
T he next week reminded Jude so much of being aboard the Aphrodite that he was fooled a few times, stumbling over flagstone floors when he half-expected a wooden deck to rise to meet him.
There were echoes of Tom everywhere as well.
Jude heard him over and over as Rob instructed their new hires, kind if they messed up but determined, so determined, that they’d meet his high expectations.
He steered them in a familiar way Jude had half-forgotten, Rob leading by example as well, using praise as a carrot the new hires willingly followed.
Each day got busier as word spread, the bar full most evenings with what Rob called a soft opening for locals who spilt out to enjoy drinks with a view of the harbour.
The restaurant kept Jude busy while Louise tallied their increasing takings, much closer now to a breakeven point that would soon tip them into profit.
Why that bothered Rob, Jude wasn’t certain, but he’d seen him frown at Louise’s spreadsheets too often not to notice.
As had become a habit, Jude stopped midway through grinding spice for that day’s lunch special and went in search of Rob, scooping up that morning’s post from the office as an excuse, this time.
He found him on his knees in one of the bathrooms. “And that’s how you clean a toilet.
You got it?” he asked one of Susan’s nieces, chuckling as she asked why she couldn’t just swish some bleach around the bowl and call it good.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed, before telling her a story much the same as Tom had told Jude when he’d hired him, only instead of explaining rich charter clients’ high expectations, Rob raised a different subject.
“Imagine your auntie Susan just got back from some treatment all the way up in Bristol. She’s tired after sitting on the M5 for hours, and the A30 was atrocious.
” The new hire nodded; at least that much she could clearly picture.
“She’s absolutely done in, but at least she can have a bath before dinner, wash away the smell of the hospital and feel half-way human.
” He breathed in deeply through his nose, and Jude wondered if his trainee knew she mirrored his inhale so completely. “What can you smell?” Rob asked.
“Nothing,” she frowned before adding. “No, I can smell soap.” She sniffed again. “It’s nice. Lavender?”
“Yes.” Rob noticed Jude then. He winked while straightening a fluffy face cloth and bars of the handmade soap they’d purchased together at a farmers’ market first date that seemed months ago rather than weeks. “Anything else?”
“The sea?” She hesitated and then frowned. “And something spicy?”
At that, Rob outright laughed, sweet to her as she blushed to see Jude in the doorway.
“That’s because my boyfriend’s hot stuff.
You have an excellent nose,” he praised before getting back to his training.
“So, the sea and lavender soap, or cheap bleach. What would you rather your auntie smell on her very worst day?”
“I get it,” she said, earnest. And she did, Jude could see in the straightening of her shoulders.
“Good, because every guest could have a story like hers. Now take a photo of this room on your phone, darling”—he looked at his watch—“and then go make the next bathroom look and smell exactly like it. I’ll time you.”
He stood back as she scurried past. Then he surged in for a kiss when Jude said, “I thought I was your darling.”
Rob beamed when Jude grumbled. “You”—Rob kissed him again—“are glorious when you’re jealous. And you’re so much more than my darling.”
“Yeah?” And this feeling—this yearning, wishing, wanting that hadn’t died down yet in the slightest—was the same here as it ever was aboard the Aphrodite , tangled seaweed-like around his ankles to tie him to Rob when he should have been back in the kitchen already.
The urge to shut the door and stay, to strip Rob as bare as he felt every single time he woke up wrapped around him, would have been overwhelming if he’d let it; would have washed him away and he wouldn’t have even tried to fight it if that meant Rob was with him, like this, long-term.
“Yes,” Rob said certain. “Anyone can be my darling, but you’re my one and only fish face.”
They stood close and kissed. Susan’s niece came back, stuttering that she’d finished, but they barely parted.
He’d never be finished, Jude knew as Rob absently told her he’d be with her in a moment, his lips a much deeper shade of pink, his expression soft—so soft—as he smoothed creases from the front of Jude’s chef jacket.
He’d put them there, fabric curled in his fists like holding tight to Jude was just as vital, as if he didn’t have a hundred and one things to do now they were booked solid.
Rob and Lou managed to make the wild flurry of preparation easy, every day bringing new moments that Jude hoarded to treasure later, imagining replaying them the next time he left Porthperrin to search for answers.
“Hey.” Rob tapped the face of his watch again. “That fish curry won’t cook itself. Shouldn’t you be somewhere, sailor?”
He should go.
He would go.
In just another minute.
“Why were you looking for me anyway?” Rob persisted.
“Oh,” Jude pulled the post from his apron pocket.
“There’s one for you.” The change in Rob’s expression as he saw the writing on the envelope was so slight he might have missed it if he wasn’t obsessed with gathering every single glimpse for later.
There was enough of a downturn to his smile to make Jude outright ask a question. “Who’s it from?”
“Dad.” Rob paused before opening the envelope as if steeling himself for something awful.
“Oh.” The next shift in his expression was confusing given that the card he extracted featured an image of a Champagne bottle.
Despite that, Rob didn’t open it to read the message, still holding the card gingerly as if it was a sleeping snake coiled in his palms that might strike him.
“What does it say?” Jude prompted as Rob remained quiet. For all the overconfidence Rob had ever shown him, Jude didn’t like this absence one bit. “Rob?” he asked again, quietly.
Rob’s headshake was as minimal as that change in his expression had been. He moved as if to stuff the card into his back pocket until Jude reached out a hand to stop him. “It’ll be nothing,” Rob promised, backing one step away.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing that I haven’t heard already.” Rob rolled his eyes and affected a lower-pitched stern voice. “Blah blah, all the real work is in London. Blah blah, stop playing at running a business and get back in my kitchen.”
He joked, but his jaw clenched. His gaze flitted towards the hallway and escape. Jude leaned across the doorway. “Strange then that the front of the card says ‘Congratulations.’ I’ll read it for you if you want.”
Rob blew out a long breath. “Go ahead,” he said, letting go when Jude tugged, busying himself with refolding a towel that was already perfect, his movements only stilling as Jude read the three sentences written inside.
“So proud of your achievement. Your mum would be too, Rob. Good luck with the official opening.”
Rob stood in perfect stillness, the mirror reflecting the sudden softening of that clenched jaw, so Jude said, “You should ask him.”
“Ask him what?”
“To come.” Jude persisted before Rob’s soft expression could harden.
“For the official opening night. I’d ask mine in a heartbeat if I could.
” And wasn’t that a new truth; something that he’d always wanted deep down, sure it could never happen.
“Your dad must have already been proud of you, otherwise why would he have sent Guy Parsons? And I know—”
“What do you know, Jude?” The lack of endearment didn’t stop Jude from answering and moving closer.
“I know he had his own ideas for you—about you—but don’t you think that this might be him saying sorry?
” He didn’t even know that he’d reached out until his fingers slid through Rob’s hair, palm cupping the nape of his neck.
One tug and they were as close as when they’d just kissed, foreheads pressed together.
“He should see what you’ve made happen,” Jude said, fervent.
“What you’ve made out of almost nothing.
It’s amazing. You are too, and he should get to see that firsthand. ”
The huff Rob let out was tiny. “That’s what Lou keeps saying too.”
“Then maybe take the hint?” Besides, Rob might need to open a line of communication if going back to London was his next plan once his loan was repaid.
The sensation of something tangling seaweed-like around his ribs this time instead of around Jude’s ankles only tightened as Rob nodded slowly.
Business improving through their soft opening didn’t bring a tidal wave of money, more the gradual rise of a financial tide that showed no sign of stopping.
For once, it was a flood the Anchor could do with, soaking up the increased turnover like a sponge Louise wrung out into decorating budgets to renovate the last two bedrooms. She attacked her own room first, Marc her perpetual shadow, far more boxes of her possessions ending up at his place than seemed temporary.
The batik she chose to brighten the room she’d stripped bare was a fiery shade that warmed its new white walls, a touch of herself remaining, like the blue in Jude’s, which just left one room to work on.
Jude took a breather after a dinner service that had been much busier than expected, hopeful diners turning up on spec that Rob had welcomed like long-lost family members.
He searched for him once he’d cleared down only for Louise to catch him before he could, cornering him in the hallway.
“Come on,” was all she said, one finger through the apron string tied around his middle. That sharp tug meant business.
“It’s past midnight, Lou.” Jude looked over his shoulder, Rob nowhere in sight. “I was kinda hoping to go to bed in a minute.”
“Me too, but there’s something we’ve got to get settled before the weekend.” She led the way to their parents’ bedroom. “Do you really want to leave everything here as it is?” The dressing table was still cluttered.
“God no.”
“Me either.” She crossed to the dressing table and started sorting through perfume bottles and combs. Jude took one that she lingered over from her hand and slid it into her hair. “Mum would be all right with you borrowing her combs, you know?”
Louise’s eyes glistened as she tried to joke. “Are you saying that my hair’s a mess or something?”
“I’m saying that you’re all the best bits of her already,” Jude said, truthful. “But I wouldn’t mind seeing some of her favourite things more often. It would be like she was still here if you—”
Footsteps pounded up the stairs interrupted, Rob lurching through the doorway moments later.
“There’s a call for you in the office,” he said breathless, gaze fixed on Jude. “From the Aphrodite .”
A hundred different scenarios filled Jude’s head between his parents’ bedroom and the office, a thousand different reasons for Tom to call him out of the blue like this.
Perhaps he’d got a charter that would take him out of Jude’s search radius at the end of the summer, and was calling to warn him.
He’d have contacts though; other skippers who might hire him, Jude knew as he took the stairs down two, three, four at a time.
He’d point Jude in the right direction so he could keep on searching.
Or…
He stopped dead in the hallway, Rob almost slamming into his back with Louise close behind him.
Or…
Rob gripped his shoulder. “Go on,” he said, his hold firm and his voice steady. “Better not keep him waiting.”
The old wooden office chair was still warm when Jude sat at the desk, the pencil Rob must have been using only minutes before lying atop his pad of paper.
Jude put the phone on speaker and picked up the pencil, holding it tight while his hands were shaking.
He was glad Rob’s hand was still on his shoulder, securing him while a hot bubble of hope rose at the same time that dread tried to drag his heart down to the ocean bottom.
“Tom?” Jude’s voice sounded weird to his ears. “Any news?”
He didn’t want to hear Tom’s answer, yet he strained everything to listen.
Tom said something about a survey team and the height of floodwaters, but all Jude heard were his last words. The pencil snapped in his hands as Jude finally grasped Tom’s meaning, Louise’s sobs nearly drowning him out as Rob asked Tom to repeat them.
Tom said, “A survey team have found some wreckage,” and Jude’s whole world stopped turning.