Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
JUDE
Iwake to a sound like a dying whale.
Low, mournful, building to a groan that seems to come from everywhere at once. The walls. The ceiling. The very bones of this godforsaken cottage.
‘What the hell is that?’
Brynn doesn’t open her eyes. ‘The roof.’
‘The roof is groaning?’
‘It does that when the wind changes direction.’ She burrows deeper into the pillow, her voice muffled. ‘You get used to it.’
‘Do you? Do you really?’
‘No. But I tell myself I will.’
Another groan. A beam in the wall creaks ominously. A draught slips through the window that doesn’t close properly and traces cold fingers down my spine.
‘I’m going to die in this cottage,’ I say.
‘Probably.’
‘You’re remarkably calm about that.’
‘If the roof was going to collapse, it would’ve done it years ago.’ She cracks one eye open, peers at me. ‘Probably, and I’ve splurged on having it fixed. It’s just a couple of loose tiles now.’
‘That’s not reassuring, Trelawney.’
‘I’m not a reassuring person, Harding.’
She’s smiling, though. That small, private smile I’m starting to learn is just for me. Her hair is a disaster – tangled and wild, spread across the pillow like seaweed – and there’s a crease on her cheek from where she’s been pressed against my shoulder.
She’s beautiful.
I’m in so much trouble.
The thought should come with panic. Doesn’t. It just settles like it’s been there all along and is waiting for me to catch up.
‘What time is it?’ she asks.
I fumble for my phone on the floor. The screen is cracked – must’ve happened sometime between the rescue and here, though I can’t remember when. The time glows through the damage: 7:42.
‘Nearly eight.’
‘Shit.’ She sits up, the sheet falling to her waist. I try not to stare. Fail completely. ‘Don’t you have to be on the boat?’
The boat. Dad. Reality, creeping back in like the tide.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I should call.’
I don’t move.
Neither does she.
The roof groans again. The draught finds new skin to torment. Somewhere in the village, a seagull screams its fury at the morning.
‘You should call,’ Brynn agrees.
‘I know.’
‘Your dad will wonder where you are.’
‘I know.’
‘This is the part where you get up and find your phone.’
‘I found my phone.’
‘And use it.’
‘Right. Use the phone. Call Dad. Be a responsible adult.’ I still don’t move. ‘In a minute.’
Her smile widens. ‘Harding.’
‘Trelawney.’
‘Go call your father.’
‘Fine.’ I throw back the covers – immediately regret it as the cold hits – and snatch my phone from the floor. ‘But I’m holding you responsible for any frostbite I sustain.’
‘Noted.’
I find my boxers tangled with my jeans, pull them on, and pad out to what generously calls itself a kitchen. The floor is freezing. The light through the window is grey and watery. The tap drips with a rhythm that would drive a sane person mad.
I dial Dad before I can talk myself out of it.
He picks up on the second ring. ‘About time. You coming or not?’
No hello. No how are you. Just straight to business. Classic Reuben.
‘Not today. I’m taking a rest day.’
Silence. The same silence that used to make me squirm as a kid, certain I was in trouble even when I wasn’t.
‘Cal said you took a swim last night.’
Word travels fast. Of course it does. This is Sea Salt Bay.
‘Just a dip. I’m fine.’
‘Hmm.’ More silence. Then, grudgingly: ‘Davey said the recovery was rough. Spring tides and all.’
Is that … concern? From Reuben Harding? I almost drop the phone.
‘It was manageable. Everyone came home.’
‘Good.’ A pause. ‘Take the day, then. I’ll have Davey check the nets. You can look at the books tomorrow. The Deep Sea Bass is being funny about payment terms again. Got another shitty email this morning.’
I close my eyes. I sorted the Deep Sea Bass terms two days ago. Rang Marcus myself, agreed sixty days net, sent the confirmation. Dad watched me make the call from the wheelhouse doorway.
He doesn’t remember.
‘I’ll look into it,’ I say. Because that’s easier than the alternative. Easier than saying, I already fixed it, Dad. You were there.
‘And Jude?’
‘Yeah?’
Another pause. Longer this time. I can almost hear him wrestling with whatever he’s trying to say.
‘Don’t make a habit of going overboard. Paperwork’s harder to replace than you’d think.’
The line goes dead.
I stand there for a moment, phone in hand, trying to parse what just happened. Was that a joke? Was Reuben Harding making a joke? About being glad I didn’t drown?
‘Everything okay?’
Brynn’s in the doorway. She’s pulled on a shirt – my shirt, I realise, the flannel I was wearing last night – and it hangs to mid-thigh, the sleeves rolled up past her wrists.
My brain short-circuits.
‘Fine,’ I manage. ‘Dad’s fine. Everything’s fine.’
‘You said fine three times.’
‘Did I?’
‘Generally a sign that things are not, in fact, fine.’
I cross the kitchen in three steps. She doesn’t move, just watches me come, that knowing look in her eyes.
‘Things are fine,’ I say, stopping close enough to feel the warmth radiating off her skin. ‘Things are actually, genuinely, surprisingly fine.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I have the day off. No boat. No accounts. No Dad.’ I reach out, tug at the collar of my stolen shirt. ‘And you’re wearing my clothes.’
‘Is that a problem?’
‘It’s the opposite of a problem.’
‘What’s the opposite of a problem?’
‘This.’ I kiss her. ‘Definitely this.’
She laughs against my mouth, her hands coming up to grip my shoulders. ‘Jude—’
‘Hmm?’
‘We should probably eat at some point, before malnutrition sets in.’
‘Probably.’
‘And I should shower. I still smell like seawater and diesel.’
‘I like how you smell.’
‘That’s disgusting.’
‘Probably.’ I’m walking her backwards now, toward the bedroom, and she’s letting me, our step in time, our breaths synchronised. ‘Shower later?’
‘Shower later,’ she agrees.
The bed is still warm when we fall into it.
An hour later – or maybe two, time gets slippery – we’re lying tangled together, the sheets a disaster, the roof still groaning its disapproval overhead.
‘I’m starving,’ Brynn announces. ‘I have eggs. Possibly bread. Definitely tea.’
‘A feast.’
‘Don’t mock my provisions.’
‘I would never.’
She rolls out of bed, magnificently unselfconscious, and pads toward the kitchen. I watch her go – the line of her back, the mess of her hair, the way she moves like she’s comfortable in her own skin. Like she’s never had a moment of doubt about who she is.
She should scare the shit out of me. She doesn’t.
‘Eggs are questionable!’ she calls from the kitchen. ‘But I’m going to risk it!’
‘Your optimism is inspiring!’
‘Shut up and come help!’
I find my jeans, decide the shirt is a lost cause since she’s put it on again, and join her in the kitchen wearing nothing but boxers and the bruises from last night.
She takes one look at me and winces. ‘Christ. You look like you went ten rounds with the Atlantic.’
‘Pretty sure I did.’
‘Sit down. I’ll make tea.’
‘I thought I was helping.’
‘You can help by not dying of hypothermia in my kitchen.’ She pushes me toward a chair. ‘Sit.’
I sit.
The kettle boils. The eggs turn out to be fine. She makes toast that’s slightly burned and tea that’s slightly too strong and we eat standing up because there’s only one chair and neither of us wants to be the one sitting while the other stands.
‘So,’ she says, cradling her mug. ‘What do people do on days off in Salt Bay?’
‘People don’t take days off in Salt Bay.’
‘Surely sometimes – Sunday! No one fishes on a Sunday.’ She’s crowing, smug to catch me out, but I wag my finger which causes the cutest little frown to erupt on her face.
‘Fishing doesn’t stop for weekends, Brynn.
Or weather. Or personal crises. Sunday is reset day, you should remember that.
The boats might not go out, but there’s still work.
’ I take a sip of tea, letting the warmth spread through my stomach and into my limbs.
And then, before I can think better of it: ‘We could go surfing.’
She raises an eyebrow. ‘Surfing?’
‘The swell was decent coming in last night. With the wind shift this morning, it’ll be clean.
Glassy, even.’ I’m already calculating – tide times, wave direction, the way the April light hits the water at this hour.
‘There’s a cove past Pencarrow. Gets the best break on the coast when the conditions are right. ’
My words come out fast, eager, and I hear it in my own voice – the first real excitement I’ve felt in weeks. I haven’t been on a board in what feels like an age.
‘I knew you were a surfer beach bum!’ More crowing, which I stop by catching her around the waist and planting a kiss on her mouth.
‘Never said I wasn’t,’ I say when I reluctantly break my mouth from hers. ‘Do you?’
There’s a flicker across her expression. Not quite sadness – more like the careful expression of someone reaching for a memory they’re not sure is really theirs.
‘Not since I left here.’ She turns her mug in her hands.
I want to ask if she remembers. Remembers us wading out, foam bodyboards under our arm, screams of laughter, but sometimes just screams if the waves were too big and we couldn’t touch the floor of the sea.
I remember mum telling us the crop of rock we couldn’t go past. If we did, we’d be banned. The taste of salt, the sting of my nose, the grasp of our small hands as we held one another up. I remember fucking everything. But I don’t ask her because I’m chicken shit.
‘I can’t believe there isn’t an old board hanging around a Trelawney property.’
‘There is, actually. I nearly brained myself on it last week.’ She’s studying me now, gaze shadowed under her lashes. ‘You really want to go surfing? After last night?’
‘Especially after last night.’
I don’t know how to explain it. How the ocean that tried to kill me twelve hours ago is the same ocean that makes me feel most alive. How the weight that sits on my chest every time I step onto the Mary Jane disappears completely when I’m on a wave.
On a wave, I’m not the spare son. Not the one who does the books while his brother does the real work.