“Yeah, you and me both.” Mal found himself smiling. A week was a long time. Plenty long enough to find out a bit more about this Jory bloke, and whether Dev was going to want to know him. Mal patted the mattress, about to make some crack about Tasha having stuffed it with rocks, but Jory must’ve misunderstood, cos he sat down next to Mal.
Okaaayyy. This wasn’t awkward at all, him and Jory sitting on his bed with the duvet still rucked up from last night. “So, yeah, you lived here all your life?”
Jory nodded. “Apart from when I was at school. And university. And doing postgraduate work.”
Mal had to laugh. “So basically, you just come here every summer like a bloody grackle?”
Jory’s face screwed up in a frown. It was well cute. “I think you mean grockle? A tourist? Isn’t a grackle some kind of bird?”
“Fuck if I know. And there was me thinking I was speaking fluent Cornish.”
“Grockle isn’t even a Cornish word. It’s general southwest dialect. Emmet is more specifically Cornish.” He went a bit pink. “But you probably don’t want the whole lecture.”
“That what you used to do in Edinburgh? Lectures and stuff.”
Jory nodded seriously. “Particularly the stuff. An essential part of any university curriculum, stuff.”
Mal grinned. “Fuck off. I coulda gone to uni if I’d wanted to, you know.” He could have and all. He’d had the grades. Straight As, and fuck you very much to all the teachers who’d predicted him Ds just cos he liked to have a bit of a laugh in lessons. He hadn’t fancied the crippling debt, that was all.
Okay, so there might have been a bit of peer pressure in there too. His mates would’ve thought he was totally up himself if he’d gone to uni, especially seeing as he hadn’t needed a degree for the job he’d wanted.
“I’m sure you could have,” Jory said politely, which wasn’t most people’s reaction when he told them that. “Academia isn’t for everyone.”
“That why you left and came back here?”
“I . . .” Jory gave a weird, awkward shrug. “Family. Are you staying here long?”
Mal could take a hint. “Not sure. Gonna see how it goes.”
“Between jobs at the moment?”
Jory’s tone was sympathetic, which made Mal feel worse about lying to him, but he wasn’t ready to go there. “Something like that. Old Jago said I can stay as long as I want, long as I pull me weight and don’t leave the place looking like a pigsty.”
“Kind of him.”
“Course, if he finds me hanging about with you . . .”
Jory swallowed. “It’s not just about Devan?”
“Nah. Your big bruv screwed his mate’s family over some property or other—I didn’t get the details. Chucked ’em all out when the old bloke died, was it? Tasha’s mate’s grandad, that was. Used to be on the lifeboats. So yeah, Roscarrock’s a bit of a dirty word round here.”
“Sorry.”
“Hey, it ain’t your fault.” Mal sent him a sharp look. “Least, far as I know.”
“God, no. I’ve never had anything to do with all that. Bran inherited the family interests. Father was something of a traditionalist—primogeniture, and all that.” He flushed. “The eldest child inheriting—”
“I know what it means,” Mal cut him off, a bit narked. “Just cos I never had a public-school education don’t mean I never read books.”
“Sorry. But you’d be amazed how many students I’ve known with frighteningly limited knowledge outside their own field.” Jory paused. “So what is your field? You never said.”
“Customer service.” Mal didn’t even feel bad about the lie. People who put you on the spot like that shouldn’t expect the truth, right? He stood up. It was good, yeah, getting to talk to Jory, but if they hung around any longer, Tasha might come bursting in, and Mal really couldn’t face having World War III kicking off in his bedroom. “Listen, it’s been great, and all”—fuck, he sounded like he was trying to ditch last night’s one-night stand, and Jory still sitting on his unmade bed wasn’t helping—“but I ain’t had me breakfast yet and I’m starving.”
Jory scrambled to his feet. “I could take you out somewhere? If—if you’re willing to give me another chance?”
Jory felt like an idiot the minute he’d blurted out the invitation. Mal just stood there, staring down at him. Quite clearly, he’d just been trying to get rid of him. “But you’ve probably got other plans. Things to do. I’ll—” Jory stood up.
“Nah, okay.” Mal blinked, giving Jory the absurd impression that he was as surprised as Jory at his response. “Where d’you wanna go? Caff in town?”
Jory hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Yes, why not?” After all, the town was full of eating places, and he’d be able to tell at a glance if there was any danger of bumping into Bran or Bea inside whichever one they chose.
“Right. Come on, then.” Mal grabbed his wallet and phone, shoved them into his jeans pockets, looked out of the window, and then turned to Jory expectantly. “Ready?”
“Uh . . . Yes.” Christ. It was ridiculous how attracted he was to the man. Mal seemed all sharp angles, all spiky class-war defensiveness, but there was a warmth underneath that took Jory’s breath away. He was all mercurial changes too—one minute showing tenderness and genuine curiosity, the next slipping back into his cocky, am-I-bothered persona.
And no amount of dithering on Jory’s part was likely to make Mal say, Sod breakfast, and jump back on the bed with him, and even if he did, Jory was self-aware enough to realise he’d probably run all the way back to Roscarrock House rather than stay and take advantage. But maybe going out for breakfast could be a first step. So Jory forced himself not to smile too widely like a complete idiot. “Yes. Let’s go.”
Mal nodded. “But
