“How’d he do it?”
“The cliffs. At the back of our house.” Jory couldn’t help glancing over in the direction of Big Guns Cove, although the curve of the bay shielded it from view. “They called it an accident but, well. We knew.” Probably everyone had known, but the coroner had been an old family friend.
“Fuck.”
Jory nodded. “It was . . . My mother died a few months before that. They were everything to each other.”
“Christ, that’s . . . How old were you?”
“Seventeen.”
“And it was just you, your brother, and your sister after that? How much older than you are they again?”
“Nine years.” It’d seemed like a lot back then.
“And a year or two later you met Kirsty and had Gawen.” Mal said it as though the timing was significant.
Perhaps it was. Jory had always shied away from too much analysis of that time in his life.
Mal’s head dropped onto his shoulder, and Jory couldn’t help turning to nuzzle his hair. It smelled of lemon and salt, and was softer against his cheek than it looked. Mal muttered something that sounded like fucked up, and then he lifted his face to Jory’s, and kissed him.
Oh God. His lips on Jory’s were demanding, and the taste of him intoxicating.
Jory felt clumsy, oafish in comparison as Mal twisted in his arms and grabbed hold of him, one hand on his jaw and the other low on his hip. Jory opened his mouth to the hot tongue that sought entry, surrendering eagerly to the invasion. His whole body was alive with sensation—and the need for more, damn it.
When they finally broke apart, Jory wasn’t the only one breathing hard.
“So. Yeah. That happened,” Mal said, drawing back and shifting a few inches away on the sand. His voice was as rough as the craggy granite cliffs that surrounded them. “Uh. Probably shouldn’t happen again, yeah?”
Oh. The fizzing inside Jory suddenly went flat.
“See, you’re Dev’s uncle, and he’s my best mate. I don’t wanna fuck that up for him. Not just for a . . .” Mal made a vague gesture that seemed to encompass all of Jory in his glorious inadequacy. “Whatever.”
“Fine,” Jory found himself saying. So that was how Mal thought of him, was it? Just a . . . whatever. Well, perhaps it was better to find out sooner rather than later. “No, you’re right. That would be . . .” He stood up, feeling cold and very alone. “I’ll, um, let you get on, then.”
“Jory . . .” Despite the pleading tone, when Mal got to his feet he took a step back, widening the distance between them.
“You’ll be okay to get back from here?” Jory asked, his tone harsh in his own ears.
Mal drew in a breath as if to say something—but then stopped and shook his head. “Yeah, mate, I’m good. Cheers for . . . you know. I’ll see you around, yeah?”
Jory nodded curtly. Mal paused again, then turned and walked away.
Jory didn’t watch him go.
Shit. The look on Jory’s face.
He’d been so fucking great about Mal pretty much having a nervous breakdown in front of him too. After nearly killing both of them—Christ, what had he been thinking, grabbing the wheel like that? Mal felt like a total arse as he walked the short way from Mother Ivey’s Bay to the Sea Bell.
That was why this thing, him and Jory, had to not happen. Because he was fucked up big time, and if he went into something with Jory, he’d fuck that up too.
And then he’d have let Dev down on top of everything else.
Christ. Mal walked blindly through the pub’s back door.
Sometimes . . . sometimes he felt like it should have been him hitting the front of the train with that godawful thump, getting carved up by the wheels— Shit . . .
He wasn’t supposed to think like that. That was what the counsellor had said. But she didn’t get it, did she? He’d killed someone.
“Babe?”
Mal glanced up. Tasha was staring at him through the open door of the kitchen, her usual worried expression in place. Well, usual when she looked at him, anyway. Great mate he was turning out to be. “Keep frowning like that and you’ll end up with wrinkles,” he said weakly.
“Fuck off, you wanker. What’s happened, babe?”
“Mixed messages much?”
“Oi. Stop stalling and come and sit down. You want a drink?”
Christ, why was everyone trying to push alcohol on him? He traipsed wearily into the kitchen. “Want me to turn out like me uncle Bob, do you?”
“Is he the one who drank a bottle of Jack a day and had a stroke in his forties? You ain’t gonna make it to your forties. Someone’ll murder you way before then. Sit down, cos I’m getting you a glass of water and you’re either drinking it or wearing it. Your choice.” She stepped over to the sink.
Mal sat down at the kitchen table. A moment later, she clonked a pint glass of water down in front of him.
He drank. It felt better than expected going down. Cool and clear. Unlike his fucking head back on that beach.
Tasha slid into the chair next to his. “Babe, if you don’t wanna talk, that’s okay, yeah? But you just look . . . rattled, yeah? Like something’s happened. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I saw that bloke again,” he blurted out. “Jory. Roscarrock.”
Tasha would make a fucking epic mother tiger. He could have sworn she actually bristled. Maybe even growled a bit. “What did he say to you? What did he do?”
“Gonna send the boys round? Nah, it ain’t like that. I think he’s all right, you know? He swears he never knew about Dev. And he wants to get to know him.”
“Why?”
“Cos he’s a decent bloke. He said sorry like a hundred times for what his bruv and sister did.”
“And you believed him?”
“Well, yeah. Why’s he gonna lie about it? What’s in it for him?”
“I dunno. So
