Jory stared. “That’s possibly the most horrifying thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
It wasn’t, actually, even close, but it got him a laugh. “You wanna get out more, mate. So are you a local, then? Cos you don’t sound like it.”
“Public school from the age of seven tends to do that to you.” Jory said it lightly. It was an old wound now.
“Yeah? How come you ain’t in Westminster running the country with all the other Old Etonians, then?”
“There are other public schools. And . . . it’s complicated. Family issues.”
Mal nodded, like that made perfect sense to him.
“You’re here on holiday?” Jory rushed on.
“Kind of.” Mal’s smile was twisted. “Work issues. I’m staying at the Sea Bell—me mate’s little sister is the barmaid there. Tasha, you know her?”
“I . . . don’t tend to drink in pubs.” Jory had seen her around, though. A pretty girl with pale tan skin and extravagantly bushy brown afro hair. Mrs. Quick, who volunteered at the museum in the off season and liked to keep abreast of things all year round, had pointed Tasha out to him as one of her previous guests at the B&B. She’d given a strong hint that her hospitality had been instrumental in getting the girl to relocate to Porthkennack.
“You really need to get out more.” Mal finally took a biscuit and bit into it. “Hey, these are great,” he said with his mouth full. “Cinnamon, right?”
Jory nodded, distracted by waiting for a shower of crumbs that never came.
Mal looked pleased and swallowed. “So I was thinking, you ought to come down the pub tonight. Let me buy you a drink to say cheers and all.” Again, there was a vague hand wave. Presumably this one was referring to the tea, biscuits, and sympathy, rather than the naval museum as a whole.
“I— There’s no need.”
“Yeah, there is.” Mal gazed at him sorrowfully. “You wouldn’t leave a bloke to drink alone the day his rat died, would you?”
It wasn’t a dilemma Jory had ever been faced with before. “I . . . No. Of course not.”
“Brill. See you at the Sea Bell at seven, then?” Without waiting for an answer, Mal stood up and grabbed a couple more biscuits from the tub, flashing a smile in Jory’s direction. “Couple for the road.”
He winked. Then he was gone.
He hadn’t drunk his tea. Jory took a cautious sip from his own mug and realised why. The milk had, in fact, turned.
Ye gods, that was awful.
The high from a successful pickup—or a successful invite to the pub at any rate, which was almost the same thing—lasted all of thirty seconds after Mal stepped out of the dusty air of the naval museum and into the bright sunlight.
Hermione. He was fucking well going to miss her. She’d been the best rat a bloke could have. The best. And yeah, he still had Rose the Third and Luna from her last litter, but it wasn’t the same with them. They were great rats, course they were, but him and Hermione, they’d been through so much together. He’d cried on her fur that night after—
Shit. Not gonna think about that. Mal got down to the road, and wondered which way to go. Back to the Sea Bell? Tasha was pretty good at knowing when a bloke needed a hug. And it was literally the ideal place to get a stiff drink to toast Hermione.
Trouble was, Tasha wouldn’t stop at the hug and the drink. She’d want to know what was wrong, and Mal wasn’t sure he could handle talking about it. Not yet. Not without blubbing like a baby, and no way was he going to do that in front of his best mate’s little sis.
He turned towards the cliffs instead, making his way down the lane and then onto the footpath over the grassy clifftop. It was quiet up here, except for the gusting of the wind, the crashing of the waves on the rocks below, and the screaming of the seagulls . . . Actually, come to think of it, it was bloody noisy up here, but they were quiet sounds. Like, non-people sounds. You didn’t get those in London. Mal liked a bit of his own company, every now and then, which was one reason he hadn’t wanted to stay in customer service . . .
Mal shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. Nope. Not thinking about work. Think about . . . Think about Jory, instead. Yeah, that’d do.
He didn’t really know why he’d bothered to pick up the shy museum bloke with the dodgy mugs and even dodgier milk . . . Okay, that was a lie. Mal didn’t have a type, exactly, but tall and built would pretty much do it for anyone, wouldn’t it? And yeah, he liked the contrast between the way the guy looked and the way he spoke and acted. Like he had no idea how fit he was. It was cute, the way he somehow managed to stand and sit like he was apologising for his height all the time.
Mal left the footpath and sat down on the grass overlooking the bay. Over to the right, as he glanced down, were some vicious sharp rocks jutting out to sea. His tourist map told him they’d been named after Voldemort’s mum and judging from those jagged edges, they’d probably caused almost as much trouble. On the plus side, they were dead handy for the lifeboat station. Mal couldn’t see it from this angle, but he knew it was there from walks with Tasha.
He’d been kind, too, Jory had. Mal liked that in a bloke.
And anything was better than hanging around the pub on his tod for another night with Tasha being nice to him. Christ, Dev and Kyle couldn’t get here fast enough for his liking. They’d be here in a week, staying at that cottage on the cliff
