Yeah, no. It was bleedin’ obvious why the bloke wouldn’t want him in his car after yesterday. “No worries. Long as it ain’t too far.”
“It’s just past Roscarrock House. How about we meet up halfway there, say in about an hour, hour and a half? I’d say sooner, but I walked to work today. Sorry. If I’d had your number, I’d have called to tell you not to waste a journey to the museum.”
Huh. Mal stopped in his tracks. “Seriously? We ain’t swapped numbers yet? Gimme your phone.”
Jory, who’d stopped when Mal had, dug into his pocket and handed over the latest iPhone. Mal snorted.
“What?”
“Ah, nothing.” Mal tapped in his number and saved the new contact, then handed back the phone. “Just, I wouldn’t have put you down for an Apple sheep. If I’d had to guess, I’d have thought you’d have one of them ancient flip-out things with buttons and a battery that lasts three weeks.”
“I did. This was a Christmas present from Bea.” Jory—well, if he’d accused the bloke of it, he’d probably have denied it to his dying day, but Mal knew a pout when he saw one. “I liked my old phone. This one’s always running out of charge because I forget to plug it in overnight.”
Mal grinned. “Yeah, my dad’s always doing stuff like that. Having a senior moment, he calls it.”
Jory gave him a filthy look. “Just because I haven’t become totally enslaved to technology doesn’t mean I’m senior, thank you.”
“Apart from, you know, literally.” Mal laughed. “What? You’re older than me. It’s a fact. Get over it.”
“Not that much older. Seven years, if you’re the same age as Dev.”
“Not like you’ve been counting or nothing.”
“It’s an odd thought that I’m closer in age to my nephew than to my sister,” Jory said, with a smile Mal couldn’t quite read. “Um. I should get moving.”
“Right. Yeah.” Mal jammed his hands in his pockets. It brought his hand into contact with his phone, which jogged a memory. “Uh, you should text me or something. So I’ll have your number.”
“I’ll text you when I’m on my way out again, how about that?”
“Yeah, fine. See you in a bit, yeah?”
Jory walked on up the path, and Mal turned to go in the other direction, back to the Sea Bell. It occurred to him a moment later he could have carried on walking with Jory for a while, cos he had bugger all else to do for the next hour, but he’d have felt a right dick running after him now.
Nah, it was fine. He’d see plenty of Jory later.
Mal ended up spending the time drinking tea in the pub kitchen and making sandwiches, cos Jory hadn’t mentioned anything about food and Mal wasn’t taking any chances.
“You’re hungry tonight,” Tasha said pointedly.
“I’m a growing lad,” he shot back.
“You’ll have a growing arse at this rate, and then what you gonna do when no one fancies you?”
He shrugged. “I’ll always have me rats.” Mum had called earlier to let him know that they were all okay and she’d dug Hermione a nice little grave in the park, with a lolly stick cross with her name on like they’d used to do when he was a kid. She’d asked how he was, and he’d said he was fine, and if she didn’t believe him, that was her problem, wasn’t it? He hadn’t told her about the car thing. It’d only worry her.
“Well, I s’pose even sad old cat ladies have gotta have someone to look down on. So you’re out tonight, then?”
“Yeah.”
“Seeing that Roscarrock bloke?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Fuck you and all. So’s it serious, then?”
“What? No. I mean, it’s not even an it, all right? I wouldn’t do that to Dev.” Shit, had his face gone red?
She shrugged. “Suit yourself. You ain’t joined at the hip, though.”
“You what?”
“You and Dev. So what if you shag this bloke? It don’t mean it’ll fuck stuff up for him and Dev. That’s if Dev wants to get to know him in the first place.”
“Uh. Right.” Shit. Why did everything have to be so bloody complicated? “This is all seriously doing my head in,” he muttered, and let his head sink down to the table.
“Poor baby.” Tasha gave him a hug, then a jab in the ribs that made him sit up straight all in a jerk. She laughed. “You got mayo in your hair. Better wash that out before you see him, or he might think you started without him.”
“We ain’t starting nothing, you got that?”
Tasha gave him a long, hard look. Then she shrugged. “No skin off my arse either way, but you wanna have a bit of fun, you should go for it, right? Life’s too short and all that bollocks.”
She just didn’t get it. And no way was Mal explaining it. Not even to her.
The text from Jory came through at ten past six, so he hadn’t hung about. “Right, that’s me off,” Mal said, grabbing his rucksack. It now held half a ton of sandwiches and a couple of bottles of cider he’d nicked from the bar. Jago had caught him red-handed, cos the old bastard had ninja skills, but he’d just rolled his eyes so Mal was fairly sure he didn’t mind. Or he was planning to bill him double later.
Course, if Jago had known one of those bottles was earmarked for a Roscarrock, he’d have shoved it where the sun didn’t shine. Mal was going to have to work on that—it wasn’t fair, Jago giving Jory shit for stuff his brother had done.
The clouds had blown over to leave a warm, sunny early evening, everything gleaming bright and smelling fresh from the earlier rain. If there was a better night for a picnic, Mal wanted to meet it. It was kind of a shame they were going underground, but then again, they probably weren’t going to spend all their time in a cave, were they?
He’d
