Christ, Jory’s face. Mal couldn’t look at him, so he turned away and grabbed up the hard hat that was lying upturned on the sand. “We’d better get back, yeah?”
Jory couldn’t understand it. What the hell had gone wrong?
There was a simple answer to that. He’d been trying to make what had happened on the beach into more than what it was. Christ, he might as well have asked Mal to bloody marry him, with all that babbling about them being together and how Mal should meet his family, for God’s sake.
“Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie . . .”
He was an idiot. A stupid, pathetic, needy idiot. But, damn it, what was he supposed to think, with Mal blowing hot and cold all the time?
Jory’s rising bubble of anger hit the guilty knowledge that Mal was recovering from a trauma, for God’s sake, and punctured wetly, leaving only a hot tide of humiliation in its wake. “Look,” he said urgently as they climbed through the dark, the way seeming far longer than it had coming. “I’m sorry about . . . I shouldn’t have assumed.”
Mal didn’t turn. “’S okay.”
Jory barely caught his muttered words. He didn’t sound okay.
When they finally emerged at the other end of the tunnel to skies streaked with red and pink, Jory tried again. “Back at the beach . . . Just forget what I said. Too much cider. There’s no need—”
“You might as well take the short cut back from here,” Mal interrupted him. “No point you going out of your way.”
“It’s no trouble,” Jory insisted, beginning to feel desperate and, worse, angry. For God’s sake. Did Mal think he couldn’t be trusted to keep his hands to himself if they walked together?
“Nah, ’s okay. Cheers and all. Here you go.” Mal handed over his hard hat, and their fingers brushed. Mal flinched. “I think . . . maybe we shouldn’t see each other for a bit.”
The words were like a blow to Jory’s already churning stomach. “What? No, that’s—” He pulled himself up short. He wasn’t going to be pathetic, damn it. “Fine. If that’s what you want.”
Mal nodded, then turned on his heel and walked away.
Jory stood there for a long time, just watching the sun set.
Then he walked the lonely path back to Roscarrock House.
Mal’s feet were aching by the time he got back down to the Sea Bell, and he felt weary to the bone, even though his rucksack had been a lot lighter than on the way up.
He’d fucked things up good and proper with him and Jory. Like he’d known he would. One little shag . . . Yeah, right. Dick-brain. Dick. Brain.
He didn’t get it, though. Him and Dev had shagged loads of times and never stopped being friends. Why the hell couldn’t it work like that with Jory? Why couldn’t they just be mates who shagged?
Christ, he wanted Dev here. Not for a shag, cos they didn’t do that anymore since Dev had got together with Kyle, but as a mate. His best mate. Someone who could tell him why this thing with Jory was doing his head in so much.
All he knew was that he needed to stay away from Jory Roscarrock.
That was the only way not to fuck things up even more.
Tasha was behind the bar when he walked in to slump on a barstool. She took one glance at him and rolled her eyes. “What you done?”
“Oi, who says I done anything?”
“Your face. Better not go near any police lineups, cos you look guilty as hell.” She took a step nearer, and her nose wrinkled. “Oh my God, you didn’t?”
“Didn’t what?”
“You know.” She cast a glance around before leaning over the bar and lowering her voice. “Do the dirty. With him.”
“‘Do the dirty’? Since when do you call it that?”
She curled her lip. “Since Jago started fining me a pound every time I swear at work. And don’t change the subject. You did, didn’t you?”
Mal hung his head. “It just happened, all right? You know what it’s like.”
“Jesus, Mal, couldn’t you keep it in your kecks for once? What happened to ‘He’s me best mate’s uncle’?”
It sounded dead pervy when she said it like that. “What happened to ‘No skin off my arse’?”
Tasha glanced over at Jago, then leaned in close and lowered her voice. “Yeah, well, you got me thinking, dintcha? Like maybe it ain’t such a good idea after all. Dev’s like . . . He needs his family, you know? But he ain’t going to choose some uncle he’s never met over his best mate if it all goes tits up. And, babe, you got tits up all over your face.”
“Yeah, well. ’M gonna stay away from him from now on.”
“Bit late now, innit? For God’s sake, Mal—”
Mal pushed away from the bar and stood up. “Look, just leave it, all right? I fucked up. I know I fucked up. I’m one big fucking fuckup, for fuck’s sake.” He turned to walk out—and realised he was the centre of a big bubble of silence with everyone in the place staring at him.
There was a loud throat-clearing sound from Jago’s direction.
Mal sagged, sat down again, and pulled out his wallet. “How much?”
“Five pounds, by my reckoning,” Jago said calmly, and shoved a jar down the bar to him. It rattled on the way from the half-dozen pound coins already in there.
Mal folded up a fiver and bunged it in the jar without a word. Jago’s face softened. “Go on, Tasha, give the lad a pint on the house. He looks like he needs one.”
A few of the locals raised their glasses at Mal, then went on with their conversations as if nothing had happened.
Mal pillowed his head on his arms and closed his eyes.
Maybe if he wished really, really hard, the
