Wheeling the Hornet from Kyle’s cottage over to the road, Dev wasn’t sure why he’d said all that crap about checking up on Ceri.
Well, yeah, he knew why he’d done it, but he wasn’t sure why he’d done it.
Ah, shit. This was making his head hurt. But he’d had to get out of there, or Kyle was gonna keep pushing him about why Ceri had got upset, and Dev didn’t want to go there. Not fair on her. ’Specially after what she’d said about people judging her for it, the smug, two-faced bastards.
Kyle wouldn’t have been like that, though, would he? Except . . . Well, he was a lawyer, wasn’t he? That had to make a bloke cynical about what people said. He must see people lying their arses off every day—had used to, anyway. And Dev knew Ceri was telling the truth: all anyone had to do was look at her face to know that, but that wasn’t easy to explain to someone who didn’t know her, was it? Exhibit A: artist’s impression of the victim’s expression. Yeah, right.
Maybe he should check up on her, at that. Not by getting in her face, though. Dev kicked the stand on the bike, pulled out his phone, and texted off a quick K?
Just as he’d got it back in his pocket, an answer buzzed through. K. U?
Dev gave it a proper answer this time. I’m good. U working?
No.
Meet up? Ill buy you and icecream.
U cant afford me.
Dev stared at his screen and cursed. *An* icecream. Then he smiled. She wouldn’t have texted that if she was still mad at him, right? Meet on prom in half an hour?
Maybe.
“I’m still mad at you,” was the first thing she said when she turned up on the prom forty minutes later.
Dev stood up from his perch on the railings. “Yeah, listen, about last night. I’m sorry, okay? Didn’t mean to, like, upset you or nothing.”
She looked at her feet. “’S okay. Dad reckoned I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that. You didn’t know.”
Relieved, Dev gave her a winning smile. “Hug and make up?”
She didn’t look exactly won. “Not a kiss?”
“Fuck, no. You’re a girl. That’d be well gross.” He gave her a slo-mo, one-armed cuddle she could easily duck out of if she wanted to, and felt some of the tension leave her. “Wanna talk about it?”
“No.”
“Fair enough. Ice cream’s this way.” He pointed to the nearest kiosk.
“Not that one. It’s shite. Shaving foam tourist crap.” She led him up a side street to a little pocket-sized café with like fifty different flavours on display and proper sugar cones, not those cardboard-flavoured soggy wafer ones you got most places.
It was three times the price of most places and all, Dev realised ruefully as he pulled out his wallet to pay for a double pistachio for her and a mint choc chip for him. No wonder the middle-aged blonde behind the counter was looking so flippin’ cheerful. Ceri got in first though and paid for the both of them, which either meant she was feeling militantly feminist today or she really had forgiven him for last night.
And he had to admit, when he tried his ice cream, it was totally worth the price. Proper creamy stuff that didn’t taste fake, with the chips made out of real chocolate or a bloody good imitation.
“You pulling a sickie?” he asked as Ceri licked the side of an ice cream almost as big as she was. “I mean, we gotta steer clear of the caff?” They were heading down to the prom again to finish their ice creams by the sea, but it’d be good to know for later.
“No. ’S all right. You make up with that bloke of yours, then?”
Dev cricked his neck turning to look at her. “What?”
“Mrs. Hammet said he came to the café. Yesterday.”
Christ, had it really been only yesterday? Heh, they’d shagged twice since then. Dev couldn’t help grinning. “Yeah, we made up.”
“You gonna keep seeing him after you go home?”
Dev opened his mouth, about to say, Course I am. Then he shut it again. “Early days yet. I got another two weeks to go here. More than.”
“It’s just a holiday thing, then?”
Dev’s shoulders hunched. “I dunno, do I? Just gonna go with the flow.” Except it felt wrong, saying that. Like he was lying to her and cheating on Kyle. Which made zero sense, ’cos he wasn’t, but that was what it felt like. “Ah shit.” Mint choc chip had dribbled all down his hand. Dev licked it up as best he could without actually dropping the rest of the ice cream out of the cone. “We ain’t talked about it or nothing.”
She snorted. Maybe Dev was reading too much into a snort, but it seemed to say all kinds of stuff like Men, and Too busy getting your end away, were you?
Shit. Was that what Kyle had thought when Dev pissed off straight after sex this morning? Like that was all he was after? “Gonna go round again tonight,” Dev said, deciding on the spot. He couldn’t take him another present to say sorry, ’cos that’d be well naff, but he could . . . What? Cook for him? Oi, mate, budge over, need to borrow your kitchen. Beans on toast all right? Nah, maybe not. Takeaway?
Ceri was giving him a look. And now, now Dev was getting really paranoid, because all he could see in her expression was, Ain’t you worried it’s gonna drop off if you keep wearing it out?
“I like him, all right? But we only met a couple of days ago. It ain’t like I’m gonna propose to him or nothing.”
“And it don’t bother you, him being sick?”
“He ain’t sick. It’s a condition. And it ain’t his fault.” Yeah, it was a pain sometimes, but there was so much of life Kyle could still have. Dev wanted to show him that.
Wanted to share it with him.
Dev stared out over the beach to the sea. The tide was out, pretty much as far as it ever got, he reckoned, and there was an endless stretch of sand in front of them. Close by, it was dotted with families, with towels laid out, cool boxes in easy reach and umbrellas jammed in the sand so the kiddies could get some shade. Down by the water, lads in shorts and girls in bikinis were mucking about, some with surf boards—the serious surfers were all off to one side, not doing a right lot because the wind had dropped. The smell of the sea was almost overpowered by the scent of cheap suntan lotion. It was the sort of scene Dev was used to from his holidays abroad—but suddenly, he wished he was over the other side of the headland, down by Mother Ivey’s Bay. It was quieter there, and wilder.
And Kyle was there.
“You got ice cream dripping on your jeans,” Ceri said, and broke the spell.