Kyle opened his eyes to see Dev sitting so close they were almost touching. He was doing something on his phone, a half smile on his lips.
Still here, then. And not angry. Or at least, he’d had time to get over it.
“I hope you’re not putting pictures of me asleep on the internet.” Kyle’s voice sounded rusty to himself, but Dev’s smile still grew as he turned to look Kyle’s way.
“Nah. Got a text from Mal. He got lost on the way back to the villa in the dark last night. Had to kip down on the beach. Got woken up by the tide coming in, and had to walk back soaking wet in his clubbing gear.” Dev chuckled. “Typical Mal, that is. You feeling better now?”
Kyle sat up. “Yes.” He was, actually.
Dev put his phone in his pocket. “You knew that was gonna happen, din’tcha? That’s why you lay down.”
Kyle tensed, even though Dev’s tone had been friendly. Teasing. “It’d be more accurate to say I knew it would happen if I lay down.” He took a deep breath. “Sometimes giving in to it can stave off problems later.”
Dev was nodding. “Tell me next time, though, yeah? I felt like a right cock sitting here talking to myself.”
“I— Yes. Sorry.” Kyle felt wrong-footed. He’d expected . . .
Well, not to be left, perhaps. Dev had never seemed the sort to walk off and leave someone in a vulnerable position. Annoyance, though, would have been perfectly justified. Kyle should have told him. But he hadn’t wanted to make a bloody song and dance about it.
And yes, maybe he’d been testing Dev. Just a little.
“Seriously,” Dev went on, his cheerful tone at odds with his words. “You were out for nearly an hour. What if I’d needed a piss? I’d have been well stuffed.”
“Sorry,” Kyle said again. He didn’t know what else to say.
“And that’s another thing. What did I tell you about wearing that word out?” Dev stood up and stretched, not gracefully but with endearingly obvious relish. “Christ, my bum’s numb. Tell me if me legs fall off, won’t you? We hitting the castle now? I’ve been looking it up online, and I hate to tell you, mate, but all that Black Knight stuff is bollocks.”
Kyle scrambled to his feet with even less grace than Dev had managed. He doubted there was anything endearing about it. “Next you’ll be telling me sea monsters aren’t real,” he muttered.
“Nah, don’t be daft. They got their own Wikipedia page and everything. Course they’re real.” Dev grinned. “But the castle’s only fourteenth century, which is two hundred years after the Black Knight was strutting his stuff in all them legends of King Arthur. And get this—it was built by a Black Prince. No, wait. The Black Prince, son of Edward the Somethingth, ’cept no one knows why he’s called that. Have I earned me history GCSE yet?”
“No, but I bet they’d take you on as a tour guide at the castle if you fancied a change of career.”
“You know what, I’m almost tempted. That’s gotta be a fun job. You could make up any old shite to tell the tourists, and no one would ever know. Hey, you know anything about that old house over there?”
“That? That’s Varhak Manor.” Kyle smiled. “Used to belong to a mad Victorian scientist. He used to kidnap the townsfolk to conduct unspeakable experiments on them, and disposed of the evidence in the Round Hole.”
“Shut up. Seriously?” Dev’s eyes went from wide to narrow with almost comical speed. “Wait, no way. Now who’s making shit up?”
“Would I?” Kyle walked on, feeling almost light-headed with something he shied away from naming.
The knowledge crept up on him anyway. Happiness. He was happy.
There wasn’t a huge amount left of Caerdu Castle, but at least it was more than just an oddly regular mound of earth, which was more than could be said for a few misleadingly labelled heritage sites Kyle had seen. Enough fragments remained of walls both internal and external, some with doorways, windows, and fireplaces, to give some sense that once, people had lived here.
Kyle was expecting to be dragged down to the caves after they’d taken in as much of the ruins as they could, but Dev seemed keen to call it a day.
He shrugged, hands half in his jeans pockets, when Kyle queried it, hating the thought that Dev was making allowances for him. “Had a bit of a rough night last night— Ah, shit. Sorry, mate. That’s gotta be like telling a famine victim you’re starving ’cos your tea’s half an hour late.”
Kyle stared at him. “Something like that, yes.” He broke eye contact, gazing out to sea.
“All right, mate?”
He took a moment to answer. Gulls were circling high above the water, while windsurfers scudded across the waves and, from time to time, fell in. Stupid, to be so affected by something so small. “Most people don’t understand about the tiredness. They see me falling asleep all day, and assume I’m getting twice as much rest as everyone else.”
“Nah, I was reading about it on the internet last night. Like, there’s this . . . thing in your brain that doesn’t work right, so when you go to sleep, it’s not the right sort of sleep, am I right? Some chemical you ain’t got.”
“Orexin. Also known as hypocretin.” Kyle said it flatly. Maybe there was a certain amount of anger in his voice too, as when Dev spoke again his tone was less certain.
“I wasn’t, you know, prying or nothing. Just wanted to understand.” He paused. “It must drive you crazy.”
Kyle had to breathe deeply, forcing down a bitter laugh. “Yes,” he said tightly.
Dev put a hand on his elbow, his touch light. “I was well out of order last night. I shouldn’t have said that stuff.”
“Thank you.” Kyle couldn’t look at him. He felt twice as tired as he had only minutes ago.
Dev’s grip on his arm tightened for a moment, but then released. “Wanna head back, then?”
Kyle nodded. “Would you like to get lunch somewhere in town?” He could definitely do with a boost in energy levels right now.
“Yeah, that’d be cool. What d’you fancy? Pub grub all right?”
“Fine. Although I won’t be drinking,” he reminded Dev.
“Nah, me neither. Not after last night. Bit more relaxed, though, innit? Not like, you know, going out for dinner.”
Was Dev nervous? Why now?
Was it because going out for a meal was akin to going on a date?
And there it was again: old Kyle’s ego, rearing its entitled head. “Slug and Lettuce all right with you?”
Dev grinned. “Long as that’s the name of the pub and not what’s on the menu, yeah.”
It wasn’t until they stepped inside the Slug and Lettuce that Kyle remembered why he usually gave chain pubs a wide berth. There was nothing wrong with the place, per se—it was simply utterly generic and devoid of character. It was also crowded and incredibly noisy.
Dev shot him a look as they hovered on the threshold. “Uh, bit busy, innit? Tell you what, I think there’s a pizza place up the road—wanna see if that’s got a table free?”
Kyle couldn’t see how any of the ubiquitous Italian food chains would be any better, but in fact Dev led him along a side street to a small, cosy-looking restaurant that proclaimed itself a family business and smelled enticingly of garlic and basil. Although the place was almost full, it was infinitely quieter than the Slug and Lettuce, probably down to the way the interior was sectioned off into small, intimate areas connected by wide archways. “Remind me which of us is the local here?” he said as they took their seats at a table by the window. “I didn’t even know this place was here.”
“You need to get out more, mate. Nah, a couple at my B&B were saying they liked the food here, and I saw it when I was out the other night. This all right for you?”
“Fine. Perfect. If the food’s as good as it smells, I’ll have to remember this place.” Kyle gave a wry smile. “For the rare occasions I get into town.”
“S’pose it’s a bit far to walk back all the time. You know, we’re not all that far from my B&B. If you like, I could get the bike and give you a lift back to yours after we’ve eaten. I brung a spare helmet, just in case.” Dev’s face fell. “Ah, shit—sorry, are you okay to ride a bike? You won’t fall off or nothing, will you?”
Kyle hadn’t actually considered that before. But in any case, he didn’t need to be ferried around like an invalid. “I can manage the walk. It’s not that far. Only a couple of miles, if that.” Although if he was honest, he was feeling drained from so much exertion.
Bleak depression settled on him like the heavy arms of a false friend around his shoulders. This should be the prime of his life—and here he was, worn out by a morning’s sightseeing.
“You need your lunch, mate,” Dev was saying. “You’ll feel better with something inside you. Uh. That wasn’t supposed to sound like a come-on.”
He seemed a hairsbreadth away from coming over all No homo, dude. Somehow, Kyle’s bleak mood lifted, and he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I think I gave you a false impression of me. You don’t need to worry about . . . uh, saying anything gay. I’m not straight myself. Until a few months ago, I was in a relationship with a man.”
“Yeah? Seriously?” Dev looked almost comically relieved. Then his face darkened. “So what happened? He found out you was ill and he left you?”
“No.” It came out more sharply than Kyle had intended. “It wasn’t Jeffrey’s fault.”
Dev leaned back in his chair, hands raised. “Okay, bruv. None of my business, I get that. You ready to order?”
Kyle hadn’t even noticed the waiter’s approach. “Yes. Sorry.”
“Mate, I keep telling you about that word.” Dev turned and grinned at the waiter, who was young and darkly handsome. Kyle felt a surge of irrational jealousy. “I’ll have the Penne Arrabiata, cheers.”
“Spaghetti Puccini,” Kyle said, picking the first pasta dish off the menu that wasn’t either vegetarian or overly spicy. “And a bottle of water, please.”
After the waiter had left them, Kyle gave Dev a wary look, wondering if any more awkward questions would be forthcoming.
Dev was playing with the plain blue ceramic vase in the middle of the table, which housed a single white chrysanthemum, its stem neatly stiffened with a spiral of thin wire. “How’d you get into doing pottery, then?” he asked, setting the vase back down so that the flower faced Kyle. “Was that, like, before or after you got ill?”
Kyle blinked, feeling absurdly like the flower was a camera turned on his face. “Before. I’ve always found it relaxing.”
“Did you do art and stuff at school? I was always rubbish at that sort of thing. Well, that and the rest of it, to be honest. Couldn’t see the point back then, you know?”
“Of art?”
Dev grimaced. “Of studying. Always knew I wanted to work with me hands, didn’t I? Course, then I find out you need exams to be a mechanic and all.”
“It must have come as a bit of a shock,” Kyle said drily. He’d known a few boys like that at school and had secretly envied them their confidence that life would turn out well for them without any undue effort on their part. Even before he’d spent years obtaining qualifications that were now so much waste paper.
And there was the bitterness again. How very attractive.
“So did you?” Dev demanded, making Kyle jump.
“What?”
“Take art at school.”
“Oh. Yes. Sor— I took A-level art,” Kyle said awkwardly. “But I studied law at university, of course.”
“Oxford? Cambridge?”
“Lancaster, actually. I’m not that much of an overachiever.”
Dev gave him a sharp glance and looked as though he was going to say something—but didn’t.
“What?” Kyle prompted.
“Nah, it’s just . . . Do you reckon that’s what brought on your narcolepsy? Working too hard?”
Kyle closed his eyes briefly. “Don’t you start. That’s the sort of thing my mother would come out with. No, the latest theory is that it’s down to a genetic predisposition triggered by a virus.”
“Huh. So you had shit luck twice. That sucks.” Dev grinned suddenly. “Hey, do you ever play the National Lottery?”
“No.”
“Pity. I was thinking I could ask what numbers you got, and make sure I never choose them ones.”
Against all odds, Kyle found himself smiling as the waiter brought their food.
It was good, if fairly unimaginatively prepared and presented. Kyle felt better already after a few mouthfuls. He looked up from his plate to make a comment and found Dev with an uncertain expression on his face.
“Not to your taste?” Kyle asked politely.
“Nah—I mean, yeah, the food’s great. No worries. Just . . .” He broke off and gazed out of the window for a moment.
Kyle waited, a prickle of unease damping his appetite.
“Look, I gotta explain something to you, yeah?” Dev said at last.
Kyle concentrated on the spaghetti he was twirling around his fork and managed not to comment on how ominous that sounded. Especially with the anxious look Dev was giving him. “Carry on.”
“It’s about yesterday. Why I got the hump when you was on about the Roscarrocks. I mean, I know you said I didn’t have to explain myself or nothing, but it don’t feel right, not telling you. Not after you been all . . .” Dev made a vague gesture that appeared to encompass Kyle, their meal, and presumably the whole morning as well, then he rolled his shoulders and took a gulp of water. “See, when my birth mum had me, she gave me up for adoption.”
Kyle froze. Had his wild guesses as to Dev’s parentage actually been correct? “And . . .?” he prompted.
“Well, she’s here, ain’t she? I mean, she lives here. In Porthkennack. I mean, I found out her name and I tracked her down. That’s why I got a bit . . . See, her name’s Roscarrock. Beaten Roscarrock. Think it’s Cornish ’cos it sounds well weird to me, calling a kid Beaten, like you want them to grow up and get . . . Shit. That’s why.”
Dev took another gulp of water, looking like he wished it was something a lot stronger. Not sure what to say, Kyle couldn’t stop himself from reaching across the table to grasp Dev’s forearm.
He’d been right. Not on all the details, maybe, but in the broader sense, he’d been right.
“You ain’t looking all that surprised,” Dev said with an awkward half laugh that rang a few warning bells.
“I didn’t know,” Kyle said cautiously. “But I . . . speculated, after what happened at my house.”
Dev bit his lip, playing with his fork in his bowl of penne. “How come you never asked?”
“It wasn’t any of my business.” Kyle hesitated. “Have you seen her?”
“Nah. Was on me way up to have a look at the ancestral home, wasn’t I? But it was closed.” He glanced down at his plate, seemed to realise he hadn’t finished eating, and speared a few penne before shoving them into his mouth.
Kyle ate a mouthful of spaghetti while he thought about an appropriate reply to that. Why didn’t you just knock on the door? seemed unlikely to elicit a favourable response. “You wanted to have a look around before introducing yourself?” he said at last. “You don’t think it might be misconstrued?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well . . . It might look as though you’re checking them out. Checking the house out, even. To see if it’s worth claiming a relationship with the family.”
“Oi, money’s got sod all to do with it!”
“I know that. But they don’t. And, well, they seem a little on the suspicious side.” His face felt hot, which was ridiculous. “I went up there, a while after you’d left. To introduce myself as a neighbour.”
Dev’s expression was difficult to read. “You went up there. Just after I—” He broke off, and stared out of the window.
Kyle ran a hand through his hair. “Look, there’s nothing sinister about it. I am a close neighbour. With a possible family connection.”
“What did they say to that?”
Shit. “I didn’t mention it, in the end. They weren’t all that welcoming,” Kyle added, with a defensive tone even he could hear. Ye gods. If he’d responded to questions in court with this sort of ineptitude, he’d have deserved to be disbarred.
Dev frowned. Kyle expected the interrogation as to his motives to continue, but in the end what Dev asked was, “Did you see her? Beaten Roscarrock?”
“No. Two men—brothers, although they didn’t look at all alike. Bran and Jory. It was Bran who did all the talking.” He paused. “I take it the family is expecting you? Or your mother is, at least?”
Dev was shaking his head. “Nah. Thought I’d surprise her, you know?”
Surprise? Shock, more like. Kyle tried to think of a tactful way to voice his misgivings. “Are you sure that’s wise? Don’t you think it might be a bit of a bombshell for her, if you turn up out of the blue? Have you thought about writing to her first? Seeing if she’s willing to see you?”
Dev’s chin went up. “Why wouldn’t she want to see me? I’m her son.”
Kyle could think of lots of reasons. Although probably none that Dev would want to hear. “I still think you should get in touch by phone or by letter before actually going to see her.”
“I did, all right? I wrote letters and stuff. Just . . . I’m not sure if she got them. Maybe her family didn’t want her to or something—I dunno.”
God. This was a bloody minefield. “She’s a grown woman. She must be, what, in her forties by now? Why would her family be intercepting her mail? Maybe, just plausibly, they might want to spare her the upset of receiving your letters, but how would they even know they were from you?”
Dev made an angry gesture. “Look, I’ve gotta see her, all right? I gotta know why she gave me away. If she regretted it, after. If she ever thought about me while I was growing up.”
“And if you don’t like what you hear?”
“Then I’ll deal with it. I’m not a little kid.”
He looked horribly young to Kyle right now. Kyle didn’t mean to do it. But somehow, his hand was across the table, grasping Dev’s arm in a repeat of his earlier gesture. He nodded. “I get it. I do. And, well, if you want any kind of support, or to talk about things . . .”
“Cheers, mate.” Dev nodded once, then ducked his head in apparent shyness, and started forking up his pasta once more.
They split the bill more or less evenly after they’d eaten, and strolled out into warm sunshine—not a minute too soon for Kyle, who’d been starting to feel drowsiness overcome him once he’d finished his food.
He should probably thank Dev for a pleasant morning and let him get on with his holiday. Let him go find his birth mother, if that was what he really wanted to do. Despite Kyle’s own misgivings over the matter.
“So what sort of bike do you ride?” he asked instead.
“Honda Hornet. Got a sweet deal on it a year or so back. It’s a good ride. Not too heavy on fuel in the city, for a 600, and handles great. Looks pretty cool and all.” Dev shot him a challenging glance. “Know a lot about bikes, do you?”
“Absolutely bugger all,” Kyle admitted. “I’ve always driven cars.”
“Yeah? What you got right now?”
“Ah. A Ford.”
“Ranger? Mustang? Don’t tell me you got a GT?”
Kyle found himself wincing. “Fiesta, actually.”
“Yeah? No offence, mate, but I would not have put you down for a Fiesta driver.”
Wouldn’t it be more offensive if he had? “I, uh, downsized after I gave up work.”
“Fair enough. Hey, I know you said you’d be fine to walk home, but I was thinking, yeah, do you fancy a ride on the bike anyhow? We could take the coast road, have a look at the scenery and all that? If you reckon you’d be okay on it, which, see, I been thinking. If you’re all right to drive you gotta be all right to ride pillion, yeah?”
When he put it that way, it sounded like fun. “Okay. Thanks.”
“No problem, mate.”
Once they were through the town they turned their steps inland, towards where Dev was staying.
Dev’s B&B turned out to be an old stone farmhouse on the outskirts of town. It looked a bit on the cheap and cheerful side, but at least the latter part of the description seemed as apt as the former. Instead of going to the front door, Dev led him around the side of the house to the back garden. It was modest but well-kept, with half a dozen hens scratching happily in a coop to one side. There was a weathered swing and a slide for small children that weren’t presently being used, and a picnic table that was. Sitting in the shade of an umbrella advertising Foster’s lager—Kyle speculated as to whether it had been liberated from a local pub—were a couple of middle-aged ladies, playing cards.
Dev greeted them with a wave. “All right, Val? Carol? This is Kyle. He’s sort of a local.”
“Sort of?” the more senior of the two queried in a strong Scottish accent.
Kyle shrugged, a little uncomfortable under her penetrating gaze. “I’ve only lived in Porthkennack for a couple of months.”
“Kyle’s got a house on the cliffs up over Mother Ivey’s Bay,” Dev told them. “You two having a quiet day in, then?”
The more feminine looking of the two nodded. “Val’s hip’s playing up again,” she stage-whispered.
“Oh, hush,” her partner scolded. “Are you stopping, now?”
“Just come to pick up me bike,” Dev said. “Gonna take a ride. You ought to try it some time, you two.”
Val shook her head. “My biking days are over, laddie. Well, good to meet you, Kyle.” She gave him another piercing stare.
What exactly had Dev told them about him?
Dev’s bike was under a lean-to at the end of a drive that went down the length of the garden. “Ain’t she beautiful?” he asked, his tone endearingly proud. “Go on. Admit it, you’re well jell. Right, you sure you’re gonna be okay on the back? What if you get an attack?”
“I’ll be fine.” Impatience warred with guilt in Kyle’s stomach. It was his life to risk, damn it. Even if it would probably be deeply upsetting to Dev to lose a passenger.
Dev frowned in that way Kyle was starting to recognise meant he was thinking something through. “Got an idea. You start feeling a bit iffy, you slap me twice on the leg, yeah? And I’ll pull over.”
That . . . was actually pretty sensible. “Okay.”
Dev trundled the bike out onto the path and swung his leg over it. Kyle got on gingerly behind.
“Cool. Right, bung this on and off we go. ’S all right, put your hands round my waist. I ain’t gonna take it the wrong way.” Dev grinned and pulled on his helmet. They set off, slowly at first and then more speedily once they got onto the road.
The last time Kyle had been on a motorbike, he’d been in his teens, going out with a young man called Si, who’d been tattooed, multiply pierced, and whose wardrobe consisted entirely of leather and studs. If Kyle was honest, he’d been with him chiefly to shock his parents after their anticlimactic lack of reaction to his announcement he was gay. Goodness knew why Si had been with him—they’d had very little in common besides a shared love of getting into each other’s pants—but it had been fun while it lasted.
It felt different riding with Dev. For one thing, Dev didn’t piss about revving the engine and screeching round corners to show off. For another . . .
Well. They weren’t together. Which made it feel a lot more awkward holding on to his waist, particularly as he was only wearing a T-shirt. The warmth of his skin coming through the thin cotton, coupled with the way they sat pressed together, Dev’s body between his legs, made Kyle worry about inappropriate physical reactions. He considered dropping his hands to Dev’s hips, which were clad in thick denim, but decided that would probably be even worse.
Still, it came back to him—the way he had to lean with the rider in front as he went round a corner. The way the wind felt, whipping at his clothes. The roar of the engine and the vibration beneath him.
The exhilaration no car ride could counterfeit. God, how long had it been since Kyle had felt so free, so alive?
He couldn’t recall.