Joe

The eerie peace of the moors was shattered by my father hitting the side of my van. He took the impact and rolled with it, letting momentum correct his equilibrium before he turned his bland gaze on me.

“Do you think throwing me around is going to change anything, son?”

“Does it matter what I think?” I spat. “If you gave a fuck about me, we wouldn’t be out here.”

“That’s not true.” Jonah straightened his grubby clothes. “If I didn’t care, I’d still be on the farm. I wouldn’t have let your grandfather sign it over to you, and life would be very different.”

He was right about that, but I wasn’t in the mood for his philosophical old man act. “I don’t care about life being different. I just want you to own your mistakes and stop fucking me over.”

“It’s not you in the police cell, Joe. It’s your . . . friend.”

The pause threw petrol on the fire in me. I lunged at Jonah again and grasped his collar, propelling him around the van’s bonnet to the passenger side.

I wrenched the door open. “Get in.”

For reasons only he understood, my father obeyed.

I shut the door and got in the other side, locking us in. The van rumbled to life, and I peeled out of the car park. “I’m taking you down the nick.”

“What for?”

“What do you think? To cough to that bloody gun.”

“What do you think will happen then?”

I hadn’t given that much thought. The child in me imagined that Jonah would be whisked away, Harry set free, and that would be the end of it. But life didn’t work like that, particularly if you were a Carter. Simple things turned complicated in the blink of an eye. People got hurt, let down, and fucked over. And somehow my father always carried on. Always moving forward, but nothing ever changed. “I don’t care what happens to you.”

Jonah was silent, staring listlessly out of the window. My heart burned for a real reaction from him, but I knew it wouldn’t come, and I wanted to throttle him for making me feel this way—angry, guilty, and so fucking alone.

We hit the A30. I found some cigarettes in the van door and lit up, exhaling the sweet smoke I’d barely missed until now. “Where did you even get it?”

“It was in Dicky’s caravan.”

“The one you owed him money for?”

Jonah shot me a sideways look. “You think I haven’t paid for that?”

“You told me you didn’t. And that you smashed it up on this fucking road. Don’t start telling me now that it was all a big misunderstanding—and don’t look at me like that. I can’t figure this shit out if you talk in code.”

“I don’t understand why you always think you have to figure anything out, son. You know how the gun got into the stables, and you knew where to find me, so why are we here taking the long way to the inevitable while your friend takes the heat?”

I was twenty-eight years old and I had no idea why every moment with my father had to be so complicated. So I said the one thing I was sure of. “Harry’s not my friend.”

More silence. Ants crept over my skin. My sexuality was fluid enough that I’d never felt the need to come out to Jonah. The rare hookups that turned into something more had all come before I’d returned to live on the farm, and he’d been gone by the time that had happened.

Jonah lit a pipe and cleared his throat. “I met Harry when you were away. I liked him.”

“Is that supposed to matter?”

“Just making conversation.”

“Why did you take Dicky’s gun?”

A cloud of cherry tobacco smoke drifted across my face, fuelled by Jonah’s heavy sigh. “Because he was going to shoot a horse with it.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that I thought I’d misheard him. “One of our horses?”

“He wouldn’t waste a bullet on our old nags, son. It was one of Buddy Pierce’s thoroughbreds.”

“Why?”

“Same reason he came after your mother, I’d imagine. Business.”

I snorted. “Dicky McGee ain’t no businessman, Dad. He’s a fucking helmet.”

“That’s neither here nor there to me. I just did what had to be done.”

I took my foot off the accelerator. The van slowed as I tried to piece together Jonah’s latest version of events. “How does this tie in to the buggered-up caravan?”

Jonah sighed. “It doesn’t, really. Least not on purpose. Dicky had stashed the gun in the caravan one night after we’d been on the whisky at the Legion, but he’d forgotten about it, see, ’cause his boy was home from the Navy. Then he sold me the van before he remembered.”

“And you totalled it on purpose? So he’d think the gun was destroyed?”

“Aye, lad. I buried it under my mattress for a while, but then he caught on that I’d pinched it and came looking. Course he couldn’t say what he was after to anyone that asked, but I knew.”

“Why did you bring it to the farm?”

“Because I knew it’d be the last place he’d think I’d stashed it. He’d come after me all right, but he wouldn’t think me daft enough to hide it so close to home.”

“The farm isn’t your home.”

I lit another cigarette. After so long without smoking, doubling up burned my lungs, but I welcomed the distraction. Tales like these were why I hated Jonah. I wanted to shake the shit out of him and call him a cunt, but he’d saved a horse, and that was the reason I’d been put on this earth. “You had no business being on the farm while I was gone.”

“Your sister asked me to.”

“Well she shouldn’t have.”

“She needed me.”

“Dex would’ve helped her.”

“He did. But the lad’s got his own stables to run.”

Dex also had the money to pay for help, and I knew he’d never have let the weak ponies suffer, but what about Shadow? Jonah had worked with him for the best part of a week and coached Emma on how to handle him better. The difference in him was startling.

I hated Jonah for that too.

We drove in silence until we got into town. When the police station came into view, I slowed to a crawl and then swung into a deserted car park. “You have to hand yourself in.”

“And say what?”

“That the gun is yours.”

“It’s not mine.”

“It’s not Harry’s either!” My shout rang out and I punched the dashboard. “Jesus, Dad. Will you just do as I need you to for once in my fucking life?”

I expected more argument, more guilt tripping, and perhaps even a trace of Jonah’s rare temper. But it didn’t happen. My father merely nodded, got out of the van, and walked away.

* * *

Harry

It was still dark when they let me out, but dawn wasn’t far off. I collected my phone from the desk sergeant and accepted a caution for wasting police time, and then I drifted out of the station to meet the drizzly early morning.

Joe was waiting for me with the van. He saw me coming and met me in the middle of the road. There was so much to say, but I didn’t know where to start. So I put my arms around him and held him close, inhaling the earthy scent that had grounded me from day one.

He returned my desperate embrace, his lean shoulders trembling. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him cry, but it didn’t hurt any less. I tightened my grip on him but didn’t speak. What could I say? That I was sorry the police hadn’t believed me and given him more time? That I understood more than I wanted to how hard it was when your father let you down so badly?

“What happened?” I whispered. “Did you find your dad?”

Joe nodded against my shoulder, then pulled back, swiping at his bloodshot eyes. “Yeah. Can we go somewhere and talk about it? If I stare at the nick much longer, I’m going to burn it down.”

Tired but wired, I readily agreed and took Joe’s keys from him, following his directions out of town to a nearby village that, even in the darkness, wouldn’t have been out of place in the south of France. “This place is so pretty,” I said.

Joe smiled wistfully. “It is now the tourists are starting to fuck off. Crantock is my spiritual home. I love it here.”

We drove through the village and out the other side. The air became salty and clean, and even my city boy senses could tell we were by the sea.

Joe guided me to a deserted car park. “Go right to the top by the railing. I’ll tell you when to stop so we don’t go over.”

The newfound madman in me trusted him entirely. I pulled the van to a stop at the end of the world and parked at the angle Joe instructed.

“We can look out the back too,” he said.

“Come again?”

“I’ll show you.”

I’d never seen the back of Joe’s van. Far from the workman’s van it appeared from the outside, in the back, it was, apparently, a home from home. “Wow. You could live in here.”

Joe tugged at the double seat, laying it flat to reveal a bed. “I did, once upon a time.”

“What happened?”

“The tragic obvious. My dad was fucking up the farm, so I had to go home and live with Grandpa. After that, I lost the time and the passion to do anything else.”

I’d heard fragments of this story before, but not enough to picture Joe living out of his converted campervan. The heartbreak in his eyes when he’d mentioned selling the van if the farm’s finances got worse, now made sense.

We spread an old duvet over the bed, and Joe brewed instant coffee on his tiny gas stove, while I looked on, fascinated.

“Got no milk,” he said. “But there’s sugar in one of these boxes.”

“I’m good with it black.”

“Sound.” Joe passed me a metal mug of coffee and we lounged on the bed with the van’s tailgate open, watching the sun rise over Crantock Beach.

It was breathtaking. The sky was a cloudless blue, the sand pristinely white. Without the chilly breeze, it could’ve been the Bahamas. I sighed and carded my fingers absently through Joe’s messy hair. The night had been surreal, but this? It was as near perfection as I’d ever known. I stared at the waves and imagined Joe riding them on a surfboard, his eyes wild, his golden skin contrasting so beautifully against the moody sea. “When did you last go in the water?”

“To surf?”

“Yeah.”

Joe put his chin on my chest, his legs were already tangled with mine. “The day Grandpa died. I came out here late in the evening and surfed until it got dark. He was dead in his bed when I got home.”

It wasn’t as shocking as it might’ve been a few months ago. I’d always known that I was sleeping in a dead man’s bed, but it had oddly never bothered me until Joe had started sleeping with me. As he’d recovered from his injury, he’d become restless some nights, talking in his sleep, tossing and turning, until I took hold of him and held him against me. “Do you think it might’ve been different if you’d stayed home?”

“I used to, but I’ve come to realise if I’d been home, I’d have been out in the yard with the horses, so it wouldn’t have changed anything. Besides, he was watching the sun go down over the fields, enjoying the peace and quiet with one of those stupid fucking cats on his lap. It wasn’t a bad way to go.”

“Some people get the death they deserve.”

I hadn’t meant it as sinisterly as it came out. Joe raised his head and stared at me, his gaze complex and searching. He touched my face, his fingertips like ghosts on my cheeks. “Tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“About your dad. You said you hated him . . . Why?”

“Because he didn’t love me.” It wasn’t the answer that I’d parroted over and over as the years had rolled by or even the answer that had played out in my head for my ears alone. But it was the truth. “I thought it was my fault. It took me a long time to realise that it wasn’t.”

Joe nodded slowly, understanding, like he always had, even when I’d said nothing at all. “He really hurt you, didn’t he?”

“He hurt all of us.” I sat up and crawled towards the open tailgate, chasing the light . . . the sun, and its warmth.

Joe followed me—of course he did. “Did he hit your mum?”

“Yes.”

“Your brother?”

“Yes.”

“And you?”

“For a while.”

“What happened?”

I shrugged. “Rhys is older than me, but I’ve always been bigger—stronger, faster, whatever. He’s got the charm, I’ve got the brawn, you know?”

“I’d say you have plenty of charm.” Joe’s smirk was gentler than usual. “But go on . . . please. I want to know your story.”

And for the first time, I wanted—perhaps needed—to tell it. “There’s not a huge amount to it, really. My dad drank like an arsehole and kicked the shit out of my mum until Rhys and I got old enough to intervene. Then he kicked the shit out of us instead—but Rhys took the worst of it, because he was the oldest, and . . . well, like I said, I was bigger. And angrier too. I started playing rugby—and then I started hitting him back. It escalated until the neighbours called the police one too many times and he got sent down for domestic violence—for what he’d done to Rhys.”

“How long did he get?”

“Four years. Felt like four days, though. I was away at uni when he got out, but my mum and Rhys were still living in the old house. They had to move in the end. My mum’s a fucking trooper, but the whole thing messed with Rhys’s head. He went off the rails for a while, and that was the hardest thing for me.”

“Why?”

“Because I wasn’t there. And I didn’t want to be. I had a new life—and I loved it. I didn’t want to go back.”

Joe stretched his long legs out in front of him. “I know how that feels.”

“Yeah, but you did go back. I didn’t. I left Rhys in Romford, and so did my mum. She moved to Spain six months after Dad died. Rhys was sorting himself out by then, but I still felt like shit about it.”

“Did he?”

“Hmm?”

“Did Rhys resent you for leaving?”

I mirrored Joe’s pose, noting that he was wearing the trainers I’d given him when he was in hospital. “Nah. He encouraged it because it bothered him that he hadn’t been able to protect me. He’s never understood that taking the worst of it when I was so young gave me time to do what I had to do. That if I’d had my ribs kicked in when I was twelve like he did, my fingers broken, I might not have had the chance to make things right.”

Joe hummed his understanding. “I hate that either of you had to get hurt.”

I shrugged. “It was a long time ago. And Rhys is okay now. He works as a paramedic and parties in sex clubs.”

“Wow.”

“Yup.”

Neither of us spoke for a while. Joe seemed to be digesting my tale of woe, and I didn’t have the heart to admit that I’d barely scratched the surface. Besides, what was the point? Life had moved on, and the details no longer mattered.

“What’s Rhys like?”

I turned my head at just the right moment to bury my face in Joe’s hair. “Contradictory. On the surface, he’s a bit of a lad, but he’s a sensitive soul, really. I was happy enough on my own until I met you, but he’s not like that. Sometimes it seems like he craves affection, you know? Even when it comes from the wrong place . . . especially when it comes from the wrong place. And he doesn’t let anyone in. Not even me.”

“Did he hate your dad too?”

I lifted my shoulders again. “Maybe. We stopped talking about him after a while, so I don’t really know where he is on that.”

“Are you close?”

“Yes and no. We’re there for each other, but our lives are pretty much separate. Apart from—” I broke off with a chuckle.

Joe’s earnest gaze turned curious. “What?”

I laughed again. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but I’ve been carrying it around for more than a year now, and it’s just about killing me.”

“It can’t be worse than anything else you’ve told me.”

Another snigger tumbled out of me. “Oh, trust me, it can.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I turned on the bed to face Joe and automatically tucked some of his wayward hair behind his ears. “Remember what I said about Rhys and sex clubs?”

“How could I forget?”

I smirked. “Well, try forgetting this: I had a patient a year or so ago that became a friend. Angelo. Him and his boyfriend frequent the same club as Rhys. I know they’ve all been fucking, but they have no idea how we’re all connected.”

Joe’s eyes widened. “That Angelo dude doesn’t know he’s fucking your brother? And Rhys doesn’t know he’s fucking your friend?”

“That’s about the size of it. There’s some kind of sex club omertà, so Rhys has never told me the name of the hot couple he hooks up with, but combined with what Angelo tells me, it all adds up.”

“Wow.” Joe shifted on the bed. “That’s kind of hot, but terrifying at the same time.”

I laughed. “It’s not hot for me. I had such a crush on Angelo before I realised. His fella is gorgeous too.”

“And your brother?”

“Piss off.” I landed a playful punch on Joe’s arm. “He’s a slightly shorter, slimmer version of me—with better hair.”

Joe ran his hand over the buzz on my head. “I like your hair. And I love how big and powerful you are. Makes me feel safe.”

That there was even a moment when he didn’t feel safe hurt my heart. I found his hand and tugged him close enough for a sweet kiss that went on and on until he pulled away, his gaze too serious again. “Can I ask you something else?”

I sighed. “Sure.”

“You know what you said about building yourself up so you could defend yourself?”

“Yeah?” I knew where this was going. If Emma had worked it out, it had only been a matter of time before Joe did too.

“Did it ever take over? The training, I mean. The discipline?”

I nodded slowly. “Of course it did. Protecting my mum, and Rhys, was my priority, but it got out of hand, and it didn’t go away, even after I didn’t need to protect them anymore. Rhys dealt with what happened to us by going wild—I went the other way. Control, obsession, whatever you want to call it. It consumed me for a while.”

“What . . . like an eating disorder?”

“Yeah. Probably not like you’re imagining, though. It wasn’t like I wanted to be thin.”

“You wanted the opposite?”

“For a while, but ultimately, I think I just wanted to be perfect . . . like, from the inside out? And controlling what I put in my body was one way of achieving that. Or so I thought. All it actually meant was that I ate nothing but chicken breasts and protein shakes.”

Joe’s brow furrowed. I could see him recalling my time on the farm and wondering what that shit meant for me now. “You still eat a lot of chicken and drink weird, mushy shakes.”

I chuckled. “I know. And I’m still carb-phobic when I don’t check myself, but I’m so much better than I was. Stress fucks with my focus, and I do slip back sometimes, but I manage it these days. Writing helps, at least it did until I started getting paid for it, but the best therapy I’ve found recently is you.”

“Seriously?” Joe’s expression brightened considerably. “And here was me thinking I’d brought you nothing but hassle.”

I couldn’t deny that being on the farm had brought stresses of its own, so I didn’t. I snaked an arm around Joe and lolled my head on his shoulder. “You lot are so casual about food—and yet, it means so much to you all. It brings you together every single day, twice a day, sometimes three times. Being a part of that has meant the world to me. I didn’t realise how lonely I was until I came here.”

“I don’t want you to be lonely, Harry. I can’t bear it.”

I gazed at him and rubbed my jaw against his. “I’m never lonely when I’m with you.”

Joe kissed me like he had a hundred times, but it felt different now. Like my night of incarceration had somehow set us free. He fused our mouths together and grazed his teeth over my soul.

“Joe.” His name was a whisper on my lips.

And his answer was to pull the tailgate shut and push me down on the fold out bed.

I lay back and let him climb all over me. Kissing Joe—and more—had been a sporadic journey to oblivion, but his taste was so familiar that I wanted to weep. I tugged at his T-shirt until it disappeared. My hoodie followed, and as his chest touched mine, a new spark danced between us.

He sucked in a breath. The bulge in his jeans hardened against my leg, and I slid my hand to his belt buckle. His jeans went the same way as his T-shirt, and suddenly he was rolling over, pulling me on top of him. “Fuck me.”

I’d waited a lifetime for him to finish that sentence. I fumbled for my wallet and the long-abandoned condom tucked behind my collection of store loyalty cards. By some insane stroke of fortune, a sachet of lube lurked there too.

Joe raised an eyebrow. “It’s almost like you planned this.”

“Let me check the expiry dates before I claim credit for that.”

I was only half joking, but they were both in date, and my humour faded as I stripped away the remaining clothes between us. My desire for Joe had been electric from the start, but it was off the scale now as my heart beat a souped-up samba, thudding against my ribcage like it would never stop.

Joe shivered and arched up into me. “Don’t go too hard.”

“I’ll be gentle,” I whispered.

He smirked. “Not for my sake, mate. Just don’t want to get nicked again.”

In the haze of being naked with him, I’d clean forgotten about the fact that we were in a public car park, and any enthusiastic movements would send the van rocking. I paused for breath and fought for a glimmer of self-control. The prospect of fucking Joe was making me tremble with need, but I had to take care with him—in every sense.

I rolled the condom on and ripped open the lube sachet. Joe closed his eyes as I slicked us both, and he blew out a long slow breath as I brought his leg to his chest. I lined my cock up against him, pressing slowly inside him, tracking the glorious flush that stole over his beautiful skin. He clamped around me, resisting at first, but then welcoming me in, moaning, ragged and breathless, and digging his fingers into my shoulder.

“Fuck.” He bit my shoulder, his body tense and strained. “Give me a sec.”

I’d give him the world if he’d let me, but now didn’t seem the time to tell him. And I was kind of hoping he already knew.

I held my hips still and rubbed his chest, smoothing my palm over the lean muscle and up his neck to cup his face. “You okay?”

He hummed and wrapped his legs around my waist, his heels at my back, urging me on with infinitesimal pressure. I took the hint and rolled my hips gently enough to make my eyes water. His answering moan was fucking magical, and I found a crazy-slow rhythm that set me on fire, cell by cell, atom by atom.

Pleasure crept up on me, building like an inferno in the breeze. The contradiction between pace and sensation blew my mind. I sought refuge in Joe, in his kiss, in his neck, and eventually devoured every inch of him I could reach. Sweat slicked our bodies together, our pulses raced in time, and I swallowed his every gasp.

Joe’s hands roamed my back. He scraped his blunt nails over my heated skin and growled filthy words in my ear. “Touch me.”

His dick was like steel, trapped between us. I squeezed it and jacked him in time with the thrust of my cock.

“Jesus!” He jerked up, breaking the rhythm, and my dick slid into him harder. “I’m gonna come.”

I bent down to kiss him again, driving my tongue into his mouth. “Do it.”

“Harry—”

Joe’s face contorted, and he screwed his eyes shut until I gripped his chin and forced him to look at me, my other hand still pumping his cock.

“Eyes on me,” I whispered. “I wanna see you.”

Joe’s only answer was a frantic moan, and his gravelly cry shot through me like a spark on dry tinder. My own release roared to life, kept at bay only by the desperate need to watch him fall apart—eyes wild, skin stretched taut over his straining muscles. Fuck, he’s so beautiful. I’d seen him come before, but not like this—with his whole body, every facet of him given over to the pleasure coursing through him.

Bearing witness to it tipped me over the edge. I rose up on my knees, clutching one of his thighs to me like an anchor, and fucked him harder, driving every shudder and shake from him until I exploded with a guttural groan.

For long moments, my world narrowed to my whited-out vision and Joe’s laboured breaths. And it was perfect. My veins sizzled with aftershocks and a quiet peace stole over me.

It was a while before the van returned to my consciousness. Joe was still wrecked, so I cleaned us both up and tucked the condom in an old plastic bag, and then I lay down beside him, playing absently with his hair until he seemed to come back into himself.

His grin was sleepy and wonderful. I drank it in, but reality bit down hard. “You never told me what happened with your dad.”

Joe’s sigh was barely audible. “There isn’t much to tell. I rounded him up, yelled at him for being a pathetic human being, then felt bad about it because he slapped me with a guilt horse.”

“A what?”

Joe’s hand drifted to his abdomen. I covered it with my own. “Does it still hurt?”

“Nah. Just feels a bit, uh, jumpy, sometimes. It’s hard to explain.”

“Tell me about the guilt horse instead then.”

Joe sat up, wincing a little. “He reckons he took the gun from Dicky McGee to stop him shooting some other twat’s thoroughbred. And he’s probably telling the truth; it’s the kind of arsehole thing Dicky would do.”

“Why does that make you feel guilty?”

“Because I’d probably have taken the gun too.”

I thought back to the random details Joe had let slip about his father over the past few months, usually after some whisky. “But you wouldn’t have driven drunk and crashed the caravan. Or stashed the gun on the farm.”

“Maybe not, but I’ve made plenty of mistakes that have hurt people.”

“Haven’t we all? Being hurt is part of being human.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so fucking reasonable.”

“Sorry.”

“Liar.”

He had me there. We got dressed and Joe drove us back to the farm. I kept my hand on his leg the whole way and wondered what it would be like to lie back on the wide bed upstairs in the farmhouse and let him climb all over me—ride me, fuck me . . . own me.

“What are you smirking about?”

I glanced at Joe and then out of the window in surprise. I hadn’t noticed the van pulling up in the yard. “Nothing in particular. What are you doing now? Fancy a nap?”

Joe’s grin was weary. “And then some, but I’ve got shit to do. George is off this afternoon, and Toby’s gone back to school.”

“Already? Damn.” The weeks were flying by.

“What about you?” Joe asked. “Are you going to bed?”

How could I with him out working? Though I knew he’d never let me help him after I’d spent a night in the cells. “I’ve got stuff to do too. Find me later?”

Joe nodded. “Sure.”

“What’s up?”

“Hmm? Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about your book.”

“My book? What about it?”

“Are you nearly finished?”

The question was left field and totally out of the blue. Joe had always seemed bewildered when I talked about my writing work, and so I hadn’t much. “I suppose so. It’s a bit ragged at the moment, but I guess it’s coming together.”

Joe stared hard at something behind me. “What will you do when it’s done?”

“Um . . . send it to my agent, I guess.”

“No, I mean what will you do?”

“What I did before. The book thing isn’t my normal, thank God, because I’m starting to hate it. I’m due back at the hospital clinic in a few weeks, whether it’s finished or not.”

“Right.”

Joe’s expression was unreadable, and the implication of what I’d said took a beat too long to sink in. But when it did, it was like the bottom had dropped out of my world. The last twenty-four hours had been so intense that I’d somehow forgotten my temporary status on the farm. That returning to my real job—my real life—meant that I’d be leaving for good in a couple of weeks.

Leaving Joe.

I felt sick. Joe took my hands and curled his fingers around them. “I don’t want you to go.”

“Joe, I—”

“Don’t.” He put his finger to my lips. “Don’t say anything, okay? My head’s fucked, the farm’s fucked . . . I’ve got nothing to offer you, but I need you to know that I love you. I don’t need you to say it back.”

He got out of the van before I had a chance to respond. I watched him jog across the yard and disappear around the barn before the words formed on my kiss-swollen lips. Oh, Joe. I love you too.