Seeing as he’d told Mrs. Quick he was going to be away, Dev wasn’t surprised to get a double take when he went down to breakfast the next morning, especially as he made it only just before the end of serving time. Luckily for him, he also got fed—he’d been half afraid she’d tell him she hadn’t got enough food in. Course, with the hens out the back she’d never be short of eggs, thank God.
Then he had to tell her about Tasha coming down. Luckily she was fine about it, although that might have been because Dev didn’t mention the whole getting-arrested-in-a-drugs-raid thing. He just said his little sister had had some trouble with the people she was sharing a house with, and left it at that.
He didn’t mention Mal. Mostly because he hadn’t quite worked out what to do about all that. The one thing he wasn’t going to do, though, was ask Kyle if he could stay. That wouldn’t be fair on the bloke. Kyle had already proved he’d go way above and beyond to help out. And maybe some of that had just been him wanting to get back to doing what he was good at, but still.
Dev didn’t want to stay with him if helping out was all it was.
Now his head wasn’t busy being worried sick about Tasha, all Dev could think about was him and Kyle. Christ, what future could he have with the bloke when he couldn’t even bear to let him see the place where he lived? He’d even started thinking about finding a new place, a better place, just so’s Kyle wouldn’t be so horrified if he saw it, and that was well fucked up, wasn’t it?
Should he go and see Kyle this morning? He hadn’t even thanked the bloke properly for what he’d done for Tasha. They’d both been too knackered to talk much by the time they’d got back to Porthkennack. Dev checked the time on his phone. It wasn’t exactly early—but that meant sod all as far as Kyle maybe being asleep was concerned. Perhaps he should let the poor bastard get some more rest before he went round and bothered him.
And yeah, like that was the only reason he didn’t want to go there. Dev hugged himself. Thanking Kyle for helping them out—yeah, he could do that, no problem. Trouble was, once he’d done that, they were going to have to talk about what Kyle had said. About them not being a long-term thing.
It fucking hurt just thinking about it. What if he couldn’t talk Kyle out of it? Persuade him what they had was worth more than just a fling? That’d be it, then. The end. ’Cos no way could he carry on in a relationship with a sell-by date. Not with Kyle. That’d be like handing the bloke a fucking great knife and then pasting a sign on his chest that said, Insert here.
Call him a coward—Christ knew he was calling himself one—but Dev just wasn’t ready to go there. Not yet. Maybe when he had his best mate and his sister with him. Maybe then he could cope with it. But not right now.
It didn’t help that he had hours to wait until Mal and Tasha got here, and sod all to do but worry. Then again . . . He texted Ceri: U working today?
She rang him back almost immediately. “No. Got a day off.”
“Wanna meet up?”
“Okay. Sea Bell? We’ll have to wait till it opens at eleven, mind.”
“Nah. Think your Uncle Jago’s gonna string me up by me balls if he sees me again.”
She laughed. It was a weird, short sound like it’d been startled out of her. Made him think of Kyle, laughing and then crumpling up at the knees . . . “Where then?” she asked, bringing him back to the present and the weirdness that was a happy Ceri.
“Beach? I’ll bring a blanket.” Dev suddenly realised how that might have sounded. “Uh, to sit on, right? I ain’t planning to, like, seduce you or nothing.”
“You could give it a go. I like a good laugh.” Her tone turned businesslike. “Not the one by the prom. By the lifeboat station in half an hour.”
“Right. See ya.”
“Wouldn’t wanna be ya.”
Dev smiled as he hung up. He could get used to Ceri being in a good mood. Right. Better get a shift on, then he could swing by the supermarket and get some drinks and stuff. He grabbed the thick, fleecy bedspread off his bed—Ceri was gonna piss herself laughing at him for turning up with something so bloody pink—and bundled it up in his backpack. Then he headed out.
The lifeboat station in Mother Ivey’s Bay was basically just a big, funny-shaped hut on tall stilts, with a ramp down to the sea for the boats to go down. It had its own little bay, cut off from the rest of the beach by a curving outcrop of cliff. Ceri was waiting for him when he got there, sitting on the sand.
There was nobody else around at all.
“Quiet round here, innit?”
Ceri shrugged. She was wearing denim cutoffs, and her skinny white legs gleamed in the sun. “Most people go over the other side. Round by the surf schools. Closer to town. Or if they’re over this side, they stay on the main beach ’cos this one disappears at high tide.”
“That why you like it here?”
“What do you think?”
Dev grinned. “Yeah, I like it here too.” He couldn’t help glancing up at the cliff, though. Somewhere up there was Kyle’s cottage. Was he home, right now? Longing twisted inside him . . . but it was stupid.
“You broke up with your bloke, then?”
She was too sharp for her own good. Well, Dev’s good, anyhow. “Nah—well, I dunno. I mean . . . We had this row, right? And then, then he goes and helps me out, like, big time. Flies up to London with me and everything. I mean, Christ, if he hadn’t stepped in . . . And now I ain’t got a clue what’s going on.”
“Come over here.”
For a moment he thought she was offering him a hug, which just went to prove he really hadn’t got his head on straight. Instead, she led him underneath the lifeboat station and out the other side, to the tiny scrap of beach beyond.
Dev slung his backpack on the sand and got out the bedspread and the bottle of Coke he’d picked up on the way, plus some packets of crisps. Ceri sniggered briefly at the bedspread before sitting down, her knees up in front of her so she could give them a hug.
“You ever seen ’em launch from here?” Dev asked, nodding at the lifeboat station. He unscrewed the bottle top and took a swig, wishing he’d left it a mo because most of what he got was bubbles.
“Yeah. Few times.” She shrugged her skinny shoulders. “It’s just a boat making a big splash.” She took the bottle Dev held out to her, wiped the top with her palm and took a drink. “Saw them go out in a storm, once. That was scary. Uncle Jago was on it that time. My grandad took me down there to see them off.”
“Yeah?” Dev could just imagine Jago on a lifeboat, ploughing through the waves, stony-faced, not knowing if he’d save lives or end up wading through wreckage and dead bodies. Huh. Maybe that was why he was such a miserable git.
“So what was this row all about?”
Ah shit. “Him telling me I ain’t good enough for him.” Dev let out a sad little laugh. “Think he’s right.”
“That’s shite.”
“Nah, ’s true, innit? I mean, seriously, like I’m ever gonna have Kyle round to stay in my flat in Balham?”
“Never been to Balham. What’s it like?”
“Well, it ain’t like round here, that’s for sure. You seen EastEnders, right? Lot of fucked-up families with no money, no education, and shit lives?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s a bit like that. Only less white. So yeah, we was in London yesterday, me and him. Just for the day. Got the plane from Newquay. And there’s me and him outside my flat, and I bottled it. Couldn’t let him come in and see the place.”
Ceri took another drink, then handed the Coke back to Dev. “So? If he thinks he’s too good for you, you should tell him to piss off.”
Dev weighed the bottle in his hand before answering. “It’s just . . . he never made me feel like that, you know? Never. So it came out of nowhere.”
“Blokes’ll say any old shite to get you into bed.” She burped and didn’t try to hide it, just like Tasha. “So what did he say?”
Squinting out to sea, almost blinded by the sunlight glinting off the waves, Dev frowned. “Uh . . .” Actually, now he came to think about it, all he could clearly remember was Kyle saying he didn’t care about Dev having a crap job compared to him. “He said it wasn’t a long-term thing, him and me. Like it should have been obvious. I mean, shit . . . I even said I’d move to be with him.”
“And he still didn’t want to know? Bastard. So you broke up then?”
“Nah . . . I had this phone call. From Tasha—you know, my sister? Foster sister.” Dev told her the whole story, how Kyle had suddenly gone into legal superhero mode and basically saved the day.
“But it’s like, I get it now,” he finished with. “What he was on about. Him and me not being, well, long-term. I mean, I’d never seen him like that, had I? All professional and stuff.”
Ceri had kicked off her deck shoes and was scrunching her bare toes into the sand. “Yeah, but he’s never seen you doing your job either, has he?”
Dev frowned. “Well . . . a bit, maybe. I had a look over his car for him.” He laughed softly at the memory.
“What?”
“That was the first time we shagged, wasn’t it?”
“Had you over the bonnet, did he?”
“Nah, we was well civilised. Used a bed and everything.”
“Boring.”
“Oi, he’s got a very small garage, all right?”
“First time I’ve heard it called that.” She stared out to sea. “So what, you’re worried it was just the thought of you in your greasy overalls with your tools out that got him in the mood? You think you’re just his bit of rough?”
“What else? Ah, shit. I shoulda known he was way out of my league.”
“No, he ain’t. Having a posh accent and a law degree don’t make him better than you. And he’s a stupid git if he doesn’t see that.”
Dev wasn’t going to carry on arguing with her. It wasn’t like it’d change anything. And just thinking about it was doing his head in. “Hey, you were in a good mood when I rang, weren’t you? What’s that all about?”
“Jesus, can’t I be happy sometimes?”
“Not without spreading it about, babe.” Dev made it sound extra cheesy.
“You can fuck off with the babe.” She shoved a bony elbow in his side, but not hard enough to really hurt. Much. “I got some good news, didn’t I?”
“Yeah?”
“Got a place on a catering course down in Newquay.”
“Yeah? Props, babe.” Delighted for her, Dev held up his hand for a high five.
“Fuck off.” She high-fived him back, though. “Wasn’t sure I’d get in, ’cos I applied late. You know. ’Cos of stuff. But they gave me a place for September. Mum’s letting me have her car.”
This, this was what really pissed Dev off about the care system. The way they seemed to think that once you got to eighteen you didn’t need a mum and dad anymore, like the world wasn’t full of parents helping their adult kids out in all kinds of ways. Total bollocks. But he wasn’t going to say anything to make Ceri feel bad. “That’s great. Seriously.”
“Yeah. Mum and Dad are taking me out for a meal tonight. To celebrate.”
“You’re lucky, you are,” Dev said without thinking.
Ceri slung a thin arm through his. “Yeah. I know.”
The air was fresh and heavy with salt, with none of that sickly-sweet suntan-lotion-and-ice-cream smell he’d noticed on the prom. There was the constant whispering wash of waves against rocks. Sort of like traffic noise back home, it was so much part of the background he never noticed it now unless he actually thought about it. Sitting here on the sand, with only a few old cottages visible up on the cliff, it felt like it could have been any age. Any time. If a band of wreckers had come sneaking down the beach in Poldark costumes Dev wouldn’t have been that surprised.
Of course, they’d probably be pretty baffled by the lifeboat station.
It struck him all at once that he’d never been to a place like this before—and he didn’t want to leave. “If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?” he asked softly, and took a long swig of Coke.
“Honest answer? Or bullshite?”
“Honest.”
Ceri shrugged. “Here, then. Or Wales, maybe. Bristol if it had to be a city.”
“Where you’ve got family.” Dev’s chest felt tight.
“Not had much luck with friends, have I?”
“Oi, sitting right here, ta very much.”
“Don’t mean you.” She nudged him again. “You gonna pass that bottle over?”
He passed it, and she had a good swig. Dev hesitated, then decided, Sod it. It’d been bothering him ever since he’d thought about it. “That one what . . . You know. Hurt you. Was he a Roscarrock?” Dev wasn’t sure what he was gonna do if he found out he was related to that bastard.
“What? No. Why?” Ceri looked at him like he’d gone mad.
Dev felt a bit stupid. And a lot relieved. “Well, ’cos of what you said about them being bastards.”
“Oh. No. They shafted us over Grandad’s house when he died. They were his landlords.”
“Oh. Right.” Dev stared out to sea for a moment. It hadn’t been the only thing bothering him, and seeing as how they were on the subject already . . . “That one, then. Who did it. He still here?”
Ceri shook her head vigorously. “Family moved away. Wanted a fresh start.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Why? Planning to cut his balls off for me?”
“That sort ain’t got no balls to start with. Nah. Just glad to know you don’t have to walk around worrying you’re gonna bump into him.”
“Funny, isn’t it?” she said, stretching.
“What?”
“I was just thinking, if things had been different, if you’d grown up here, we’d never have been friends, would we? You being five years older. Not like you’d have been asking me out, is it?”
“Could still have been friends.”
“No. You’d always see me as that gawky kid with the squint and the braces.”
“Yeah? Funny that. That’s exactly how I see you now.”
“Wanker.” She scrambled to her feet.
Dev got up too. “Takes one to know one. So we off, then?”
“No. Just want to dip my toes in the water.”
That sounded like a plan, so Dev pulled off his trainers and socks, then did his best to roll up his jeans. They were a bit too tight to get very far.
Ah, sod it. If Ceri could get her legs out, so could he. Dev undid his jeans and pushed them off, wished briefly he hadn’t worn the naff stripy underwear today, and joined her in the sea.
The cold water on his feet and shins made him shiver, despite the rest of him still baking in the sun. Ceri smirked at him. “Nice kecks.”
“Shut up. Didn’t think to bring me trunks, did I?”
“Yeah, ’cos no one who goes to a beach ever ends up in the water.”
Dev splashed her for that. She shrieked and splashed him right back, and it turned into an epic water fight that left them both drenched. Laughing like mad, they ran back to the beach and sprawled on the bedspread to let the sun dry them off.
It was good. It was just what Dev had needed. Something to take him out of himself and stop him obsessing over Kyle.
Bit of a shame, then, that after they’d eaten the crisps and sandwiches Dev had got at the shop, Ceri brought up the subject again. “So if you’re breaking up with your bloke, does that mean you won’t be hanging around here no more?”
Dev’s gut, full of bacon, lettuce, and tomato sarnies, twisted. “I never said we was breaking up.”
“So you’re sticking around, then?”
“For another couple of weeks. But hey, you know we’re gonna keep in touch, right? Me and you? We can text and stuff. And you gotta come up to London. I’ll show you the sights, yeah?”
“What, of Balham?”
“Oi, don’t knock it. Gateway to the South, innit? And you’ll want to come, anyway, ’cos of Mal and Tasha. They’re coming down tonight. You’ll like Tasha. She’s well cool. And Mal too. He’s a laugh.”
Ceri didn’t say anything. Well, yeah, when Dev thought about it, he’d been there, done that too. Had friends swear blind Dev would fall arse over tit in love with whatever bloke they were banging on about—and then have him turn out to be just some boring tosser. “You’ll love ’em,” he said. “Just you wait.”
She didn’t say anything. She just kept staring straight ahead at the water.
Dev squeezed her arm. “I ain’t gonna stop hanging round with you just ’cos me family’s here. Promise.”
“Two weeks.”
He knew what she meant. “Yeah, but it ain’t long till September. You’ll meet new people. Better ones than those tossers round here, who won’t be here anyway ’cos they’ll have buggered off back to uni and good fucking riddance.”
“What if they’re tossers in Newquay?”
“Nah. Can’t be. It’s statistics, innit? There’s only so many tossers you can meet in one lifetime, and you’ve had all yours already.” He took a deep breath. “And anyway, you never know. Even if it don’t work out with me and Kyle, I can still come back here to visit, can’t I? It’s dead quick on the plane, and it ain’t even that expensive.”
Ceri ducked her head. It could have been a nod, but Dev wouldn’t have staked his life on it.
When they were more or less dry, Dev walked her home. He hadn’t exactly planned to—she’d managed fine all the other times—but somehow he never got around to saying good-bye and heading off.
After a fair few winding country lanes that all looked the same, Ceri stopped outside a small, modern house. There was a potted shrub in the porch, and the sun gleamed off the outsize Christmas bauble stuck on a stick shoved into the pot. “This is mine.”
Dev gave her a hug. She felt like a bundle of warm sticks in his arms, but she didn’t push him away, which was something. “You working tomorrow?”
She nodded.
“I’ll bring Mal and Tasha by the café, then. Not sure what time. Depends when I can drag ’em out of bed.”
“Bye, then.”
“Yeah. You have a good time tonight. Say hi to your dad from me.”
She went in.
Walking back down the lane, Dev realised he didn’t have a clue where he was and how to get back into town.
Time to send up a quick prayer to the gods of GPS that his signal would hold up long enough to get him home. Again.
When he got back to the B&B and there was still no sign of Mal and Tasha, Dev started to . . . well, not worry, exactly, but definitely start wondering where the hell they’d got to. He gave Mal a quick call, and waited impatiently until the phone was picked up. “Where are you, you slag?”
Tasha giggled down the line at him. “That’s fucking charming, that is.”
“Sorry. Forgot Mal was driving. So where are you?”
“Yeah, I had to get his phone out of his jeans pocket. It was well gross. I think I touched a bollock and everything.” Dev could just hear Mal’s laughter in the background. “Uh . . . we’re somewhere near Taunton? The M5’s been a real mare. Thought we were gonna be camping out in a traffic jam all night.”
Great. “You’ll be another couple of hours, then, at least. Call me if there’s any more hold ups, yeah?”
“Yeah. So is it all sorted with your bloke, then? You’re staying at his?”
Shit. “We’ll talk about it when you get here, all right?”
It was still light when Mal and Tasha finally rolled up outside Mrs. Quick’s, but it wouldn’t be for long. Everyone was starving, so Dev took them out for fish and chips.
“We taking these back to the B&B?” Tasha asked, hugging the bag of food like some weird, limbless teddy bear.
“Nah, thought we’d have them down on the prom. Get some sea air in your lungs. Gotta watch out for the seagulls, though,” Dev warned, as he handed over a twenty-pound note. “Give ’em half a chance and they’ll have your haddock before you can blink.”
“They’re a menace, those birds,” the woman behind the counter agreed, counting out his change. “Nothing but airborne rats.”
Mal looked outraged and opened his mouth, probably to give the poor woman a lecture on how rat-ist that was or something, so Dev grabbed his arm and hustled him outside sharpish.
Tasha followed, cackling. “Your face, Mal!”
They wandered down to the seafront, which was fairly quiet this late in the day, and sat on a bench to eat their fish and chips. All the families had packed up and taken the kids back to their holiday homes for bed, and the beach was mostly empty except for a few dog walkers wandering across the sand and chucking balls for excited pets. The tide was about halfway up, Dev reckoned, and from the strip of smooth, damp sand by the water’s edge, must be on its way out.
Even the seagulls seemed to be winding down for the evening, their shrieking somehow lazier. The sun was setting far over the sea, streaking the sky with pink and orange that scattered little sparkles of colour off the waves like a kaleidoscope Dev had had when he was a kid.
“Fuck me, that’s pretty,” Tasha said for all of them.
Did they get skies like that back in Balham? Dev couldn’t remember seeing any. In the city there were always buildings in the way.
“Hey, Dev! Over here!”
Dev turned to see Chantal waving wildly at him from across the street. She was with Susie, both of them dressed up to the nines for a night of clubbing. He groaned under his breath.
Mal gave the girls a good long look as they hovered at the edge of the road, obviously trying to cross. “You been experimenting, mate? Could have done worse.”
Dev had known Mal to take a walk on the bi side, every once in a while. “Don’t go there, mate. Seriously. The loud one’s got a bloke back home she’s looking to cheat on, and the quiet one just does whatever her mate tells her to.”
“How come my mates never do what I tell ’em to?” Tasha pouted.
“Because half of ’em have got more sense, and the other half are just shit mates.”
“Fair enough.” Tasha didn’t take offence. “So what are these two hanging around you for?”
“Ain’t got around to telling ’em I don’t do girls, have I?”
Mal grinned. “Leave it to me, mate.” He put an arm around Dev’s waist just as Chantal and Susie made it across the road. “All right, laydeeze?”
Chantal gave him a frank look up and down. She seemed to like what she saw, because she was still checking Mal out when she spoke. “Hiya, Dev, who’s your mates?”
“This is my sister, Tasha. And this is Mal,” Dev said, leaving it there so Mal could do . . . whatever he was gonna do.
“Short for Malcolm?” Chantal asked flirtily.
Tasha cackled. “He wishes.”
Chantal’s eyes narrowed as she looked between Tasha and Mal. “So are you two an item?”
Tasha stifled another laugh. “No. Fuck me, no.”
“Nah, I’m here to keep this one in line.” Mal let his hand fall to Dev’s hip and gave it a squeeze, pulling them closer together. “Can’t trust him out on his own, can I, babe?”
Chantal’s false eyelashes went wide, and her smile froze. “Babe?”
“Yeah, me and Dev, we been together . . . How long is it now, sweetheart? Five or six years, we been living together, innit? Course, sometimes he strays, but he always comes back home to his Mal, don’t you, babe?”
The wanker. Dev gave in and made soppy eyes at Mal. “Yeah. Like a bad penny, ain’t I?”
“Yeah, but you’re my bad penny. And you’re very good at some things, ain’t you, love?” He gave Dev a sloppy wet kiss behind the ear.
Tasha had turned away and walked off a few paces, probably so they wouldn’t see she was nearly pissing herself laughing.
“Right, well,” Chantal said sulkily. “Can see you two got some catching up to do. Come on, Suse.”
She grabbed her mate’s arm and swung her away, and the two of them stomped off, high heels practically raising sparks on the prom.
Dev pulled away from Mal’s hold and scrubbed at his neck, silently cracking up. “You wanker. Now they think I’m some kind of slapper.”
Mal grinned. “So? Long as they know you’re my slapper.” He pulled Dev close again.
Dev pushed him away. “Fuck off, you cock. I don’t want any more of your spit on me.”
Tasha rejoined them, cackling. “That’s just gross, that is.”
“But, babe . . .” Mal pouted.
Then they all lost it, laughing so hard Dev’s sides were literally aching. “Fuck, you two,” he gasped. “It’s good to have you here. I mean it.”
“So, later, maybe . . .” Mal batted his eyelashes and made a circle with a finger and thumb, miming fucking it with another finger. Then he lost it again and doubled over, laughing. Tasha had already collapsed onto the low wall.
Dev loved them both. “In your dreams, mate. In your fucking dreams. Come on. Let’s go get a drink.”
Later, though, when they were back at the B&B after trying out the beer in half the pubs of Porthkennack, Dev couldn’t help feeling something had been missing. Kyle should have been with them. Dev should have called him and invited him out with them.
He’d had the chance, too—early on in the evening, Tasha had asked him outright where his bloke was, ’cos she wanted to buy him a drink to say thanks. Dev could have given him a bell then and there. He’d bottled it, though. Just made some crack about Kyle having better things to do than hang around with a couple of pissheads like Tasha and Mal.
So sue him, all right? He’d just wanted one more night out before the axe fell.
“Tasha?” he asked, when they’d both got into bed and were lying there in the dim lighting, only a couple of feet from each other, just like when they’d been kids and insisted on sharing a room even though their foster mum didn’t think it was right. Mal was off in the bathroom cleaning his teeth and doing whatever else he did that always seemed to take him half an hour a night—like seriously, was he putting his pubes in curlers or something?
“Mm?” Tasha didn’t lift her head from her pillow, so all he could see of her was a floof of curls.
“What did you think of him? Kyle, I mean. Did you like him?”
“Course I like him. He got me out of jail. Well, he got his mate to get me out of jail, so same difference.” She yawned. “So why ain’t you with him now?”
“Don’t need to be, do I? Mal’s got a bed here.” Mrs. Quick, bless her, had found a foldaway bed and managed to squeeze it into the room somehow, and said she’d only charge Mal for breakfast seeing as Dev had been paying for two people already all along. Dev had decided he was going to leave a bloody big tip, and he was getting on TripAdvisor the minute he got home to leave her the best review she’d ever had.
Mal had given him a funny look when he’d seen the bed, but he hadn’t said anything.
“Yeah, we’ve all got beds, but there ain’t no shagging going on in any of ’em.”
She had a point, there. “Do you think it could work, me and him?”
“You mean ’cos he’s posh and you’re not?”
“It’s not just that. He’s, like, all educated and stuff. I barely made it through GCSEs. What would we even have to talk about?”
“Well, what do you talk about with him now?”
“I dunno, do I? All kinds of shit. But it’s different, innit, when you’ve only just met someone.”
Tasha made the sort of sound that could have meant anything. “It was sweet, him coming all the way to London. I mean, he could have just left his mate to handle it all. ’Specially him with his narcolepsy.”
Dev propped himself up on an elbow to look at her. “He told you about it?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
“Dunno. He just . . . He didn’t seem to want people to know, before.” Had that changed? Or was it that he didn’t mind Tasha knowing because she was Dev’s sister?
“You ought to tell him he shouldn’t be ashamed. Not his fault he got ill.”
Dev had to smile. The number of times he’d told her that, when she was going through a rough patch about her diabetes in her early teens. “Yeah. I will. If we’re still a thing.”
Tasha yawned again. “Why are you asking me about relationships and all that shit, anyhow? You forgotten how the last bloke I slept with turned out to be a bloody drug dealer?”
Mal swaggered in from the bathroom in his boxer shorts, a towel slung over his shoulder. “Ain’t you lot asleep yet?”
“Dev’s pining for his bloke.”
“No, I’m fucking not.” Like anyone was going to believe that, least of all Dev.
“The posh tosser?”
“He ain’t a tosser.”
“No? So why ain’t you sleeping with him tonight?”
“Christ, not you and all.” Dev pulled his pillow over his head. “Just fuck off and let me sleep.”
It must’ve sounded a bit muffled, but they seemed to get the message.
At any rate, the light went off and nobody spoke again.