Kyle woke up on his sofa in the early hours of the morning and rubbed his stiff neck while he checked his phone.
Still no message from Dev. Not that he’d really expected one. He’d last checked around 11 p.m., and he doubted Dev would risk waking him from a proper sleep just to message him, but the lack of contact was worrying. Of course, everything looked worse at four in the morning. But if Dev still wanted to be with him, why hadn’t he been in touch all day?
Something twisted painfully inside him. The obvious answer was that Dev didn’t need him anymore. He had his sister and his flatmate with him now.
The flatmate Kyle still hadn’t met. Dev had mentioned Mal’s return from Portugal—and had apparently totally forgiven him for going there in the first place rather than coming to Porthkennack with Dev. Granted, they’d had a plane to catch, but it still seemed a little odd that Kyle had been hurried away from Dev’s flat before he could even set foot inside.
It was almost as if Dev didn’t want him to meet Mal—but that couldn’t be true, could it? After all, if Mal was coming down to Cornwall with Tasha, how could they avoid meeting?
On present showing, the bitter 4 a.m. voice whispered, quite easily. After all, he still hadn’t met Ceri yet, had he? But then, why would a young, active man like Dev want his friends to have to spend time with his older, chronically ill lover? If Kyle even qualified as that any more. Was Kyle really anything more than an embarrassment to Dev—better than being alone, perhaps, and useful in a crisis, but not worth wasting time on when there was better company to be had?
Kyle had a glass of water and a couple of paracetamol for his headache, then undressed and went to bed in the hopes of fooling his body into sleeping when it ought to.
He managed a couple of hours and got up at eight, feeling hardly rested but unable to stomach any more time in bed. Still no message from Dev. Kyle wondered bitterly if he was ever going to hear from him again.
After forcing down some breakfast, he thought to hell with it and grabbed his phone to call Dev. Then he hesitated. It was still early, bearing in mind that Dev had quite likely been out late with his friends last night. Just because Kyle hadn’t been able to sleep didn’t mean that Dev wasn’t enjoying a lie-in. Waking him up wouldn’t get them off to a good start, would it? And even if he was already up . . . what if Kyle just got the brush-off over the phone? That would be that, wouldn’t it? He’d have no chance to talk Dev round.
Instead, he bit the bullet and called Jeffrey. He’d held off yesterday, thinking it might be better to—hah—sleep on it, but now, all he wanted to do was get things moving.
Have one more achievement to bolster his confidence when he finally got to speak to Dev.
Jeffrey picked up almost immediately. “Kyle? Well, hello, stranger.”
“Can you talk?”
“Of course. You know my routine.” Kyle did. At this time in the morning, Jeffrey would be at the gallery preparing to open up.
“I’m coming back to Surrey.”
There was a pause. “You want to move back in?” Jeffrey’s tone was wary, and for a moment Kyle toyed with the idea of saying yes, just to hear Jeffrey’s attempts to squirm out of it.
“No. But I will need somewhere to live, so I won’t be able to afford to keep paying my half of the mortgage. We’ll need to do something with the house.”
Another pause. “Didn’t you get the letter?”
“What letter?”
“The one from my solicitor. I’ve been trying to call you about it for weeks. I’m buying you out—I trust that’s agreeable?”
Ah. That would be the letter postmarked from Surrey that he’d tossed on a pile of similarly unopened correspondence to deal with sometime after never.
“And F-Y-I,” Jeffrey continued, “you haven’t been paying the mortgage. I told them to cancel your direct debit when you left. I’m not a monster, Kyle. I wouldn’t take your money when, well, you’re going to need it, aren’t you? What with all the cuts to disability benefits—”
“I’m not on benefits, Jeffrey. In fact, I’m going back to work.” Although why he thought Jeffrey needed to know that, Kyle wasn’t sure. And had it really been that long since he’d checked his bank account online? God knew the paper statements had been going into the “ignore” pile.
“Oh. Good for you.” Jeffrey was clearly trying to sound as if he meant it, but it still came out with a rising inflection at the end, as if there were a silent, Are you really sure that’s wise? appended. “So . . . you’re better, then?”
“Narcolepsy doesn’t get better,” Kyle reminded him, struggling to keep his patience. But for God’s sake, they’d been together for years, yet Jeffrey hadn’t bothered to inform himself about Kyle’s condition. Dev had found out more than him in a matter of days.
“Oh. Anyway, we’ve boxed up all your things, so—”
“‘We’?”
A deep intake of breath. “Martin. You remember him from the Dutch exhibition? Anyway, he’s, ah. He’s moved in.”
“You don’t hang about, do you?” Kyle snapped, then reflected he didn’t really have a leg to stand on.
“Oh, come on. You know as well as I do that our relationship was dying by degrees long before you moved out.”
Yes, because you didn’t take at all well to me no longer having the energy to go out, you refused to sleep in the same bed any longer, and you had a hissy fit every time an unplanned nap happened. And as for sex . . . most of the time you didn’t want to bother in case I had a cataplexy attack, because it was so creepy. Kyle didn’t say it.
“If I hadn’t had the guts to call it a day . . .” Jeffrey left it hanging.
Trust him to make a virtue out of a rejection. But he’d been right, Kyle knew that now. It could never have worked between them.
And besides, if they’d stayed together, he’d never have met Dev. “I’ll come by and get my things when I have a place,” he said. “And I’ll look for that letter.”
“Good. But call ahead before you come, please. We don’t want anyone to have any unpleasant surprises.”
“Fine.” Kyle hung up. He hadn’t said what he’d meant to about Jeffrey telling tales to his mum, but in the end it just hadn’t seemed important anymore.
At least now that chapter of his life was finally over.
Time to gather all his courage and start work on the next one.
Kyle set out for town straight away. It was still early to drop in on Dev, but if he was honest, Kyle was a little paranoid he might lose his nerve, or worse fall asleep, if he didn’t get moving. He could always stop en route at the Square Peg Café. Their coffee and scones hadn’t been too bad the other morning. And more to the point, he’d hopefully get a look at Ceri at last. Kyle was sick of not knowing the people in Dev’s life.
It was another sunny day, the gentle breeze coming in off the sea bringing with it the strong scent of seaweed mingling with the briny smell of the water itself. Low tide, then. Strange, how quickly he’d got used to this place. Kyle was going to miss it when he moved back to Surrey.
But then again, he had a feeling Porthkennack would wait for him to come back. And he would, he knew, no matter what happened today with Dev. It was in his blood—or perhaps it was truer to say it was in his soul.
The walk, instead of tiring him, seemed to wake him properly, clearing the fug from his head. Reaching the café, he hesitated—should he go straight on, after all, to try to catch Dev before he left the B&B for the day? Standing, irresolute, by a seat at an outside table, Kyle was startled out of his indecision when someone spoke to him.
“You meeting Dev here?”
Kyle looked around, startled, to see a small, skinny waitress with long, straight hair. “Ceri?” he guessed. She wasn’t what he’d expected, somehow. He’d pictured someone . . . larger. More confident.
More like Dev.
This girl was fragile looking, almost birdlike. Kyle sat down, more to stop himself from looming over her than anything else. She nodded without smiling. “You gotta order something if you’re staying.”
“Do you do iced coffee?” He hadn’t had one in ages. Just the thought of it brought back memories of Rome with Jeffrey . . . Abruptly, Kyle lost the taste for the drink. “Never mind. I’ll have a white filter coffee, please. Decaff,” he added with a sigh.
She didn’t move. “You ain’t too good for him, you know.”
“What?”
“You, with your money and your posh voice and your career and all that. Don’t make you no better than Dev.”
Oh God. This was exactly what Dev had been saying, just before his sister rang. Did he really still think Kyle, what, looked down on him? Why, in God’s name? Because he had a trade, instead of a profession? “I know it doesn’t,” he said, but it sounded weak even to him.
She stared at him. Then she sat down in one of the free chairs at the table. “Don’t you mess with me,” she said in a low voice. “Nor him, neither.”
“I’m not.” Kyle took a deep breath. “The only thing I’m worried about is how my condition will affect him.”
God, that was embarrassing. But she’d seen him collapse at least once, and presumably Dev had talked about him. She must know there was something wrong with Kyle.
“Not how he tells it. And you got him thinking you’re right.”
Oh. That was discouraging. Kyle had thought all he’d have to do would be to reassure Dev his fears that Kyle looked down on him were groundless. Well, that and convince him he wasn’t going to be stuck with a virtual invalid. If Dev had decided their backgrounds were too different . . .
Damn it. He’d just have to work that bit harder to show him it was nonsense, that was all. “It was a misunderstanding. I’m hoping to see him today and tell him that. I, ah, don’t suppose you know what his plans are for today?”
“He said he’d come here. Bring his sister and his mate to meet me. That’s why I thought you were meeting him. You’ve not heard from him, then?”
“No.” It was a painful admission. The thought of hanging around waiting to crash Dev’s plans with his friends was even worse. “Look, forget the coffee. I’ll see him later. It was nice to meet you,” he remembered to add as he stood.
Kyle turned away from her unreadable expression and threaded his way through the tables to escape.
As he passed by the bench he’d collapsed on that first day of knowing Dev, he was startled when a young woman who’d been sitting on it jumped up and grabbed his arm. She was pretty, with long blonde hair and big sunglasses, and another young woman hovered by her with a worried look on her face. Kyle was positive he’d never seen either of them before.
“Are you a mate of hers?” the blonde woman asked while Kyle was still concentrating on making sure his legs didn’t fail him. She had a strong Birmingham accent.
“What?”
“That waitress. Ceri. You a mate?”
“I, well . . .” He cast a glance back at the café, but Ceri had disappeared inside.
The blonde girl didn’t quite roll her eyes at him, but he could see it was a close thing. “See, there’s this problem. Her fella’s been cheating on her, and we didn’t know if we should say anything, did we, Suse?”
“Her fella?” Kyle was probably sounding less and less intelligent by the minute.
“Yeah. We met him down on the beach. Dev, his name is. From London.”
Seriously? She thought Dev was going out with Ceri? Then again, Kyle had wondered too, hadn’t he? Just for a moment. He’d never seriously thought Dev was cheating on him.
He was suddenly glad he’d had that conversation with Ceri a few minutes ago, even so.
“He’s a looker,” the blonde girl was saying. “But I always said—didn’t I say, Suse?—I wouldn’t trust him far as I could chuck him. And get this: we saw him last night, down on the front, and he was with this fella. His boyfriend.” She said it as if there should have been dramatic music playing.
Kyle blinked. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“No. See, we went to talk to them, ’cos this fella Dev was with wasn’t bad looking, neither, and he said it straight out. Been living together for years, haven’t they? So what we was wondering, was—”
“Mal?” he interrupted her.
She frowned. “Yeah, that’s his name. How d’you know?”
“You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. They’re just flatmates.”
“Uh-huh? So how come this fella’s all, ‘I’m with Dev here, ain’t I, babe’? And then he kisses him. And he says Dev’s a player, which I tell you what, I wouldn’t put up with like he does, but he always goes home to his fella. So what I thought is, that Ceri girl ought to know about this. And we was going to tell her, but then we saw you talking to her and I thought, it’d be better coming from a mate, right?” She gave a smug little smile at the end.
God. Kyle felt suddenly chilled. It made a horrible sort of sense, no matter how much he wanted to doubt the veracity of everything she’d said on principle. Dev’s reluctance to let him into his flat to meet Mal; his lack of contact since then . . .
Not that any of it was this girl’s business, in any case. “I’ll make sure Ceri hears about anything she needs to know,” he said coldly. “It was kind of you to be concerned for her.”
He was pretty sure the sarcasm flew straight over the young woman’s perfectly styled head.
Not the friend’s though, perhaps. She’d gone red and was tugging at the blonde’s arm.
“Good-bye,” Kyle said, pointedly disengaging his arm from her grasp.
She didn’t reply as he walked off, and he didn’t look back.
Not quite sure what to do now, Kyle turned his steps towards the seafront. His plan to go and see Dev now looked like it might just end in bitter humiliation. But he couldn’t leave it like this. Perhaps the girl’s comments were simply malicious, maybe to avenge some imagined slight on Dev’s part?
Kyle’s stomach churned. He had to know the truth. Dev had to be given the chance to tell his side of the story. No matter how much nerve Kyle was going to have to work up to go through with it.
He had just about convinced himself to head out to the B&B when, with a jolt that made his heart stop for a moment, he caught sight of Dev himself not ten yards away, walking along the promenade.
There was a young man with him, who turned at that moment to say something with a laugh. He was white, good-looking in a knowing way, with sharply cut light-brown hair and the sort of smile on his face that made Kyle instinctively distrust the bearer. He’d seen plenty of young men like that in court, standing up in the witness box to cheerfully perjure themselves, then throwing a cheeky grin in the direction of the jury as if to say, Who, me?
This must be Mal.
He wore a pair of ripped jeans with a tight grey T-shirt and was walking way too close to Dev, their shoulders brushing with every step. God, their hips were practically touching. Kyle felt a sick, plummeting sensation in his stomach. Mal was far more suited to Dev than Kyle was, that much was clear. They were the same age, from the same sort of background—not that Kyle gave a damn, but from what Ceri had said, it seemed Dev might.
And Mal almost certainly didn’t fall asleep while in company. Tired beyond belief, Kyle turned away and headed for home.
Three steps later he stopped dead, and turned around.
No, damn it. He wasn’t going to give up and fade into the background. And if his own experience had taught him anything, it was that things weren’t always what they seemed, or even what people said they were.
His heart pounding in a rib cage that felt suddenly, painfully tight, Kyle strode down towards the seafront to confront them.
And prayed he wasn’t about to have a cataplexy attack.