only saved as Rob held him to his chest and stroked him off.
“Lo- love,” Rob stuttered, gasping as Jude came, his whole body tensing before throbbing as Rob said, “Love this with you.” Rob’s orgasm followed, sending them both sprawling forwards where Jude sank into the pillows, panting.
Eventually, he found the energy to face Rob and kiss him. Rob smiled between each of Jude’s subsequent long, slow blinks. He wiped them clean and pulled a sheet up as the gap between those blinks extended.
“Sleep,” Rob said for the second time that evening.
Jude did.
If he dreamt, this time it wasn’t about sailing into a wind that left his throat sore and eyes streaming. It was about Rob, his hand heavy over Jude’s chest, his leg a warm weight that anchored him so Jude could, finally, rest safely without drifting.
Jude next woke relaxed and so warm in a puddle of golden sunlight spilling over the bed through wide-open curtains. A knock on the door to their suite was about as soft as the sound of Rob’s answer in the next room.
Jude stretched and ran a self-assessment: he was pleasantly sore, but yesterday’s sick headache was gone, thank goodness, as if a rusted valve had released. The absence of that pain was blissful. He stretched again and sat up, something in his lower back popping, realigning, adding to a belief that strengthened as the sun warmed his shoulders—he felt better than he had done in ages. That dense tangle at the centre of his chest was still there, he decided, but right now it felt different. Shifted, perhaps, rather than gone. Unravelling. Maybe he’d have to live with it forever, along with the loss that had lodged it in place, but as he got up to look out of the window, he noticed another startling difference.
He could breathe around it; could take in the view without the knot of guilt at its core reminding him to blame himself for its existence.
Yes, he could breathe now that he knew his parents had been happy—with him, and with their final journey.
That was still hard to believe, so he drew in another small breath, testing, and yes, that one was easier, as well. He drew in one more breath, inhaling deeper this time as he took in the view of the bay. Today, the compulsion to scan the horizon didn’t tug at his heart as usual. Now, only sparse tendrils of that desperate feeling remained, like this morning’s sea mist that left the bay below mysterious and lovely. Ships passed through misty patches in the distance. Tankers maybe, like Trevor navigated around the far side of the planet, or trawlers perhaps, like Carl’s fishing vessel, earning a much more local living. Some yachts scudded between misty strands too. Before, he would have wished for Tom’s binoculars to check if their sails billowed above the One for Luck. Now, all he wanted to see this morning was the man who’d made him ache in such a good way.
He turned as the door between their rooms opened a few more inches, a freshly showered Rob checking before he swung it open. “I take back everything that I said about being awful in a past life,” he teased, his gaze making a lingering descent of Jude’s body. “I must have been bloody amazing,” he said under his breath before crossing to the window. “But let’s have none of that staring-at-nothing nonsense today, sailor.” He closed the curtains before inspecting Jude from up close. “And let’s have much more of this, instead.” He cupped Jude’s face and kissed him, quietly serious as he asked, “How are you doing?”
“Fine.” That weight in his chest shifted again when Rob raised a single eyebrow and Jude recalled almost needing carrying up the hill last night, like one of the weeping toddlers they’d passed on their way down.
Rob was close enough to read that shift in his expression, his voice a low warning vibration that Jude felt as well as heard. “And let’s have none of that virtually silent nonsense either.” His next kiss defined softness. “Tell me how you’re really feeling.”
“Honestly, much better.” Jude did. This easy breathing was addictive, considering he hadn’t noticed how treading emotional water used to leave him constantly winded. He tested it again with another deep breath, then tried to verbalise the difference. “I used to wake up feeling like I’d taken a kick to the ribs. They ached, you know?” He continued before Rob could answer, and