“Me and Kim rescued them from my fella’s old flat in London. He’d forgotten he had them.”
“You got lucky. That’s Pam Nash, isn’t it?”
“Aye. We’ve got some Les Skuse in the back too. Want to see?”
More than he knew, but the thought of barging, uninvited, into yet another part of Kim’s life felt all wrong. I regretfully shook my head. Brix grinned wryly and looked as though he would disappear back inside the studio, but his path was suddenly blocked.
Red. She smiled at me. “You’ve kept me waiting.”
“That so? Didn’t know you were expecting me.”
“Then you don’t know much at all.” She put her hands on her hips. “Did you think I’d let you take such fantastic pictures of me without saying thank you?”
It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d want to thank me—at least, not in person. The band’s manager had paid my invoice ten minutes after I’d sent it, and I’d considered the transaction complete. “You don’t need to thank me. You and the band made my job easy.”
The band. Right. I’d taken hundreds of images that night, but only Red’s stuck in my mind, and I got the feeling that she knew it as her smile morphed into something close to a smirk. “Come inside,” she said. “Unless you fancy a coffee next door?”
I said goodbye to a clearly amused Brix, and chose the coffee, though I made a mental note to return to Blood Rush one day and have a butcher’s inside. Even without the promise of more vintage photographs, the place was fascinating.
“So . . .” Red said when she’d hustled me to a table at the back of the café next door to the studio. “I think I owe you an apology.”
I stirred way too much sugar into my espresso. “How’d you work that out?”
“I walked in on you and Kim like I owned the place, and I shouldn’t have.”
“So, why did you?” Kim had already explained it in far more detail than I was entitled to, but for some reason, I needed to hear it from her.
Red shrugged. “He was mine to walk in on whenever I liked for so long, I sometimes forget that he’s not anymore. And it’s not often that he has reason to care whether I walk in or not.”
“’Cause you join in? Shit, sorry. That was rude.”
“Not at all, but you’re wrong, as it goes. Kim and I had an open relationship, but we never played at home, and Kim still doesn’t.”
I took a slow, scalding sip of my oversweetened coffee. “He’s told me a little bit about it, but it’s not really any of my business.”
“Unless you want it to be.”
It wasn’t a question, but I turned it over in my mind as I watched Red’s elegant throat work as she swallowed a sip of herbal tea. “I’m not sure either of us is ready for anything more than we’ve already had. We’re friends . . . kind of.”
“Kim has enough friends.”
“So? There’s no room for a little one?”
Red put her elbows on the table. “Okay, real talk now. You know what I’m trying to say, even though Kim would bloody kill me if he knew I was sticking my oar in like this. Look, Jas, please . . . don’t judge Kim by something you don’t understand. He deserves better than that. I’d imagine you both do.”
“I haven’t judged him.” But as the words left my mouth, I remembered that they weren’t true, because I had judged Kim, and her, from the moment I’d realised that their sexual relationship wasn’t entirely over.
Like she’d read my mind—seen through my unintentional lie—she leaned forward. “We’re not promiscuous, Jasper. It’s just a different way of living.”
The way she said my name did odd things to the jacked-up coffee in my stomach. For a brief, bizarre moment, I wanted to grip her chin and implore her to listen to me, but I said nothing. Just stared, like the idiot I was, until I found my tongue. “Kim and I are friends, and I don’t judge him for anything. I admire him, actually. He’s like no one I’ve ever known.”
“Then you should probably tell him that. His opinion of himself sometimes needs a little bolstering.”
“And you can’t do that?”
“Don’t make me kick you under this table, because I bloody will.”
I didn’t doubt it for a second as I raised my hands in surrender. “When I see him next, I’ll tell him, I promise.”
Not that I had any idea when that would be. I’d thought about calling Kim a thousand times, but I hadn’t. And he hadn’t called me. Perhaps it was a sign to let sleeping dogs lie—
Red kicked me sharply in the shin with her purple Doc Martens. “Don’t be a dick. Kim’s my best friend and I won’t give him up for anyone, but he’s never looked at me the way I’ve seen him looking at you. Don’t waste that, because you have no idea how lucky you are.”
The screech of metal on tile was abrupt as Red pushed back her chair and stomped out of the coffee shop. The couple on the next table turned to stare. I glowered back at them, though it wasn’t long before I lost my nerve and found my empty cup suddenly fascinating.
I scraped at a few stubborn grains of sugar with a teaspoon, willing the burn in my cheeks to fade. Blushing wasn’t my bag, but it had been a long time since a woman had ripped me a new one over a cup of coffee. And what to do about it? My encounter with Red hadn’t changed the fact that I was still too busy sulking about Rich to give Kim the attention he deserved, nor did it mean his relationship with Red was really done. Nah. Kim was right: being mates was the best thing for everyone.
After downing another brutal shot of coffee, I tramped back home and got on with my work, and by the evening, the pharmaceutical project was done. I uploaded all the files to the company web transfer and shut up shop for the night. I fancied a pint, but logic told me that the pub was the last place I’d find Kim, so I got in my car and drove out to the commune.
And as luck would have it, Kim was at the end of the path, loading up the bumper-sized recycling bin. I pulled up and wound down the passenger window. “Searching for scraps?”
“Chucking them out, more like.” Kim let the bin lid drop and hopped down onto the grass verge. “What brings you out here?”
“Looking for you. Didn’t think I’d find you in the Sea Bell.”
“You’d be surprised, actually. I spend as much time in there as I do my ma’s house.”
“It’s not triggering for you?”
Kim shrugged. “Nah, being home alone triggers me.”
“Home alone now?”
“Yup.”
I leaned over and opened the door. “Get in.”
Life was never simple. Kim apparently had a flock of chickens to round up before he could go anywhere, a task that was, after many summers at Belly Acre, familiar. I helped guide a couple of dozen birds into hen houses that wouldn’t have been out of place in Camden Town. “Damn. You made these?”
“Apparently. I was off the wagon at the time.”
Looking more closely at the paintwork on the nearest wooden structure, it showed. The chaotic colour held none of the calm beauty of Kim’s usual pieces. “Still pretty good, though. Every cloud, eh?”
Kim rolled his eyes and bolted the doors on both hen houses. “If you say so. I only kept them because they were gonna get covered in shit anyway.”
And . . . but he didn’t elaborate, leaving me to assume that the reminder of rock-bottom was a perversely positive thing to have around.
I nudged him. “Ready?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah . . . sure. Where are we going?”
I had no idea, but it didn’t seem to matter as we got in my car and hit the road, chasing the fading sun as it sank into the horizon. If I’d been alone, I’d have followed it to the beach and shot a lonely long exposure, but I hadn’t sought Kim out to ditch him for my camera, so I drove instead to the highest point in Porthkennack and parked up at the cliff edge.
Kim took his seat belt off and tipped his seat back. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That this is my favourite place to be
when I feel like this?”
“I don’t know how you feel.”
“No?” Kim closed his eyes. “Coulda fooled me.”
I let him be for a while, entertained enough by the sunset that was fast becoming a stormy night sky. My hand found its way to Kim’s leg and lay there, passive and available. I had no idea how much time had passed when he finally took it and laced our fingers together. He didn’t speak, and I didn’t care. Silence was my thing. I enjoyed it, I craved it, and a Porthkennack silence was a special thing indeed.
We were in total darkness by the time Kim let out a soft sigh. “Lena came to see me earlier. Said she shouted at you in Becky’s.”
It took me a moment to pair my encounter with Red to the name of the coffee shop beside Blood Rush. “There wasn’t much shouting. She did boot me one, though.”
“Shit. Sorry. She’s got a bee in her bonnet about me being a terminal bachelor.”
The theory didn’t quite match with the free-loving lifestyle I’d come to associate with Kim and Red. I said as much, and Kim chuckled darkly. “All the fuck-hot sex in the world doesn’t stop you being lonely.”
“I’d settle for the fuck-hot sex.”
“I don’t give you that?”
Silence. I wondered if Kim might zone out again, but he didn’t. He squeezed my hand and fixed me with a gaze that made the tempestuous night brewing outside fade to nothing. “I fuck Lena because she’s my safe place, whether we bring anyone else along for the ride or not. Being with you is different.”
“Different?”
“Yeah. I don’t fuck you because I want to . . . It’s because I need to, and I don’t know how I’m going to give that up.”
“So don’t. We both need a friend and we both need to fuck, right?”
I said it with a grin, but the humour was loaded, and Kim looked away. “You do realise we spend way too much time talking about this, don’t you?”
“Not especially. I’m hoping we’ll figure it all out one day soon.”
“Me too. You’re on my mind a lot, which is probably why Lena came after you. She worries about me when I’m quiet.”
“She didn’t come after me.”
“No?” Kim treated me to another intense stare. “What the fuck happened, then? ’Cause I didn’t exactly give her a chance to explain.”
“I was talking to Brix outside the studio. She came out, and we went next door for a coffee. I’m sure she’s told you the rest.”
“Only that she was a dick.”
“She wasn’t a dick.”
“Her words, not mine.” Kim smiled tiredly. “Argue the toss with her.”
“No, thanks. I’m still bruised from losing the last round.” I rubbed my thumb over Kim’s tattooed knuckles. “For what it’s worth, though, I think she just wants you to be happy.”
Kim sighed. “Oh, I know that. I guess I’m a bit depressed. It happens now and then, especially when something good happens in my life. Weird, eh?”
Being mildly miserable had become my baseline, so I had to take his word for it. Besides, speculating about the new positivity in his life was distracting, though I wasn’t anywhere near optimistic enough to believe it could be me. “Would it help if we fucked on the car bonnet?”
“Probably. Bit cold for alfresco nookie, though.”
He had me there. “Listen—”
“Look—” he said at the same time, turning to face me.
“Go on,” I said.
He shrugged. “It’s stupid when I say it out loud.”
“Not as stupid as what I was about to say.”
“You should go first, then.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to refuse, but the sad fire in Kim’s eyes had faded a touch, perhaps lightened by my awkward attempts at humour, and the reckless numbnut in me figured I had nothing to lose. “This friends thing we’ve got going on. Any chance we could add in some, uh—”
“Benefits?”
I tightened my grip on his hand. “For lack of a better word, yeah. I mean, everything we said before still stands, but it feels kinda wrong to ignore . . . whatever this is completely.”
“Sounds like the kind of shit we could talk about for another week.”
“Or not. I haven’t seen you since we went to the big smoke.”
Kim sighed again. “That’s because you fucking scare me.”
“Me? How?”
“By looking at me and seeing the bloke I was meant to be before I ballsed it all up. I forget, sometimes, when I’m with you, that the rest of it ever happened.”
I couldn’t begin to understand the weight behind his words. Instead I turned in my seat and gripped his chin with my spare hand in much the same way I’d imagined myself gripping Red’s earlier. “Then be with me . . . as my friend.”
“A friend with benefits? ’Cause it seems like that’s all my junkyard heart is good for these days.”
The reference to the commune made me smile, though the sentiment made me want to weep. I hooked my hand behind his neck and pulled him close, knowing that I had to speak before we kissed, because the moment our lips met, my mind would be devoid of all else, of all reason, of anything except the way Kim felt in my arms.
I sucked in a shaky breath and dragged my thumb over his cheekbone. “Your heart isn’t junk to me, Kim.”
You’d think that after spending all evening talking about it, we’d have spent the rest of the night fucking. We didn’t. After a kiss that went on far longer than any in my adult life, I drove Kim home and left him at the end of the path that led to the commune.
And tried not to wonder if there’d be a light on in his trailer when he walked into the orchard, because as much as I wanted to deny it, I was still too intrigued by the idea of Kim and Red together—her curves against his slender bones. To me, he was a dominant lover. Was he the same with her? Or did he lie at her mercy? And why did it even matter? Kim was Kim, and if we had any chance of making our own brand of friendship work, I had to accept that. I wanted to accept it, and I did.
I was curious, though, which outweighed my brief period of jealousy. And I wanted to know Red better, know the woman Kim couldn’t give up. All I had to do was find a way to spend time with her without getting booted in the shin.
A few days after Kim and I had been to the cliffs, I met him at Belly Acre Farm. He’d come to see the progress in the barn, and I’d pretty much ditched everything to be there to show him around, a turn of events that amused my brothers to no end.
“You’re blatantly shagging him,” Gaz said. “Can’t think of another reason you’d be mooning around at the gatepost.”
I gave him the finger, unwilling to admit that he’d caught me loitering at the top of the driveway doing just that. “Perhaps he’s blatantly shagging me.”
Predictably, Gaz cringed and wandered off. Nicky, a few years younger and far less freaked out by the idea of man sex, wasn’t so easily dismissed. “Is he doing the doors as well as the furniture?”
“No idea. Ask Dad.”
Nicky leaned on the fence beside me. “You know he’s got a girlfriend, right?”
“Dad has? Damn, that mean you’ve got another illegitimate sibling on the way?”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“Don’t you be a dick. If you’re talking about Kim, don’t bother. I know about him and Red.”
“Who the fuck’s Red? I’m talking about Lena Gordon. Her and Kim have been together for years, everyone knows.”
I snorted. “Everyone knows? Since when did everyone know anything about anyone? Grow up, Nicky.”
“Suit yourself.” Nicky pushed himself off the fence as a vehicle engine rumbled at the end of the driveway. “Just saying what I heard.”
He walked away, leaving me to feel bad about being such a prick. I hadn’t had many relationships, but every other bisexual I’d known had suffered through the same thing—the insistence from society that you had to choose one way or the other, that you couldn’t commit to another soul
without drawing a line under your sexuality, and that all men who claimed to swing both ways were likely living the same life as Rich.
Briefly, I felt bad for Rich too, because there was no doubt in my mind that his lovely wife had no idea that he liked a bit of cock on the side, but that shit didn’t last long. I was learning to curb the negativity that came with any thought of Rich, but he wasn’t getting my sympathy. Fuck no.
A Fiat 500 pulled up in front of me. I couldn’t contain my amusement as Kim practically fell out the driver door. “I don’t think I’ve seen you drive the same car twice. Don’t tell me this is yours?”
Kim laughed, regaining his trademark grace as he straightened up. “It’s Lena’s. She’s leaving it with me when she goes back to Bristol, so I figured I should get used to driving it.”
“It’s pink.”
“I know. It’s my punishment for tipping her Golf convertible into a ditch when I was pissed.”
“Oh. When was this?”
“A long time ago. I only got my licence back last month.”
Sometimes I chose to forget the destruction Kim’s addiction must have wreaked on those around him. I waited until he got close enough and then pulled him in for a quick hug, brushing his cheek with a kiss. “It suits you, the pink, I mean. Not many blokes could own it.”
“You could.”
“Thanks.”
Kim shrugged. “You’re the coolest motherfucker I’ve ever known.”
He thinks I’m cool? As hard as I tried, I couldn’t quite believe it. I was a nerd—tied to my computer when I wasn’t surgically attached to my camera—and no match for the mellow poise that rolled off Kim. “So . . . you wanna see the barn?”
“Lead on.”
I took Kim to the barn, which, minus the furniture and some new doors, was well on its way to being finished. The kitchen was up and running too.
Kim sniffed the air. “Pasties?”
“You Porthkennack boys can smell them a mile off, eh?”
Kim’s grin concurred. I rolled my eyes and meandered to the kitchen to swipe him one from the plate Laura was bound to have left out for inevitable thieving fingers.
Junkyard Heart (Porthkennack Book 7) Page 8