“To a charity? Nah. Ain’t got it in me, mate.”
I couldn’t think of a sensible solution, and from the slump of Kim’s shoulders, neither could he. “Is there nowhere you can get more wood from?”
“Today?” Kim shook his head. “The only way is to collect it ourselves, but even if I pull all the guys from the workshop, it’ll take all day, and we don’t have the time to lose.”
“I can help? The guys can keep working and—”
“Thanks, but you and me can’t bring in enough on our own.”
“No one else can help?”
Kim shrugged, and the problem was suddenly obvious. There were people who could—who would—help; he just didn’t want to ask. “Brix is off today. Calum too. Why don’t you call them?”
“How d’you know what Brix is up to?”
“Lee told me.”
“Yeah? What else did she tell you?”
“Nothing. I got the feeling she didn’t like me.”
“Don’t mind her. She’s a spiky motherfucker, but she’s got a good heart.”
That was something I’d have to see to believe. “All your friends seem nice. Why won’t you ask them for help?”
Kim shrugged. “They help me enough already.”
“How?”
“How do you think?”
“I don’t think anything, mate. That’s why I’m asking.”
Kim sighed again and kicked a lump of wood. “It ain’t easy to ask folk to help you when they’ve spent years carrying your sorry arse. I wouldn’t have a home if it wasn’t for Brix, or Lena. He gave her half the studio when I’d screwed up so bad we had nothing. She gave it back last year, but how the fuck am I supposed to ask him to collect driftwood on the beach for me when he’s already given me so much?”
I had no answer to that, and not for the first time, it struck me that I had much to learn about Kim and the effect his addiction had on his day-to-day life, even when he was dry. “Look, I’m not going to pretend that I know how all this makes you feel, but the way I see it, you have two choices: ask your friends for help, or tell my dad you’re going to be late. Whatever you do, you’ve got to reach out to someone, and there’s no shame in that. You’re human, Kim, not a bloody machine.”
The last sentence came out harsher than I’d intended, and Kim raised an eyebrow. “You sound like Lena.”
“Good. She had your back, now I’ve got it. So what are you going to do?”
Being late was apparently not an option, so Kim begrudgingly called Brix, who turned up at the workshop ten minutes later, with a man I presumed to be Calum.
Brix greeted me with a nod. “I’ll walk with you, if you want? Cal’s better with Kim when he’s in this mood.”
Fair enough. Brix drove his van down to the beach, and we set to work collecting sand-dried driftwood. Like Kim, Brix didn’t say a lot, but I enjoyed his company, and eagerly absorbed every insight of Kim he let slip.
Not that he told me much that I didn’t already know, something I absently voiced when we came to a stop by the rocks.
“Ah, I see.” Brix glanced behind us to where Kim and Calum were dragging huge lumps of wood back to the van. “You’re trying to figure out how to handle him, aren’t you?”
“Handle him? Nah, I just don’t know how to be there for him when he’s like this.”
Brix said nothing for a moment, focussing instead on shoving wood into the sack he carried, and then he straightened up and fixed me with a gaze that was a disarming mix of hope and sadness. “Kim’s a proud man. I don’t often know he’s been down until after the event. All I can say is keep him as close as he’ll let you, and don’t blame yourself if his demons get him anyway. You can’t control that shit any more than he can.”
“He told me he’s fucked everyone over at one time or other.”
Brix snorted. “It’s never gone down like that. The only help he’s had has been forced on him. He’s a bugger like that, and it drives me up the wall, which is why I leave him with Cal. That boy’s got the patience of a saint.”
The love in Brix’s gaze then made me feel like I was intruding on a private moment, even though Kim and Calum were too far away to feel the weight of Brix’s warm words.
We completed the rest of our wood forage in relative silence, catching up with Kim and Calum at the van. Calum, who I’d yet to speak to, approached me with a shy grin. “I think we’ve got enough. Brix is going to drive it back with Kim. Fancy a pint?”
Actually, I couldn’t imagine anything better, but guilt gnawed at my gut. Where was Kim’s relief? His quiet half hour to think of nothing but a soothing pint and gentle conversation—
“Go.” Kim elbowed me in the ribs. “I’ll find you later.”
“You sure?”
“Sure enough to deck you if you don’t do as you’re told.”
His tone left no room for argument, though the playful glint in his eye held a promise he’d make good on later. And I couldn’t deny that it felt good to see his light, easy way return.
Calum and I decamped to the Sea Bell, a pub that the Porthkennack locals claimed as their own.
“I still feel kinda weird in here,” Calum confessed. “Even when Brix is with me, they still look at me like I’m in my birthday suit.”
“That doesn’t change. If you weren’t born here, you’ll always be an emmet.”
Calum chuckled. “True that.”
We bought pints of Doom Bar and sat outside, despite the bitter breeze the ocean had kicked up since we’d left the beach. Calum was quiet, but it was different to the reticence that Kim and Brix carried like a second skin. Instead it seemed to be shyness that I hoped would fade as we sat together.
And fade, it did. Like me, Calum was a London boy, and it turned out that a similar clusterfuck had led us both home to Porthkennack.
“So your ex was an arsehole too?”
Calum nodded. “Something like that. He did me a favour in the end, though. I’m never going to be a native around here, but I’m more at home than I’ve ever been.”
I seconded that, though it was obvious Calum’s contentment stemmed from his relationship with Brix—that he’d have been happy anywhere as long as they were together—and envy crept through me as he talked. Would I ever have that with Kim? I was perilously close to falling in love with him, indelibly marked by the short time we’d already shared, but would he ever look at me like Brix looked at Calum? Would he ever trust me enough to share his burden?
And what about me? I’d dragged all my shit down to Porthkennack from the city, never stopping to think that I’d meet anyone to share it with. Rich had hurt me badly, but I knew now that what I’d felt for him had been a long way from love, and light years away from how I felt about Kim.
I loved Kim, and the realisation struck deep. Pain lanced my chest . . . and my heart. I loved Kim, and it would never matter if he loved me back, because how I felt about him was here, on its own, and it wasn’t going anywhere.
“Dude.” Calum’s dark gaze bore into me. “You’ve got it bad, eh?”
I didn’t have it in me to deny it. Didn’t want to. And I didn’t need to. Calum’s shrewd grin told me he already knew what was going on in my tiny brain.
“Be patient,” he said. “These Porthkennack boys are born thinking they don’t deserve to be happy, that anything good needs to cost blood, but they’re wrong. We love them, whether they let us or not. Just gotta wait for them to see it.”
Wise words, and I took them to heart as we found room for a few more ales.
That afternoon, I left my car at the workshop and raided the local shops for something to cook for dinner. Then I walked to the commune, musing that my relationship with Kim was fast becoming the most exercise I’d had in years, even without the fuck-hot sex.
In the trailer, Kim’s bed—still rumpled from the night before—was tempting, but I put off a nap in favour of knocking up one of the only proper meals I could cook: Laura’s famous fish pie.
&
nbsp; It was resting on the side when Kim finally came home that evening. I met him at the bottom of the steps, refraining from chastising him for being dead on his feet, and settling for a simple hug that he all but fell into.
“You smell of lemons,” he said.
I laughed, with relief more than anything, because it was a hell of a lot better than reeking of fish. “Come inside. I made dinner.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Kim said as I shoved a bowl of fish pie and peas his way. “It seemed too much to hope you’d be here when I got home.”
“Where else would I go?”
“Home? Your parents? On the piss with Calum? I’ve been such an arse all day, I can’t imagine why you’d want to be here.”
“Then you need to work on your imagination. Now eat your dinner.”
And eat his dinner he did, before he let me lead him to the shower, and then to bed, where I didn’t let him move a muscle as I rode him, making him come with a silent scream, before I spilled over his belly and coaxed him to sleep.
The next few days were spent drifting between Kim’s place and mine, juggling work and snatching a few hours with Kim when he wasn’t holed up in the workshop. It was tough, especially with the barn opening creeping ever closer, and it wasn’t long before I was as tired as him.
“Go home,” he said to me on Saturday morning. “Sleep. I love having you here, but I know you’ve got as much on as I have.”
That wasn’t entirely true, but I couldn’t deny that I had a backlog of admin to get through before I could start my next job. And I had a photography gig in Bristol that I had to prepare for, a two-night trip that I was dreading, despite the job being one I’d actively pursued. “Are you coming to the fair tomorrow?”
Kim shook his head. “I can’t. I’ve got too much to do. Jory and Calum are going to run my stall for me.”
“Jory?”
“From the studio.”
“Oh.”
I turned away, trying to hide my disappointment. I’d kind of counted on the autumn craft fair to be a day Kim could take away from the workshop, even if it did mean me standing in a field all day. Jesus. When was the bloke going to see daylight again?
Kim caught my arm. “Don’t be like that. I’m sorry, okay? I’m nearly done, I promise.”
“I know,” I said with a sigh. “Don’t mind me. I just miss you.”
Kim kissed me, effectively silencing any negativity brewing in my veins, chasing it down, and eclipsing it with the devilish twist of his tongue. I fell against him, kissing him back, then pulled away, pressing my forehead to his.
“Don’t forget to eat.”
“I won’t,” he said. “You too, though. I know how you get when you’re busy. We’re as bad as each other.”
I let him have that one. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow, after? If you finish in time.”
“Yeah . . . maybe. I’ll do my best.”
And that, it seemed, was as good as I was going to get for now. Reluctantly, I left him to it and went home, hitting my desk with a focussed fervour it had missed in recent days. Time slipped away from me, and it was dark when a knock at my door disturbed me hours later.
I ran to the door, hoping to find Kim, but it was Gaz, bearing an apron and a mischievous grin.
“You’ll be needing this tomorrow.”
“What the fuck for?”
“To run the stall with Mum. Me, Dad, and Nicky have got to see in a delivery from your fella; last but one, apparently.”
“And it takes four of you to see it in?”
“Aye, unless you want lover boy to unload it on his own? You know Dad can’t do it with his back.”
Dick. I knew I was lucky that my family was so accepting of my sexuality, but that didn’t make his shit-eating grin any less irritating, or the apron any easier to take. I booted Gaz out without offering him a beer, and skulked back to my computer. Stupid fucking craft fair. I’d been planning on photographing it and collating the images for the local magazine, not flogging chutney and jam. But I had little choice in the matter, and besides: there was no way I’d let Kim lug all those chairs to the barn on his own. If there was one thing my brothers were good for, it was hoofing shit around.
The next morning, I got up at the crack of dawn, which was easier than I’d have imagined without Kim’s warm presence to keep me in bed. I spent a few hours finalising my prep for my Bristol trip—packing, checking train times, charging a million batteries, and loading the software I used for my specialist drone onto my tablet—then I tied my dodgy apron on and drove to the farm that was hosting the last outdoor fair of the year.
I found Laura already there and halfway set up. I helped her finish, and then sloped off to find some breakfast. The smell of bacon lured me to a nearby stall and as luck would have it, past Kim’s stand, manned by Calum and a younger man I presumed to be Jory.
Calum waved. I nodded back and shouted that I’d drop by later if I got the chance, which was unlikely judging by the queue of vehicles lining up to get into the fair. Awesome.
It was midafternoon by the time warm arms slid around my waist, making me jump out of my skin.
“Jesus!”
Kim laughed. “Man, you’re such a dreamer. How have you never been mugged?”
“Piss off.” I waved a sticky jam spoon threateningly at him. “Maybe no fucker sees much worth taking, eh?”
“I don’t believe that.”
Kim’s gaze turned heated, and Laura cleared her throat, obviously amused. “Boys, behave. Why don’t you go and get a drink? I can manage here.”
It was a kind offer, but there was no way I was leaving her alone with the afternoon crowds. Besides, Kim had a stall of his own to check up on.
“Come for dinner after, then?” she asked Kim hopefully. “I’ve got enough lamb at the farm for the whole town.”
I waited for Kim to refuse, like he’d done everything else that week, but it seemed he was no more immune to Laura’s culinary kindness than anyone else. He left me with a promise to see me at dinnertime.
Later that evening, I still half expected him not to show up, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found him sitting in Laura’s kitchen with my dad. “Did you get all your work done?”
“Nope, but I’ve got seventy-two hours, right?”
My dad chuckled. “And then some. It doesn’t matter if there’s a few things missing, son. What you’ve delivered already is plenty.”
Kim rolled his eyes. “Jas said you’d say that.”
“That’s because we raised him to treat people like humans, not machines. If only he’d apply it to himself, eh?”
Dear God. It seemed Kim and I were both destined to have someone on our case at all times. I retreated to the stove to irritate Laura while Dad and Kim talked shop, and it wasn’t long before the rest of the world and his dog filed in for dinner.
The meal was loud and rowdy, the kind of occasion I usually just endured, but with Kim beside me, his hand on my leg, squeezing, I enjoyed every moment. And if the amount of food Kim put away was anything to go by, he did too. I tried not to consider it an indication of how little he’d eaten while I’d left him to his own devices.
After dinner, my dad cracked out his homemade plum brandy. I took that as our cue to leave and hustled Kim outside.
In the yard, I pushed him against my father’s Land Rover, hoping the taste of wine on my lips wouldn’t upset him.
It didn’t seem to. He kissed me back, then spun us around, slamming his body against me, pressing, grinding. “Come home with me?”
I groaned. “I can’t. I’ve got to get home so I can drive to Truro in the morning.”
“The Bristol thing?”
“Uh-huh,” I said regretfully. The best job I’d had since coming to Porthkennack seemed like the worst idea in the world with Kim’s cock digging into my thigh. “I’ve got to leave at eight.”
“Eight, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s plenty of time fo
r what I’ve got in mind, mate. Come on, let’s go.”
And by go he meant drive back to my place.
I let us in, almost shy as I dropped my keys in the bowl. No one outside of my immediate family had ever been inside my Porthkennack flat. “This is me.”
Kim glanced around. “Ain’t got much here, have you?”
“I left it all in London, remember? In bits?”
Kim nodded and continued his inspection while I chucked our coats in the cupboard and went to the kitchen for Jammie Dodgers and mugs of tea. It was just what I wanted, but Kim looked apologetic when I handed him his. “You can have a nightcap if you want, you know. Don’t deprive yourself on my account.”
“I’m not. I live on Jammie Dodgers and tea when Laura doesn’t send me a care package.”
“I don’t believe you. That fish pie you made was awesome.”
I laughed. “I’m glad you think so, because it’s the only thing I can cook, and it’s not something I’d ever cook for myself.”
“You should cook for yourself. It’s good for the soul.”
“Yeah? Done much cooking this week?”
“Piss off.”
I laughed again and let it go. The time for nagging had passed, and I just wanted to go to bed with him—to sleep, as much as anything. I’d missed him the night before, and I’d be missing him even more after tonight.
After giving Kim a brief tour, I led him to my bedroom where I ditched the tea and biscuits and set about stripping him. He returned the favour, and we crawled into bed, burying ourselves under the covers, hiding from the world as we reconnected in every way possible.
Kim took control, and I let him, giving myself willingly to whatever he wanted. He turned me onto my side and gently raised my leg, slipping into me from behind. The position was intimate, tender. My eyes fluttered as I came with a quiet gasp and felt another piece of my heart give itself over to all that was him.
My alarm woke me the next morning. I rolled over, instinctively searching for Kim, but found nothing but a cold space where he’d been the night before.
Disappointment flooded through me, though I wasn’t altogether surprised. Despite the awesomeness we’d ended on yesterday, Kim hadn’t been able to completely hide his agitation at being away from his work. And it was an agitation I understood, so how could I be angry with him? I couldn’t, and I wasn’t. Just a few more days and it would all be over, and then we could get back to building what we’d started.
Junkyard Heart (Porthkennack Book 7) Page 12