“Me too.” Calum gulped ale to disperse the lump in his throat. His own parents had never truly understood him, but they’d accepted his sexuality with barely a blink. He couldn’t imagine his mild-mannered father reacting with anything more than a quiet nod. “What happened next?”
“Nothing for a year or so, then all the gender stuff started fucking with my head. Something clicked, then I read about gender dysphoria on the internet. It was like seeing my soul on my computer screen, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It wasn’t that I wanted to dress like a girl—I was a girl, you know? I went to my GP, but they wouldn’t help me until I turned eighteen, and even then, they kinda forced me to tell my parents.”
Grim dread took hold in Calum’s gut. He knew where Lee’s tale was going, and by now she seemed to speaking to herself as much as him.
“My dad threw me out on the spot. Said I’d done it on purpose to embarrass him. I can remember the conversation like it was yesterday. I sat on a table outside the post office all day, thinking he’d calm down, but then the village lads came after me with bats and pipes. He’d paid them fifty quid to chase me to the coach station in the next town over.”
“Jesus.” Calum blew out a breath. “How long ago was this?”
“Three years, give or take. It took me a month to wash up down here in my sister’s neck of the woods, though. I tried London first, but it wasn’t for me.”
“It ain’t for everyone.” Looking at Lee now, Calum saw the faint clues he’d missed before—her tiny Adam’s apple and the straight lines of her body.
Lee downed the last of her vodka and picked up Calum’s pint. “Brix is a good boss and a good mate, by the way, in case you were worried about how working for him is going to affect your friendship. He cooked me dinner every night for a week when I had my appendix out.”
“No, I brought you dinner every night. Never said I’d cooked it all.” Brix appeared at Lee’s shoulder and eyed the detritus of the drinks Calum and Lee had put away. “Seems like I’ve got some catching up to do. Your sister’s here, though. Want me to take her Rocky?”
“Nah, I’ll do it.”
Lee and Brix disappeared, Brix to the bar, and Lee to the car park to deliver Rocky, the world’s quietest dog, to her sister.
Brix returned first, laden with enough whiskey and vodka to make Calum’s eyes water. “Lee been telling you her life story?”
Calum nodded and struggled to make his tongue work, belatedly realising how drunk he was. Oops. “She told me you’re her knight in shining armour too.”
Brix snorted. “Hardly. I just saw a kid who deserved better. She got this far on her own. Stubborn little git, that one.”
That Calum could believe. “I like her.”
“You should. She’s an amazing artist. I’ve been trying to persuade her to put her ink on canvas for years, but she won’t have it.”
“That’s ’cause I don’t fucking want to, douche bag. Skin is my canvas, just like it’s yours.” Lee reclaimed her seat with her trademark scowl firmly in place. “Are we ditching this shithole, or what?”
Brix necked a whiskey. “To go where? The Slug and Lettuce with all the chavs? I’m too old for that, love. So is Cal.”
“I’m not as old as you,” Calum slurred. “Definitely too drunk, though. I wanna kebab.”
Brix laughed. “In Porthkennack? On a Sunday? Dude, you can’t even buy a bag of sugar after nine o’clock.”
Calum frowned, so attuned to London’s twenty-four-hour world that he couldn’t picture one where he couldn’t get a kebab at—he glanced at his watch—nine fifteen. “I don’t want any sugar, but I do need a piss. Where’s the bog?”
Brix pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “By the dartboard.”
“Ta.” Calum hiccupped and stood. The warm rush of too much booze swept over him, but instead of the black shame he’d endured when he’d downed the rum on the train, this buzz was good—really good—and the long-neglected devil in him wanted to drink a hell of a lot more.
He found the gents’ toilets and relieved himself. After, he washed his hands in the tiny sink and stared at himself in the cracked mirror. His eyes were bloodshot from a bellyful of ale and whiskey, but for the first time in days he felt human. Lucky me.
Calum returned to the table to find Lee getting ready to leave.
“She’s off to the chav hole,” Brix said by way of explanation. “Wants to drink bubble-gum vodka and listen to bad house music.”
“Oh.” Calum tried to hide his distaste, but apparently failed as Lee rolled her eyes and punched his arm.
“I’m going to meet my missus, thank you very much. You’re just jealous, both of you, ’cause you ain’t getting any.”
Brix looked away, apparently distracted by gathering their empty glasses into a neat stack. Calum merely shrugged. He and Rob hadn’t had sex in months, which made sense now he knew for sure that Rob had been getting fucked elsewhere. ’Cause you weren’t man enough to do it, remember?
The lull in Calum’s black mood evaporated. He reached for his drink and necked it, feeling the warm ale gurgle down into his stomach. Suddenly, stumbling back to Brix’s cottage and passing out in his borrowed bed seemed like the best idea ever. Perhaps he didn’t need another drink after all.
Maybe sensing the shift in Calum, Brix drank up too, stood, and pulled Lee’s hat sideways. “Who are you meeting? Just Vicky?”
Lee righted her hat. “And her sister, and yes, we’re walking home together. Jeez. Don’t go all mother hen on me now. You’ve had all night.”
Brix pulled a face, clearly unrepentant. “Come on. I’ll walk you to the dirt hole, then I better get Mr. Pisshead home.”
“Hey.” Calum stood up, but coherent thought abandoned him as he began the complicated task of shrugging into his coat, and he could think of nothing else to say.
They took their glasses to the bar and left the pub, stepping outside into the brisk air. Calum shivered, for some reason feeling the cold more than he had that morning up on the cliffs. “Where are we going?”
“Home,” Brix said. “With a quick detour on the way. That cool?”
“Yeah, I’m cool.”
Brix chuckled. “Yes, you are. Coolest motherfucker I’ve ever known. You’re the only one don’t know that shit.”
He turned away before Calum could formulate a sensible response, and they set off in the direction of the seafront, Lee arm-in-arm between Calum and Brix, sandwiched protectively, though she seemed the least drunk of all of them, despite her petite frame.
“You got hollow legs, or something?” Calum stumbled slightly. “I’m pissed as a fart over here.”
“It’s the air,” Brix said. “You’ll always get arseholed quicker by the sea if you’re not used to it.”
Lee giggled. “What’s your excuse then? You’re as twatted as him.”
“I’m not used to drinking. I’m usually a good boy, remember?”
“Old git, more like,” Lee said. “You should see him and Kim, Calum. They look like hooligans, but they’d rather make jam with the old ladies than come out on the raz.”
That wasn’t the Brix that Calum remembered, but he’d learned long ago that there were better ways of having fun than pissing it up every night. Not that he’d had much fun in recent memory. “I like jam.”
“Good,” Brix said. “And you, squirt . . . watch your lip. You know Kim don’t drink, and you know why. Everyone’s got their shit. They don’t need you mouthing off about it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Lee poked her tongue out, apparently less offended by Brix’s reprimanding than she’d been in the pub.
Calum watched the exchange. It wasn’t the first time Brix had alluded to the fact that Lee wasn’t the only one at Blood Rush with a tale to tell. Sober Calum would’ve been curious, but drunk Calum had little capacity for much more than putting one foot in front of the other.
They reached the seafront and the strip that held the town’s scattering of tour
ist-friendly nightlife. Lee kissed Calum’s cheek, then threw her arms around Brix’s neck in a hug that was warmer than anything he’d seen from her so far.
“I’ll text you when I’m home. You’ll be asleep, but it’ll be there when you wake up, I promise.”
“That’s my girl.” Brix held Lee tightly, and she was probably the only adult Calum had ever seen disappear in his slim arms. “Be safe, yeah? No scrapping.”
“Yes, Dad.”
Lee pulled away and smirked in one last show of insolence before she waved and skipped up the steps to the packed bar.
Calum watched her melt into the crowd. “Think she’ll be okay?”
“I’d imagine so. Her girlfriend is a rugby player from Leicester. I wouldn’t fuck with either of them.”
“Doesn’t seem to stop you worrying, though?”
Brix shrugged and turned his gaze to the distant sea. “Not much does when you get to my ripe old age.”
“You’re thirty-three,” Calum scoffed. “That’s no age.”
“Isn’t it? My granddad didn’t make fifty.”
“Don’t mean you won’t make a hundred.” Calum shuddered, unwilling to imagine a world without Brix. “Is this why you don’t drink much? ’Cause it makes you morbid?”
Brix said nothing. Calum nudged him. “You okay?”
“Hmm? What? Oh, yeah, I’m okay. Just can’t handle my beer, is all. Good job we don’t have far to stagger home, eh?” Brix’s grin fell flat. Calum held his gaze for a long moment, until Brix shivered against the cold wind. “Come on. I need my bed.”
They drifted back to the cottage. Brix let them in and tossed his keys on the side. “There’s a spare set in the drawer by the fridge. Take them so you can get in and out when I’m not about.”
“Why? You going somewhere?”
“Not often, but you don’t want to be stuck with me all the time, do you?”
Or perhaps Brix didn’t want to be stuck with him. “Jesus, Calum. You’re about as interesting as my nan’s couch sometimes.” “Okay. Thanks.”
“No worries. Actually, now I think about it. I won’t be around tomorrow for a while. Will you be okay going to the studio on your own?”
“I’m not in till two.”
“Ah, that’s right. You’ve got the cover-up?”
“Apparently. I haven’t seen it, though.”
“Well, consider your price carefully when you do.”
“I know, I know.” Calum recalled Brix’s views on cover-ups. Tattoos gone wrong through poor artistry got done for free. Bad choices on the part of the client—like a holiday tat of a wonky ball sac—got charged the earth. “Where are you going? Anywhere nice?”
“Nope.”
Fair enough. “Is it bad that I feel like another drink?”
“I reckon you’ll think so in the morning, but there’s some of my dad’s scrumpy around here somewhere if you’re game?”
“Scrumpy? Is it worse than what you gave me in London?”
“I’d say so. Dangerous stuff. Can’t remember a thing if I have too much of it.”
“Sounds like my kind of drink.”
“Does it?” Brix opened the door to the cellar and ducked inside, reappearing a moment later with a plastic container of what looked like a dark urine sample. “What do you want to forget, Cal?”
Calum shrugged. “Nothing specific.”
“Ah.” Brix nodded like Calum’s vague nonanswer made perfect sense. “Wanna forget who you are for a while, eh? I get that.”
“Doubt it,” Calum said. “Seems to me that you’ve got everything in place down here. Ink, mates, family. The perfect life.”
“Nothing’s ever perfect. All that shit you just said . . . it’s a house of cards, nothing more. You can’t count on anything ’cept yourself, and even that’s a bonehead idea.” Brix turned away abruptly and opened a cupboard, retrieving glasses that were smaller than Calum expected for sharing a bottle of cider. “Come on. You’ll want to be on the couch for this.”
Calum followed Brix to the living room and obediently sat on the sofa. Brix claimed the other end and opened the scrumpy.
“Me and my brother used to call this Scrumpty-Dumpty when we were kids. I drew a drunken egg as a logo, and we sold it at the bottom of our drive every summer. My dad let us keep half the money.”
Calum leaned forward, fascinated, and accepted a tumbler of amber cider. “Who sells it now?”
“No one. Abel’s banged up, remember? And my dad doesn’t make so much these days. Too busy spending all his dosh on the horses.”
“You’ve never told me why Abel went to prison.”
“I know.” Brix took a long, slow swallow of cider. “I never told anyone back in London, ’cause it felt like if I kept quiet, it wouldn’t be real, even though Abel was closer to me there than he is now. Stupid, eh?”
“Not really. You can be right next to someone and worlds apart.”
“True that. I guess it depends how deep you bury your soul, and how deep the person beside you is prepared to go looking. What do you make of the scrumpy?”
Calum took Brix’s abrupt subject change at face value and let Abel Lusmoore go. He wasn’t in the business of forcing people to talk about stuff they didn’t want to. Fuck no. He reached for the cider and took a drink. Instant fire burned down his throat and set his insides alight. “Bloody hell!”
Brix laughed, his brooding of moments before all but gone. “My nan used to say it was like swallowing sunbeams, but Dad didn’t make it as strong back then. These days, he sets a batch to brew, then forgets all about it till the barrel’s about to blow.”
Calum believed it. He took another swig, absorbing the roiling heat. It reminded him of another heady burn, one he hadn’t felt for—
“Jesus. It’s got you already.”
“What?” Calum opened his eyes to find Brix watching him, clearly amused. “I’m okay.”
“Oh, I know you are. I remember the look on your face right now. Means you’re gonna fall asleep smiling.”
Calum snorted. “I doubt it. Ain’t done much of that lately.”
“You’d be surprised. I reckon you smile most when you don’t know you’re doing it.”
Calum sat back, prepared to take Brix’s word for it, but then Brix jumped up with more grace than Calum could ever hope to have and went to the cabinet by the window. He pulled out a battered photo album Calum had long forgotten and brought it to the couch.
“Proof,” he said by way of explanation, his words heavy and slurred, like his own skinful had caught up with him. “Let’s find us happy.”
Curious, Calum forced himself upright and scooted along the couch. In his drunken stupor, he overshot and bumped into Brix, who didn’t appear to notice, or feel the jolt of electricity where their knees touched. Calum swallowed. Damn. Must be the scrumpy. Fuck it. He took another deep swallow. “Show me the happy.”
Brix gulped more scrumpy, then opened the album, flipping forward a few pages until he came to what Calum recognised as Brix’s converted warehouse flat in Camden, the scene of many a rowdy party. Calum couldn’t count the long summer nights he’d spent on Brix’s balcony, talking, drinking, smoking, all to the soundtrack of Brix’s huge music library.
“Makes me want a spliff,” Calum said.
Brix sighed. “Me too, but I gave the fags up, and the weed. Gotta be clean. Don’t even drink much anymore, believe it or not.”
“Why? Not that it’s a bad thing, I guess.” Calum reached for his scrumpy, trying to ignore the irony.
Brix did the same, draining his glass. “Living hard caught up with me. Can we leave it at that?”
Calum frowned. “Of course, but . . .” Is that why you left? For some reason, his voice fell away before the words became real.
“Here you are.” Brix passed the photo album over. “That was your missus, wasn’t it? Can’t remember her name.”
“Lucy.” Calum glanced at the photo absently, his mind still on Brix’s crypt
ic explanation. He was missing something huge. Had to be. His family aside, Brix had never been one for secrets.
“Have you had any girlfriends since her?”
“What?”
“Since Lucy. I remember you banging a few blokes, but I always figured you’d end up with a bird. You seemed so comfortable with them.”
“Not really.” Calum turned a few pages until he came to a photo of Brix sitting on a bench outside the Camden studio, his clothes grungier than he seemed to favour these days, and his hair held back with a gothic bandana. “I’d just never met a bloke who wanted to do more than fuck.”
Brix poured more scrumpy. “They’re hard to find.”
“What about Jordan? I thought you two would go the distance.”
“I don’t want to talk about Jordan.”
Fuck. Calum’s inebriation had obscured the warning lights flashing around Jordan. Did Brix know what had become of him? Last Calum had heard, Jordan had moved to Amsterdam.
He turned another page. Brix moved closer to peer over his shoulder. Warmth where they touched seared through Calum, eclipsing even the scrumpy-induced burn in his gut. “I’m—er—still looking for the happy.”
“It’s there. Keep going.”
They were about ten pages in when Brix let out a low hoot. “And there it is. Game, set, and match to me. Happy Calum, grinning away to himself like no one’s watching.”
Calum stared at the photo of himself, circa 2009, all dodgy jeans and faded band T-shirts, his hair cropped short in an ill-advised buzz cut. “What a tool.”
“Aw, don’t be a dick. You’re happy. Look.”
Calum looked again and couldn’t deny it. He had no recollection of the night the photo had been taken, but his carefree smile was so genuine it seemed to belong to someone else. “Did you take the photo?”
Brix shrugged. “Maybe. I always had that old Nikon knocking around that flat, and you were my favourite subject.”
“Was I?”
Brix’s grin turned sheepish, and he flipped forward a few more pages, all of them crammed with image after image of Calum smiling to himself, clearly off his nut, or staring into space like a gormless idiot.
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