Calum didn’t get it. “Why me?”
Brix set the photo album aside and grasped Calum’s shoulders, shaking them slightly, his gaze sliding into an intensity that made Calum’s head spin. “Because I wanted to show you something you’d never see on your own. Cal, you’re fucking beautiful. Has no fucker ever told you that?”
The urge to be flippant was strong, but Brix’s eyes held Calum hostage, rendering him mute, and leaving him devoid of anything except a silent head shake.
Brix leaned closer and pressed their foreheads together, his lips just a hairsbreadth away. “Well, they should’ve, ’cause you are—”
Calum’s mouth found Brix’s in a soft, cider-flavoured kiss, a brush of lips that took him by surprise as much as it seemed to Brix, whose hands flew to Calum’s face, though he didn’t pull back. Their lips met again and again, the kiss growing in intensity with a subtle burn that stole Calum’s breath, prickled his skin, and quickened his pulse.
Then Brix drew back, his eyes wide. “I . . .”
“Me too,” Calum said. “I don’t know how that happened.”
“Same as it did last time, I’d imagine.”
Calum’s heart skipped a beat. “You remember that?”
“Course I do. I fell over my own feet outside Koko’s. You caught me, and I threw myself at you in return. Made a right arse of myself if I recall.”
Brix’s grimace was so comical that the heady tension between them faded a little. The desperate, artless snog they’d shared on a damp Camden evening so many years ago had been seared on Calum’s soul until he’d met Rob. Calum scrubbed a hand over his face. “You weren’t the arse that night. I was so hammered I nearly dropped you.”
“Fun, though, wasn’t it?” Brix’s frown morphed into a rueful grin. “I thought about it a lot after.”
“Me too. It was a crazy night.”
Brix hummed, then seemed to notice his hands were still gripping Calum’s face. He let them drop, leaving Calum mourning the loss of his touch, craving the rush of Brix’s warm palms against his scruffy cheeks. “I’m fucking wankered.”
The abrupt change of subject stung briefly before Calum realised Brix’s sentiment was mutual. “Think I am too. Either that, or your walls are moving.”
“You’ve got the scrumpy spins.” Brix got up unsteadily and wobbled to the kitchen. He returned with a bottle of water. “Drink all of this before you go to sleep. Have a banana when you wake up. You’ll puke otherwise.”
Brix flopped back on the couch, throwing an arm over his eyes. Calum waited for him to resurface, but it didn’t happen. Brix’s breathing evened out and his arm slackened, slipping off his face, to reveal that he had, in fact, passed out cold.
For a long moment, Calum was mesmerised—Brix was as enchanting in sleep as he was awake—but his own need to lie down caught up with him fast. He considered sliding to the floor and letting the scrumpy mould his bones to the hardwood boards. The stairs seemed like too much effort, and besides, Dennis would be on his bed by now, curled up slap bang in the middle of the duvet, settled in for the night, not waking until Zelda came in just before dawn to slap Calum in the face for her breakfast.
But common sense kicked in, slowly filtering though the swirling cider haze. Sleeping on the floor was never as good an idea as it seemed. How many times had he woken up stiff as a board on the shop floor back in Paddington after Rob went walkabout with his flat keys?
Fuck that.
Calum got up, steadying himself on the arm of the couch. A nearby chair gave home to a stack of cosy blankets. He snagged one and clumsily draped it over Brix, resisting the urge to stoop and brush their lips together one more time.
Instead he settled for tracing a fingertip over the ink on Brix’s forearm and squeezing his hand. “Thanks for everything, mate. Good night.”
Gentle bites to Brix’s cheek brought him slowly to consciousness. He raised a hand to bat the biter away, but a low, grumbling hiss warned him off. His body was heavy, his mind thick with the beginnings of a blistering hangover, but as he opened his eyes to darkness, it didn’t feel like morning yet. It couldn’t be. Even Porthkennack wasn’t this black at dawn.
He turned his attention to what had woken him in the first place: the sharp, warm bundle of feline attitude on his chest. Zelda stared, sphinx-like, back at him, her needle claws digging an insistent rhythm into his flesh. She wanted him up, but why? It wasn’t time for her breakfast yet. Besides, she’d abandoned her early morning wake-up calls in recent days, perhaps deciding to sleep a little longer now winter was coming.
Zelda leapt from Brix’s chest to the back of the couch, revealing that he’d never made it to his bed anyway. Brix winced and sat up, holding his throbbing head as he took in the scattered detritus of a night on the scrumpy. Jesus. Whose fucking idea was that?
But, as he thought it, he knew the blame lay with him. And why not, eh? As if getting arseholed wasn’t a stupid enough idea on its own?
Brix staggered to his feet, using the sofa for balance. Zelda’s reasons for waking him were her own, but the fact remained that it was twat o’clock in the morning and he was downstairs in his clothes—down to his boots—which meant he had shit to do before he could go back to sleep.
He stumbled upstairs, for once not pausing to see if Calum was in his bed, and went straight to his bedside table and the washbag of distant guilt and self-loathing that kept him alive. The fat red pill stuck in his throat, but he forced it down, kicked off his boots, and collapsed on his bed, hoping Dennis would come and sit on his back to keep him warm until he could move again to find the duvet.
Fucking bellend.
It was light when he woke again, tucked up in bed, his boots on the floor beside him, and no delinquent cats to be seen. Brix rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was truly awake, but the blaring alarm from his phone a split second later put paid to the idea that it was all a dream.
He scrabbled around, searching for his phone. It took far too long for him to realise it was in the pocket of the jeans he was still wearing. Idiot. He silenced it, noting the time: 8:30 a.m. Fuck’s sake. He was due in Truro at ten, the place that always seemed to be dragging him from his bed.
With considerable effort, Brix hauled himself upright. Nausea followed him, then a blinding headache, and a dull pain in his stomach that would be his constant companion for the rest of the week. And it was only Monday. Great.
Still, he had no one to blame but himself. Couldn’t just have a couple of beers, could you?
Brix silenced the nagging wench on his shoulder and got up, reaching for the washbag before it slipped his mind, as it was apt to do when he’d been on the sauce. He swallowed the two gigantic pills—one red, one blue—and stumbled to the bathroom, searching out water to chase them down.
With that done, he jammed a toothbrush in his mouth and stared at himself in the mirror, wearily horrified by the zombie who stared back at him, red eyed and unshaven, wavy hair an unspeakable riot. Fuck that. It was definitely a bandana day. Just had to find one.
Brix took a shower, turning the water as hot as he dared in a futile attempt to wake himself up. When he’d finished in the bathroom, he drifted almost unconsciously to Calum’s open bedroom door and peered inside, hoping to find him safely asleep in bed. But as ever Calum’s bed was empty, though the wrinkled pillows told Brix that he’d been there at some point.
But where was he now? Out with the chickens? Brix backed away from Calum’s door and glanced out of the landing window. The yard was empty, and so he stood at the top of the stairs, listening for any signs of life from below. But he heard none, and there was a distinct lack of feline activity too. Puzzled, Brix retreated to his bedroom and threw on the closest set of clean clothes—skinny black jeans and a grungy, tie-dyed T-shirt. A black bandana came next, holding back his wet hair until he found the time and inclination to tame it.
As ready for the world as he was likely to get, he went downstairs, knowing he needed to eat something before he hit the ro
ad. On the couch both cats were curled up in and around one of the blankets from the armchair. Apart from telling him that the cats had been fed, the scene stirred something in Brix’s tired mind—the couch, the blanket . . . scrumpy, Calum, and . . . fuck. The hazy events between coming home from the pub and waking up in his bed hit Brix like a train. The confusion in Calum’s dark eyes as he’d looked at pictures of himself. The bewilderment when Brix had told him why there were so many.
The sensation of Calum’s stubbled cheeks against Brix’s palms, and his lips . . . fuck, his lips.
Jesus. Brix’s legs felt suddenly weak. In the cold light of the early morning, he couldn’t recall how Calum had responded to their clumsy kiss, if he’d let Brix feel the warmth of his broad chest as they’d fallen against each other, or if he’d humoured him and then let him pass out like the drunken idiot he was. The kiss itself was hazy and shadowed, and all Brix truly knew was that the cats had been fed, but Calum was gone.
“You’re looking a little pale today. That pesky winter flu caught up with you already?”
“Hmm?” Brix absently turned away from the window as nurse Sally stuck a needle in his arm. “Nah, I’m hungover, is all. Went out on the lash last night.”
Sally twisted the cap onto the vial of Brix’s blood and popped it into a plastic envelope. “Out on the piss? That’s not like you. Given up the clean living?”
“No, just felt like a blowout. Bloody stupid, really, ’cause I feel like death now.”
“Most people do after a heavy night. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“Howdya know I’m being hard on myself?”
“Because I know you, mister, and you always are.”
Sally was right on both counts. She’d been his key nurse for the last four years, and he couldn’t deny that he was prone to bouts of self-loathing, though they’d become sporadic as the years had gone by.
“I shouldn’t drink. It doesn’t agree with me and it fucks my medication up.”
“As far as I remember, it only interferes with your treatment when you drink your dad’s scrumpy. There’s nothing wrong with having a few pints with your mates, Ben.”
Ben. Brix rolled his eyes. Sally was the only person on earth who called him by his given name. For some reason, he’d never told her anyone he’d met more than once called him Brix. “It was the scrumpy. I don’t know what possessed me. I usually give it away when Dad brings it round, but I have a . . . friend staying with me at the moment, and introducing him to it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“A friend, eh?” Sally’s faint smirk let Brix know she hadn’t missed his stumble. “How’s he this morning?”
“Dunno. He was gone when I woke up.”
Sally let it drop. “How are you otherwise? Your bloods were good last time, as always, so you must be doing something right.”
“I do what I’m told.” Brix found a distant grin and plastered it on his face. “I’m okay, though. Got some new chickens and my dad’s behaving himself. Can’t ask for more than that.”
“No fights in the Sea Bell?”
Brix’s grin became genuine as he recalled his father’s last fracas in the pub. “It wasn’t a real fight. Just a fisherman thing, fighting over the hurling ball.”
Sally was from Birmingham, and it often showed when Brix talked about Cornish ways like they weren’t unique to this unparalleled part of the world. Today was no different. “What’s a hurling ball?”
“The ball they throw from the sea wall on Shrove Tuesday every year. It’s basically a mob game for fishermen, ’cause whoever has the ball when the clock strikes noon gets free beer for a year at the Sea Bell. That shit’s kinda important to my dad.”
“Do you play?”
“Fuck no. I’m not Cornish enough for that.”
Sally frowned. “Not Cornish enough? You were born here.”
“Aye, but I left, and some folk round here would say that makes me as good as dead.”
Lunchtime found Brix shuffling through Blood Rush’s back door, hoping to reach his seldom-used office before anyone saw him. Lena had other ideas, though. She was already there, glaring at the appointment book she used to back up the computer system that Brix didn’t understand.
“Afternoon,” she muttered distractedly.
Brix grunted and dumped his bag on the floor. “Can’t you do that somewhere else?”
“What’s got on your tits?”
“Nothing.”
“Suit yourself. So you’re not as hungover as Calum, then?”
“Calum?”
Lena set her work aside and peered at him over the reading glasses that made her look like a punked-up school secretary. “He was pretty ropy when he dropped by this morning, not that he was admitting anything. Did you have a good night?”
“I have no fucking idea. Woke up on the couch at 3 a.m.”
“That bad, eh? Oh, speak of the devil . . . Hey, Calum.”
Brix jerked around faster than his aching head could deal with. Calum stood in the doorway, dishevelled and gorgeous . . . too fucking gorgeous if he felt even a fraction as terrible as Brix did.
“All right?” Calum said, sidestepping Lena, who flipped Brix a wink and left the room. “Did you get your shit done?”
“‘Shit’?”
“You said you had stuff to do this morning.” Calum frowned. “Sorry, didn’t mean to be nosy.”
Brix couldn’t handle the barely detectable slump in Calum’s shoulders, the dejection he probably thought no one cared to notice. “You’re not being nosy, mate. I’m being a div. Need a cuppa or something.”
The “or something” was becoming a matter of urgency. As Brix said it, a familiar wave of dizziness swept over him. Damn it. Why the fuck hadn’t he forced some breakfast down? He sat abruptly in Lena’s abandoned chair.
Too abruptly, apparently. Calum stepped forward. “Brix? You okay?”
“Aye, just need to eat. Is Jory around? He’s usually my bitch when I’m hanging. Kid’s fucking awesome at fetching butties from Becky’s.”
“Becky’s?”
“Doorstep sandwich place,” Lena said, reappearing suddenly at Calum’s shoulder. “Can’t beat it when you’re hanging. What do you want? I’ll get it.”
“Anything.” Brix drew the appointment book towards him, hoping Calum would go with her and give him the few moments he needed to get himself together. “I’ll be fine when I’ve eaten, honest.”
Lena knew him well enough to believe him. She grabbed her bag and vanished again without further comment. Calum appeared less convinced. He knelt in front of Brix. “You look like hell.”
“Feel like it. Scrumpy does that.”
Calum snorted. “Don’t I know it? I woke up at the top of the stairs. Didn’t have a fucking clue what had gone on. I’m all right now, though. Kim brought bacon butties in.”
“Kim’s good like that,” Brix said absently, wondering how much “Didn’t have a fucking clue what had gone on” actually covered. “Did you tuck me up in bed?”
“Erm . . .”
“Don’t answer that.”
Calum stood, obviously reassured that Brix wasn’t about to keel over, and perched on the desk instead. “I didn’t want you to get cold.”
Fat chance of that with Calum around. His presence was making Brix more flustered with every day that passed, something that worried and baffled Brix in equal measure. Had things always been this way between them? No, they couldn’t have been.
“Brix?”
“Yeah?”
“What are you doing today? Do you have appointments?”
Shamefully, Brix had no idea. He focussed on the handwritten book Lena kept up-to-date for his sake. “A consultation and finishing up a half sleeve. Think it’s the Alice in Wonderland one I did last month.”
“Are you sure you’re all right? I’ve got that cover-up coming in soon, but I can stay with you if you need—”
“I’m fine.” Brix scrubbed his hands down his f
ace. “I told you. I just need some grub to soak up all the shite I threw down my neck last night. Do what you gotta do. I’ll be out in a bit.”
Calum stared him down for a long moment, his dark gaze inscrutable, then he let out a barely audible sigh and pushed himself upright. “Fair enough. See you on the other side.”
It was actually a week before Calum’s cover-up finally made it to their twice rescheduled appointment, and by then he’d been staying with Brix for nearly a fortnight. Two weeks that had passed Brix by in a flash. Calum’s quiet presence in his life felt like it had always been there—if he didn’t think about the elephant in the room their drunken snog had become. And he didn’t think about it . . . much. Honest.
Whatever.
Calum’s cover-up arrived at 11 a.m. on Monday morning. The studio was pretty much empty, just Brix, Calum, and Lena drinking tea and eating Lena’s homemade fairing cookies—sweet ginger biscuits that Calum couldn’t seem to get enough of.
Brix met the girl at the door. Tattoo studios were like the womb to him, but he knew that they could be intimidating places for folk who didn’t frequent them much. “Morning, love. You here for Calum?”
The girl nodded. “I’m Fen. My appointment’s at eleven?”
“Right on time. Come on in.” He led Fen to where Calum had his station. “Take a seat. He’s just washing up.”
Calum appeared a few moments later. That was Brix’s cue to get ready for his own appointment, and he usually let his artists get on with their jobs in peace, but he lingered this time, curious as to what the pretty young girl needed covering.
Calum smiled. “You’re here for a cover-up, yeah? What’s the story?”
Fen shifted in her seat. “I’ve got my girlfriend’s name on my chest. I need it covered.”
“Your girlfriend?” Calum looked puzzled. “Are you still together?”
“Yes, she’s just not here at the moment.”
It wasn’t their place to ask too many questions. If a client wanted shit covered, they covered it, but something didn’t add up here. Brix ventured a little closer and sat on the edge of Calum’s workbench. “Where did she go?”
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