“I caught him getting slammed in my bed.”
Brix whistled. “Bastard.”
“You say that, but according to him, it was my fault. Didn’t fuck him well enough, apparently. Stifled him too.”
Brix couldn’t imagine ever feeling smothered by Calum, ever feeling anything less than privileged to have it, but he swallowed his protests. Calum had more to say, and he needed Brix to let him speak.
“Not that he wanted me to fuck him much, or the other way around,” Calum went on, his gaze absent. “He liked to keep me dangling—in my place. His favourite trick was to promise me a quiet night in, then piss off into town with his mates without telling me. Then he knew I’d be sat at home while he did whatever the fuck he wanted. Win-win for him.”
“I don’t get it. Why not just tell you he wanted to go out in the first place? Or invite you along?”
Calum shrugged. “I wasn’t cool enough to hang out with Rob’s friends. He latched on to me because of the ink, but I didn’t turn out to be as interesting as he thought, so he quit inviting me out after a while. It hurt, but in the grand scheme of things—when I imagine what you and Lee have been through, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“‘Doesn’t mean anything’?” Brix got up and went to the window, turning his back on Calum. “Everything means something if it hurts, Cal. It has to, or we ain’t fucking human.”
“I didn’t feel too human when you found me on that bench. I was in bits. Rob had me tied in knots. I couldn’t sleep, or eat, or even think straight when he was messing me around. I’m starting to see how unhealthy it was, what a bloody sociopath he was, but back then I figured I loved him.”
“What about now? Do you still love him?”
“No, and I don’t think I ever really did. Being with you again has shown me that.”
“Being with you again has shown me that.” Brix stared at Calum, his heart thudding. Relief surged through him that Calum no longer loved a man who’d treated him so badly, but how had Brix shown him that? How had he shown him anything when all he’d done since Calum had come to Porthkennack was get drunk and jam his foot in his mouth?
Which wasn’t that different to how they’d spent their time in Camden all those years ago, though Brix had been less inclined to the long, wordless stares back then. “You really don’t love him anymore?”
“How could I?” Calum bit his lip, his gaze so sad Brix felt like shaking him, or kissing him, or both. “It was never real, was it?”
Brix drifted back to the couch and sat down. “It was something . . . It meant something, Cal, even if it was no more than a fucking hard lesson.”
“Is that how you feel about Jordan?”
“I don’t feel jack about Jordan.” The harshness in Brix’s tone surprised him. He snatched a sharp breath and tried again. “I try not to feel anything for him because he hurt me so much, but a part of me will always love him, because the damage he did to me made me who I am.”
“You’re a bigger man than me.”
“Not likely, I’ve just been around enough hate and anger to know it doesn’t heal us.”
“Your family?”
Brix shrugged. “We’re an angry bunch.”
“You’re not.” Calum shifted on the couch. His leg brushed Brix’s knee and sent shockwaves through Brix’s already tingling nerves. “You were always the one who could make me smile. I missed that when you left.”
“What about now? Do I still make you smile?” Brix pulled a face to show Calum he wasn’t fishing.
Calum’s answering grin was dazzling. “I reckon so. Rob’s mates used to say I had a face like a constipated undertaker. See what happens when you’re not around?”
The anger Calum claimed he couldn’t see seared a hole in Brix’s heart. What he wouldn’t give to load the van with Abel and Kim and burn rubber to the big smoke, but even if Abel had been around, if Rob was the kind of dude Brix thought he was, a damn good kicking would do nothing but hand him a victim card.
“What are you thinking?”
“Hmm?” Brix returned to reality to find Calum had shifted closer to study Brix’s face, like he’d seen something that had worried him. Fuck that. Calum already worried enough for both of them.
Brix pushed all thuggish thoughts aside and found a smile he hoped went some way to matching the one he mourned now it had faded from Calum’s beautiful face. “I’m thinking that I don’t want you to go back to London.”
“London?” Calum tilted his head to one side. “I haven’t thought about going back.”
Brix was more delighted than he cared to admit, but carefully schooled his features. “I like having you here. Didn’t realise how lonely I was until I saw you with the chooks every morning, singing that song to Bongo.”
Calum rolled his eyes. “I don’t sing to Bongo. I talk to her, and you know she answers me.”
Brix couldn’t contain his laughter, though there’d been plenty of hens who’d owned his heart the way Bongo clearly owned Calum’s. “She’s the best layer of all the new girls. The others are too busy trying to escape.”
Calum chuckled. “I saw the bald one on top of the coop yesterday. Good job you clipped their wings.”
Brix nodded his agreement, absorbing the lighter air between them. He still raged at the shame lingering in Calum’s dark gaze. His soul felt Calum’s quiet presence beside him like a second skin, and the desire to beg Calum to stay was all-consuming.
Like he’d read Brix’s mind, Calum leaned forward and touched Brix’s arm, lightly at first, but then with more purpose as his warm hand slid over Brix’s skin. “Brix?”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t want to go back to London.”
“Then don’t. Stay here.”
“Here?”
Brix covered Calum’s uninjured hand with his own and turned to face him. “Aye. Stay here with me. You know there’s a job for you at the studio as long as you want it, and . . .”
“And what?”
Brix shrugged. “I want you to stay.”
“Why?”
To anyone else, the answer to Calum’s question would, perhaps, have been obvious, but Brix had fast learned that Calum needed to hear these things explicitly to believe them. I don’t want to be without you. The words were on the tip of his tongue, but as he took a breath, Calum moved again, his face suddenly inches from Brix’s, his eyes so dark, his mouth so close. “I—”
Their lips met in a gentle kiss, so soft and light it stole Brix’s breath. He opened his mouth to the tender, mind-blowing sweep of Calum’s tongue. His head spun, and he grasped Calum’s face to steady himself, scratching his nails through Calum’s beard.
Calum groaned, deepening the kiss. His fingers found their way to Brix’s hair and tangled in the damp mess of windswept waves, twisting and tugging. Brix’s dick hardened. Heat pooled in his groin. He sucked in a harsh breath, but as the scrape of air filled his lungs, reality crashed into him. What the fuck was he doing? He and Calum had kissed before—more than once—but each time it had been over before it had truly begun, leaving it all too easy to pretend it had never happened, and that the prospect of it going further was nothing but a long-dead dream.
He jumped back as a thud at the door startled Calum too. For a moment, they stared at each other. Calum’s intense gaze was impossible to read, and Brix couldn’t tell if Calum had sensed the shift in the air before the pounding had interrupted the inevitable slide into a clusterfuck he had no desire to ever explain.
The knocking came again, loud and insistent. Brix started to get up, but Calum stilled him. “I’ll get it.”
Calum got up and went to the door, apparently oblivious to the chaos erupting in Brix’s soul. He stopped before opening it, though, and looked back, shooting Brix a quizzical frown. It took Brix far too long to realise he was asking if it was okay to answer the door. He swallowed his frustration and nodded, willing his wayward dick to retreat to its cave before his brain exploded. “You live here too.�
��
“Fair enough.” Calum shrugged and opened the door. The sight of whoever greeted him made him smile, but the light in his face was brief as he stepped back and waved Kim inside.
Brix stood, the party in his pants and wake in his heart instantly forgotten as he met the troubled gaze of one of his oldest friends. “What is it?”
“The lifeboat’s gone out to a stricken tanker.”
“What?”
“They’re launching now.”
Ten years ago, under the cloud of a storm as fierce as the one blowing outside, Kim’s words would’ve filled Brix with horror, because a decade ago the youngest man in Porthkennack’s lifeboat crew had been Abel Lusmoore. But Abel had been gone a long time, and there’d been no Lusmoore in the boat since. “Oh God, Kim. Did your old man go out?”
Kim shook his head. “No, he’s down in Padstow at my nan’s. That’s what I came to tell you. They were a man short, so your dad took his place.”
Calum stood by the door in the lifeboat station, shoulder to shoulder with throngs of Porthkennack folk he’d never seen before. Men, women, children. Old and young. Where on earth had they all come from?
Then he remembered that he spent most of his time in the studio, or at home with Brix and his menagerie. He hadn’t mixed much with the locals. I haven’t even met his dad. And given the haunted faces around him, there was a real possibility he wouldn’t get the chance.
Calum glanced at Brix, who was by the control centre with Kim, listening intently to an RNLI officer, like he had been since they’d burst into the crammed station. His face was pale and drawn, his eyes tight with worry. Calum wanted more than anything to stand with him, hold him, comfort him, but Kim was beside him instead, his hand on Brix’s shoulder, nodding to things Calum didn’t understand.
Brix dropped his head into his hands, looking for all the world like the worst had already happened. Fuck this emmet shite. Calum pushed off the wall he’d been leaning against and strode across the crowded room. Kim saw him coming, squeezed Brix’s arm, then stepped aside, like he’d been expecting Calum to take his place all along.
Calum dropped into the seat next to Brix and leaned in close. “What’s going on?”
Brix raised his head and met Calum’s gaze with a tense frown. “The boat’s still out.”
Calum had figured that much, but gestured for Brix to elaborate. “Why? What’s happened?”
“Tanker’s hit the rocks at Booby’s Bay. They’re taking on water. The mayday came through an hour ago.”
“Why did your dad go? I didn’t know he was part of the crew.”
“He’s a reserve,” Brix said hoarsely. “S’posed to be retired, but Kim’s old man is away, and the only other able seaman was Jonti Lahoy’s nephew, and no one was going to let him get on that boat with his uncle already skippering.”
“Why not?”
“Look around you,” Brix said. “Look at their faces. Can you imagine waiting here knowing there were two generations of your family at sea on a night like this? It wouldn’t be right. Dad and Abel never went out together in a storm.”
Calum swallowed. He hadn’t taken much notice of the lifeboat station, or the RNLI stickers in every shop window. It had all seemed like part of the furniture. He’d never stopped to wonder why they were there, or what it meant to the local folk—Brix and Kim, perhaps Jory. Fuck. Jory. He was a native Porthkennack lad, young and fit. For all Calum knew, the young apprentice could be out on the boat too. “What happens now?”
“We wait,” Kim said when Brix failed to answer. “It’s gonna be a long night even if they make the rescue. The boat’s only got room for three extra, and there’s twelve crew on board the tanker.”
“Are there no more boats?”
Kim’s gaze darkened. “The next boat along got wrecked four months ago. Lost two men. They ain’t raised the funds to replace it yet.”
Who the fuck paid for lifeboats? Calum had no idea, and shame swept over him as he cast a glance around the station, taking in the distress of the waiting families. If the Porthkennack boat didn’t return, what would happen to these people? “Would another boat make a difference?”
“Aye,” Kim said. “The Sea King is up in the sky, but they can’t winch anyone up in this wind. That boat is the only chance that tanker crew has got. If the Bonnie Sue can’t get to them, they’ll go down with the ship.”
“What’s the tanker called?”
“Black Star.”
Calum’s heart stilled. “What?”
But Kim’s attention had been diverted by activity on the control screen. He leaned forward. Calum expected Brix to do the same, so Brix’s cool hand in his startled him.
“I could sit here all night and not have a fucking clue what they’re talking about.”
“Yeah?” Calum glanced at the convoluted dash of flashing lights and coordinates. “Not much of a sailor?”
“Hell no. I spent most of my life trying to avoid it. Even a dinghy makes me hurl.”
Brix looked pretty close to puking now. Calum squeezed his hand. “Can I get you anything? Call anyone for you?”
If the word on the street was anything to go by, the Lusmoore clan was huge. Surely they’d want to know one of their own was out at sea?
But Brix shook his head. “Anyone who wants to know will by now. They’ll come in their own time, or not—I don’t give a shit, to be honest. I could do with some air, though. Come with me?”
“Of course.”
Hands still clasped, they made their way out of the station and onto the sheltered rocky outpoint. Calum shivered. They were safe from the rain, but the wind was still vicious, biting and cruel, reminding them, as if they could forget, that the men on the boats were facing far worse.
Brix shuddered too. Calum pulled him close and absently kissed his hair. Brix froze briefly enough for Calum to wonder if he’d imagined it, then rested his head on Calum’s chest with a heavy sigh.
“I don’t even like my dad most days. I love him, because he’s my dad, and I respect him as much as he deserves, but I don’t like him. If he wasn’t my father, I’d think he was a cunt.”
“Why?”
“’Cause he’s the same backward, racist, sexist arsehole he’s always been.” Brix sighed again. “He always liked Abel better, though. Still does. Reckon he’s counting the days till he gets out and he’s not stuck in the pub with me anymore.”
“Thought he told you he was proud to have a pint with you?”
“Oh, he is. Don’t mean we’ve got jack-shit in common. We only ever talk about chickens.”
A flashing light in the distance caught Calum’s attention. “Is that them?”
Brix peered in that direction. “Nah. That’s a ferry.”
How he could tell, Calum had no idea, and his chance to ask was interrupted by Kim.
“Just got word they’ve got the first lot of crew off. Taking them into Port Isaac before they go out again. It’s gonna be a long night, Brix. Go home. Sleep. I’ll check in every half hour, I swear.”
Calum half expected Brix to refuse, but he didn’t. He nodded slowly, then detached himself from Calum to embrace Kim. “You’ll call me?”
“Every half hour. Before if anything changes.”
Calum didn’t miss the fact that Kim offered no reassurance or promises that everything would be okay. He wondered if the Porthkennack boat had lost men before, or if the crew who’d perished in the next bay along had been friends. Everyone seemed to know everyone in Porthkennack. Who knew how far that stretched.
Calum nodded farewell to Kim and followed Brix to the footpath that led back to the main town. The cottage was a ten-minute walk away, but it seemed to pass in a flash, and he barely noticed that they were both soaked to the skin . . . again.
Inside, they peeled off layers of damp clothes and hung them by the fire. Brix poked at the embers, his gaze distant. Calum left him to it and went to the kitchen. He was far from hungry, but if Kim’s prophecy proved true, Bri
x needed to eat.
He rummaged in the fridge, sorting through the plates and tubs that people seemed to drop into the studio for Brix on a daily basis: Pies, cakes, preserves. There was even a whole cheese—yarg, if Calum remembered rightly, which was doubtful. He’d yet to master Cornish dialect.
A couple of pasties seemed the easiest option, though Brix had informed him the night before that they weren’t strictly Cornish. “They’re Devon ones—see the crimping’s all fucked up?” Calum had yet to get to the bottom of that either.
He warmed the pasties and took them and a jar of Branston through to the living room. Brix looked up and managed a thin smile. “You made dinner?”
“Nah, Mrs. Kimberton did. Probably just as well, eh?”
“Bollocks. You cook like you ink . . . like you mean it.”
“If you say so. Wanna cuppa?”
“I’d rather have a whiskey.”
“Easily arranged.”
Brix shook his head as Calum set the plates on the coffee table. “Don’t reckon I’d stop at one. Sit down, mate. I’ll make the tea in a bit.”
They ate in silence. The pasties were good, but they were lost on Calum as he forced them down, and he imagined it was ten times worse for Brix. Unable to watch Brix struggle, and despite Brix’s spiritless glare, Calum got up and made the tea anyway, adding an extra sugar to Brix’s to make up for his half-eaten supper.
“Thanks.” Brix accepted his mug and pushed his plate away, letting the cats do their worst. “I don’t know what I’d do without you these days.”
“Whatever you did before, I imagine,” Calum said. “It’s me that needs my arse wiped.”
Brix snorted, but his humour quickly faded, and for the umpteenth time since Kim had thumped seven bells out of the front door, Calum saw how tired he was.
“Kim told you to get some sleep.”
“Who died and put him in charge—” Brix shuddered. “Don’t answer that.”
He got up and stomped to the foot of the stairs, peeling off his T-shirt as he went and tossing it in the vague direction of the kitchen.
Calum prepared himself to let him go, his gaze lost in the web of intricate ink on Brix’s back, then Brix turned, his hand on the bannister, and fixed Calum with a stare that set his every nerve on fire. “You coming, or what?”
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