Calum hammered the final nail into the new giant chicken enclosure that took up most of Brix’s garden. “Looks good, eh?”
John grunted in the way Calum had learned was unique to Lusmoore men: gruff and coarse, with hidden hearts of gold—most of them, anyway. Calum had yet to meet the bad pennies Porthkennack rumours were made of. Not that he was in a position to judge if he did. Chinning the farmer at Redruth had earned him a police caution and five hundred battery hens to rehome, a task that was only now, a fortnight and a crash course in fence building later, close to being done.
Calum studied the enclosure he and John had built while Brix and Kim had constructed another at Kim’s place. “Will it hold fifty?”
“Aye, if they’re all good gals. Could be rowdy if ya get a couple o’ wrong’uns scrapping, but they’ll settle down. Chooks can make a home anywhere.”
The closet romantic in Calum liked the sound of that. He helped John pack away his tools, and then walked him to the gate. “Thanks for your help. Think Brix was ready to send me back to London when I said we’d take them all.”
“He’d have had me to answer for if he had.” John held out his weathered hand. “I told him a hundred times that farmer wanted shooting.”
“It can still be arranged. Brix reckons it won’t be long before he fills the barn again.”
John shot Calum a dark look and straightened his ancient flat cap on his head, and as he left, the impression that Calum’s attempt at humour had been taken rather too seriously lingered, though didn’t unsettle Calum as much as it probably should have.
Been around Lusmoores too long. Hah. If only that were true. Calum could spend a lifetime with Brix and it wouldn’t be enough.
With Brix on his mind, Calum abandoned his plans to catch up on some sketching and spent the next couple of hours rounding up the hens they’d been forced to foster out around the town when they’d brought a few hundred too many home. Then, with that done and the hens settled, he ditched the van and walked to Blood Rush, drawn to Brix like the afternoon they’d spent apart had been a year.
Brix was tattooing when Calum arrived, head down, tongue caught between his teeth. Were it not for his longer hair and new geometric knuckle tattoos, they could’ve been in Camden a decade ago. His face is just the same. But was it? From time to time Calum found himself tracking the blacker emotions that flickered in Brix’s eyes, and wondering if they’d always been there.
He was tidying up some admin on the computer—a task Brix still loathed—when Brix came to find him a little while later.
“I missed you.”
Calum grinned. “I missed you too. Spending the day with your dad ain’t the same.”
“Did you finish the fences?”
“And then some.”
Brix cocked his head to one side. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll see. Are you ready to go?”
“In a sec. I just need to order some more Truvada before I forget. There’s no customers here, right?”
Calum shook his head as familiar pain lanced his heart. Would it always be like this? Clandestine phone calls to a clinic that no one outside the hidden circle of local HIV care knew about? Calum gazed out of the window as Brix placed his call, recalling the pride in John Lusmoore every time he spoke of Brix, and the warmth in his aunt Peg whenever Calum saw them together. Would that change if they found out? Calum couldn’t imagine anyone having anything but love for Brix, whoever they were.
“Will you ever tell your dad?” he asked when Brix had hung up the phone.
Brix kept his eyes on the computer screen as he carefully inputted his last client’s next appointment. “A year ago I’d have said hell no, but I’m warming to the idea. Telling Lee went okay, Kim too, and I feel better knowing you have someone to talk to about it who isn’t as nutso as me.”
“You’re not nutso, mate, especially if you’re comparing yourself to Lee. You know she got arrested last night, right? For fighting in town?”
Brix scowled. “I reckon she was hoping I wouldn’t find out.”
Calum could believe that. He and Lee were the best of friends, but she looked up to Brix like a brother, and disappointing him was one of her biggest fears. “I don’t think she meant to hurt the bloke, if it’s any consolation.”
“Should it be?” Brix shut the computer down. “If she can’t defend herself, who will?”
“Us?”
Brix rolled his eyes. “That would mean skanking out at the Slug and Lettuce, and as much as I love you all, I ain’t doing that for nobody.”
“That’s not fair.” Calum pulled Brix close and grazed his cheek with the lightest kiss. “I’d walk over hot coals for you, and you won’t set foot in a dirty Wetherspoons for me?”
“Not a hope in hell. I would, however, die a thousand times over for you, so I think we’re even.”
Calum thought so too. “Are you ready to go?”
“I’m always ready for you, mate.”
The innuendo made Calum hot all over, but for once, sex could wait, because nothing mattered more than simply taking Brix home.
They drifted to the cottage, walking side by side, as close as they could be without holding hands. Brix said little, and Calum held his tongue, knowing that Brix often needed a few quiet moments to process whatever was going on in his convoluted brain.
Back at the cottage, Brix was distracted enough not to notice the new enclosure was stuffed full of hens straightaway. He stared blankly at the wooden structure, and then his eyes widened. “You finished it? Jesus, I thought you’d take another few days at least.”
“So did I, but your old man cracked the whip and we got it done. Forty-six happy hens right there.”
“Forty-six?”
Calum shrugged. “The church wanted to keep theirs. The Sunday school kids have repurposed a bunch of aviaries for them. That’s okay, isn’t it?”
“Course it is. Less we have here the better.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Brix snorted. “Not enough that an extra four would’ve killed us. You do realise we’re going to be drowning in chicken shit now though, don’t you? That we’ll be out here shovelling it in all weathers?”
Calum had kind of figured. “I spoke to the garden centre today. They said they’ll help us make our own compost to sell if we keep the ground healthy.”
Brix nodded slowly. “I thought about doing that a few years ago, but I never got round to it. What would I do without you, eh?”
“Um . . . shovel less shit?”
“Come with me.” Brix grabbed Calum’s hand and dragged him to the shed. “Jump up here.”
“Where?”
Brix jumped like a cat onto the wall and then onto the shed roof. “Up here, knobber. Come on.”
Easier said than done. Calum clambered awkwardly onto the roof. “What’s up here?”
“The sea.”
“Eh?”
“Look.” Brix grasped Calum’s shoulders and gently turned him around, revealing the sparkling Atlantic Ocean in the distance. “It’s never far in Porthkennack.”
“Good job too, eh?”
“I’ll say.”
Brix smiled. Calum returned it, and for perhaps the first time, he truly understood what it meant to be happy. “Thank you.”
“What for?”
“For bringing me here,” Calum said. “I love Porthkennack. I know I’m not native, but it feels like home.”
Brix turned his gaze to the horizon. “There’s a home by the sea for any emmet who’s got the heart for it. My nan taught me that.”
“Did she? What do you think she’d say about my heart, eh?”
“That it was made for mine.”
“That’s so fucking corny.”
Brix’s smile morphed into a wicked grin. “Cornish, mate, not corny.”
“Dick.”
“Aye, but you love me, and I don’t need nothing else.”
At the time of writing, PrEP is
not available on the NHS for partners of people living with HIV, or for people at high risk of infection to use as a long-term preventive measure.
It is only available as a month-long emergency prescription if someone has been exposed to a direct risk of contracting the virus—i.e., has had unprotected sex with an infected person, or had a needle stick.
Hopefully, by the time of publication, this may have changed.
Explore more of the Porthkennack universe: riptidepublishing.com/titles/universe/porthkennack
Wake Up Call
JL Merrow
Broke Deep
Charlie Cochrane
Foxglove Copse
Alex Beecroft
Junkyard Heart
Garrett Leigh
A Gathering Storm
Joanna Chambers
Count the Shells
Charlie Cochrane
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Garrett Leigh is an award-winning British writer and book designer, currently working for Dreamspinner Press, Loose Id, Riptide Publishing, and Fox Love Press.
Garrett's debut novel, Slide, won Best Bisexual Debut at the 2014 Rainbow Book Awards, and her polyamorous novel, Misfits was a finalist in the 2016 LAMBDA awards.
When not writing, Garrett can generally be found procrastinating on Twitter, cooking up a storm, or sitting on her behind doing as little as possible, all the while shouting at her menagerie of children and animals and attempting to tame her unruly and wonderful FOX.
Garrett is also an award-winning cover artist, taking the silver medal at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in 2016. She designs for various publishing houses and independent authors at blackjazzdesign.com, and co-owns the specialist stock site moonstockphotography.com with photographer Dan Burgess.
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