Chapter 10

A week actually passed before the viking appointment made it to the studio. By then, Calum had been staying with Brix for a fortnight that passed Brix by in a flash. It's like he's always been here. And if he didn't think about the elephant in the room their drunken night had become, it had been the easiest two weeks of his life.

And he didn't think about it…much.

Yeah yeah.

Calum's appointment arrived at 10 a.m on Monday morning, the studio empty aside from Brix, Calum, and Lena.

Brix met him at the door. "Here comes trouble."

"Brixicles." Rubi Matherson wrapped his big arms around Brix, an embrace from an old friend that moved mountains. "How've you been, brother?"

Brix choked into a laugh."Same old, same old. You know it's not Kim you're booked in with, right?"

Rubi released Brix from his bear hug. "He okay?"

"Aye-aye. Just busy with other things."

"Other things, eh?" Rubi had been a Blood Rush client for as long as the studio had been open, and he had a nose for gossip. His gaze slid to Lena. "That be you? Or are you too busy teaching my BFF how to use that angsty wangdoodle of his?"

She middle-fingered him. "Don't start."

Rubi blew her a kiss. "Wouldn't dare. One raging Khaleesi is enough for me."

"Good boy. Have a biscuit."

Lena tossed Rubi a fairing cookie. It kept him quiet until his keen gaze landed on Calum. Then interest flared in his hazel eyes and he propped a big shoulder on the wall. "You here for me?"

Calum had his nose in a sketchbook. "Think so. Damn…" His dark gaze found Rubi's skin. "You sure you have room for more viking shit?"

Rubi laughed, the sound filling the room. "Honestly, I don't care what you do or where you do it. I come here for the peace and quiet."

It made sense to Brix, but not to Calum. A frown creased his face, and despite the complex world Rubi came from, he wasn't the type to leave someone hanging. "It's like this: I either come here for a kip, or you can cart me off to Harvest House."

Harvest House.Brix's heart bottomed out, a split second blip that tuned him out of Calum questioning the name, and Rubi's response.

"…where they send you when you're proper tapped out."

A bitter laugh escaped Brix before he could stop it. "There's worse places than that."

Calum swivelled his attention to Brix, but Brix was done. He needed out, and he backed away, the scent of disinfectant thick in his throat. The clang of keys loud in his ears. Fucking hell. Why did some memories fade while others stuck around forever?

He left Rubi with Calum and retreated to his own station. The half-finished sketch he needed to be ready by lunchtime. A dozen other things he'd let slide.

Rectifying it took his full focus. Or maybe he made it like that, cos he needed it. Either way, the next time he glanced up, Calum was absorbed in some skin on Rubi's left hip, and Rubi was…asleep. Of course. Which was probably as well. Calum didn't talk much when he worked, his gaze intense, tongue caught between his teeth. Gorgeous enough that there was no way on earth Rubi wouldn't have noticed.

So what if he notices? Rubi's single and Calum isn't yours.

And Brix couldn't deny that Rubi was hot. Tall. Big. Clever. All the things Brix wasn't.

You are tall, bozo.

Brix flicked a glare at the back of Lena's head. Get out of my brain.

Lena obliged, which left Brix at the mercy of his thoughts and his terminal curiosity. Calum's specialty was dot work, but Rubi was already covered in nordic ink etched in Kim's signature style. Matching them would be tough, but this was Calum. If anyone knew how to blend in it was him.

Leave them alone.If anything, to let Rubi sleep. His life was a murder of chaos—literally these last few years. Let him rest.

Brix found something else to do. And then he ran out of time to obsess over Calum's broad shoulders and his bearded jaw. His own client arrived and kept him busy for the rest of the day. Rubi was long gone by the time he took a breather, and Calum was MIA too.

At least, it felt that way until Brix found him in the break room, engrossed in something on the iPad Brix didn't know how to use either.

"Watcha doing?"

Calum jumped. "Fuck. Oh, it's you."

"Expecting someone else."

"Not on purpose."

"Eh?"

Calum sighed. "I'm trying to get a new phone, but my credit score's worse than I thought."

"Why?"

"Lots of reasons."

"Share on. It might help."

Calum got up and went to the sink to rinse mugs that weren't his. "I borrowed a lot of money a few years ago. I got behind with the repayments pretty much straightaway and I haven't done much to repair the damage since."

"And your old phone was in your ex's name…" Brix remembered that. And it made sense. Inactivity on a bad credit file was almost as bad as fucking up in the first place. "Which means you've been invisible for a while, eh?"

Calum nodded, his gaze still in the sink. "The bank only gave me an overdraft on my old cash account because I've had it since I was thirteen."

"I didn't know banks existed when I was thirteen. I was too busy popping wood over the hot fishermen." A truth more than a joke. "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing. I don't need a fucking phone. Who would I call?"

"Me. And whoever you called with the phone you had before."

Calum laughed, but the brittle sound held no humour, and Brix knew he was missing something obvious. Then he recalled his own spell in the wilderness when he'd returned to Porth Ewan. How his phone had found its way to the bottom of the cliffs, and it had been weeks before he'd seen fit to replace it.

"What about a SIM-only deal? I've got an old iPhone at home you could borrow, and paying the bill might help your credit score."

"You've done enough for me. I can't borrow anything else from you."

"Buy it from me, then. I was gonna sell it to Corey for fifty quid."

"Fifty quid? For an iPhone? Piss off, mate."

"You think I'd lie to you?"

Crickets.

"Seriously?" Brix rocked back on his heels. "It's a phone. And I'm not a fucking liar."

"I know, it's just?—"

"Just what?"

A long pause stretched out before Calum finally turned around. "I'm sorry, okay?" He stuck his hand in his back pocket and pulled out a few notes. "I'm not used to anyone who's not my mother giving a shit about me."

"I give a shit."

"I know, and I'm sorry I'm being a twat about it."

Brix wanted to ask if being a twat about it included neither of them mentioning that kiss.

But he didn't. He took Calum's money and left him to it.

An hour passed before Calum came to find him. "I ordered a SIM."

"Good stuff." Brix kept his eyes on the stencil he was prepping for the following day—a polka-trash pinup girl with far more colour than he'd ever used when he'd first started tattooing.

"Lena said I need to show you the photos of Rubi's piece before she deletes them."

"Okay." Brix set his work aside. How the hell does she know I haven't seen it already? "Let's have it."

Calum held out the studio's iPad. "I didn't get a before shot."

"That's okay." Brix took the tablet. "We don't post Rubi online, or any of his mates who come in here." Calum didn't ask why, but Brix felt the need to fill the silence. "They're from the Rebel Kings Motorcycle Club in Whitness, which means as long as you work here, you can't tat anyone from another club."

"What other clubs?"

"Dog Crows, mainly. But I wouldn't ink them anyway."

"You don't like them?"

"They're nothing like Rubi." Brix swiped the iPad screen, scrolling through Corey and Kim's recent work until he landed on a tattoo that seemed to jump out of the screen. "Wow. You fucking nailed that."

Calum leaned closer. "You think so? He said he wanted a lark flying over a river, but there wasn't a lot of room."

"You made room." Brix traced the flawless dot work water that flowed seamlessly into Rubi's existing tats. "You've created a snapshot in time, and he'll appreciate that forever."

Calum winced. "He kinda cried. But he didn't say why."

Brix knew, but he kept it to himself, staring some more at the intricate, soulful work that belonged on a man like Rubi Matherson.

"How do you know so much about Harvest House?"

Brix blinked, the gnawing sensation returning to his gut as if he hadn't spent all day vanquishing it. "How do you think?"

Calum came back to the table. "You've been there?"

"More than once."

"Why?"

Brix couldn't handle the distress in Calum's eyes. The concern. "Don't look at me like that."

Calum said nothing. Being quiet was his baseline and Brix had learned years ago to let him breathe, but the silence got under his skin, sharpening the words he spoke next.

"Are you going to make me tell you all about it?"

Calum flinched, and it was a stab to Brix's heart.

You're hurting the nicest bloke in the world.

"I—"

Calum cut him off. "You don't have to tell me anything."

"I know." Brix unclenched his fists. "But I think it would be better for both of us if I did."

Calum sat down again, as if he was trying to make himself smaller. "You don't have to tell me any-fucking-thing. I didn't mean to push you there. I'm sorry."

"Fuck, don't do that, Cal. Don't apologise for my fuckery. That's not how this goes between you and me. However close we get, you're not my punch bag."

However close we get. What did that even mean? That they weren't close already? That years of dormant friendship and two drunk kisses didn't mean fuck all without this?

Christ, Brix didn't even know how Calum felt about Rob, and the idea that Calum was still in love with the arsehole who'd driven him all the way to Porth Ewan made him want to puke.

"Hey." Calum reached across the table and rubbed Brix's shoulder. "It's okay."

"You don't know that."

"Then tell me…if you want to. Or don't. I'm not going anywhere."

You don't know that either. But words tumbled out of Brix before the thought solidified. "I got sectioned when I was fourteen. My brother found me in the shed with a noose around my neck."

Horror darkened Calum's features. For the third time in five minutes, he asked Brix, "Why?"

Brix drifted, trying to remember. "I heard my dad say he'd shoot a fag on sight rather than drink with one. It fucked with my head for a long time, even after Abel found me, until I realised my dad wasn't his words."

Calum's fingers flexed, like he wanted to hold Brix's hand for real. "What do you mean?"

"My dad . . . he's been through a lot himself, you know? He wasn't raised in the world we were. I'm not excusing inbred homophobia, but it nearly killed him when the social worker told him I was scared of him. He came to the ward that night with a bottle of scrumpty-dumpty and told me he'd be proud to share his cider with me, even if I did like it up the arse."

Calum's eyes widened. "He said what?"

Brix laughed, relief flowing out of him, though he'd barely scratched the surface. "Don't be hard on him. It was as much as he could ever give me. My lot ain't never gonna win any diversity contests. They are who they are, and they allow me the same privilege. Can't ask for more."

"I don't know what to say." Bewilderment still creased Calum's face in sharp lines that didn't suit him. "The stuff about your dad makes sense, but I can't believe I never knew that part of your coming-out story. I thought you'd just had a rough few weeks with your brother."

"Nah, Abel was cool. The up the butt thing freaks him out, but find me a straight bloke who doesn't lose his balls at the thought of riding dick."

Calum finally smiled. "There's plenty of gay blokes can't handle it either."

"Not you, though."

"Not me."

Because Calum liked to bottom. Brix remembered that years old conversation. Maybe? Regardless, an image of Calum straddling his waist, strong thighs holding Brix in place, invaded Brix's mind with such fucking force that he had to take a breath. A startled snatch of air that had Calum frowning again.

"What's wrong?"

"What?"

"You've been weird all week."

"Sorry."

"Fuck, don't do that." Calum repeated Brix's earlier words with a soft grin. "I can handle anything as long as you're okay."

"I'm okay," Brix lied. "You want some lunch?"

"Lunch?"

"Yeah." Brix stood, naked Calum fading and the bleach scent of Harvest House returning full force. "I'll be back in a bit."

He fled before Calum could answer and did what all Lusmoores did when the world closed in on him—he ran to the sea. To the cliffs and the caves. And he stayed there until he could breathe again.