Chapter 15

Or whatnever crossed Calum's mind. He hung his own damp T-shirt over the bannister and followed Brix upstairs. On the landing, he hovered at Brix's open door, but Brix's heavy sigh pulled him forward.

"You look like you're being lured into the lion's den." Brix flopped down on his neat bed. "It ain't scary in here, I promise."

"I'm not in here much, eh?"

That wasn't it, but Calum let it go. "You want more tea?"

"Nah, but Cal?"

"Yeah?"

"Sit down. You're making me nervous."

Biting his lip, Calum sat on the edge of the bed.

Brix sat up and mirrored his pose, their shoulders touching. "I know it don't make no sense to you, but this room is my perspective. What I need to wake up to. Tidy space, tidy mind? It's the only way I can cope sometimes."

The theory made sense. Back in London, how many nights had found Calum counting stock that didn't need to be counted? Organising shelves that no one gave a shit about? Too many, but Black Star Ink had been like that, a world away from the nuclear family of Blood Rush. A world away from Brix.

Black Star. Calum's stomach turned over. He reached for Brix, but Brix was already halfway into his arms. "I wish I could tell you it's going to be okay."

"It's all right that you can't." Brix rubbed Calum's jaw with his own. "I don't need you to fix things. It's enough that you're here."

"Why?"

A whisper.

In answer, Brix grasped Calum's face and kissed him deeper than they'd ever kissed before. Hotter. Harder. And with more purpose than Calum could stand if one of them pulled away.

He closed his hands around Brix's, like he could hold Brix to him and never let go. He leaned closer, knocking Brix off-balance so they tumbled to the mattress, and Brix pushed him onto his back, his strong and slender legs pinning Calum in place.

Brix kissed Calum again. And again, ploughing his tongue into Calum's mouth until Calum fought his dominance and flipped them over, covering Brix with his heavier weight.

Calum broke the kiss, breathing hard, and dropped his forehead to Brix's, pressing them together like he could force his way into Brix's mind. "What do you want? What do you need?"

"I need to touch you."

"Do it, then."

"I don't want to do it for me. I need you to want me. Even if it's just for now. If it's just?—"

Calum placed his hand over Brix's mouth and unbuckled his own belt, rising up on his knees to shove his jeans and boxers down his hips. To let his cock spring free, inches from Brix's face. "I want you. I've always wanted you. How can you not know that?"

"You never told me."

"You never asked."

"Because I wanted you too . . . " Brix mauled his bottom lip. "So badly I was afraid of it."

Calum didn't believe that. Then the thought imploded. Brix was the toughest bloke he'd ever met, but in the past month, he'd learned that he was as fragile as anyone. Perhaps more. "Don't be afraid. Just touch me, Brix. It'll be okay, I promise."

The uncertainty in Brix's gaze hurt Calum's heart. He grasped Brix's hand and placed it on his dick, holding it there, so Brix could absorb how badly Calum wanted him. It had been so long since anyone had touched him this way, and as Brix's fingers traced a shaky path along his shaft, he wondered how long it had been for Brix. The Brix of old had jumped from bed to bed around Camden, with and without his sometime-lover, Jordan, but he was a different man now, and Calum couldn't believe the tremor in his hands was all about him.

As if.

But Calum gritted his teeth and silenced the devil on his shoulder. Brix's tentative touch was enthralling, consuming, and as it grew in confidence, Calum couldn't look away.

Brix closed his fist around Calum's cock, gentle at first, but then squeezing tighter, and twisting, and fuck, grazing his balls with the other hand.

Calum dropped his chin to his chest with a low groan. Long minutes passed in a haze of laboured breaths. Of hypnotic sensation. Orgasm rushed up on him, and he couldn't find the willpower to fight it, or care enough to try as Brix gripped him harder, abandoning Calum's balls to dig his nails into Calum's hip.

"You're so fucking hot."

You should see yourself.But Calum didn't have the coherency to voice it. Release smashed into him, and he came on Brix's chest with a guttural cry.

"Fuck." Calum fell forward into Brix's waiting arms. "Fuckfuckfuck."

"They'd better be good fucks." Brix wrapped his arms around Calum, smearing the sticky mess between them.

"They're good fucks," Calum croaked. "Lemme touch you too."

He reached for Brix's rigid dick, but Brix dodged his hands. "Don't worry about me."

Lethargy washed over Calum like a bellyful of Valium. He grumbled. Maybe? He couldn't be sure. He rolled off Brix and pressed into his side, hooking a leg over his abdomen. "I'm supposed to be looking after you," he murmured as Brix's rough fingertips brushed back his sweat-dampened hair.

"You are," Brix whispered. "More than you know."

* * *

It was still dark when Calum woke sometime later. He opened his eyes, and the unfamiliar mattress beneath him felt like his old bed back in London.

Running off like a jilted fucking bride? Don't bother telling stories about me. No one will believe you.

Calum bolted upright, colliding with a bony mass. "Shit."

"Easy." Brix steadied him with one hand, tossing the washbag that lived on his bedside table with the other. In the dim lamp light, his gaze seemed empty and the events that had led to them being holed up in Brix's bed together hit Calum like a train.

He found his equilibrium and grasped Brix's forearm, wrapping his fingers around the slender bones to claim his place in the world. "Did Kim call?"

"A few times. They haven't capsized yet."

"That's good, right?"

Brix swallowed and rubbed his jaw, like he had something stuck in his throat. "They're still pulling crew from the tanker, and it's still storming like Mother Nature's bitchy aunt, so you tell me."

Calum regarded Brix; he seemed more irritated that distressed. "You okay?"

"Can't sleep."

"Wanna try?" Calum opened his arms. "I can listen for the phone."

"That ain't how I dreamed of falling asleep on you."

Calum put his hands on Brix's shoulders and tugged him close, then lowered them both to the mattress, his arms closing around Brix, like he could cage him, shelter him, heal him. I wish. "We can dream tomorrow when everyone's safe. Just rest for now, even if you can't sleep."

Brix closed his eyes.

Then his heavy sigh broke the storm-punctuated silence, and he sat up, glaring at something unseen beyond the window. "I can't fuck you."

"What?"

Brix tore his gaze from the beating rain and stared at Calum in the darkness. "I meant it when I said I'd wanted you for years—still want you, so fucking much—but I can't have sex with you."

"I—uh. Why not?" It wasn't what Calum meant to say, but as he uttered the words and Brix's features hardened, the answer felt like a slow death. "Brix?"

"Don't."

"Hey—"

"I can't, okay? I just fucking can't. Not with you, not with anyone."

"But—"

"Calum." Brix whispered his name, but the terror lacing every syllable was deafening, and Calum's heart skipped a beat, absorbing the fear and defeat that screamed from every facet of Brix—his slumped shoulders and hung head, his clenched fists and screwed-up eyes.

"Brix, please. Talk to me."

A lifetime passed before Brix opened his eyes, but anything he might've said was cut off by the Pugwash theme tune blaring out of his phone. He dove across Calum to snatch it from the pillow beside them. "Dad? Where are you?"

Relief surged through Calum. Unless Brix's father was calling to say goodbye from the upturned hull of a sinking lifeboat, they were about to get some good news.

He slid from the bed, searching out his clothes that were scattered around the room as he listened in on Brix's end of the conversation. Not much made sense from Brix's limited contribution, but the tension easing from Brix's taut muscles spoke a thousand words. Whatever else was going on behind the storm in Brix's eyes, the men at sea were safe.

Brix hung up. "The boat is in. Took the last crew from the tanker into Porth Luck and landed there."

"Where's your old man?"

"In the pub they opened up as a reception centre, drinking the pumps dry like nothing's happened."

Maybe to Brix's father it hadn't. He hadn't seen the torment marring Brix's beautiful face, the pain still dancing around the wall that had sprung up between him and Calum.

"Maybe you'd better go find him, then." Calum spoke around the lump in his throat. "Bring him home."

Brix nodded slowly, like he had so much more to say, but he said nothing, and silence reigned as Calum retrieved his clothes from the floor and pulled them on.

As he left Brix alone and retreated to the bathroom.

He was in the shower when the front door slammed and the van rumbled to life. Both sounds seemed so final that Calum's blood ran cold, despite the steaming spray battering him, washing all traces of Brix from his skin. He laid his head on the tiles, searching for some perspective in the chaos of the last twenty-four hours, but none was forthcoming. Rob's phone call had driven him to the foot of Brix's cliff, but that moment seemed so far away now. As if Calum had become someone else since then.

Someone who got their dick out for their best mate?

Nice. But Calum felt no shame. He could find no sense in the time he'd spent with Brix tonight, but he'd meant every kiss, every touch, and his heart told him Brix had too.

It didn't tell him what to do next, though. Calum had believed Brix when he'd said he wanted Calum—still believed him—but the defeat in Brix when he'd said they could never fuck had cut Calum to the bone.

Damn it.Calum banged his head on the tiles a final time before he shut off the shower and got out, padding naked across the landing.

His phone rang as he was drying off.

Lee.

Calum grabbed it and swiped the screen. "What time do you call this?"

"Half-seven. Why? Forgotten how clocks work?"

"Half-seven?" Calum ignored Lee's trademark sass and pulled his phone from his ear to check the time. "Fuck. Thought it was still the middle of the night."

"Looks like it too with those storm clouds lurking."

Calum glanced out of the window. Black cloud still hung heavy in the sky. "What are you doing up anyway? Are you okay?"

Lee laughed. "You've been up all night with Brix while the boat was out, and you're asking me if I'm okay? Dude, I slept like an orange-haired baby."

"So did I." Calum dropped his towel and snagged a T-shirt from the pile on the dresser. "Brix didn't."

"I'm not going to ask how you know that."

Mischief dripped from Lee's tone. Calum ignored it in favour of yanking some jeans up his legs. "Perhaps he told me, eh? Ever thought about that?"

"Nope. Sue me. How is he, anyway? Kim was wrecked when I saw him."

"When did you see Kim?"

"When I was getting out of my taxi."

"Your taxi?"

Lee sighed. "Yeah, numbnuts, my taxi. I stayed at my sister's last night, so I had to scarper before her kids woke up."

"Why?"

"Why do you think? So they don't start asking where Uncle Liam went."

Calum sank onto his bed. "Your sister makes you leave before her kids wake up so they won't find out you transitioned?"

"Actually, no. My sister's a stuck-up bitch, but she's not that bad. It's me who can't handle it. My therapist reckons I'm scared they'll be disappointed by the new me."

"Are you?"

"Maybe. Can't be arsed to figure it out just yet, though, and anyway, I didn't call you to talk about my shit, so stop asking me Jeremy Kyle questions."

Calum grinned into a yawn. "Okay, okay . . . Brix's dad is fine, if that's what you wanted to know. Brix went to round him up from a pub in Porth Luck."

"Sounds about right. You sure you're okay? I can come over if you want? Keep you company till Brix gets back?"

Calum's smile died. "Why are you being nice?"

"I'm allowed."

"Not if there's some weird subtext you're not telling me about."

"Subtext? Whatever. I called cos Brix gets stressed about family shit and I wanted to check you weren't rocking in a corner, blaming yourself for any Lusmoore lunacy."

Lusmoore lunacy? Calum rubbed his eyes. "Brix isn't the crazy one in this house. He was worried, but who wouldn't be?"

"Me. I couldn't give two fucks if my dad drowned at sea."

"Understandable. We're not all the same."

"I know. You don't have to go big brother on me. I'm the one trying to be nice here, remember?"

"And you're good at it, but you'd be better if you just said what you want to say."

Silence. Then Lee let loose a sigh of her own. "I guess I'm trying to tell you not to freak out if Brix goes walkabout over the next few days. He's the nicest bloke in the world, but sometimes he needs space to figure out his own shit. Get away from all of ours."

Calum pictured Brix crouched on the cold ground, rain pelting him at the foot of the cliff, listening with more patience than anyone deserved to Calum's half-arsed explanation to why he'd run away from a fucking phone call. "You think I should give him some space?"

"Me?" Lee snorted. "What the fuck do I know? Say what I see, and I'm usually wrong."

"Can you do me a favour?"

"Providing it ain't sexual."

Calum rolled his eyes. "Can you get Lena to cancel my appointments today? I have to go somewhere."

"Sounds mysterious."

"Not really, but if I tell you where I'm going, I won't be able to change my mind."

"Is that likely?"

"Not sure yet. I'll let you know?"

Lee grunted. "Good enough for me. I'll sort your shit. Don't worry about anything, just keep in touch, yeah?"

"Will do. Thanks, squirt. I owe you."

"Doesn't work like that in Porth Ewan. Nice people are real, and you don't owe me jack."

Lee hung up, leaving Calum with burning eyes he couldn't explain, but he didn't dwell on it long. He pocketed his phone and keys, and went downstairs. Fed the cats. Checked on the chickens.

He scooped Bongo up. Before Porth Ewan, he'd had no idea that holding a chicken could be so relaxing, but as he stood in the damp early morning, counting Bongo's heartbeat and absorbing her quiet clucks, he reckoned only holding Brix would be better.

Brix.

The purpose of Calum's mission today returned full force. He set Bongo down and went back inside, patting his jacket pocket for his wallet.

It wasn't there, or in the bowl of crap on the kitchen table.

Fuck's sake.

Calum jogged upstairs and checked his bedroom—grabbing his bag and a set of long-forgotten keys—and the bathroom, but he came up blank, which left only one place.

Venturing into Brix's room felt like returning to the scene of a well-meant crime. Gaze down, Calum retrieved his wallet from the floor by the bedside table, but the clear space above caught his attention. Something was missing. The washbag—it had gone—and in the silence of the empty cottage, its absence seemed more significant than Calum could explain.

He shoved the wallet in his pocket and fled the cottage. The bus stop was a five-minute walk along the seafront. On the way, Calum looked up each time a vehicle passed, expecting Brix's van to rumble past, but it didn't happen, and as the bus left Porth Ewan behind a while later, the pang in his heart was almost too much to bear.