Chapter 17

Brix sat in the idling van, tracking the trickle of commuters who periodically emerged from Truro train station, ignoring the strongest urge he'd had to smoke in months. Years. An urge that kept his fingers busy tapping the dashboard, his knee, and anything else he touched.

"Take a minute. Calm yourself, boy. You're like a cat in heat."

"You shouldn't have gone out, Dad. Not at your age."

"That right? Well, if you'd bought me a few ales like you'd said you would, I'd have been too bloody drunk, eh?"

John Lusmoore's logic had made a sick kind of sense, but Brix found himself unable to heed the snark-hidden pearl of wisdom.

Take a minute. Calm yourself, lad.

Yeah, right.

Brix got out of the van and opened the back, nose-blind to the waft of stale chicken shit. He grabbed the roll of bin bags from the foot-well and gathered the newspapers and straw left over from the last rescue run, a job he should've done weeks ago, but it didn't take as long as he hoped. He dumped the bag in a nearby bin, and glanced north for the millionth time, searching for any sign of an incoming train. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Calum had gone back to London, a reality that made Brix sick to his stomach. Should've been with him. But hindsight was a wonderful thing. And while Brix regretted running out on Calum without telling him how much the night they'd spent together meant to him, he couldn't bring himself to regret anything else, even though what had passed between them could never happen again.

Despite his diligent vigil, a train pulled into the station on the London line without him noticing its approach. His heart flipped. Calum's train. It had to be. Calum's text had said he'd be home by ten, a prospect that, six hours ago, had seemed an unbearable wait. So why was Brix's heart in his throat now? When Calum was just a few minutes away?

Because you're about to tell him, on a scale of one to ten, how fucked up you really are.

"Brix?"

Brix jumped, as if he hadn't been expecting Calum to appear at any moment. "Hey."

Calum grinned a little, though his eyes were cautious. "Hey yourself. You all right?"

"Think so."

"Did you get some sleep?"

"Nope. You?"

"On the train. Don't worry about me. I'm fine."

And as Brix stared at Calum, he saw that he really was. Though wary, Calum's gaze was steady and strong, his half smile honest and true. He looked . . . lighter? Like a burden had slipped from his shoulders, despite the fact that he was carrying a mysterious bundle wrapped in his jacket.

Brix inclined his head towards it. "What you got there?"

"Dottie."

"Dottie?"

"My coil from Black Star. Found her in a skip down the road from the shop."

So he had been back to his old place. "Oh yeah? What else did you find?"

"Nothing that mattered. Rob was long gone, but I wasn't after him anyway. Just wanted Dottie safe."

"You look happy."

Calum shrugged. "I am. I feel free . . . at least as free as I can be while you're being so fucking vague."

From anyone else, Calum's statement would've seemed combative, but as Brix searched his face again, he found nothing but concern-laced curiosity, and his own heart broke a little more. "You think I'm a bit mental, eh?"

"No, I think there's something I don't know, because that's what you've told me, and I believe you."

Brix found no joy in Calum's acceptance of the truth, not yet. "Are you coming home?"

"Mate, I never left." Calum stepped forward when Brix didn't respond, and took his hand. "Wherever you need me, I'm there."

"Can we go for a drive?"

"Whatever you need, Brix."

Brix drove to the moors ten miles inland from Porth Ewan. Calum watched dark hills and fields slip by, and then cocked Brix a quizzical grin. "We're not going to the sea?"

"Not this time. I want to show you there's more to this place than getting wet."

"Fair enough." Calum went back to watching scenery he could barely see.

Brix missed his face.

"There's an old Porth Ewan rumour that my dad buried my mum out there." He waited for Calum to look at him again and waved a hand at the expanse of flat ground. "Offed her and put her in the ground."

Calum snorted. "Your mum left twenty years ago. That's not old by Porth Ewan standards. Some old geezer was telling me about his uncle the other day. Took me ages to realise he was talking about a dude from the sixteenth century. You seafolk have no concept of time."

Brix couldn't argue with that. How often had his family torn themselves apart over a slight that had happened before any of them were born? "Despite all that, it's a good place really. Healing. I don't know what would've happened to me if I hadn't come back here."

"It is magic," Calum agreed as Brix pulled into a parking spot and shut off the engine. "But it didn't heal you completely, did it?"

"No."

Calum's gaze flickered to the moors and back again before he took a breath and seemed to steel himself. "I think I know what you're going to tell me."

"Doubt it."

"So did I when it came to me, but it makes sense. You've told me so much already. I can't think of much else you'd truly believe you had to hide."

Brix's pulse nosedived, vision narrowing, white spots dancing where Calum should've been. "I?—"

No.

He couldn't do it.

"Brix."

No. He closed his eyes, shutting Calum out. I can't.

"You can." Calum wrapped his warm hands around Brix's ice-cold fingers. "You can tell me anything, even that, and I'll never turn away from you, I promise."

His promises were worth so much more than anyone else's.

Brix opened his eyes.

Calum's dark gaze was right there, a port in a storm, halfway to a hug while his arms stayed put.

Brix choked on the words. "I can't say it."

"You can."

Could he? Brix's heart stuttered again, like a steamroller backfiring in his chest. It hurt—everything hurt, except his fingers wrapped up in Calum's.

"I have HIV." Brix waited for Calum to rip his hands away. Steeled himself, as if he wouldn't shatter into a thousand pieces. "Did you fucking hear me?"

"I heard you." Calum moved closer, his voice soft and devoid of the disgust Brix had been so sure was heading his way, even from Calum.

Devoid of shock.

"You knew."

Not a question, but Calum nodded. "I had a lot of time to think on the train today. Otherwise, I might've figured it out quicker, and I'm so sorry about that. I'm sorry you had to go through this to tell me."

The apology washed over Brix, ringing in his ears as his brain set off at a million miles an hour again, nausea twisting his gut. If Calum had worked it out, who else had? Kim? Lee?

Dad.

Brix's stomach wrenched harder and for a protracted beat, he feared he truly would vomit.

"It's not obvious, if that's what you're worried about." Calum squeezed Brix's hands hard enough to bend the bones, anchoring him. "I think I'm the only person on earth so obsessed with you, and combined with the sex, the blood thing when I hurt myself, the pills you hide in your washbag…but I wasn't certain until you said it."

"And now you are." Brix's vision remained hazy. "Now you know."

"I do. And I'm glad of it. I'm just…fucking furious I didn't know years ago, cos my heart is killing me knowing you've been alone with this for so fuckinglong."

Again with the fucks. But Brix was too distracted by the fact Calum had worked out he'd never told anyone before this messy moment to make a joke of it. He stared out over the black moors, then closed his eyes as Calum pulled him into the embrace he'd needed so long ago, when life as he'd known it back then had come to a shattering end.

Calum held him forever, wrapping him in warmth, and a silence that healed some of the deepest cracks in Brix's heart.

Only the cold drove them apart, and Calum's soft kiss at Brix's cheek felt like goodbye.

Calum got out of the van.

Devastation hit Brix like a wrecking ball. Then bitter wind vanquished it as the van door beside him whipped open, gifting him a full frontal of Calum's lovely face.

Calum kissed him again, on the lips this time. "Shove over. I'm driving us home. We can talk more on the way, but it's okay if you need to drift."

Drift. How did Calum know Brix had been doing that his whole fucking life?

Brix scooted to the passenger seat as Calum claimed the space behind the wheel. "I didn't know you had a licence."

"Maybe I haven't." Calum turned the key. "You're just gonna have to trust me."

"I do trust you. You're my best friend . . . you always were."

Calum backed the van out of the space and spun around towards the road. "Some best friend. I wasn't there when you needed me most. You were in London when you found out, weren't you? That's why you came back here?"

"Yeah." Brix waited until Calum pulled onto the deserted road before he let out a sigh he'd been holding for a hundred years. "My dad found me the same state as I did you. Except I made it to Ladock bus station. I wasn't drunk, mind. Though he probably thought I was."

"Had you just found out?" Calum kept his eyes on the road, easing the van around the tight, Cornish corners. "I mean—been diagnosed—is that the right word?"

Brix shrugged. "I don't think it matters, but I'd known a few weeks by the time I crawled back here. Do you remember that ink convention in Croydon? When Two-Minute Tony won?"

"I heard about it, but I wasn't there."

"Really?" Brix sifted through memories that felt like they belonged to someone else. "You weren't there?"

"I was away. You were gone when I came back, and no one seemed to know where."

"I'm sorry."

Calum's hand left the steering wheel and touched Brix's, his fingertips tracing a burning trail across Brix's knuckles. "Don't be sorry. Just keep talking, eh? For as long as you need."

For as long as you need.Emotion warred with numbness. For now, numbness won out. "I've never told anyone . . . except Jordan."

Calum shot him another sideways glance. "Jordan?"

"I was supposed to exhibit at Croydon, but I woke up that morning feeling like shit, so I didn't go. Jordan went to work while I stayed in bed at his place. I thought it was just a hangover or something, but when he got home, I had a headache so bad I was screaming."

Calum turned the van left, his expression inscrutable.

Brix took a deep breath and continued. "The hospital thought I had meningitis. They put me in an isolation ward and told Jordan to call my family. Luckily, he didn't know how, cos the next morning…"

"Go on," Calum urged. "You're okay."

I love him.

Brix shivered through that reality and forced the rest of it out. "They sedated me overnight so I could sleep, and the next morning, a different doctor came round. Said he was going to do some tests—he didn't say what, and I didn't ask. I was distracted, Jordan had disappeared, and he'd been gone ages, and I was so fucking ill and scared, I couldn't figure out why he'd left me."

"He knew, didn't he?"

"That obvious, eh?" Brix tipped his head back. Talking about this—with Calum—was easier than he'd expected, but the weight of keeping it to himself so long had left him drained. "Well, you're right. He scarpered, and that was the last I saw of him for a while. The doctor came back that afternoon with a nurse from the sexual health clinic. They told me I had a recent HIV infection that was probably what was making me so ill—it's called seroconversion, not everyone gets it—then they gave me a number to call when I was discharged and that was it."

"That was it?"

Brix shrugged. "They didn't boot me out, but there wasn't much they could do for me. I left as soon as I could walk."

"Where did you go?"

"To find Jordan."

Calum fell silent as the sea came into view. His eyes remained on the road, but Brix could tell his mind was racing, drawing the same conclusions Brix had all those years ago.

"Don't hurt your brain, Cal. Whatever you're thinking is probably true."

"You got it from Jordan?"

Brix eased his aching head into a slow nod. "He'd known for six months but done nothing about it. We didn't bareback much—we didn't even fuck that much—but you know what things were like back then, with the drink and weed and shit. Stuff . . . happened, and the axe fell on me."

"I'm so sorry."

Brix turned to Calum as the van eased to a stop outside the cottage. "Ain't your fault."

"It isn't yours either."

"Isn't it? I got tanked up and had unprotected sex—more than once—with someone I knew was sleeping around with half of Camden. You can't deny how fucking stupid that was."

"No more than you'll ever convince me you deserved this." Calum shut off the engine and exited the van, slamming the door.

Brix stared after him.

I told him.

It didn't seem real, but Calum's abrupt absence made his bones ache too much to linger in the cold van.

He got out and trailed Calum to the front door. "Are you angry with me?"

Calum kicked the door open. "Never. I'm just angry, Brix. None of this is fucking fair—to you. And you're sitting in front of me worrying about how this is gonna affect me. And don't try to deny it, or we really will fall out."

The only falling Brix was doing was over, as two days without sleep caught up with him.

He stumbled.

Calum caught him. "Bed. Now."

Brix didn't argue. Letting Calum lead him upstairs and sit him on the edge of his bed had begun to feel normal.

He bent to untie his boots.

Calum beat him to it and eased them off his feet.

Dude, you don't have to undress me.

But the words didn't find their way to Brix's tongue. Instead, he raised his arms so Calum could slip his T-shirt off, then forced himself to stand and swap his jeans for sweats.

Calum disappeared. Brix's heart followed him, but his body couldn't comply. He crawled into bed, so tired the room spun, even as he strained to hear any sign that Calum had come back. For too long, there was nothing, then the bed dipped behind him and Brix found his head in the soothing safety of Calum's lap.

"Will you tell me what it's like?"

Brix opened his eyes. "What it's like?"

"Living with it." Calum stared down. "Does it make you sick?"

"Not often. Most days I forget I have it."

Calum's gaze turned quizzical. "I don't get that."

Brix relinquished the best pillow in the world and sat up, rotating so his legs could wrap around Calum's waist, a move that seemed to surprise Calum, until Brix took his hands. "It doesn't make me ill. I've been on the medication for years now. My viral load is undetectable, and my CD4 count is strong. Honestly, the meds give me more trouble than the disease."

"...Truvada?"

A few years ago, Brix would've been surprised Calum had heard of the magic blue pill that kept him alive, but times were changing fast. "At the moment, but the clinic switches it up sometimes. Right now, I take Truvada combined with another drug. Three fat pills a day, two red, one blue."

"And the side effects are nasty?"

"Only if I don't pay attention. You gotta take them regularly, with food, and leave off the binge drinking and shit. That blue pill's a bitch on an empty stomach. Hurts like hell and gives me vertigo."

"That's why you get dizzy sometimes?"

"You've noticed, eh? Thought I was better at hiding it than that."

Calum tucked a lock of Brix's wild hair behind his ear. "Most people don't stare at you as much as I do, remember?"

"You can stare at me all you like."

"Noted." Calum's grin was dazzling. Then it faded. "What else do the meds do? You've seemed really tired since I came here. Is that connected, or is there something else?"

"I think it's my head." Brix tapped his temple. "Life makes me tired, you know? As far as the rest of it, I just try to look at the numbers and go from there."

"Your blood count? The CD4 and stuff? I think I know what it all means, but I've never looked at it this hard."

"Why would you? Don't look so fucking guilty."

Calum scrubbed a hand over his beard. "I'll stop feeling guilty when I understand what it all means for you. Humour me, yeah?"

"All right." Brix delved into the knowledge he'd never dreamed he'd have. "Because the meds work for me, my viral load is undetectable—which means I have fuck-all active HIV in my blood. And my CD4 count is high, normal, like yours probably, which means my immune system is healthy."

"Healthy. That's a good place to be."

"I know. I'm lucky that my biggest battle is with myself, and it might've been that way even without this happening to me."

"What do you mean?"

Brix traced an abstract pattern on Calum's wrist. "It just seems too good to be true sometimes, you know? Like I'm building a house of cards and it's gonna blow down every time I get a fucking cold. Makes me want it over with. To let it kill me now so I don't have to fight it."

"But you're not ill and it's not going to kill you."

"I know . . . and I believe it most days, but it gets on top of me when other shit gets in my head."

"Because you were prone to depression before?"

When you tried to off yourself.Brix heard the end of Calum's unspoken sentence loud and clear. "You sound like my nurse. She reckons HIV probably saved me. I thought she was off her tits when she first said it, but it makes more sense these days. I was on self-destruct in London, but I'd never have come back here if things hadn't gone so wrong with Jordan, and who knows what mess I'd be in now."

Calum smiled. "I thought all Porth Ewan folk came home eventually."

"Not alive, they don't. It's the sea. We need it, it's who we are, and I wouldn't have survived this without it."

"You're not going to survive the night if you don't get some sleep." Calum touched Brix's face, rubbing the pad of his thumbs over Brix's stinging eyelids. "We can talk forever, if that's what you need, but it'll all still be here tomorrow."

"Will you?"

"Me?"

Brix leaned into Calum's touch. "Will you be here tomorrow . . . I mean, right here? With me?"

"If that's what you want."

"I want you to stay." Forever. But fatigue finally won the war and Brix ran out of words, and everything else he needed to hold himself up.

Calum eased him down and onto his side, moulding his bigger frame behind Brix, arms around him, chin on his head. "Then I'll stay."

A strangled sound—a sob, maybe— snarled in Brix's chest.

"Shh." Calum kissed his neck. "Sleep, mate. I'm here."