Chapter 7

Calum paced the spare bedroom in Brix's cosy cottage. Voices and laughter filtered up from the kitchen, but despite Brix's open invitation, he felt no urge to join them. In fact, the thought of traipsing downstairs and presenting himself to Brix's mates—even though he knew Lena already—made him want to throw himself out of the nearest window.

Imagining it took him back to the cliff-top adventure Brix had taken him on that morning.

You can come up here wanting to jump . . .

Brix had uttered the words like they meant nothing, but the flash of pain in his eyes had struck Calum like a lightning bolt. He'd stepped closer, his arms outstretched, silently asking Brix to lean on him and set free whatever shadows had brought him home to Porth Ewan, but Brix hadn't seen him move. He'd closed his eyes to the wind and turned away, signalling that it was time to go home.

Home.

Calum swallowed a bitter laugh. He hadn't known where that was for a long time. Brix had taken the soul from London when he'd left all those years ago, and Reading held nothing for him except the poky house he'd grown up in. No lifelong friends or treasured memories. No ties, no bonds. Which left him hiding in Brix's spare room, jumping out of his skin every time a burst of laughter reached his ears.

Idiot.

He made grand plans to skulk in his room all afternoon, but Brix woke him up sometime later. "Hungry?"

Calum rubbed his eyes. "What?"

"Hungry. It's five o'clock."

Damn.It had been barely three the last time Calum had looked at the retro alarm clock on the bedside table. He sat up, helped upright by Brix's strong hands. "Did your friends go?"

"No." Brix eyed Calum steadily. "That doesn't mean you can't come downstairs and have some dinner, does it? Can't stay up here forever."

The miserable bastard in Calum wanted to do exactly that, but the gnawing hunger in his belly betrayed him . . . along with a need to escape the scorching heat of Brix's touch before he embarrassed himself. "What's cooking?"

"Paella."

"Paella?" That got Calum's attention, and explained the smoky scent of paprika and garlic wafting through his open bedroom door. "Didn't fancy a roast?"

Brix smirked. "Oh, I did, but Kim and Lena had other ideas."

Lena. Calum had dodged her since she'd dropped her bomb about the fate of Black Star Ink. And he'd taken her advice to be elsewhere when his abandoned client had come in to see Brix.

Cal, you're such a pussy.

"What are you thinking so hard about? Don't like fish?"

Calum returned to reality. Brix had leaned closer while he'd been gone—too close if he'd been anyone else—so their faces were inches apart. "What are you talking about fish for?"

Brix stared for a heavy moment before he blinked and pulled back. "I wondered if you didn't like it. There's chicken in the paella if you don't, and chorizo. You can pick out the squid."

Calum nodded, finally understanding. "I like fish. Just not sure I'm in the mood for company."

"It's not company. It's Lena and Kim. You know Lena, and Kim wants to meet you."

"Can't I meet her at work?"

"Just come down. Have some food, say hello. Ten minutes, then I'll leave you in peace, I promise."

Brix slugged Calum's arm and left the room.

Calum dragged himself off the bed and peered in the nearby mirror at his wayward hair. Rob liked it neat, but since Calum had invaded Brix's life—a man who'd never sniffed a hair-styling product in his life—he'd let it grow and succumb to the wild Porth Ewan wind, leaving it a shaggy mess of dark curls. Not his best look. Or was it? He'd always felt like a twat with a head of hair wax.

You're still a twat now.

Calum found some socks and went downstairs. In the kitchen, he expected to find another woman with fluorescent locks to add to Brix's collection. Instead he found Lena talking the ear off a scruffy dude who made Brix seem tidy and big. Calum had been caught out again, as Kim, it seemed, was a bloke.

A friendly bloke, if his wide grin and outstretched hand were anything to go by. "All right?"

Calum shook Kim's hand, forcing a smile. Meeting Rob's mates had never panned out. Apparently, Calum wasn't good with people.

Can't you handle a bit of adult conversation?

Well sure, if adult conversation didn't mean shouting over each other about how much money they had.

"Cal?" Brix was staring like it wasn't the first time he'd called Calum's name. "You want a drink?"

Probably a bad idea, but something made Calum nod anyway, and Brix pressed a bottle of cold beer into his hand, pushing him gently towards the kitchen table. "Park yourself. I'll get the grub."

The grub turned out to be a huge shallow pan of chubby yellow rice laden with chicken, seafood, and spicy sausage. With all the bickering going on around him, Calum couldn't work out who'd cooked it, but it was good. He was on his third helping when he caught Brix watching him.

Calum shoved a prawn in his mouth and raised an eyebrow. Brix mirrored the gesture, his eyes twinkling with an emotion Calum couldn't decipher. So he looked away, turning his attention to Kim, who was arguing with Lena in a language Calum had never heard.

Brix came to his rescue. "Stop yabbering in Cornish. Cal ain't got a clue what you're on about."

"Sorry," Kim said. "It's habit when she gets on my dick about leaving tools all over the bedroom."

"Bedroom?" Calum glanced between Kim and Lena, noting for the first time how their bodies were angled towards each other, their shoulders touching. "Sorry, I hadn't clicked you're together."

"Together." Lena poked Kim's ribs. "That's an interesting concept for the only mug who'll put up with you."

Kim swatted her away. "Like you're a picnic."

"Compared to you?"

"Easy," Brix intervened. "Sunday supper club ain't for your bitching."

"True enough." Kim shovelled the last of his food into his mouth and pushed his bowl away. "Calum, I saw the mandala you did yesterday. That's some awesome shit. Surprised we haven't heard of you."

Calum glanced at Lena, who stared steadily back. "No reason for you to have heard of me. I'm not that good."

"Yes, you are." Lena rapped her knuckle on the table. "I put your work on the website last night, and you've got appointments every day this week. If you want them, of course. I didn't take deposits, just in case."

"In case what?"

"In case you didn't want to work every day for the next week. You're self-employed. You can do what you want."

What I want?If only Calum knew what that was. If only he'd ever known. "I'll do them. Got nothing else on, have I?"

"Except chicken whispering," Brix said. "Pretty sure I caught you singing to Bongo yesterday."

Calum broke his stare-off with Lena. "Oh yeah?"

"Wouldn't be the first time you've serenaded a bird."

"If you're referring to Stacey from Bethnal Green, you can fuck off."

"Oooh, sounds juicy," Lena said. "Do tell."

Brix shook his head. "Nah, I'm a gentleman, but if you've never heard a drunk Reading lad sing Valerie from the bottom of an East End high-rise, you're missing out."

Calum laughed, couldn't help it, though his humour was heavy, weighed down by the knowledge that the Calum who'd the balls to do stuff like that was long gone. "I blame that scrumpy you made us all drink. Fucking stuff was like acid. I'd have tried flying if my legs coulda carried me to the top of those flats."

Kim grinned. "Brix, you should get 'im over your old man's place. Give him some home brew."

"No, thanks." Calum drained his beer. "That hangover still haunts me."

Brix got up and started clearing the table. The cats howled for their dinner at his feet, and he opened a cupboard and cursed. "Fuck. I didn't bring their food from the shed when I got back from the wholesalers. Give us a hand, Kim?"

Calum pictured the giant sack of dry cat food Brix had brought home the previous evening. He'd wondered where it had gone. Things seemed to disappear in Brix's house and garden, like the stack of crates that had been here the first day he'd come. They'd evaporated overnight, leaving Calum to consider the possibility that they might've been a figment of his drunken imagination.

Kim and Brix went outside, which left Calum with Lena. Dodging her keen gaze, he gathered the last of the dishes and took them to the sink, hoping she wouldn't follow.

She appeared at his elbow a moment later. "You wash. I'll dry and put away. Don't suppose you know where anything goes yet."

"Okay."

"Are you going to sulk forever?"

"Sulk?" Calum rinsed a plate and passed it over. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that you've hardly spoken to me since Wednesday."

Calum couldn't deny it. "Sorry."

"No, you're not."

He couldn't deny that either.

Lena sighed. "Look, I know you're pissed with me for telling Brix about your old place, but I had to. He wouldn't like it if he found out and I hadn't told him. I wasn't stirring, I promise. I haven't told him any of the shit your ex has written about you online."

Calum dropped a jug into the sink, splashing them both with water. "What?"

"The weaselly guy with the glasses and bad quiff? Apparently, you stripped his shop, punched him when he tried to stop you, then ran off with all the money."

It would've been funny if it weren't so tragic. Calum shook his head. "That's not what happened."

"I know. You turned up here with a black eye and no socks, and I can tell by the way you moon at Brix that you wouldn't hurt a fly."

Calum didn't know whether to be offended or embarrassed. "I don't moon at Brix."

"Okay. Like he doesn't moon right back."

Calum opened his mouth. Shut it again.

Lena laughed. "Dude, quit catching flies. It's okay. Your secrets—all of them—are safe with me. I only told Brix about your old place because I had to. The rest of it's none of my business."

Calum was saved from having to answer by Brix and Kim coming back. He drained the water from the sink and took the tub Brix had filled with cat food to the corner of the kitchen where Zelda and Dennis had their bowls.

Dennis sprang onto the counter with surprising grace. Zelda climbed up Calum's back and punched him in the face.

Amazing. Perhaps Porth Ewan wasn't such a safe place after all.

Lena and Kim left not long later. Brix walked them out while Calum fended off attention from Zelda and lost.

She'd settled in by the time Brix returned.

He laughed. "She'll have the shirt off your back next."

Calum didn't fancy admitting that Zelda already slept on the small pile of not-new clothes he'd bought at the charity shop. "She's all right."

"No, she ain't. She's an arsehole. Always has been. I just love her anyways. She's a bit like Lena, really. You two make up while I was outside?"

"We never fell out."

"Liar."

"Am I?" Calum plucked Zelda from his shoulder, ignoring her grumble. His conversation with Lena had settled the disquiet he'd carried since she'd confronted him on Wednesday, but the way Brix was looking at him now made him want to hide behind Dennis's impressive bulk. What was it about this bloke that made it feel like he was staring into Calum's soul?

Fucking Brix and his blue eyes.

But for once, Brix didn't seem oblivious to the effect he was having on Calum. "All right, enough of the angst for one day. I reckon we could do with more beer. Fancy a pint and a shanty sing-along?"

"A what?"

Brix grinned. "It'll make sense when we get there. I need to catch up with my old man, and I reckon you could do with getting out of the house."

"I've already been out of the house. You dragged me up a cliff, remember? And the studio."

"Doesn't mean you can't come out again. Besides, you love the studio."

True, though Calum was still getting used to the pirate-punk music. "You don't really want me to sing, do you?"

"No. I want you to come out for a pint. It's no fun on my own."

Brix smiled and every mechanism to refuse him withered and died.

Calum darted upstairs with Zelda hot on his heels and peeled off the T-shirt he'd napped in, searching out a clean one. A noise behind him sounded like Dennis. He turned, expecting to see the giant cat digging through his socks. Instead he found Brix in the doorway, eyes wide, clutching a stack of his own T-shirts.

"Fuck." Calum wrapped his arms around his bare torso, wishing the floor would swallow him up.

Brix averted his gaze. "Thought you might need to borrow some stuff. Er . . . sorry, I'll leave these here."

He dumped the T-shirts on the bed and disappeared. Calum shivered and let his arms drop, already back in London, clutching a soggy bag of chips outside Rob's favourite cocktail bar.

Sure you wanna eat them?

Fuck's sake. Embarrassment—frustration—tossed Calum's gut. It had been a long time since he'd been half naked around Brix, longer than Calum cared to remember. Or perhaps he did care to remember, and that was the problem, because even without the ink, Brix's body was a work of art. Limbs for days and sinewy muscles. Not that shit like that mattered. In the rare moments of peace Calum had ever had from Rob's games, it hadn't been Brix's body he'd imagined. No. It had been his eyes . . . and his voice. Damn. Brix had the best voice.

Zelda appeared from nowhere, springing onto the bed and making a beeline for Brix's T-shirts. Calum rescued them, pulling his own shirt on, and took them across the landing.

Remembering Brix of old, he expected to find a scene of chaos—piles of clothes, sketchbooks, and art supplies. Instead, he found a bedroom so neat and tidy it was almost sterile. The only thing out of place was a washbag on the bedside table that looked like it belonged in the bathroom of someone else's house, and a shiver slunk down Calum's spine.

Get out of his room.

Fucking hell.

Calum fled and found Brix with the chickens, turning over the earth in the runs. He leaned on the fence and watched, his new favourite pastime. Who knew chickens fighting over worms could be so entertaining? Not that Bongo got any; she was too placid to fight—or too lazy. Calum hadn't decided. He stopped Brix as he passed with the spade and snagged her a worm. Then he bent over the fence and scooped her up, dangling it into her beak.

"Jesus Christ," Brix muttered.

"What?"

"You're gonna be the death of me."

Brix flung his spade down and stomped into the shed, leaving Calum with the chickens and the worms.