Calum looked at Brix like he’d grown four heads, but got up from the couch and drifted to the breakfast bar anyway. “What do you want me to do?”
“Nothin’ really. Just fancied some company.” Brix filled the pan with water and set it to boil. “And I was shitting it a bit that I’d lost you to the chooks.”
“Sorry.” Calum scratched his dark beard with a rueful twitch of his lips. “They’re kind of absorbing.”
Brix had lost more hours watching hen TV than he cared to admit, but he wasn’t fooled by Calum’s weak grin, and he didn’t like it. Calum had always been quiet—a bloke that watched and listened—but his bright smile and uproarious laugh had lit up the world.
Anger tickled Brix’s veins. Some douche bag’s chewed him up and spat him out. The Calum he’d left behind had been a gentle soul, trusting and kind. It would’ve been easy for a heartless bastard to hurt him.
“Thought I was the one in a world of my own?”
Brix blinked to find Calum watching him, his expression a contradictory mixture of cautious curiosity and apprehension. “What’s that?”
“You look pissed off.”
“Nah, not me, mate. Just worried I’m gonna fuck up your dinner.”
“Seems all right to me.”
“Yeah?” Brix peered at the pan of bubbling meat. “I haven’t made this for a while. My friend Lena usually helps me, and she does this bit. I don’t think I’ve put enough stock in.”
Calum was apparently mystified. “I can’t cook for shit. Beans on toast or oven chips is about my limit. Reckon I’ve got kebabs and fried rice in my blood.”
Brix tried to conceal his displeasure. After all, it hadn’t been that long ago he’d lived on his own city diet—cornflakes, and lemon chicken from the all-night Chinese—but his life had evolved since then. Necessity, plus the slower pace of Porthkennack, had changed his ways, and cooking had become an activity he enjoyed, especially when he had company.
The pasta water came to the boil. Brix threw in a packet of spaghetti. Calum didn’t seem particularly hungry, but Brix was hoping that would change when he had a bowl of food in front of him.
“I’ll stir it if you want.”
Brix jumped. Somehow he’d missed Calum rounding the breakfast bar and peering into the meat pan. “Erm, thanks. I’m a fucker for that. Burnt so many pans I’ve got shares in Tefal.”
Calum raised another weary half smile. “Multitasking, eh?”
“Aye.”
“Aye?” Calum’s grin widened enough to reassure Brix he was truly with him. “You sound like a fisherman.”
“In another lifetime, I might’ve been. My dad and all my uncles lived on the sea, my brother too, on the mackerel tugs and the lifeboats.”
“How many do you have?”
“Uncles or brothers?”
“Both, I guess.”
Brix swirled the spaghetti. “Three uncles, one brother. Most of them live around here somewhere, except my brother, Abel. He’s in Belmarsh.”
Calum nodded. “I remember you visiting him from time to time. How long does he have left?”
“Two years.”
Brix picked up the olive oil, turning away from Calum so he wouldn’t have to look him in the eye when he inevitably asked what Abel had gone down for.
But the question never came. Calum reached around Brix and snagged a strand of spaghetti. He tossed it at the tiled wall. “It’s stuck. My ma always told me that meant it was done.”
That was good enough for Brix. He drained the pasta and tossed it in the meat pan. “Grab some bowls, will ya?”
“Okay.” Calum glanced around the small kitchen and opened a few cupboards. The second one he tried dumped a stack of tattoo designs on his head.
