“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 off with me for telling Brix about your old place, but I had to. He’d do his nut 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 on the internet.”
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 barely a pair of clean 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.”
“Uh-huh. 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 the noisy reappearance of Brix and Kim. 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, considering his bulk. Zelda, however, climbed up Calum’s back and punched him in the face. Nice. Perhaps Porthkennack 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, who seemed to have decided his shoulder was hers to sit on. But it proved another fight he was destined to lose. She’d settled in quite nicely by the time Brix returned, much to Brix’s obvious amusement.
“Fuckin’ A. She’s got you where she wants you, eh? She’ll have the shirt off your back next.”
Calum didn’t fancy admitting that Zelda already slept on the small pile of new not-new clothes he’d bought from the local 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 some of 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 baby blues.
But it seemed that, for once, Brix wasn’t 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 loved the studio.”
True, though Calum was still getting used to the weird pirate-punk music Brix played at Blood Rush. It was a long way from the painfully cool dubstep crap most places in London favoured. “You don’t really want me to sing, do you?”
“No. I do want you to come out for a pint, though. It’s no fun on my own.”
