“You got hollow legs, or something?” Calum stumbled slightly. “I’m pissed as a fart over here.”
“It’s the air,” Brix said. “You’ll always get arseholed quicker by the sea if you’re not used to it.”
Lee giggled. “What’s your excuse then? You’re as twatted as him.”
“I’m not used to drinking. I’m usually a good boy, remember?”
“Old git, more like,” Lee said. “You should see him and Kim, Calum. They look like hooligans, but they’d rather make jam with the old ladies than come out on the raz.”
That wasn’t the Brix that Calum remembered, but he’d learned long ago that there were better ways of having fun than pissing it up every night. Not that he’d had much fun in recent memory. “I like jam.”
“Good,” Brix said. “And you, squirt . . . watch your lip. You know Kim don’t drink, and you know why. Everyone’s got their shit. They don’t need you mouthing off about it.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Lee poked her tongue out, apparently less offended by Brix’s reprimanding than she’d been in the pub.
Calum watched the exchange. It wasn’t the first time Brix had alluded to the fact that Lee wasn’t the only one at Blood Rush with a tale to tell. Sober Calum would’ve been curious, but drunk Calum had little capacity for much more than putting one foot in front of the other.
They reached the seafront and the strip that held the town’s scattering of tourist-friendly nightlife. Lee kissed Calum’s cheek, then threw her arms around Brix’s neck in a hug that was warmer than anything he’d seen from her so far.
“I’ll text you when I’m home. You’ll be asleep, but it’ll be there when you wake up, I promise.”
“That’s my girl.” Brix held Lee tightly, and she was probably the only adult Calum had ever seen disappear in his slim arms. “Be safe, yeah? No scrapping.”
“Yes, Dad.”
Lee pulled away and smirked in one last show of insolence before she waved and skipped up the steps to the packed bar.
Calum watched her melt into the crowd. “Think she’ll be okay?”
“I’d imagine so. Her girlfriend is a rugby player from Leicester. I wouldn’t fuck with either of them.”
“Doesn’t seem to stop you worrying, though?”
Brix shrugged and turned his gaze to the distant sea. “Not much does when you get to my ripe old age.”
“You’re thirty-three,” Calum scoffed. “That’s no age.”
“Isn’t it? My granddad didn’t make fifty.”
“Don’t mean you won’t make a hundred.” Calum shuddered, unwilling to imagine a world without Brix. “Is this why you don’t drink much? ’Cause it makes you morbid?”
Brix said nothing. Calum nudged him. “You okay?”
“Hmm? What? Oh, yeah, I’m okay. Just can’t handle my beer, is all. Good job we don’t have far to stagger home, eh?” Brix’s grin fell flat. Calum held his gaze for a long moment, until Brix shivered against the cold wind. “Come on. I need my bed.”
They drifted back to the cottage. Brix let them in and tossed his keys on the side. “There’s a spare set in the drawer by the fridge. Take them so you can get in and out when I’m not about.”
“Why? You going somewhere?”
“Not often, but you don’t want to be stuck with me all the time, do you?”
Or perhaps Brix didn’t want to be stuck with him. “Jesus, Calum. You’re about as interesting as my nan’s couch sometimes.” “Okay. Thanks.”
“No worries. Actually, now I think about it. I won’t be around tomorrow for a while. Will you be okay going to the studio on your own?”
“I’m not in till two.”
“Ah, that’s right. You’ve got the cover-up?”
