Calum sat back, prepared to take Brix’s word for it, but then Brix jumped up with more grace than Calum could ever hope to have and went to the cabinet by the window. He pulled out a battered photo album Calum had long forgotten and brought it to the couch.
“Proof,” he said by way of explanation, his words heavy and slurred, like his own skinful had caught up with him. “Let’s find us happy.”
Curious, Calum forced himself upright and scooted along the couch. In his drunken stupor, he overshot and bumped into Brix, who didn’t appear to notice, or feel the jolt of electricity where their knees touched. Calum swallowed. Damn. Must be the scrumpy. Fuck it. He took another deep swallow. “Show me the happy.”
Brix gulped more scrumpy, then opened the album, flipping forward a few pages until he came to what Calum recognised as Brix’s converted warehouse flat in Camden, the scene of many a rowdy party. Calum couldn’t count the long summer nights he’d spent on Brix’s balcony, talking, drinking, smoking, all to the soundtrack of Brix’s huge music library.
“Makes me want a spliff,” Calum said.
Brix sighed. “Me too, but I gave the fags up, and the weed. Gotta be clean. Don’t even drink much anymore, believe it or not.”
“Why? Not that it’s a bad thing, I guess.” Calum reached for his scrumpy, trying to ignore the irony.
Brix did the same, draining his glass. “Living hard caught up with me. Can we leave it at that?”
Calum frowned. “Of course, but . . .” Is that why you left? For some reason, his voice fell away before the words became real.
“Here you are.” Brix passed the photo album over. “That was your missus, wasn’t it? Can’t remember her name.”
“Lucy.” Calum glanced at the photo absently, his mind still on Brix’s cryptic explanation. He was missing something huge. Had to be. His family aside, Brix had never been one for secrets.
“Have you had any girlfriends since her?”
“What?”
“Since Lucy. I remember you banging a few blokes, but I always figured you’d end up with a bird. You seemed so comfortable with them.”
“Not really.” Calum turned a few pages until he came to a photo of Brix sitting on a bench outside the Camden studio, his clothes grungier than he seemed to favour these days, and his hair held back with a gothic bandana. “I’d just never met a bloke who wanted to do more than fuck.”
Brix poured more scrumpy. “They’re hard to find.”
“What about Jordan? I thought you two would go the distance.”
“I don’t want to talk about Jordan.”
Fuck. Calum’s inebriation had obscured the warning lights flashing around Jordan. Did Brix know what had become of him? Last Calum had heard, Jordan had moved to Amsterdam.
He turned another page. Brix moved closer to peer over his shoulder. Warmth where they touched seared through Calum, eclipsing even the scrumpy-induced burn in his gut. “I’m—er—still looking for the happy.”
“It’s there. Keep going.”
They were about ten pages in when Brix let out a low hoot. “And there it is. Game, set, and match to me. Happy Calum, grinning away to himself like no one’s watching.”
Calum stared at the photo of himself, circa 2009, all dodgy jeans and faded band T-shirts, his hair cropped short in an ill-advised buzz cut. “What a tool.”
“Aw, don’t be a dick. You’re happy. Look.”
Calum looked again and couldn’t deny it. He had no recollection of the night the photo had been taken, but his carefree smile was so genuine it seemed to belong to someone else. “Did you take the photo?”
Brix shrugged. “Maybe. I always had that old Nikon knocking around that flat, and you were my favourite subject.”
“Was I?”
Brix’s grin turned sheepish, and he flipped forward a few more pages, all of them crammed with image after image of Calum smiling to himself, clearly off his nut, or staring into space like a gormless idiot.
Calum didn’t get it. “Why me?”
Brix set the photo album aside and grasped Calum’s shoulders, shaking them slightly, his gaze sliding into an intensity that made Calum’s head spin. “Because I wanted to show you something you’d never see on your own. Cal, you’re fucking beautiful. Has no fucker ever told you that?”
