Still, he’d run out of time to obsess over Calum for now. The studio door opened and the biker dude who was to be Brix’s canvas for the day arrived. The back piece was large and complex, and kept Brix busy for a couple of hours. Fen was long gone by the time he took a breather, and Calum nowhere to be seen either.
Brix abandoned the biker dude under the guise of making a cuppa and went to the backroom staff used as a break room. He half expected to find it empty, but Calum was at the table, engrossed in something on the studio’s iPad. “Watcha doing?”
Calum jumped. “Fuck. Oh, it’s you.”
“Expecting someone else?”
“What?”
“You jumped like a cat with a cucumber.”
Calum stared blankly. Clearly he hadn’t seen the YouTube videos of cats shrieking at vegetables. “What are you up to? Anything fun?”
“I’m trying to get a new phone, but I can’t seem to get a contract.”
“Why not?”
Calum shrugged in a way Brix had come to realise meant he was going to give a half answer. “Credit history must be fucked.”
“Why would it be fucked?”
Calum got up and went to the sink, rinsing out his tea mug. “I borrowed a lot of money a few years ago. I got behind with the repayments pretty much straightaway, nothing major, but I haven’t done much to repair the damage since.”
“And your old phone was in your ex’s name.” That made sense. Inactivity on a bad credit file was almost as bad as fucking up in the first place. “Which means you’ve been invisible for a while, eh?”
“Yup. The bank only gave me an overdraft on my old cash account because I’ve had it since I was twelve.”
Brix hadn’t known banks existed when he’d been that age. Too busy pinching crates of mackerel and wondering why the younger fishermen were so entrancing as they hauled their catch ashore. “So what are you going to do?”
“Dunno. It’s not like I even need a fucking phone. Who would I call?”
“Whoever you called with the phone you had before you came here.”
Calum laughed humourlessly, and Brix felt like he was missing something totally fucking obvious. Then he recalled his own spell in the wilderness when he’d returned to Porthkennack, how his phone had found its way to the bottom of the cliffs, and it had been weeks before he’d seen fit to replace it.
“What about a SIM-only deal? I’ve got an old iPhone at home you could borrow, and paying the bill might help your credit score.”
“You’ve done enough for me. I can’t borrow anything else from you.”
“Buy it from me, then. I was gonna sell it to Jory for fifty quid.”
“Fifty quid? For an iPhone? Piss off, mate.”
“You think I’d lie to you?”
Crickets.
“Seriously?” Brix frowned. “It’s a phone, Cal. And I’m not a fucking liar.”
“I know, it’s just—”
“Just what?”
There was a long pause before Calum finally turned around.
“I’m sorry, okay?” He stuck his hand in his back pocket and pulled out a few notes. “I’m not used to anyone who’s not my mother genuinely giving a shit about me.”
“I give a shit.”
