“There’s an old Porthkennack rumour that my dad buried my mum out there.” Brix gestured absently at the expanse of flat ground.
“Your mum left twenty years ago. That’s not old by Porthkennack standards. Some geezer was telling me about his uncle the other day. Took me ages to realise he was talking about a dude from the sixteenth century. You seafolk have no concept of time.”
Brix couldn’t argue with him there. How often had his family torn themselves apart over a slight that had happened before any of them were born? “It’s a good place, really. Healing. I don’t know what would’ve happened to me if I hadn’t come back here.”
“It’s magic,” Calum said, his eyes still on the moorland. Then he turned to Brix, and his gaze held a probing intensity that pierced Brix’s soul. “But it didn’t heal you completely, did it?”
“No.”
Calum’s gaze flickered to the moors and back again before he seemed to steel himself with a deep, cleansing breath. “I think I know what you’re going to tell me.”
“I doubt it.”
Calum shook his head. “So did I when it came to me, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. You’ve told me so much already. I can’t think of much else you’d truly believe you had to hide.”
“Believe? Jesus—”
“Brix.”
Brix closed his eyes as Calum’s hands closed around his, warmth seeping into his bones and spreading to his heart, if only for a moment. “Cal, please . . . I can’t—”
“Brix, you can tell me anything, even that, and I’ll never turn away from you, I promise.”
Calum’s promises were worth so much more than anyone else’s, and when Brix opened his eyes, he was immediately lost in Calum’s dark gaze. “I can’t say it.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I’ve never tried.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Brix.”
Brix snorted softly. “Easy for you to say.”
“Is it?” Calum’s eyes flashed, and his grip on Brix’s hands tightened, twisting Brix’s fingers. “You think I’m not hurting inside, knowing you’ve been dealing with this on your own all that time I wasted with Rob? That it’s not fucking torturing me that you can’t look me in the eye and just bloody tell me you’re—”
“Living with HIV.” The words were out before Brix could stop them. He wrenched his hands from Calum and pressed them briefly over his mouth, like he could push his confession back in, but it was too late . . . far too late, if the lack of surprise in Calum’s face was anything to go by. “You knew?”
“Not for sure. It kinda came to me when I started joining the dots.”
“The dots?” Brix felt sick. If Calum had worked it out, who else had? Kim? Lee? Dad? Brix swallowed. Shame had long ago left him, chased away by time and hard-won perspective, but the thought of anyone he loved guessing his status without his knowledge made him feel slightly ill.
Calum reclaimed Brix’s hands. “It wasn’t obvious, if that’s what you’re worried about. I doubt anyone obsesses over you quite the way I do. Like I said, I wasn’t certain, it was just the sex, the blood thing . . . the pills you hide in your washbag.”
“You weren’t certain,” Brix repeated dully.
“No.”
“And now you are.”
It wasn’t a question, but Calum nodded anyway. “I’m not going to say it’s not a big deal, because it’s fucking huge, but it doesn’t change anything for me, Brix, and I’m glad I know.”
Brix had no words. He stared out over the moors, grounded only by Calum’s hands on his shoulders, pulling him into the embrace he’d needed four years ago when his life as he’d known it had come to an end, albeit one-armed and compounded in the cramped van.
Calum held him for a long time, wrapping him in warmth and a silence that healed the lightest cracks in his soul. Only the intrusive cold drove them apart, and Calum pulled away, rubbing Brix’s arms. “How ’bout you crank the heat up in this thing and I’ll drive us home, eh? We can talk more on the way.”
He got out of the van without waiting for Brix’s answer. Lacking any better ideas, Brix unbuckled his seat belt and scooted across to the passenger side so Calum could haul himself into the driver’s seat. Brix eyed him and fiddled with the heating dial. “I didn’t even know you had a license.”
“Maybe I haven’t.” Calum shot him a rakish grin as he turned the key in the ignition. “You’re just gonna have to trust me.”
