“I s’pose.”
Calum seemed reluctant, and Brix felt the same, but despite the painful rush of blood to his groin, he knew they couldn’t finish what they’d started yet. Not today, and definitely not in the Lusmoore family cave, though the idea had legs.
Brix let his hand drop from Calum’s face and released his death grip on Calum’s coat. They straightened their clothes and scrambled to their feet. For the first time in a while, it was Brix’s turn to help Calum up, and they shuffled absently to the cave’s entrance. Brix emerged into the outside world a hairsbreadth ahead of Calum, their hands, as ever, tightly entwined. As he took the first step down the cliff path towards home, his heart turned him around, pushing him chest to chest, nose to nose, with Calum once more.
“Just so you know, when we do fuck? It won’t be anything close to ordinary.”
Calum moved through the crowded room, feeling the heat of too many bodies packed into the side bar of the Sea Bell for Lena’s leaving party. Most faces he knew, some he didn’t, a situation that would’ve made his skin crawl at one of Rob’s seedy drug parties, but it wasn’t like that in Porthkennack with the mismatch of souls he’d come to call friends. At this party, he couldn’t move a yard without someone stopping him to look him in the eye and genuinely care what he had to say.
He dropped onto a couch beside Kim. “Holding up?”
Kim grinned, waving a glass of local apple juice. “Can’t complain, mate.”
“Are you driving later?”
“Aye, someone’s gotta drive her to Bristol up the way.”
There was no malice in Kim’s tone, only the warmth and affection of a relationship Calum had yet to understand.
“I took another phone call for you the other day. Been meaning to tell you.”
Calum’s stomach did an uncomfortable flip. It had been Rob. It had to have been. “What did he want?”
Kim shrugged. “Didn’t ask. Just told him straight to fuck off before I hopped on a train and skinned him alive. Pretty sure I heard him piss his pants.”
“What?”
“Oh, come on, mate.” Kim turned his steady gaze on Calum. “Someone had to, and I don’t reckon you wanted it to be Brix, eh? You can take care of your own shit, and I know it, but that smarmy prick’s voice rattled my bones.”
Calum laughed. Couldn’t help it. “Rob is a smarmy prick. I could’ve told him to fuck off myself, but thanks. You’ve probably saved me six months of harassment.”
“Nah, Brix would have killed him before that.”
Calum couldn’t see that side of Brix anymore, but he let it go and instead occupied himself with surreptitiously observing Brix, who was at the bar with Jory, trying to hide the cake he and Calum had butchered the night before. Who knew baking could be so complicated? At least a shit-ton of icing had hidden the worst of the cracks.
The image of Brix covered in sugar and blue food colouring stayed with Calum and he was still entranced a little while later when Lee appeared in front of him and trod on his foot.
“I need you.”
Calum squinted up at her. “What for? I already drove you to Bude and back today.” It had got out that Calum had access to Brix’s van—legal access now that Brix had added him to the insurance policy. “What more could you possibly want?”
“Help carrying Lena’s present in.”
“She said she didn’t want one,” Kim said.
“So?” Lee treated him to a withering glare. “Didn’t stop you building her that massive coffee table, did it?”
“I had a surplus of pallets. Bite me.”
Lee poked her tongue out and offered Calum her hand. “Please?”
As if Calum could refuse. “All right, all right. I’m coming.”
Lee yanked him up anyway. “It’s outside.”
“Duh.”
He followed her out of the side bar and into the main room of the pub. Once they were out of the party, Lee nudged him. “I don’t really need your help. We got her a charm bracelet, remember?”
