“Sure enough to deck you if you don’t do as you’re told.”
His tone left no room for argument, though the playful glint in his eye held a promise he’d make good on later. And I couldn’t deny that it felt good to see his light, easy way return.
Calum and I decamped to the Sea Bell, a pub that the Porthkennack locals claimed as their own.
“I still feel kinda weird in here,” Calum confessed. “Even when Brix is with me, they still look at me like I’m in my birthday suit.”
“That doesn’t change. If you weren’t born here, you’ll always be an emmet.”
Calum chuckled. “True that.”
We bought pints of Doom Bar and sat outside, despite the bitter breeze the ocean had kicked up since we’d left the beach. Calum was quiet, but it was different to the reticence that Kim and Brix carried like a second skin. Instead it seemed to be shyness that I hoped would fade as we sat together.
And fade, it did. Like me, Calum was a London boy, and it turned out that a similar clusterfuck had led us both home to Porthkennack.
“So your ex was an arsehole too?”
Calum nodded. “Something like that. He did me a favour in the end, though. I’m never going to be a native around here, but I’m more at home than I’ve ever been.”
I seconded that, though it was obvious Calum’s contentment stemmed from his relationship with Brix—that he’d have been happy anywhere as long as they were together—and envy crept through me as he talked. Would I ever have that with Kim? I was perilously close to falling in love with him, indelibly marked by the short time we’d already shared, but would he ever look at me like Brix looked at Calum? Would he ever trust me enough to share his burden?
And what about me? I’d dragged all my shit down to Porthkennack from the city, never stopping to think that I’d meet anyone to share it with. Rich had hurt me badly, but I knew now that what I’d felt for him had been a long way from love, and light years away from how I felt about Kim.
IlovedKim, and the realisation struck deep. Pain lanced my chest . . . and my heart. I loved Kim, and it would never matter if he loved me back, because how I felt about him washere, on its own, and it wasn’t going anywhere.
“Dude.” Calum’s dark gaze bore into me. “You’ve got it bad, eh?”
I didn’t have it in me to deny it. Didn’t want to. And I didn’t need to. Calum’s shrewd grin told me he already knew what was going on in my tiny brain.
“Be patient,” he said. “These Porthkennack boys are born thinking they don’t deserve to be happy, that anything good needs to cost blood, but they’re wrong. We love them, whether they let us or not. Just gotta wait for them to see it.”
Wise words, and I took them to heart as we found room for a few more ales.
That afternoon, I left my car at the workshop and raided the local shops for something to cook for dinner. Then I walked to the commune, musing that my relationship with Kim was fast becoming the most exercise I’d had in years, even without the fuck-hot sex.
In the trailer, Kim’s bed—still rumpled from the night before—was tempting, but I put off a nap in favour of knocking up one of the only proper meals I could cook: Laura’s famous fish pie.
It was resting on the side when Kim finally came home that evening. I met him at the bottom of the steps, refraining from chastising him for being dead on his feet, and settling for a simple hug that he all but fell into.
“You smell of lemons,” he said.
I laughed, with relief more than anything, because it was a hell of a lot better than reeking of fish. “Come inside. I made dinner.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Kim said as I shoved a bowl of fish pie and peas his way. “It seemed too much to hope you’d be here when I got home.”
“Where else would I go?”
“Home? Your parents? On the piss with Calum? I’ve been such an arse all day, I can’t imagine why you’d want to be here.”
“Then you need to work on your imagination. Now eat your dinner.”
And eat his dinner he did, before he let me lead him to the shower, and then to bed, where I didn’t let him move a muscle as I rode him, making him come with a silent scream, before I spilled over his belly and coaxed him to sleep.
The next few days were spent drifting between Kim’s place and mine, juggling work and snatching a few hours with Kim when he wasn’t holed up in the workshop. It was tough, especially with the barn opening creeping ever closer, and it wasn’t long before I was as tired as him.
“Go home,” he said to me on Saturday morning. “Sleep. I love having you here, but I know you’ve got as much on as I have.”
That wasn’t entirely true, but I couldn’t deny that I had a backlog of admin to get through before I could start my next job. And I had a photography gig in Bristol that I had to prepare for, a two-night trip that I was dreading, despite the job being one I’d actively pursued. “Are you coming to the fair tomorrow?”
