Calum closed his eyes, fighting the poisoned logic that always swept over him when Rob got in his face. The logic that told him Rob could do whatever the fuck he wanted because he always came back to Calum in the end, put his arms around him, and said he loved him. The logic that told him Rob meant it, because no one would lie about that, right?
Wrong. “We didn’t talk about it. You got wasted and decided I should go out and fuck women so you’d have an excuse to get blown by every bloke that looked your way.”
“And what’s up with that? You like pussy, don’t you?”
That Calum had been with women before Rob had always been a bone of contention. “You’re not really gay, though, are ya, Calum? You’re not one of us.” Calum gritted his teeth. As far as he’d seen, being gay in Rob’s scene was all about drugs and pain. “It’s just chemsex. Don’t be so bloody frigid.”
“I don’t want to fuck anyone else.”
“Maybe you should. Then you might be better at it.”
In years—no, days—gone by, Rob’s words would’ve cut deep, slashing Calum and what remained of his self-esteem to bits, but now, as he stared Rob down, he felt nothing except a big black hole where his life had once been. He shoved Rob away. “Fuck. You.”
“Cal—”
“Fuck off!”
Calum sidestepped Rob’s reaching hands and pushed past him, throwing himself into the steady stream of pedestrians heading towards the train station. Behind him, Rob shouted his name over and over, but Calum didn’t stop, didn’t look round, didn’t breathe, until the station swallowed him up, cocooning him in its humid warmth.
The respite was brief. After a few minutes, Calum’s phone rang in his pocket, blaring out Rob’s ringtone. Calum silenced it, but it rang again and again until he dumped it in a nearby bin. Knowing it wouldn’t be long before Rob followed him into the station, he jogged down the steps and made for the nearest ticket machine. He stuck his debit card into the machine and jabbed desperately at the screen until a ticket to who-the-fuck-knew-where printed out. He snatched it and stumbled farther into the station, waving it at a uniformed station worker.
She glanced at the ticket and pointed ahead. “Platform eight. Hurry. It’s leaving soon.”
Heart in his throat, Calum dashed through the station. The ticket barriers appeared in the distance as someone shouted his name from behind. Calum ran harder, shoulder-barging past anyone in his way. Rob had an Oyster Card, so the barriers wouldn’t stop him, but they would at least buy Calum some precious time to make the train idling on the distant platform.
He shoved his ticket into the barrier slot and barged through the gates. Rob shouted again as the last-call alarms began to sound on the train that was still fifty feet away, and Calum gritted his teeth. Goddamn it. He’d make that fucking train if it killed him, because the alternative would likely do the same. I can’t look him in the eye one more time. I’m done. So fucking done.
It was pathetic to his own ears as he sprinted towards the platform, but he pushed the wave of self-loathing aside and made the train with seconds to spare, stumbling on board as the doors closed behind him, snapping a sharp breeze over the back of his neck. Head down, he sidestepped along the aisle, searching for a vacant seat. Something thumped the window, but he didn’t react.
He found a seat and slumped into it, biting his lip against the surge of anxious adrenaline rushing up from his stomach. Don’t puke. Don’t puke. Damn. He needed a drink, a big one, a strong one, anything to quell the panic rising in his chest. What have I done? Rob wouldn’t forgive this, even if Calum went back now, and he had Calum’s whole life in his hands—the shop, the flat. Everything. I’ve lost it all.
But as the train rumbled to life, an eerie calm abruptly descended on him, like a guillotine had cut his desperation off at the neck. I don’t care. And he didn’t. All he wanted was peace . . . and quiet, and on the crowded train, with people all around, for the first time in years, he had it.
Lightened, Calum rested his head against the cool glass and felt months of tension drain away. His fragmented mind told him he still loved Rob, but his heart was ominously silent. And it was the silence that comforted him as the train began to move.
It was half an hour before he remembered he didn’t have a clue where it was going, and for a long while, he couldn’t make himself care about that either. He’d get off once the train had left London and find a hotel for the night. Worry about the rest in the morning. The thought of crawling home to his parents was galling, but he’d always known that leaving Rob would send him to skid row.
You don’t have to do this. Just get off the train and go home. But despite the suddenness of what had just happened, as hard as he searched, Calum couldn’t find any regret amongst the bucketload of fear dancing up a storm in his gut.
Fuck this.
He sat up, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, and looked around the train, wondering if anyone had noticed the pathetic bloke sniffling in the corner, but the elderly Indian couple opposite were far more interested in their supper than him. Calum eyed the curried potatoes they were eating, and his mouth watered. Rob didn’t like Indian food, preferring the MSG-laden gloop from the dodgy Chinese on the corner. Sod it. I’m having madras for breakfast tomorrow.
Like a culinary act of rebellion would fix it all, Calum folded his arms tight across his chest and leaned against the carriage window, absorbing the weaving motion of the train. The adrenaline that had carried him this far began to fade, leaving him boneless and drained. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift, picturing his parents’ house in Reading: a poky two-up-two-down with a box room—Calum’s room—over the garage. Going back there would kill him, but there was one advantage: Rob would have no idea where he’d gone. In all the time they’d been together, he’d never visited Calum’s family home. Never cared enough to bother. His apathy had slowly destroyed Calum, but now, as the train rumbled on to who-knew-where, he knew it was, without doubt, the kindest gesture Rob had ever made.
And he still had a bottle of rum stashed in his bag.
“Peg, I don’t give a shit how busy you are, I don’t want them crates in my yard.”
“‘Yard’? Jesus Christ, boy. You’ve been out of London years now and you’re still jabbering like a cockney?”
“Whatever. Get them gone.”
Brix Lusmoore put the phone down on his infamous aunt before she could rip him a new one, and ran a frazzled hand through his too-long straggly hair. How had the day become a shambles already? He’d barely woken up.
He dropped his phone on the kitchen counter and went to the window, eyeing the crates of counterfeit DVDs that had mysteriously appeared on his patio overnight, except there was no mystery in it really. Aunt Peg always had her nose in a pie she shouldn’t, and if she wasn’t behind the shadowed delivery in his back garden, he’d eat his bloody hat.
Not that he had a hat. Brix folded his favourite bandana and tied it around his wayward hair. Early it might have been, but he had shit to do, and he hadn’t eaten breakfast yet, a cardinal sin where he was concerned. And the rest.