“Aren’t I?”
“Fuck no. Not even hard-core Porthkennack folk do that.” Calum didn’t reply, and his gaze returned to the tempestuous sea. Brix took a chance and dropped onto the bench beside him, reaching out and stilling his twisting fingers. “How’s your hand?”
“It’s fine.”
“What did Rob want?”
“What?”
“Kim told me Rob called the studio. I didn’t know you were still in contact with him.”
“I’m not. He must’ve seen some of my work on the Blood Rush page and recognised the style. Fucking ironic, really, ’cause he never took much notice of it when it was keeping him in wanky hipster suits.”
“He tracked you down? What does he want?”
“Dunno. Didn’t ask.”
“No?” Brix tried to ignore a selfish wave of relief at Calum’s apparent disinterest in Rob. “You didn’t speak to him?”
Calum shook his head. “Nope. Hung up like a pussy and ran away. Fancied a stroll up the cliffs, until I remembered you told me not to go there in the dark without you.”
“You’re not a pussy.” Brix squeezed Calum’s hands, then reluctantly let them go. “There’s plenty of people I don’t want to talk to.”
“Like Jordan?”
Brix swallowed but suppressed the age-old instinct to deflect anything Jordan related. How could he expect Calum to talk about Rob if he couldn’t hear Jordan’s name without flinching? Besides, this was Calum, and Brix wasn’t naïve enough to believe he hadn’t picked up on the discord in Brix’s heart when it came to Jordan. “I can’t talk to him . . . Don’t think I ever will again, and he knows better than to call me, but if he did, I reckon I’d be up here just like you said. Sometimes only the sea can hear you scream.”
“I’m not screaming,” Calum said dully. “I wish I could, but it won’t come out. Shit. That sounds so fucking stupid.”
“Not to me.”
“Liar.”
“Bollocks.” Frustrated, Brix grabbed Calum’s shoulders, forcing him to break his stare with the sea. “I’m a lot of things, and there’s things in my life I can’t tell anyone, even you, but I’m no fucking liar. If you think different, you’re in the wrong bloody town.”
For a long moment, Calum appeared frozen, like a fox in headlights, and Brix’s grip on his shoulders loosened, guilt gnawing his belly, but then Calum’s gaze cleared, and he placed his hands over Brix’s, tentatively twining their fingers. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“Brix, let me have that one. I called you a liar: I was fucking out of order, and I’m sorry, okay? I just . . .”
“What?”
Calum shrugged. “It’s been a long time since someone tried to understand me—since I last understood me. I’ve got no idea who I am, but you already know that, don’t you?”
Brix chewed on his lip. There was no doubt in his mind that Calum was lost, but who wasn’t? He shuddered, allowing the biting wind to see into his soul. “You know your own mind, mate. Just gotta let go of whatever—or whoever—has convinced you that you don’t.”
“Whoever.” Calum let the word hang. “If you’d said that a year ago, I’d have laughed in your face, or punched you. I’ve never let anyone talk shit about him.”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with that when you’re with someone. You have their back, even if they’re a complete knob. That’s the point.”
“He’d never hit me before, if that’s what you’re getting so angry about.”
“I’m not angry.”
“Right.”
Calum looked away. Brix caught Calum’s face and forced him to meet his eye again. “I’m not playing games with you. No lies, remember? I want to understand the hold this bloke has over you. You don’t have to hit someone to fuck them up.”