Oh, indeed. I sat gingerly on the bed and wondered what Kim was thinking. Was the idea of sharing an actual bed with me so horrible? Or was he doubting that we’d make it all the way home without fucking again?
His face gave nothing away as he sat down beside me, but his jaw-cracking yawn implied the latter was unlikely. I leaned into him, closing my eyes briefly as he did the same. “Thank you for coming with me. I’d probably be in some arse-end pub by now if you hadn’t, or some dodgy gay bar. I tend to put my dick in all the wrong places when I’m upset.”
“So much for solitude.”
“Solitude is my sober happy space. Drunk me is a total cock slut.”
“Nice.”
“Not really.” I didn’t have to look at Kim to know he agreed, but I did anyway and found nothing but acceptance in his steady gaze. Part of me yearned for a reaction, for judgement, but most of me was eternally grateful that I could be so freely candid. “Sex addiction is a thing, right?”
“It is. I’ve met a few sex addicts in rehab, and it’s supposed to be one of the hardest addictions to treat.”
“No magic pill, eh?”
“There’s no magic pill for anything.” Kim lay back and closed his eyes, his body rocking with the motion of the train as it pulled out of Paddington. “You just have to find better ways of coping with reality.”
Reality. Huh. For me, that meant a long journey home to a new flat that was, by design, even more lonely than my life in Hoxton had become. Or did it? Perhaps it didn’t need to be that way. I kept my family at arm’s length by choice, and rarely saw them outside of the farm, but Kim and I had vowed to be friends, real friends, and I couldn’t imagine feeling alone with him by my side.
I looked down at him. Lying back with his feet still on the floor, he couldn’t be comfortable. I nudged him, absorbing his sleepy groan like a warmth-starved vulture. “Get in the bed. There’s a duvet and everything. We can top and tail, if you like?”
“Top and tail?” Kim cracked an eye open. “After we’ve both been traipsing around London all day? Fuck that.”
“Fair enough. You take the duvet, I’ll sleep on top.”
Kim sighed and pulled the duvet back. “Jesus, Jas, just get in. I’m sure we can manage a few hours kip without ruining our beautiful friendship.”
Put like that, how could I argue? Besides, as Kim rolled onto the bed, there was no way I could resist the call to slide in behind him, moulding my body to the curve of his, all the while leaving as much distance between us as the narrow bed allowed.
Kim chuckled.
In the dim light of the room I imagined his knowing grin lighting up his face. “What are you laughing at?”
“Would you still be my friend if I said I was laughing at you?”
“Probably.”
“Would you still be my friend if I asked you to put your arms around me?”
I sat up, propping myself on my elbow, and peered over his shoulder. His eyes were closed, but the set of his jaw was different somehow, like vulnerability had crept into him while I hadn’t been looking. I put my hands on him and cautiously scooted closer. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him I’d wrap my arms around him anytime he wanted, but I said nothing as I pulled him close and buried my face against his neck. Didn’t need to. Hundreds of miles from home, rocking in limbo on a train that smelled of damp and stale sausage rolls, I only needed him.
I didn’t see Kim for a week or so after our impromptu London trip. He drove me home from Truro station in a van that stank of chicken shit, and then disappeared into the gloomy early morning, leaving me to immerse myself in a design job that was a world away from the rustic barn back on the farm.
Pharmaceutical companies. Ugh. I’d branded one as a favour to an old friend a few years ago, and somehow it had become a thing—too sterile to keep me inspired, but too lucrative to ignore, a fact I found truly depressing as the days slipped by in a dull haze of bland corporate logos.
A week into the project found me half-mad with boredom. One night, in a fit of rebellion, I shut down my technical drawing software and opened the folder of photos from Red’s band gig—the hot and heady rock concert that had brought Kim and me together with a literal bang. There was no reason for me to fiddle with the images—the good ones had long ago been sent to the band’s manager and plastered all over Facebook—but something drew me to my favourite shot of Red.
I opened the image, splashing her all over my twenty-seven-inch iMac screen. Dressed all in black, her hair a riot against her pale, inked skin, she was as stunning now as she’d been that night, but it wasn’t her I saw as I zoomed in on her curves, rotating the image this way and that. Kim had been on my mind since the day I met him, but the pang in my chest as I thought of him now was new, and I realised with a start that I missed him, even though I had no bloody right to.
With a head full of slender bones and tattoos, I went to bed, for once sleeping through the night and waking up at a respectable time. My dreams had been filled with the gentle motion of the sleeper train, and I woke half expecting to find Kim in my arms, like I had that hazy morning when the train had passed through Taunton.
I didn’t, obviously, and the disappointment of finding myself alone was harsh enough to drive me from my bed and out of my minimalist flat. The seafront was moody and damp, my favourite kind of morning, despite the perpetual grey tones that took a bit of processing to bring my shots to life.
Camera in hand, I roamed the promenade, snapping anything that took my fancy—the people, the seagulls, the frothy waves. A steady trickle of youngish folk disappearing down one of the cobbled side streets caught my eye. It took me a while to figure out that they must’ve been heading to one of Porthkennack’s biggest off-peak visitor attractions: Blood Rush, the tattoo studio Kim worked for.
Curiosity was an evil thing. It would’ve been so easy to just go home, but of course, I didn’t. Instead, I shouldered my camera and followed a girl with tangerine-coloured hair all the way to the door of the gothic-punk studio, though I drew the line at going in, distracted by the vintage photographs in the window.
I was still studying them when I sensed a presence beside me—a slim, inked-up presence that definitelywasn’tKim. In fact, I was fairly certain that I was staring into the keen eyes of Brix Lusmoore.