Six months later . . .
The night owl in me had always dreaded spring. My camera craved the light, but my soul preferred the gloomy dark of the colder months, the clouds, and the shadows, the wind and the rain. It suited my mood, it suited me—at least I’d thought so until my first Christmas with Kim passed and spring crept up on us, and I realised what I’d been missing. I’d seen the early morning sun in his face, captured it, with first my eyes, and then my lens, and had known for sure that life had never been better.
Corny?
Maybe, but it was true. Being with Kim challenged me in ways I’d never imagined, but it had been, and continued to be, the making of me. I loved him, and never more so than when I woke in the morning to find him still sleeping. It was a damn shame I rarely woke before him, and this morning was no exception. Gentle, stroking fingers on my cheek roused me, and I opened my eyes to Kim’s sleepy grin; his rumpled hair and hooded lids told me that he hadn’t been up long.
Still, I was disappointed. I was kind of addicted to watching him sleep, and I craved it when I went without it.
But addiction was a tainted word in our house, and the reason Kim was awake so early didn’t escape me. He kissed me deeply, the sweep of his tongue and the scrape of his teeth a promise of what would come later, and then he slid from the bed—his bed, this morning—and padded, naked, to the bathroom.
I watched him go, admiring, as usual, the sensual sway of his slender hips, but I caught my imagination before it could call him back to bed. This morning wasn’t about me, or even about us.
This morning was Kim’s.
I got up and quickly tidied the living space of the trailer, and then I threw on some clothes and ventured outside. The chickens—larger in number now—were our responsibility this week. I let them out and collected the eggs, and I was drinking dandelion tea and cooking breakfast on the outside stove when Kim slid his arms around me from behind.
“Make a hippie of you yet, eh?”
It was a joke that never got old for Kim, and my brothers, who found it hilarious that I was living the very life I’d resisted all these years. “Piss off and get the plates.”
Kim obeyed, and I loaded us up with veggie omelettes and fresh tomato relish, spiked with Kim’s home-grown chillies. It was probably the nicest thing I’d cooked him so far, and the thought spawned a heat in my belly that warmed my bones. Was this how it felt to be truly happy? God, I hoped so. “Do you know how many are coming this morning?”
“Not a clue. Reckon no one does until they walk up that path.”
I swallowed the last of my breakfast and considered the theory. Weather allowing, Kim had been hosting a weekly AA meeting at the commune for three months now, and though I kept out of the way during the meeting itself, at the end, when I served up Laura’s best cakes and bakes, I couldn’t help studying the changing faces of the attendees, and speculating what had brought them to Blackbeard’s Junkyard.
My theories often proved beyond fanciful when compared to the mundane reality of addiction—a retired vicar who couldn’t stay off the sherry, a teacher who’d driven her car into the wall of the town’s library after one too many lunchtime ciders. And there were young people too, younger than Kim, who’d never have considered a community meeting had it not been sponsored by the coolest business in Porthkennack.
After breakfast, I set out the Blood Rush mugs and filled the tea urns, and then I made myself scarce, leaving Kim to his tribe. I shut myself away in the trailer and worked for an hour, completing far more in my snatched time on Kim’s patchy internet connection than I ever did at my place where I had all day to get shit done.
The irony of my newfound focus wasn’t lost on me, but I didn’t dwell on it. Instead, when my hour was up, I closed my laptop and ventured outside. The meeting was just breaking up, so I drifted to the tea station and set out the cakes Laura had sent over with my dad for the occasion. Kim joined me, and I took a moment to squeeze his hand over the jam tarts. “All right?”
“Aye. It was a good one today. Some folk have made real progress.”
I smiled, because though I knew little of what went on in the meetings, the positive effect they had on Kim was undeniable. Addiction was a lonely illness, even for Kim, who had a wider support network than most, and the camaraderie this band of misfit addicts shared made every morning I spent pouring tea worth a thousand that I’d spent alone.
The meeting drew to a natural end around midday. Kim drove a few elderly attendees back into town while I cleared up with the help of a couple of church volunteers. We were finishing up when a car pulled onto the muddy track that led to the commune. It was too soon to be Kim, unless he’d forgotten something, and the rest of the commune’s residents rarely had visitors, so I tucked the tea urn safely away in the shed and set off through the orchard to meet whoever it was.
I was half expecting the postman and the box of acrylic paints Kim had ordered the day before, but my dad hopping out of the red and yellow van, less so. “What on earth are you doing?”
My dad grinned at me from beneath his multicoloured flat cap. “I was on my way to ask Kim if he wanted to come to the seed fair with me. Fred gave me a lift.”
Of course he had. Where else but Porthkennack did the friendly postman pick up hitchhikers? “The seed fair in Port Isaac?”
“That’s the one. I thought he might like to get some ideas for the raspberry crop.”
“He doesn’t have a raspberry crop here, Dad. There’s no room.” It was a sad fact, but a true one. The commune was at capacity, and there was no space for new crops without sacrificing existing ones.
“Aye, well,” my dad said. “I’ve got some ideas about that too, if you’ll come for your dinner tonight.”
I raised a questioning eyebrow, but my dad just shrugged and smiled a smile I’d come to recognise as a sign that he was up to something. “We can’t come until late,” I said. “Kim’s got ink appointments until seven.”
“I thought he wasn’t tattooing anymore?”
“He finishes today.”
“Oh well, that’s fine, son. Laura’s at her bridge club until the evening.”
The conspiratorial grin remained, but he was saved from further questioning by Kim coming home, and it turned out that he’d planned on visiting the seed fair anyway.
“You don’t want to come?” he said to me.
I shook my head. I’d embraced every aspect of life with Kim except his obsession with tramping about in the mud, nursing seedlings into adulthood. Fuck that. My father could have him, even if it meant sacrificing an afternoon I’d kind of counted on spending in bed.
My dad retreated to Kim’s car. When he was out of sight, I grabbed Kim and pushed him against the most solid part of the fence. I kissed him fiercely, shoving my hands into his silky hair, twisting my fingers to give him the tiny shot of pain that riled him up so much.
His reaction didn’t disappoint. He spun us around and took control, and it wasn’t long before I forgot all about my father waiting by Red’s hot-pink Fiat 500. That was right—Kim still had the most ridiculous car in the world.
Kim broke away, his heart hammering against my chest, his dick digging into my thigh. “I can stay, if you want? I’m sure your dad won’t mind.”
“I think he would, actually. Gaz reckons he likes you far better than the rest of us.”
“If that was true, it would only be because you lot don’t take him seriously. You don’t know how lucky you are to have a dad who cares beyond the fact that you’re still breathing.”
Kim spoke with humour, but his words hit home. I’d only met his father once, and the contrast with my own had been like night and day. Billy Penrose was a gruff seaman, grey and weathered, and though his love for his only son had been obvious, it had been hard to see how a man as vibrant as Kim had come from someone who had so little time for him.
I’d never met his mother, but then, he hadn’t met mine, and I couldn’t see that changing.
Kim left, and after gathering my laptop and laundry together, I followed suit and went home—to my rented flat—and kicked about until it felt like a reasonable hour to test a newfound friendship I’d come to rely on.
Calum met me at the Sea Bell, and we sat outside nursing pints of local ale while we shared the trials and tribulations of being hopelessly in love with our complex Porthkennack boys, ’cause I reckoned Calum was the only soul on earth who loved someone as much as I loved Kim.
“How are the meetings going?” Calum asked over our second round.
It felt a little odd to be discussing AA meetings with a pint of Doom Bar in hand, but I shrugged anyway. “Good, I think. He’s still trying, so I guess it’s working for him.”
“No wobbles?”
“I don’t think so.” And think was the operative word, because I’d been blissfully oblivious the last time Kim’s demons had overwhelmed him until most of the storm had passed. “The counselling is helping with that, though. And the painting.”
Calum grinned and raised his drink. Kim and Brix’s painting sessions had become our cue to decamp to the pub, and had spurred our blossoming friendship. And I was pretty sure Calum got as much from Brix’s paint-splattered hands as I did from Kim’s.
Art was like that, or at least, I was beginning to learn it might be. Until Kim, I’d always considered my own work a solitary occupation, even when I was squeezing my way around a packed gig, or enduring a happy-clappy wedding. Shooting, processing, editing—I’d done it all on my own until Kim and his merry band of über-creative friends had encouraged me to try it a different way.
Which led me nicely to the other reason I’d asked Calum to meet me. I opened my laptop on the table and pulled up the folder of images I’d shot of him the previous week. Kim was a beautiful man, Brix too, but there was something about Calum that I found utterly fascinating. Kim called him an angel in a bear suit, and when I’d reviewed the photos last night, I’d finally understood why. Because beneath the dark beard, broad shoulders, and brooding gaze, Calum was the sweetest motherfucker I’d ever met, and somehow, the images I’d shot over a couple of pints and weathered exterior wall of the Sea Bell, had managed to capture it.
Not that Calum seemed impressed. He winced and pushed the laptop away. “What the fuck are you showing me those for?”
“Because Kim wants to paint them, well . . . paint you, as it happens, so I said I’d ask you first.”
“Paint them?”
“Yeah, for the new workshop. We thought of a name.”
Calum rolled his eyes. “Go on.”
“So you know what the commune is called, right?”
“Right . . .” Suspicion laced Calum’s gaze, and I didn’t blame him. Kim and Brix had worked on the much-needed expansion of Kim’s workshop together, and we’d learned fast that their combined humour was about as juvenile as it came. “Let me guess: they want to paint my face as a pirate and call the place Blackbeard’s Junkyard?”
“Not quite. Blackheart’s Drunk Beard, actually.”
“Seriously?”
I laughed. “I hope not, but they do want to use your face as a template.”
Calum sighed. “Brix kept that quiet.”
I sympathised with him, I really did, but Kim and Brix’s vision for the new workshop was epic, and would be all the more so with Calum’s painted face on the front, so I held my tongue, hoping my silence would at least convince Calum to think about it.
And it worked. After a moment of mutiny, Calum drew the laptop closer. “Okay . . . hit me. How do they want to do this?”
Later that day, I met Kim at the gates to Belly Acre Farm. He appeared as pleased with himself as my father had earlier. “What are you up to?”
“Me?”
“Yeah.” I punctuated my words with a kiss. “You look like you’ve put a bramble bush on my dinner chair.”
“Don’t judge me by your brother’s standards. I’ve just had a good day, mate. That’s all.”
I felt bad then, and made up for it by groping him. As you do . . . as we did, frequently. But, alas, our time together hadn’t yet come, and so I tore myself away and preceded him inside. Laura was waiting for us and promptly dispatched Kim to help my dad bring in the first of the spring greens.
“What did you do that for? I haven’t seen him all day.”
“And I haven’t seen you all week, so suck it up, young man, and cut those spuds for me. Besides, I want to talk to you about something before your dad comes in.”
“Okaaay.” I drew a pile of potatoes towards me and set about cutting them into rough cubes. “Why do I not like the sound of that?”
“Because you still carry that big-city way of seeing the negative in everything.” Laura slid a mug of tea across the table. “But you might be right in this case, so get those spuds done while I talk, eh?”
Fair enough.
Laura took her place at the table and folded her hands around her own teacup. “Your dad and I have been talking about your grandfather’s house.”
“Haven Cottage?” I pictured the old fisherman’s cottage where my paternal grandfather had lived out his last years. “I thought you were going to rent it out? Cash in on the sea views and all that?”
“We did. In fact, we even started renovating it last summer, but you know how those things go around here.”
Easily distracted would be written on the tombstone of every member of my Porthkennack family, so I could well imagine what had happened to the cottage project. And I had a horrible feeling that I knew where this was going. Laura and my dad had made no secret of the fact that it had been my insistence at getting Kim involved that had finally seen the barn enterprise to fruition. “Ma, Kim doesn’t have time to design and build new furniture for the cottage. He’s too busy with the expansion.”
“Oh, I know that, honey. We were actually rather hoping that you and Kim would buy Haven Cottage from us.”
“Buy it?”
“Yes, to live in . . . together. You can’t traipse between your lonely flat and his caravan forever.”
“No?”
“No, Jasper, you can’t. I know you’re happier than you’ve ever been, and no one is enjoying that more than your father and I, but life is for living . . . for moving forward. You two need a home of your own.”
She had a point, but I wasn’t in the business of conceding so easily. “What makes you think we have the money to buy a beachfront property?”
“Common sense, dear. You still have the money from your flat in London, don’t you?”
I did, but that was hardly the point. Kim had just sunk all his capital into expanding the workshop, and I knew there was no way that he’d agree to living in a house that I’d paid for alone. “Thanks, Ma, but no thanks.”
“I had a feeling you might say that. Would it help if I told you the price we’re asking? Don’t forget that the place was wrack and ruin when we bought it, so anything we get for it is pure profit—”
“Ma.”
But it was no good. She named her price anyway, and the figure was low enough to thoroughly distract me from my father and brother’s rowdy entrance. Huh. Perhaps I was more Manning than I cared to admit after all.
Kim noticed my preoccupation during dinner. He elbowed me a few times when people spoke to me and I failed to answer. Only the buzz of my phone saved me from explaining myself there and then.
I stepped outside. “Hello?”
A throaty chuckle set my nerves alight.
“Red?”
“It’s me. How’s it going, handsome?”
I smiled up at the inky night sky. Red was tearing up America with her band, and we didn’t hear from her often, but her sporadic phone calls always put a smile on both of our faces. “All good in this hood, luv. Want me to get Kim?”
“Not today, Jas. It’s you I wanted to speak to.”
“It is?” That was unusual. Red and I had an odd relationship—a dry flirtation that was laced with a fierce protection of Kim on both sides—and our conversations were mostly short-lived, a stopgap until Kim came to the phone. Which begged the question of why she’d called me in the first place. “What’s up?”
“I’m getting married.”
“Oh.” That stopped me in my tracks. Kim’s relationship with Red was long over, but there was still a part of me that believed, perhaps even hoped, that they’d one-day revisit the heady passion they’d once shared. I’d dreamed about it—about watching them together, touching, kissing, fucking—and woken up wishing that we’d made more of the brief time that we’d all been in the same place. Was that wrong? Kim didn’t think so, and neither did I.
“Jas?”
“Sorry, what?”
Red laughed again, though it sounded a little strained. “I was asking what kind of mood Kim’s in at the moment. I can wait if you don’t think it’s a good idea to tell him right now.”
“When’s the big day?”
“Tomorrow.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Jesus, Red. You don’t hang around. Last I knew, you were hooking up with that chick in San Francisco. Where are you now?”
“Vegas, baby. And it’s the chick I’m marrying. I love her, Jas.”
And just like that, it all clicked into place. I tipped my head back again and absorbed the starlight. “Then nothing else matters, mate. I’ll tell Kim tonight, and I reckon he’ll be as over the moon for you as I am.”
I wished Red all the love in the world and went back inside. Kim glanced at me, his curiosity clear, but my dad claimed our attention before I could fill him in. He took us into his office and put his offer to us in much the same way Laura had to me just a few hours before, only with added—albeit likely unintentional—guilt laid on. “We need to sell it to repair the roof on this place, but it would mean the world to us to keep it in the family.”
“Let Gaz buy it, then,” I grumbled. “Alan Sugar the second, isn’t he?”
“Your brothers already have homes.”
“So do we.”
“Jasper.”
“Dad.” The echo of my conversation with Laura grated on me, and I was kind of embarrassed that Kim was here to witness it. “Just leave it, okay?”
“Jas.” Kim took my hand. “Hear the man out.”
I glanced at him in surprise. Setting aside the financial issues, buying the cottage would eventually mean moving out of the commune, and it had never occurred to me that Kim would ever want to do that.
Still, I held my tongue as my dad explained his grand plan to Kim. If either of them picked up on the fact that I’d heard it already, they didn’t say, though even a second time around, the penny change that my dad and Laura wanted for the cottage stunned me. Kim too, if his adorably surprised expression was anything to go by.
“That ain’t how much a cottage by the sea is worth.”
“It’s what it’s worth to us,” my dad said. “Besides, we’ve given both our other children property of their own. It’s only Jasper who’s never let us help him.”
“That’s because I don’t need your help, not because I’m ungrateful,” I pointed out.
“We know that, son. That’s why we’re asking a fair price.”
Fair in whose world was apparently subjective. But the discussion, it seemed, was over, at least for now. My dad opened a drawer in his desk and retrieved a set of keys. He tossed them to Kim. “Go and take a look. See if you can’t convince my son to live a little more than he has already.”
Nice. I took a breath to retaliate, but Kim hustled me out of the room before my inner brat could escape. “Don’t be a dick to your dad. You’re lucky to have him, remember?”
Our conversation that morning flooded back to me, and I was ashamed enough to think about retracing my steps to apologise, but Kim was already walking to his car.
I followed him and got in the passenger side. He gunned the comically tiny engine and peeled out of the farmyard. “If you’re worried about the money, don’t be. I can afford half of that price.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
I wasn’t convinced, but the money was only half my concern. “What about the commune?”
“What about it? Me and Lena settled there because I’d forgotten how to live like a normal person . . . how to own things, build things . . . love anything that wasn’t her. Life has changed for me, Jas. I’ve changed. I want a future with you.”
“What about the meetings?”
“We can host them anywhere. It ain’t about the location.”
I chewed on my lip and mulled over Kim’s words as he drove towards the sea. I waited for him to ask for directions to Haven Cottage, but of course, he never did. Why would he, when Porthkennack natives knew everything about everything?
He pulled up outside Haven Cottage a few minutes later. “Sulk all you want. I’m going inside.”
Sulk? Me? Was he having a fucking laugh? But as the urge to stay in the car and pout remained strong . . . perhaps he was right. I was sulking, but why?
Who the hell knew? And who cared, when Kim was inside a deserted cottage without me?
I hurried out of the car and followed him. Knowing my family’s goldfish-like attention span, I half expected to find the place derelict, but I was sorely mistaken. The interior of the cottage had fresh new plaster, shiny wood floorboards, and crooked polished beams that fairy tales were made of. An open fireplace was the crowning jewel of the lower floor, and there was even a bed and a claw-foot bathtub upstairs.
Kim was sold, I could tell.
“Red’s getting married,” I blurted.
He turned around, his expression unreadable. “What?”
“Red’s getting married . . . tomorrow, to the girl she met in California.”
“How do you know that?”
“She called me.”
“During dinner?”
“Yes.”
Silence. My heart began a slow, painful descent into my stomach.
“Why did she call you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Liar.”
“She wanted to know how you were before she told you.”
“How I am?” A dangerous humour glittered in Kim’s convoluted gaze. “Jesus. You two think I can’t handle reality without hurling myself off the wagon? That ain’t fair, Jas. You can’t baby me.”
“I’m not. I’m telling you, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, while you look at me like I’m an unexploded bomb. Do you really think I wouldn’t be happy for her? That I’m selfish enough to have my life with you and deny her the same happiness?”
“Are you happy?”
It wasn’t what I’d meant to say, but whatever my intended words had been evaporated as Kim crossed the room in two strides and seized me by the shoulders. He pushed me hard onto the plastic-covered bed, his face a potent mix of fury and amusement. “You don’t get it, do you? You’ve got no idea how much you mean to me, even after all this time?”
I had a fair idea, but I wasn’t going to interrupt him while he was digging his cock into me the way he was right now. I wound my arms around his neck and pressed myself up against him. “I know you love me, Kim, but I know you love her too.”
“It’s not the same, damn it!”
“No?”
“No. How many times are we going to have this fucking conversation?”
Kim growled and abruptly flipped me onto my stomach. A thrill that only his touch evoked shot through my veins, and I shivered, my eyelids already fluttering as sensation consumed me. Time hadn’t dulled the electricity between us. If anything, it had deepened, solidified, and he could bring me to my knees with the intent behind his stormy gaze.
And his intent was clear now—he was going to fuck me, and I was going to let him . . . more than that. I’d beg him if he kept me waiting too long.
But we weren’t playing that game today—the game where he tied me with no tangible binds and drove me slowly mad with his sensuous tongue. No. This wasn’t about making me crazy with need, desperate for any part of him he’d give me. This was about him, and me, us, and everything in between.
He shoved my jeans away and unbuttoned his own, and then with a slick of the lube we always carried, slid into me in a smooth motion that made my toes curl.
I cried out, arching my back as the sensation of taking him bareback overwhelmed me. We’d stopped using condoms a while ago, but the ridged heat of his hard dick never got old. Each time was like the first.
Kim gripped the tops of my thighs, my hips, my back, and pounded into me, nailing me with sharp, hard thrusts that left me in no doubt of how he felt, if there had ever been any. Has there? I couldn’t be sure. Fleetingly, I thought of Red, and tried to find a place for her in the world Kim and I had built for ourselves. There was one, I was sure of it, but perhaps until this moment, I had honestly believed that there was a part of him that would forever belong to her.
But there was no him. And there was no me. Not anymore. My soul belonged to him, and his to me, and there was nothing else—nothing but his hands on me, his cock inside me, and my name falling from his lips as he came like a fucking freight train.
I wasn’t far behind. My climax was harsh, painful in all the right ways, and it wasn’t until I collapsed face-first into the plastic sheeting below me that I remembered we weren’t at home in my flat. I laughed, giddy and high. “Well that didn’t take long.”
“Long to what? Convince you that you’re stuck with me whether you like it or not?”
“I do like it.” I rolled over to face him. “I meant that it didn’t take long to break this place in.”
Kim’s intense gaze brightened. “Does that mean we’re doing it? Buying it from your ’rents?”
“If you want to.”
“What do you want, Jas?”
“I want to be where you are . . . and I want a reliable internet connection, a desk, and a bed that doesn’t turn me into a ninety-year-old man overnight.” Kim seemed able to sleep on a pile of rocks and still bounce out of bed in the morning. Me? Damn. The sofa bed in the trailer was just about killing me, and without sacrificing his art space—over my dead body—there was little that could be done to rectify it. “And I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy.”
“I know you are, but I want you to embrace it . . . believe that you deserve it, no matter if things go wrong from time to time along the way.”
Kim pulled his jeans up and sat down. “You know me so well.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. I’ve never been able to articulate how this—” he stopped and rubbed his chest “—thing, this addiction, makes me feel, even in meetings where I know people will just get it. But you get it. You get me, even if addiction makes no sense to you.”
All at once, I felt like crying, because apart from the obvious, it was the most profoundly moving thing he’d ever said to me. “Things don’t have to make sense to matter. You matter, Kim. We both do.”
“And we both deserve to be happy, right?”
“Yes.”
“So let’s do this, Jas. We can build something amazing here, I know we can.”
“We can.” I spoke as much to myself as to him, but his bone-crushing embrace was instant and wonderful. I fell headfirst into it and clutched him against me, losing myself in all that was him. All that was us. Our journey had barely begun, and we couldn’t predict the good or the bad, but together, we were ready for anything.