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 definitely wasn’t Kim. In fact, I was fairly certain that I was staring into the keen eyes of Brix Lusmoore.
A theory confirmed as the man extended his hand. “Brix,” he said. “You’re Gaz’s brother, ain’t ya? Jasper?”
I shook Brix’s hand. “Jas, but you’re right about the rest, and we’ve met before, actually, when you brought my old man some chickens. Where did you get these images? They’re awesome.”
“Me and Kim rescued them from my fella’s old flat in London. He’d forgotten he had them.”
“You got lucky. That’s Pam Nash, isn’t it?”
“Aye. We’ve got some Les Skuse in the back too. Want to see?”
More than he knew, but the thought of barging, uninvited, into yet another part of Kim’s life felt all wrong. I regretfully shook my head. Brix grinned wryly and looked as though he would disappear back inside the studio, but his path was suddenly blocked.
Red. She smiled at me. “You’ve kept me waiting.”
“That so? Didn’t know you were expecting me.”
“Then you don’t know much at all.” She put her hands on her hips. “Did you think I’d let you take such fantastic pictures of me without saying thank you?”
It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d want to thank me—at least, not in person. The band’s manager had paid my invoice ten minutes after I’d sent it, and I’d considered the transaction complete. “You don’t need to thank me. You and the band made my job easy.”
The band. Right. I’d taken hundreds of images that night, but only Red’s stuck in my mind, and I got the feeling that she knew it as her smile morphed into something close to a smirk. “Come inside,” she said. “Unless you fancy a coffee next door?”
I said goodbye to a clearly amused Brix, and chose the coffee, though I made a mental note to return to Blood Rush one day and have a butcher’s inside. Even without the promise of more vintage photographs, the place was fascinating.
“So . . .” Red said when she’d hustled me to a table at the back of the café next door to the studio. “I think I owe you an apology.”
I stirred way too much sugar into my espresso. “How’d you work that out?”
“I walked in on you and Kim like I owned the place, and I shouldn’t have.”
“So, why did you?” Kim had already explained it in far more detail than I was entitled to, but for some reason, I needed to hear it from her.
Red shrugged. “He was mine to walk in on whenever I liked for so long, I sometimes forget that he’s not anymore. And it’s not often that he has reason to care whether I walk in or not.”
“’Cause you join in? Shit, sorry. That was rude.”
“Not at all, but you’re wrong, as it goes. Kim and I had an open relationship, but we never played at home, and Kim still doesn’t.”
I took a slow, scalding sip of my oversweetened coffee. “He’s told me a little bit about it, but it’s not really any of my business.”
“Unless you want it to be.”
It wasn’t a question, but I turned it over in my mind as I watched Red’s elegant throat work as she swallowed a sip of herbal tea. “I’m not sure either of us is ready for anything more than we’ve already had. We’re friends . . . kind of.”
“Kim has enough friends.”
“So? There’s no room for a little one?”
Red put her elbows on the table. “Okay, real talk now. You know what I’m trying to say, even though Kim would bloody kill me if he knew I was sticking my oar in like this. Look, Jas, please . . . don’t judge Kim by something you don’t understand. He deserves better than that. I’d imagine you both do.”
“I haven’t judged him.” But as the words left my mouth, I remembered that they weren’t true, because I had judged Kim, and her, from the moment I’d realised that their sexual relationship wasn’t entirely over.
Like she’d read my mind—seen through my unintentional lie—she leaned forward. “We’re not promiscuous, Jasper. It’s just a different way of living.”
The way she said my name did odd things to the jacked-up coffee in my stomach. For a brief, bizarre moment, I wanted to grip her chin and implore her to listen to me, but I said nothing. Just stared, like the idiot I was, until I found my tongue. “Kim and I are friends, and I don’t judge him for anything. I admire him, actually. He’s like no one I’ve ever known.”
“Then you should probably tell him that. His opinion of himself sometimes needs a little bolstering.”
“And you can’t do that?”
“Don’t make me kick you under this table, because I bloody will.”
I didn’t doubt it for a second as I raised my hands in surrender. “When I see him next, I’ll tell him, I promise.”
Not that I had any idea when that would be. I’d thought about calling Kim a thousand times, but I hadn’t. And he hadn’t called me. Perhaps it was a sign to let sleeping dogs lie—
Red kicked me sharply in the shin with her purple Doc Martens. “Don’t be a dick. Kim’s my best friend and I won’t give him up for anyone, but he’s never looked at me the way I’ve seen him looking at you. Don’t waste that, because you have no idea how lucky you are.”
The screech of metal on tile was abrupt as Red pushed back her chair and stomped out of the coffee shop. The couple on the next table turned to stare. I glowered back at them, though it wasn’t long before I lost my nerve and found my empty cup suddenly fascinating.
I scraped at a few stubborn grains of sugar with a teaspoon, willing the burn in my cheeks to fade. Blushing wasn’t my bag, but it had been a long time since a woman had ripped me a new one over a cup of coffee. And what to do about it? My encounter with Red hadn’t changed the fact that I was still too busy sulking about Rich to give Kim the attention he deserved, nor did it mean his relationship with Red was really done. Nah. Kim was right: being mates was the best thing for everyone.
After downing another brutal shot of coffee, I tramped back home and got on with my work, and by the evening, the pharmaceutical project was done. I uploaded all the files to the company web transfer and shut up shop for the night. I fancied a pint, but logic told me that the pub was the last place I’d find Kim, so I got in my car and drove out to the commune.
And as luck would have it, Kim was at the end of the path, loading up the bumper-sized recycling bin. I pulled up and wound down the passenger window. “Searching for scraps?”
“Chucking them out, more like.” Kim let the bin lid drop and hopped down onto the grass verge. “What brings you out here?”
“Looking for you. Didn’t think I’d find you in the Sea Bell.”
“You’d be surprised, actually. I spend as much time in there as I do my ma’s house.”
“It’s not triggering for you?”
Kim shrugged. “Nah, being home alone triggers me.”
“Home alone now?”
“Yup.”
I leaned over and opened the door. “Get in.”
Life was never simple. Kim apparently had a flock of chickens to round up before he could go anywhere, a task that was, after many summers at Belly Acre, familiar. I helped guide a couple of dozen birds into hen houses that wouldn’t have been out of place in Camden Town. “Damn. You made these?”
“Apparently. I was off the wagon at the time.”
Looking more closely at the paintwork on the nearest wooden structure, it showed. The chaotic colour held none of the calm beauty of Kim’s usual pieces. “Still pretty good, though. Every cloud, eh?”
Kim rolled his eyes and bolted the doors on both hen houses. “If you say so. I only kept them because they were gonna get covered in shit anyway.”
And . . . but he didn’t elaborate, leaving me to assume that the reminder of rock-bottom was a perversely positive thing to have around.
I nudged him. “Ready?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah . . . sure. Where are we going?”
I had no idea, but it didn’t seem to matter as we got in my car and hit the road, chasing the fading sun as it sank into the horizon. If I’d been alone, I’d have followed it to the beach and shot a lonely long exposure, but I hadn’t sought Kim out to ditch him for my camera, so I drove instead to the highest point in Porthkennack and parked up at the cliff edge.
Kim took his seat belt off and tipped his seat back. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That this is my favourite place to be when I feel like this?”
“I don’t know how you feel.”
“No?” Kim closed his eyes. “Coulda fooled me.”
I let him be for a while, entertained enough by the sunset that was fast becoming a stormy night sky. My hand found its way to Kim’s leg and lay there, passive and available. I had no idea how much time had passed when he finally took it and laced our fingers together. He didn’t speak, and I didn’t care. Silence was my thing. I enjoyed it, I craved it, and a Porthkennack silence was a special thing indeed.
We were in total darkness by the time Kim let out a soft sigh. “Lena came to see me earlier. Said she shouted at you in Becky’s.”
It took me a moment to pair my encounter with Red to the name of the coffee shop beside Blood Rush. “There wasn’t much shouting. She did boot me one, though.”
“Shit. Sorry. She’s got a bee in her bonnet about me being a terminal bachelor.”
The theory didn’t quite match with the free-loving lifestyle I’d come to associate with Kim and Red. I said as much, and Kim chuckled darkly. “All the fuck-hot sex in the world doesn’t stop you being lonely.”
“I’d settle for the fuck-hot sex.”
“I don’t give you that?”
Silence. I wondered if Kim might zone out again, but he didn’t. He squeezed my hand and fixed me with a gaze that made the tempestuous night brewing outside fade to nothing. “I fuck Lena because she’s my safe place, whether we bring anyone else along for the ride or not. Being with you is different.”
“Different?”
“Yeah. I don’t fuck you because I want to . . . It’s because I need to, and I don’t know how I’m going to give that up.”
“So don’t. We both need a friend and we both need to fuck, right?”
I said it with a grin, but the humour was loaded, and Kim looked away. “You do realise we spend way too much time talking about this, don’t you?”
“Not especially. I’m hoping we’ll figure it all out one day soon.”
“Me too. You’re on my mind a lot, which is probably why Lena came after you. She worries about me when I’m quiet.”
“She didn’t come after me.”
“No?” Kim treated me to another intense stare. “What the fuck happened, then? ’Cause I didn’t exactly give her a chance to explain.”
“I was talking to Brix outside the studio. She came out, and we went next door for a coffee. I’m sure she’s told you the rest.”
“Only that she was a dick.”
“She wasn’t a dick.”
“Her words, not mine.” Kim smiled tiredly. “Argue the toss with her.”
“No, thanks. I’m still bruised from losing the last round.” I rubbed my thumb over Kim’s tattooed knuckles. “For what it’s worth, though, I think she just wants you to be happy.”
Kim sighed. “Oh, I know that. I guess I’m a bit depressed. It happens now and then, especially when something good happens in my life. Weird, eh?”
Being mildly miserable had become my baseline, so I had to take his word for it. Besides, speculating about the new positivity in his life was distracting, though I wasn’t anywhere near optimistic enough to believe it could be me. “Would it help if we fucked on the car bonnet?”
“Probably. Bit cold for alfresco nookie, though.”
He had me there. “Listen—”
“Look—” he said at the same time, turning to face me.
“Go on,” I said.
He shrugged. “It’s stupid when I say it out loud.”
“Not as stupid as what I was about to say.”
“You should go first, then.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to refuse, but the sad fire in Kim’s eyes had faded a touch, perhaps lightened by my awkward attempts at humour, and the reckless numbnut in me figured I had nothing to lose. “This friends thing we’ve got going on. Any chance we could add in some, uh—”
“Benefits?”
I tightened my grip on his hand. “For lack of a better word, yeah. I mean, everything we said before still stands, but it feels kinda wrong to ignore . . . whatever this is completely.”
“Sounds like the kind of shit we could talk about for another week.”
“Or not. I haven’t seen you since we went to the big smoke.”
Kim sighed again. “That’s because you fucking scare me.”
“Me? How?”
“By looking at me and seeing the bloke I was meant to be before I ballsed it all up. I forget, sometimes, when I’m with you, that the rest of it ever happened.”
I couldn’t begin to understand the weight behind his words. Instead I turned in my seat and gripped his chin with my spare hand in much the same way I’d imagined myself gripping Red’s earlier. “Then be with me . . . as my friend.”
“A friend with benefits? ’Cause it seems like that’s all my junkyard heart is good for these days.”
The reference to the commune made me smile, though the sentiment made me want to weep. I hooked my hand behind his neck and pulled him close, knowing that I had to speak before we kissed, because the moment our lips met, my mind would be devoid of all else, of all reason, of anything except the way Kim felt in my arms.
I sucked in a shaky breath and dragged my thumb over his cheekbone. “Your heart isn’t junk to me, Kim.”