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Calum studied the hole in the chicken wire. It looked like a hen had tried to dig out of the enclosure, but as far as he could tell, they were all still inside.

He counted heads to be sure. Lost track as they wandered in and out, laying their morning eggs, screeching at him to go away. Even Bongo. Who knew chickens liked their privacy so much?

Calum did now.

He stepped away, still pondering the hole in the fence.

Foxes? Wolves?

Bears?

His city stripes were starting to show. And actually, it didn’t matter. There was a hole and it needed to be fixed, and there was no way Calum was waking Brix to ask him for a hammer.

He moved to the shed and rummaged among the animal feed and tools, trying not to glance up at the bedroom window. The urge to check on Brix was strong, but he’d been dead asleep when Calum had left him, and he needed to stay that way, for a few more hours at least.

He’s okay.Calum took a breath, mind still racing as he armed himself with a hammer and a box of nails. While Brix had slept, Google had been his best friend, filling in a few blanks they hadn’t got to yesterday—medication, long-term prognosis.

Sex.

Cos that’s what matters?

It wasn’t, but facts kept Calum calm, and he’d inhaled enough of them this morning to run a sexual health clinic. Enough of them to know that if Brix’s viral load was undetectable, they could have unprotected sex and still be safe.

Stop thinking about sex.

Calum focused on the hole in the fence. He’d just about fudged it when a battered Defender drove down the side of the cottage and pulled up by the gate.

John Lusmoore. Calum didn’t know how he knew, just that he did. He had no clue who his female companion was, though. Or if they had a clue who he was.

He locked the shed and moved to the gate, hand on the bolt to let them through. But they stopped a few feet away, staring, their curiosity as obvious as Calum’s.

Their suspicion, if the harsh glare Brix’s dad sent his way was anything to go by. “You that London fella?”

“Calum.”

“That was the name,” the woman said. “Got all the girls in town all aflutter, he has, John.”

John grunted. “A carthorse gets those twits excited. Where’s my boy at? Workin’? We didn’t see him at the shop.”

“He’s asleep.” Calum inclined his head at the cottage. “Knackered from the last few days.”

“See?” The woman elbowed John’s ribs. “Told you jumping on that boat at all hours was going to upset him. I’m Peg, by the way. The prodigal son’s favourite aunt.”

Favourite auntbore little resemblance to the Aunt Peg Brix had described, but Calum couldn’t help warming to her. She had Brix’s smile, and Calum had been under its spell for as long as he could remember. “Do you want me to wake him?”

“Too late.”

Brix’s smoky voice startled Calum. He turned to find Brix behind him, rumpled, gorgeous, and a million times better than he’d looked twelve hours ago.

Eyes bright, they stared at each other, a thousand things to say, but no words to say them.

John cleared his throat. “What you been doing with that chook fence, boy? Looks like you drove the van over it.”

Brix blinked. “Hmm?”

“That bloody mess.” John pointed. “It’s all over the place.”

Calum winced. “There was a hole when I got up—that’s my shit attempt at fixing it.”

Unimpressed, John’s glower deepened. Brix peered beyond them to see what all the fuss was about, then turned to Calum with a smile that was kind. “It ain’t bad.”

Calum didn’t believe that any more than the clutch of extra Lusmoores crowding the gate.

He stepped back as John and Peg pushed their way through.

“Come on.” John pointed again. “You need to move the fence post for starters. I’ll show you.”

He strode across the garden without waiting to see if Calum followed.

Lacking any better ideas, Calum trailed after him and joined him at the fence, blocking out Peg’s cackle of laughter. “I was worried about foxes.” And bears, but he kept that to himself. “Sorry if I fucked it up.”

John stooped, frowning at the tragedy Calum and his borrowed hammer had left behind. “Don’t be sorry, lad. It was better than leaving it open. Hundreds of foxes round here, even this close to the sea. And they won’t take one gal, they’ll take them all. Right bastards, they are.”

”You think a fox made the hole?”

“Not likely. They don’t leave none alive when they get in. You’ve lost a few nails in the storm. See ’ere?” John pointed to more holes in the nearest post, unlocking Calum’s wayward work as he went, replacing it with his own. “Do you right, boy, it ain’t as bad as I thought. I can see where you were goin’, and it might’ve worked if you’d secured the post properly.”

Calum crouched, studying the gaping chasm between his skill level and John’s. “Nice of you to say, but securing the post never occurred to me.”

John laughed, a deep rumbling chuckle that eclipsed his surly demeanour. “Jesus-wept. Your face. I’m not telling you ya killed a dog or summit. You think that boy in there built this thing on his own? No, these bare hands did all the bloody work while he heckled me from that bench over there.”

“That doesn’t sound like Brix.”

John shrugged. “Well . . . he mighta hammered in a few nails when I told ’im to. Ain’t none of us born knowing how to build the ark.”

The obtuse biblical reference caught Calum off guard, but John wasn’t looking at him. Calum followed his gaze to the kitchen window, where he could just about make out Brix and Peg sitting at the table.

“He looks like Peg,” Calum mused to himself as much as John.

John grunted. “Sounds like her too, without the gob on him, though. Abel’s like his mum, pretty and daft.”

“Do you miss them?”

“Miss ’em?” John hammered another nail into the post. “I miss my baby gal, and the boy maybe—both of ’em, actually, when him in there goes off on one—but their ma can fall in the sea for all I care, if the sea weren’t too good for the likes of her.”

The brutal sentiment was softened by a gleam in John’s eyes that Calum had seen in Brix. Perhaps they were more alike than anyone knew. “Is the fence safe now?”

“It’ll do. Help an old man up, will ya?”

Calum rose and helped John to his feet. He turned up the path, but John’s hand on his arm stayed him.

“What you doin’ down here anyway? It’s been a few months now, eh? You sticking around?”

Twenty-four hours ago, Calum would’ve second guessed his answer. Now, he didn’t blink. “I’m sticking around.”

His certainty earned him another Lusmoore grunt as John let go of his arm to clap a heavy palm to his back. “That’ll do me. I think the boy likes your company, and he’s a good lad. Deserves to be ’appy, so don’t fuck it up.”

“I—”

John was already walking away.

* * *

It was gone five by the time Peg ran out of steam. By then, Calum was a little in love with her, and he was daft enough to tell Brix.

“Fucking hell.” Brix shook with laughter. “You really have been Lusmoored if you think that woman’s sweet. She’s an arsehole.”

“You love her, though.”

“I love them all. Don’t make them sweet, it makes them family . . . a family of arseholes.”

“Have you ever thought about telling them?”

“That they’re arseholes? I tell them all the time.”

Calum waited for Brix to realise his deflection hadn’t worked.

It didn’t take long. A beat passed, and Brix sighed, turning away to mess with the kettle. “I could never tell them. It was their biggest fear when I came out, and I promised them it would never happen.”

Calum had no sensible answer to that. He let it go and retreated to the living room while Brix did whatever he trying to do with the kettle. It wasn’t raining, but the sky was dark. Heavy. And it seemed fitting for the mood fast descending on Calum. Sex invaded his brain again, and shoving it aside was a bridge to far.

He let his thoughts run free, returning to the googling he’d done while Brix had slept. If it was accurate, Brix’s fear of intimacy was illogical, but when had fear ever made sense? Which led him to the barbed notion that perhaps he didn’t want to fuck Calum regardless. And then the realisation that the thought of Brix never sharing that closeness with anyone ever again hurt worse than anything.

“Where did you go?” Brix was suddenly in front of Calum, standing so close Calum’s skin tingled and his hands itched to touch him, but Brix got there first. He tapped Calum’s temple. “I don’t like it when you disappear on me. What are you thinking about?”

Tell him the truth. “I’m thinking about sex.”

“Oh.” The shift in Brix was instant. He stepped away, his hands dropping to his sides. “Wondering about where you can get some?”

“Don’t.”

“Sorry.” Brix backed slowly to a nearby chair and sat down. “I just—I don’t know how to talk about sex anymore.”

Yes, you do.Calum tried not to picture how Brix’s hands had felt on his dick. Fought to bring himself back to the science he’d learned by heart in the misty light of a Porth Ewan early morning. “I don’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“I don’t get why you said you’ll never have sex again.”

Brix didn’t blink. “Seriously? Out of everything, that’s what you need explaining to you?”

“I’m trying to understand. Your status is undetectable, but?—”

“But what?” Brix snapped.

“You’re not infectious.” Calum inched through the minefield. “If you bag up, there’s no reason you can’t have all the sex in the world.”

“Ah . . . you’ve been googling, eh?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“I did, like a fucking lunatic, when I thought being positive meant I couldn’t ink anymore. I know how it works.”

“So why can’t you have sex? With anyone, not just me.”

“Because I’m fucking scared of it!” The shout burst free from Brix’s chest like he’d wrenched it from the earth’s core. It didn’t shock Calum. He’d seen it building. But it seemed to shock Brix and he slapped a hand over his mouth, as if he could shove the words back in.

Easy.

Take a breath.

Calum manifested the words he couldn’t speak and waited.

Brix let his hand drop. “It’s like how I was scared of putting a needle to someone, but this is worse . . . much worse, especially if we’re talking about me and you.”

“Me and you?”

“Don’t look so shocked. You just said it.”

“I know, but hearing it from you blows my mind.” Calum braved a step forward. “Are you worried about a condom breaking? Cos all that googling told me that whoever you were with wouldn’t even need the emergency meds as long as you’re undetectable. And there’s PrEP—what?”

Brix shook his head. “Preventive PrEP isn’t available on the NHS. They only give it out if you’ve had a high-risk exposure. And I would die before I let you spend a fortune on medication you don’t need when you’re fucking healthy without it.”

“So no PrEP then. Fuck me without it. Fuck whoever without it.” Calum nudged Brix’s legs apart and crouched down, dropping his palms on Brix’s thighs. He’s shaking. “I’m not telling you how to feel, but don’t shut yourself off. It’s not fair, you don’t deserve it.”

“Being unfair don’t change shit.”

Brix’s jaw remained set, but his hands crept towards Calum’s. Unconscious, maybe, but Calum took heart in it and claimed Brix’s fingers. “How did you get past this fear with tattooing?”

“I didn’t for the first six months I was back here. Didn’t have it in me. I was still sick as a dog, too. Could hardly get up some days.”

“What changed?”

“The sea, maybe?” Brix shrugged. “Summer faded and the storms came. I don’t like the cold, but watching the waves batter the rocks was good for my soul . . . cleansing, I guess. In the end, I made a deal with my HIV counsellor that I’d set up Blood Rush anyway, give the cool folks I knew a place to work, then at least try to start inking again . . . and keep inking, over and over, until I’d convinced myself I wasn’t gonna kill anyone.”

“Your counsellor sounds pretty wise.”

“She was.”

“Was?”

“I only had her for six months. After that, I was on my own—apart from the clinic, but I only see them every six months now.”

Twice a year. For a disease that would haunt Brix for the rest of his life. Calum drew a random design on Brix’s clothed thigh. “Her theory worked though, didn’t it? You did more ink the other day than I’ve done all week.”

“It’s not the same as sticking my dick in someone.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No—listen, fuck—Calum, God.” Brix clenched his eyes shut and scrubbed at them, then refocused with a biblical sigh. “I know it’s irrational . . . I know, but I can’t be the reason someone feels like I do now. I can live with everything else, but not that, Cal. I can’t do it.”

Calum sighed too, defeat washing over him. “For what it’s worth, I want you to know that you deserve all the love in the world, and there’s no reason outside of your own head that you can’t have it, but I hear you. And I’m here for you, okay? Whatever happens.”

Brix nodded, already zoning out, needing the space Lee had warned Calum about.

Let him breathe. Calum rose, but as he turned towards the stairs, there was one last question he had to ask. “What happened between you and Jordan when you found him? You never told me.”

Brix’s troubled gaze flashed, guilt blazing, hot and sharp. “I hit him . . . a lot, like the Lusmoore I am. Ironic, eh? The only time I toe the family line and they’ll never know.”

“You beat him up?”

“Yup.”

Calum had no answer to that either. He left Brix to his brooding and went upstairs to change out of the clothes he’d worn to muck about in the chicken run. He undressed and went to the window, opening it wide, letting the bitter wind cut into his bare skin. With Brix’s faith in the sea echoing in his mind, he waited for it to ease the pain in his heart. But nothing happened, save a tingling rush of goose bumps, and despair swamped him again.

He shut the window and sank onto his bed. The last few days had left him numb, and the weight of all Brix had shared was only now sinking in. A ripple in the pond. His soul ached for Brix and all he’d survived, but more than that, the fact that he’d been alone, while Calum had wasted four years with Rob . . .

Jesus.

Calum couldn’t take it. He inhaled a deep, shuddering breath.

Then he put his head in his hands and cried.