Mal whips him a glare. “What for?”
“What do you think? This is my fault. It’s me they’re after.”
“You regret picking up their trash?”
“No, but I didn’t have to dump it at their feet.”
“You didn’t,” Mal agrees. “But they deserved it. And what’s the alternative?Youpay for their waste disposal? You got that kind of money, Sol?”
“I’ve never had any money. You know this.”
Mal’s hard edges soften. Like they do when we’re alone and I’m not antagonising the hell out of him because I like his sharpness just as much. “Course I do. Why do you think this pisses me off so much? Aside from the fact I love the shit out of you?”
Sol grins, the haze of too many Luckstable ciders returning to his bronze-flecked eyes. “You love me, Mally?”
“For my fucking sins.” Mal pushes off the interior door and embraces Sol with more warmth than I think I’ve seen from him, like, ever.
Then he exits through the back door without so much as glancing my way and I can’t for the life of me figure out why it makes me want to punch things.
“It’s not his fault either.”
I blink. “Whose fault?”
“Mal’s. Couch wanting to torch this place isn’t new. He’s been threatening it since he won big on the pools, so he can buy the land and build holiday lets on it. It’smethat’s made him want to do it more.”
A familiar story, one that’s monotonously shit. Not with Couch or with Mal, but with other rich cunts who see the tourist money in Porth Luck and want it all for themselves. A hard-won part of me hates that Mal did something so violent to combat it, but the rest of me knows it has to be this way. That it’llalwaysbe this way until someone fucking dies.
That’s the life, right?
Wrong. It’s not my life anymore. Hasn’t been for a long time.But what about Mal? And why the fuck do I care?
“What’s up with you two anyway?” Sol eyes me. “You not getting on?”
“What?”
“You and Mal,” Sol clarifies. “I know the look on your pretty face when you want to murder someone.”
He really doesn’t. “We get on just fine.”
“Well, if that’s true, I hope you don’t ever hook-up. You’ll be the ones burning the place down instead of all these rich emmets who want to build houses here.”
Sol’s joking, but he’s too close to the truth for me to laugh. A piece of my heart left the building with Mal, and what’s left of it just wants to sleep. “Go help Jack and sing your shitty songs, old friend.”
Sol rolls with the gentle push I give him, and I think I’ve got away with it. But he turns before he reaches the door and gives me a stare that’s more like Jack than him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m tired.”
“Apart from that. They scan your head after that whack?”
“For what? It clipped me, it didn’t crack my skull.”
Sol blanches, and the guilt is immense, but other wicked things are too strong to fix the triggering image I’ve just thrown in his face. I let the loaded silence fester until he blinks first and leaves me alone in a kitchen as barren as I feel right now.
Go to bed.
It feels impossible, and I know why.
Mal.
