“She fell in love with Sol.”
“And he wasn’t interested?”
“He didn’t notice.”
No surprise lights Mal’s face. He just nods again, as if it makes sense, and I remember he’s known Sol a lifetime longer than I have. “What about you?”
“I’m not in love with Sol.”
“Not what I meant, Skylar.”
He utters my name in the same moment I realise my back is no longer to the wall. That my elbows are on the table and our knees are pressed together hard enough a shared heartbeat thuds through our limbs. Mine or his, it doesn’t matter. It bothers me more how normal it feels to touch him. He’s Jack’s brother. My housemate. As of today, we share a bathroom and a bedroom wall. But he’s still a stranger, and this…whatever it is, itfeels more intimate than any encounter I’ve had in a while, and I don’t know what to do with that either.
I cycle back to the words that preceded my name.
Not what I meant…
Alarms flare. I need to get away from this conversation. Away from him. He’s too close and it has nothing to do with his leg that now feels welded to mine. Mal’s stare is already shrewd, but it deepens as he holds my gaze, and I feel stripped again, like I did when I walked into the room.
Run.
That bad habit again, even if it’s rarely literal. But he’s caught me at a weak moment, the weakest, perhaps, that I’ve been in a long time, and I’m too slow. He speaks again before I can extract myself and his words snare me like a fish in one of Sol’s nets.
“What’s with the white food?”
Ice slithers through me. I detach my knee from his without conscious thought and the distance I didn’t reclaim in time springs up between us like a black void, shadows curling around me, yanking me clear from him.
It shocks me every time, how fast the devil in me moves to protect itself. In my head, I’m halfway out of my seat, but I make myself stay, forcing bland calm into my features as panic threatens the breakfast I’m trying so hard to keep in my body. Theweirdbreakfast I’d been a fucking fool to think he wouldn’t notice.
“What do you care what I eat?”
Mal’s lips twitch, but I don’t get the feeling he’s fighting a smile. A pause stretches out. Then he shrugs. “I don’t care.”
I nod. “All right then.”
“Is it?”
No. Nothing ever is. But if he doesn’t give a shit about me, it’s easier to not give a shit about him.
I let myself rise and draw my hand from my pocket. Toss the pill bottle I fished from the bathroom bin in his face, unsurprised that he snaps it from the air long before it hits him. “Don’t throw stones, Mal. You might find yours are bigger than mine.”
5SKYLAR
I leave Mal in the kitchen, glad of nothing save the reminder of how much worse this would be if we’d fucked on the beach at Saltkiss Bay, and it’s days before I see him again. Work keeps me out of the flat, and I take overtime to make sure of it, until someone drowns on the beach just up the shoreline from Porth Luck and I finally feel the urge to go home for longer than a few hours in my bed.
By then, a week or so has passed, and it’s late on a Friday evening. Asummerevening. The air is as balmy as it gets and the pub is rammed with tourists and locals, a melting pot bound to explode at some point, even if Jack tries to keep them in separate bars.
The crowd spills out into the garden and the street. I get out of my car to the familiar sound of Sol and Oscar leading the fishermen in old shanties, a spectacle that used to bemuse me, but I see the beauty of it tonight, even if some old bastard has broken out the accordion. Losing a teenager on shift has left me appreciating the simple things.
Except maybe drunk idiots shouting in my face. So I avoid the bars and slip in the back door, finding the cool quiet of the abandoned kitchen, and the hallway that leads to the stairs.
Jack emerges from the cellar, a beer barrel, the weight balanced on his stronger arm. He sees me over the top and puts it down, any urgency he fetched it with instantly gone. “Did they bring that kid into Truro?”
I nod. “Too late, though. I’m sorry. Did you see it?”
“No, I was asleep. I didn’t wake up until the chopper came.”
“What about the others?”
