Derision cools his gaze. “I live here.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” Sev wasn’t lying when he said Skylar was rarely around. “I haven’t seen you for days.”
It’s a cue someone else might take to ask if I’ve missed them. To fucking flirt or whatever.
Skylar doesn’t. He just props himself against the bar, leaning against it like liquid sex. “I don’t like randos touching me either.”
“You let me touch you.”
Skylar’s lips twitch. “Just once.”
“Aye, the first time.”
He smiles for real then, and it’s worth every shitty feeling that’s ever razed my soul. It’s worth the memory of his body wrapped around mine in the sunshine. It’s worth the reality of knowing that memory is likely it for us, even though I meant every word about fucking him in the rain.
Skylar’s used to me. It’s rare that he breaks first. But this time, he does, ducking his head as air shifts and I realise Sol has finally come inside.
The door slams shut behind him. He doesn’t punch anyone to reach the bar, so it takes him a while, but by the time he does, Skylar has put enough space between us for Sol to slot right in and swipe one of the unspent beer bottles.
He pops the cap and tips it down, draining half in a long swallow that has Skylar eyeballing us both.
“Something happen to you two tonight?”
Sol can’t lie. And I don’t want to. We both look away and I realise for the first time that my brother isn’t behind the bar, and I can’t see the shape of his broad shoulders next door either. “Where’s Jack?”
Skylar shoots me a flinty stare, letting me know he noticed I missed Jack’s absence when I blew inside and raided the fridge. And how he feels about it. “Upstairs.”
“Why?”
Skylar shrugs, leaving room for Sol to answer as the band in the tourist bar kicks up a gear.
“Hardcore bass rattles his brain too much.”
“Then why the fuck would you book a reggae band?”
“I didn’t. Sev did—he didn’t know.” Sol switches into what I’ve come to recognise asJack mode. He drains his beer and ducks under the bar to ditch the bottle and head for the stairs. “I’m going to check on him. I’ll be back to close up. You don’t have to stay down here.”
That’s for Skylar. For me, Sol has nothing but the same conflicted frown he’s had on his face since the contact with theMary Gloucesterkicked off. Disturbed gratitude. I’ve fixed a problem for him. Maybe. Hopefully. But he’s looking at me like he doesn’t have a clue who I am. Like he’s scared I’m a monster, that maybe Jack was once one too, and I fucking loathe that. My brother is the best man I’ve ever known.
One of them, anyway.
Sol goes upstairs. I reach for another beer, wondering if Skylar will follow him.
He doesn’t, and I feel his sharp gaze drill the side of my head. I turn away from it again, thankful the godawful music muffles his humourless laugh.
I drink more beer while he simmers beside me.
Eventually, it pisses me off.
I drop a bottle, letting it clatter to a stop by Skylar’s elbow. “You have something to say?”
Skylar has his back to the bar. Too late, it dawns on me the soldier I brought back to this place has clocked him watching the crowd enough to allow me not to bother. That something fundamental inside me trusts Skylar as much as I’ve ever trusted Moth, Raven, and Orion.
He turns to look at me—toreallylook at me. “I could say anything right now, I don’t think you’d hear me.”
Skylar’s not talking about the band. The crowd. The sudden boom of thunder that batters the sky outside, rattling the pub’sramshackle roof, a shudder of sound I feel more than I should. Somehow he knows the worst noise is inside me.
And…that it’s getting louder.
