Page 72 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

As though she’d known I would need a piece of him to cling to.

I wet my lips and stepped around August, feeling his gaze track me as I crossed to the electric kettle and put on water for tea.

“So…” I ventured.

It was obvious he didn’t want to be here.

He was probably exhausted.

August cleared his throat and tapped another photograph—Blythe and me alongside Kenna, Rika, Jaycee, and Aideen. We’d been so smashed we could barely stand, the selfie half blurred into brushstrokes of light and color.

Apparently, August didn’t want to talk shop.

At least not yet.

“I like this one,” he murmured. “You all look… happy.”

“Yeah.” I forced a smile.

I knew what it meant to cling to normalcy—to any fragment of life before this bleak reality—so I humored his discomfort.

“A little twisted after a concert in the rose garden.”

August chuckled. “That’ll do it.”

I snorted before I could hide my skepticism.

“What?” he demanded, amusement brightening his eyes.

“August Porter never got high.”

His choked laugh was answer enough, but I was already shaking my head.

“I don’t believe you. That’s too… rebellious.”

When I turned with the mugs in hand, he was scrubbing his palms over his face as he collapsed into my leather armchair.

“There was this night during our sophomore year,” he began, his lips quirking and eyes turning hazy with memory. “I was so faded that Sam looked like he was moving in slow motion. We were talking around the island in our shitty apartment, and I couldn’t understand why the hell we were standing when there was a perfectly good couch ten feet away.”

He ran his fingers through his shaggy hair, trying and failing to push it off his face.

“Allegedly, I very abruptly informed him and James of the absurdity of standing in the kitchen all goddamned night, and they lost it. They, uh… had a higher tolerance than I did. Apparently, we’d been there for less than two minutes. But to me—inside whatever fucked-up time loop had taken over my mind—we’d been talking for hours. I’d composed entire songs. Lyrics. Planned itineraries for trips all over the world⁠—”

My snort brought him up short, a genuine smile pulling across his face.

“Was that the only time, Mr. Porter?” I teased.

“Surprisingly, no.”

“You went back for more time loops?”

“I bought a digital watch after that.”

A trace of pride twisted his smile.

I laughed, the sound foreign and too loud, as I handed him his mug and collapsed into the chair beside him.

Silence settled between us, heavy with all the unspoken things demanding to be unearthed.