Chapter 11 Jack #2
“Probably wouldn’t’ve noticed anyway. I don’t…
” I don’t swing that way. But my voice dies in my throat as my brain catches up with my mouth, because it’s clearly not true.
Folk Whitlock does nothing for me. Neither does Cam O’Brian, Oscar, or any other objectively good-looking bloke I’ve ever been around.
But Sol’s a man. He’s always been a man. And I’ve always thought of him before anything and anyone else.
My eyes drift to the water. Black and endless, no boat lights on the horizon, because only Sol has the stones to go out all night in the winter, because he’s had to fight harder than everyone else to scratch a living from his heritage.
I turn back to Folk. “Did Sol’s dad rob the copper from your sites?”
The subject shift doesn’t feel abrupt to me. It makes sense that I knew Folk before. Something settles in me at the knowledge, something small but significant, as if it’s the first rung of a ladder. But as important as it felt to ask him tonight, I can’t spare it any more thought.
Folk doesn’t seem to mind. His humour fades and he heaves a quiet sigh. “Yes. And it was probably my fault.”
“How’s that?”
“You said it was vulnerable. That someone who needed it more would take it. I was okay with that and I shouldn’t have been—I should’ve seen the bigger picture.”
Fiadh comes to me and raises up on her delicate hind legs to paw at my stomach. She’s had enough, she wants to go in.
Folk is still leaning against the sea wall. I wonder if he’s had enough too, but there’s a steadiness to him that can’t be faked. It’s easy to reimagine him as a leader in the field. As a mentor to my kid brother when I can’t manage it myself.
“Mal had a bad day.” Another subject change that probably comes from nowhere.
Folk nods. “I know. Sol told me.”
“When did you speak to Sol?”
“A few hours ago.”
I frown. “How?”
“Message.” Folk digs a phone out of his pocket and activates the screen.
I back away from the device, more because I don’t want to see my brother’s PTSD illuminated in nasty blue light than anything else. But Folk reacts quicker than I’m aware of my own feet and shuts it down.
“I’ll check in with Mal tomorrow. But he knows he can reach me anytime.”
“Thank you.”
Folk pockets the phone and glances at the Joker behind me. “It’s nothing. I’d have been there for Mal even if he wasn’t your brother.”
“Did you know it was me when I reached out to you?”
“Yeah, Jack, I did. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you we knew each other. I didn’t know if forcing that memory on you was a good idea.”
“So, if I hadn’t asked, you wouldn’t have told me?”
“Probably not.”
Folk has an honest face. A moral one, too. I accept his answer and leave him at the sea wall.
I take Fiadh back inside and I don’t look back to see what he does, even if I feel like I should.
Can’t, because whatever I’ve learned tonight, about myself and about Folk Whitlock, none of it matters to me more than Sol.
He fills my every thought as I poke at the alarm system and climb the stairs to the flat.
As I slip through the front door to find Skylar waiting up while Mal remains asleep on the couch where I left him, wrung out by a day I did nothing to make shorter and easier for him.
That’s not true, Jackie.
Regardless, Skylar’s waiting on me, I realise. So Mal doesn’t have to. Because Sol isn’t here. Because Sol does anything and everything for everyone else before he ever gets to himself.
Which is why what I’m about to do is so fucking selfish. “Can I use your phone?”
Tired, Skylar hands it over without asking me why. He knows why, and the thread he keeps for me on some app I’ve forgotten the name of is already open from the last time I sent Sol a message in the middle of the night.
I have to be quick. Before my brain reacts to the phone screen.
Or before I think it might and angst myself into making it real.
Squinting, I type, and hit send without second guessing my words.
Without second-guessing the truth. “Thanks,” I tell Skylar.
“Now go to bed, and take that fecking reprobate with you.”
Skylar grins and lets me hug him. Then I give him space to wake my brother—he’ll call me back if Mal needs me. I go to my room with Fiadh and shut the door.
It’s late.
I need to sleep. And I will. But I allow myself a few minutes to brood.
To push Mal and Folk Whitlock to the edges and let my brain settle on Sol the way it wants to.
The way it needs to. I clear the map and wrestle the facts of the day into some kind of order.
Strip it down to the mental bullet points I can’t fucking forget, and a couple things stand out, carved into my questionable grey matter with indelible ink.
One: My best friend is bleeding himself dry to fix shit he didn’t break, a cycle he’s drowned in before. Two: I’m not the same man I was yesterday. Because he put his hand on me—because I asked him to, and those two truths…they burn a hole in me.
Sol’s sinking.
I’m waking up.
And yet eventually, I fall asleep, but I wake early, shower and brush my teeth. Then I go back to bed and lie in the quiet, knowing he’s not home yet, straining my senses for any sound or sign of that changing.
It’s still dark, sometime later, when I hear his heavy tread on the stairs, his key in the lock, and his gut-wrenching sigh as he trudges over the threshold.
Sol’s exhaustion brings me to life.
I don’t hesitate. I roll out of bed and blow out of my room without checking my balance, and for once, I get lucky. My equilibrium holds and I reach Sol without staggering or tripping over my own feet.
He’s wet through, of course. Damp clothes, messy hair, shadows under his beautiful eyes as he blinks in surprise as I steam up on him at the front door.
He smells of the ocean and the incense smoke that clings to his clothes no matter how much salt water gets into them.
He smells of home and I’m so glad he finally is that I narrow the distance between us without a second thought. Press my chest to his and take his face in my hands.
There are so many things I need to say to him. So many words. So many thoughts and feelings that need unravelling.
But I don’t say any of them. I don’t say anything. Instead I take a breath, let my heart run free.
And I kiss my best friend.