4. Skylar
Mal’s hand falls to his side. His fingers twitch, curling slightly. Can’t say why it catches my focus. Or why I want his hand back when I’m touched out from a long night at the hospital.
But I miss the heat of it. The addictive warmth I remember from a few days ago, a state of mind that has to shrivel up and die if we’re going to live in close quarters.
But for the long second it takes me to reanimate, it’s all I feel until reality creeps in, a slow, roiling sensation that twists my empty stomach.
I need to eat—it’s no longer a choice. I’ve pushed my body too hard and I’m running out of time to fix it. I’m so fucking cold and my head pounds?—
Too far. You went too far.
I force myself from the doorway and further into the kitchen, side-stepping Mal in the narrow space between the table and cabinets.
He’s still looking my way, those Gallagher-green eyes raking over me, peeling back layers I don’t want him or anyone else to ever see.
I won’t let them see, and it’s that idiotic tenacity that keeps me upright as I open a cupboard and consider the contents as if it’s perfectly normal for an almost hookup to be a foot away from me, flaying me raw without even trying.
Instant oats.
Microwave rice.
Vanilla protein shakes that wrench my gut all over again.
Pick something.
I grab the oats and shut the cabinet, noticing Oscar for the first time, a sure sign of how detached I am right now, or how utterly distracting Mal is.
Maybe it’s both. Either way, Oscar is half out of his seat before his gaze finds mine and he sits down again. Because it doesn’t matter how formidable my guard became long before I came here, Oscar has seen through me from the start.
I toss the oats in the microwave and move to the fridge, pulling out a yoghurt pot, aware of Jack by the window with his hands in the sink and Mal leaning against the counter, his stare on me still .
His attention starts to grate. The part of me that likes it loses the war to the ghost I become when I get like this.
I need him to stop looking at me. To stop seeing me , for all I am in this moment.
I need space, and yet…I don’t. I need my friends.
I need Jack, I need Oscar, or I’ll be stuck in this spiral too long to climb out of it by myself.
So I have to face him.
Mal.
But as I turn I find empty space. He’s pushed off from the counter and stepped closer to Jack, as if he’s as over whatever this is between us as I need to be.
But the lack of nourishment in my body stifles any relief I feel.
Right now, I don’t feel anything, not even concern that if Mal glances away from Jack he might witness the very worst of me.
The microwave pings.
I swivel my head and the movement feels too slow.
I need a bowl.
A spoon.
“Skylar.” Oscar calls my name, low and gentle. He leans back, his big frame poured into his chair all honeyed muscle and ink, and taps a finger to the newspaper. “Can you help me with this? I cannot read it.”
His intervention works. I find my way to the table and take the bench by the wall while he gets up and retrieves what I need. He sits close to me when he comes back, body doubling, even though we’ve never had a single conversation about why I need it on days like this.
I eat the oats while he pretends to be confused about a Brexit article in a week-old newspaper. The yoghurt is harder. It’s as cold as I am as it slides down my throat and it’s the fight of my life to keep it in my stomach.
“You are sure,” Oscar presses, “it does not say anything bad?”
“You have IDL status.” Indefinite leave to remain . “As long as you don’t spend more than two years anywhere else, you can stay as long as you like.”
Oscar knows this. He has a child here, and he’s not the kind of person who leaves life admin to chance. Not like Sol. He’s more like Jack when it all comes together, which makes me wonder about Mal, and my gaze drifts across the kitchen.
He has his back to me, watching the beach while Jack talks, his voice too soft for me to hear. It gives me a glorious and terrible opportunity to study Mal unnoticed, and letting it happen carries me further from the dead weight in my belly.
Mal’s wearing the same shorts he was a few days ago, but a different shirt. A faded red tee skims his rangy build and sets off his sun-drenched skin. The shorts expose his calves and who knew the curves of those lean, tanned muscles could be so hot? That his bare feet would fixate me so much?
Only Oscar shifting beside me breaks the spell. He palms my empty bowl and chucks in the yoghurt pot. He doesn’t speak, but the question in his eyes is clear. You good?
Not yet, but I will be. I nod, showing him whatever it takes to let himself leave when he needs his bed after a long night as much as I do.
Oscar touches his fist to my shoulder and takes my bowl to the sink, murmuring to Jack and Mal.
Mal turns his head enough that I see him grin and I like it enough to revisit how he felt pressed against me on that distant beach.
How hard and strong he was everywhere, not just his dick.
His hand is a ghost on my jaw, his lips hot on mine.
We didn’t get that far, but thinking about it has me shifting in my seat, too ensnared by what might’ve been to catch whatever makes Jack growl and follow Oscar out of the room.
For a man as built as he is, Jack’s fast on his feet, his tread light on the old floorboards.
He’s gone before I can blink and it shouldn’t surprise me.
Jack often taps out of conversations he thinks have got away from him.
But his abrupt exit throws me and not just because it leaves me alone with Mal.
It’s knowing I’ve been too caught up in my own shit to help Jack handle his.
It’s Mal’s face as his brother leaves.
I hear Jack go downstairs to where Sol is tossing the beer order in the cellar with enough disorder to calm Jack down. That Sol is here , which matters. No one comforts Jack like he does, even if the reason why hurts to think about.
“That a thing here?” Mal’s deep voice fills the room. “Any more of this and there’ll be less of it.”
His accent is faint, like Jack’s—it’s been a long time since the Gallagher family left their small hometown in County Down, and I know Mal grew up here , in Porth Luck. But enough Northern Irish lilt clings to the words that it takes me a second to grasp I don’t know what any of it means.
I ease back in my seat, glad Oscar took my bowl and yoghurt pot. It’s easier to forget the monster on my shoulder if I don’t have to look at the evidence.
Mal’s leaning against the counter again, his stance as relaxed as his gaze is sharp, and I try to match what I see with what I already know about him. But while I’m pretty certain it’s more than he’d be comfortable with, it’s not much, and none of it is visible from the outside anyway.
“You’re going to have to translate,” I say eventually. “I don’t speak Killinchy riddles.”
Mal pauses long enough to wet his lips. A barely there dart of his tongue I wouldn’t notice in anyone else. “The flouncing out thing,” he clarifies. “Sev went first and Jack’s done it twice in ten fucking minutes.”
“Sev doesn’t want to be here.” It’s no secret. “But Jack can’t handle the admin side of the pub on his own and Sol’s no good at anything he can’t do with his hands.”
“What about you?”
“I’m good with my hands too.”
Mal’s stare heats, a faint smirk twisting his lips before he reins it in. “That’s not your real answer.”
It isn’t, and I’m not shocked he’s sniffed it out so fast.
“Mal’s a blood hawk,” Sol mused, studying the dregs of his pint. “There’s not much he doesn’t see, and he sniffs out bullshit like a fucking dinner lady.”
At the time, the analogy had made me laugh, but I don’t like not knowing if Mal noticed Oscar babysitting me through a shitty bowl of oats. I hate it, and I shouldn’t. He’s not my friend. My family. He’s not my brother or my lover. I shouldn’t care what he does or doesn’t see.
I don’t care.
He’s not a permanent fixture in my life. Jack talks in circles by accident sometimes, but that much he was clear about.
“If he comes at all, he won’t stay. He doesn’t like it here.”
Suits me, and I’m happy to give Mal the truth without blinking. “I don’t help run the Joker. Jack and Sol won’t let me because they feel bad for needing my contribution to buy it.”
Mal considers that, and I wonder if he’s putting it together with what little he knows about me . “I’m guessing that would be a good deal for you if this place wasn’t on its fucking knees.”
“How do you know it’s on its knees?”
“I’ve had a lot of time to kill recently. Some of it I even made use of.”
That heat flickers in his eyes again, sparking behind those long lashes. It takes me somewhere else, even though those snatched moments with him should be as distant to me as the last few days have been.
I wanted him.
I want him still. Enough to imagine his phantom scent on my skin. Enough to wonder how his messy hair would have felt wrapped around my fingers when I should’ve forgotten him the instant I walked away.
That was never going to happen. You live together now.
Valid. And Mal needs more from me than the obsession I’m developing with his mouth. He deserves more. I’m just not sure I have it. Not until the food in my belly stops feeling like poison I need to expel, and I get some sleep.
Fuck, I need to sleep.
I’m good at keeping my emotions to myself. Drives Jack and Sol crazy when they need more from me too.
Mal, though. As fatigue sweeps over me, heavier now I’ve eaten, he seems to see every scratchy wave of it.
Or maybe I’m too tired to think straight. In the time it’s taken me to lose track of the conversation, he’s come closer and claimed Oscar’s seat.
His bare calves transfix me, if only to stop my gaze travelling up his muscled legs, and his proximity makes my skin tingle.
I push my hair back from my face.