5. Skylar
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. A summer evening. 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?”
Sol.
Oscar.
Mal .
“Not Sol. The boat only got in an hour ago.”
I wait.
Jack frowns, catching up. “I don’t know about Mal. He went for a run and I haven’t seen him since. You think he’s okay?”
“I haven’t seen him either.”
It’s the truth. The closest I’ve come is fading steam on the bathroom mirror and the pill bottle that reappeared a few days ago—the same day I ate three meals for the first time since I got the VO from the prison.
He can’t know that.
He can’t .
I don’t like the feeling that maybe he does.
Or the worry making Jack frown harder. I move closer to my friend, drawing his gaze from where it’s fixed to a spot on the wall. “When did he go running?”
Mal.
His brother.
Current occupant of all the empty space in my head.
It shouldn’t be a comfort there wasn’t much to spare.
But now I’m no longer caught in the vortex between hunger and a sick need for control, I find solace in Jack.
I always have. His demons are different to mine, but it tears me up that the shadow on his brain has him thinking even for a second he’s not the man he used to be.
He is.
He’s better .
He just doesn’t see it.
Jack wears a watch. He glances at it, considering my question. “A few hours ago, maybe? He likes to run in the dark, it’s how we trained, but I don’t know if he’s supposed to be doing shit like that anymore.”
He does know. Jack’s not as forgetful as he thinks he is. But telling him different doesn’t stop him fretting he’s not taking care of us enough. And that us —it includes Mal now, a fact I can’t escape, even though I see zero sign of him as Jack goes back to work and I climb the stairs to the flat.
The old front door is thick enough to drown out the accordion-laced racket that tries to follow me. But the peace is fleeting. Sea breeze hits my face and I realise every window in sight is wide open.
Mal .
It has to be.
Sol’s downstairs and Sev went back to London two days ago. And Jack? He never leaves the windows open—he’s the only soul in my life who’s ever noticed I don’t like it.
The wind whips through the landing again, rattling the blinds, and the clutter of artefacts Sol has on the windowsill.
It’s reason enough to slam the nearest window shut, but I don’t do it.
I don’t need to, not today. Instead I move through the few places in the flat Mal might be, and come up empty unless he’s decided to hole up in Sol’s room.
Or he’s in mine.
He isn’t.
Why would he be? But as routine tugs me towards the shower, I spot battered running shoes by the bathroom cabinet and something inside me relaxes and ties me a brand-new knot all at the same time.
I can smell him in the shower. The cedar-wood soap he’s brought from wherever he came from.
You know where he came from.
But I shouldn’t. It’s not fair. So I try not to think about it even as that pill bottle seems to flash neon-bright through the shower screen.
I wash a long and brutal late shift from my skin, thankful the bathroom window is the only one not cracked wide. Noise from the pub still reaches me, though, and it makes me think about drinking, wondering if I can stomach a beer.
Alone, probably not. With company…maybe a few. And I feel like I need them. I’m good with death, I have to be, but young ones get to me. Her hair, still wet from the sea, wrapped around my wrists. The screams of her parents from the back of the room.
I shut off the shower, blocking out trauma that’s not mine. Filing it in the vault where it needs to stay, the one I’m lucky enough is secure.
For now.
Silence fills the bathroom. I’m content for a hot minute, but I’m too wired to latch onto it and take it to my bed for the sleep I probably need.
Beer.
I think about how it’ll feel in my stomach, the faint buzz filtering into my blood.
Yeah.
I can handle it.
Means going downstairs, though. And facing the open windows, which I’m still good to leave—for now, and maybe even all night long.
I follow the riot of sound downstairs and into the locals’ bar. The singing’s still going, Sol in his element, which means Jack should’ve cheered up too. I elbow my way through, ignoring anyone who tries to talk to me, and duck behind the bar.
We have seasonal staff. They move out of my way, but a local idiot taps me up to serve him.
Literally.
Pokes my shoulder.
I roll him a flat stare. “Wait your fucking turn.”
He grumbles, but it’s part of the charm of this place—the pub, the town. It’s pretty enough to draw the tourists, but it’s not that friendly, and by Porth Luck rules, I’m a foreigner. They’ve told me so, and I don’t give much of a fuck. But if they think I’m giving up my time to wait on them…
Not happening.
I swipe a bottle from the fridge and drop the money to pay for it into the till. Jack needs the books to balance to find peace at the end of the day, and I’m all right with that.
More than all right.
Someone calls my name. Sol, I think. But I can’t see through the messy Friday night crowd, and I don’t hang around long enough to look twice. If Sol’s singing, he’s either sad or drunk, or both. Or happy and drunk. Regardless, I’m out of here with my beer.
Nearly.
The same townhead fucker I wouldn’t serve blocks my path, getting in my face for no other reason than I’m smaller than Jack, and he doesn’t have a clue who I really am.
“This place has gone to the dogs since this lot got hold of it.”
This lot . He means Sol. Sev. The Bosankos.
Porth Luck lore is wild. Ancient clan shit.
This dickhead is probably annoyed about something Sol’s grandad did to his grandad a hundred years ago.
Or he’s one of the chancers still raging that Jack barred all the little shits from the beach gangs.
They run riot outside, but we don’t have it through our doors.
Which means no smuggled cigs sold under the table.
Or bootleg booze in the car park. You can still buy ket and coke in the bogs, but that’s life.
Jack can’t be everywhere and the rest of us aren’t here enough to try.
Either way , this bellend fucking bores me.
I sidestep him with enough intent he thinks twice about putting hands on me as I pass, and I weave through the crowd until I reach the back door instead of the tourist bar and my route to the stairs.
It brings me to the bins. A scrote sits on the high wall, on his way over.
He changes his mind as I near, but he’ll be back for Jack to deal with later, and in this mood, I feel bad about it.
Without the bikers, this town is lawless by day and pure mayhem in the dark.
Is it worth it to live without the rumble of bikes in the air?
The scent of petrol staining the breeze?
The constant reminder the people you love most can still be the worst you’ll ever know?
It is for me.
But what about everyone else?
The thought carries me to one of the reasons, beyond my friends, that I stay.
The tiny private beach that belongs to the pub—that belongs to us .
It’s barely a few feet of sand, but it’s ours, and cut off by the tide and sheltered by Sol’s boat shed, it’s the closest to solitude I’m going to find outside tonight.
I find my spot, such as it is, and sit on the sand, my back to a rock that feels moulded to my spine, unlike the one that left bruises on my skin from the night I met Mal. Injuries I didn’t fucking earn.
Because you left.
I roll my eyes and swig my beer, contemplating what could have been.
If I hadn’t left, and I’d fucked Mal in the shadows of Saltkiss Bay.
If it had got that far. In my head, we kissed a thousand times against that rock, but my imagination stalls every time my thoughts turn to more, hitting a roadblock I’ve yet to dissect.
I don’t care .
Why would I? I can fuck someone tonight if I want.
And maybe I do. I have time and energy to spare, and it doesn’t feel unhealthy to scroll through my phone and find someone.
For the first time since I met Mal, my head’s screwed on right.
I feel like banging someone because I like sex, not because I need out of my entire fucking existence, so why my phone stays in my pocket, I have no clue.