8. Mal
I come upstairs with every intention of hauling Sol off somewhere and making him tell me what the fuck is going on to have him bullshitting to my face and hiding an injury from my brother.
Then I reach the doorway to the living room and see the three of them huddled around a chess board, and even the worst person I’ve ever been can’t bear to shatter the peace.
I lean against the old wood, watching them through eyes that have begun to ache in their sockets.
Jack and Skylar are on the same couch, close together.
My brother wears a deep frown, thinking hard about something.
Sol and Skylar seem to be waiting for him to figure it out, and when he does, I swallow hard at the sight of Skylar smiling and rubbing Jack’s back.
He’s never smiled at me like that—I’m glad of it, I don’t think I’d survive if he did. And my brother…he deserves the easy affection Skylar gives him. The love in Sol’s eyes as he grins from the other couch and grouses, “Git. You’ve stitched me right up.”
Jack snorts. “You’ll work it out.”
“Not today, I won’t.” Sol stretches his arms over his head and flinches as he realises his mistake, discomfort creasing his handsome face.
It’s my cue to venture further into the room before Jack notices. To watch it play out and see if Jack has more luck than me at prising the truth out into the narrow world we now share.
Honestly, I’m fifty-fifty, but as the split-second debate swings back and forth in my head, Skylar looks up and spots me too fast for me to have any hope of engaging who I used to be and backing the fuck up. Somehow he sees me, every thought, every feeling, and he makes the choice for me.
“You wanna play?”
He means chess, and he’s out of his fucking mind. But if he thinks I’ll back down from the challenge in his pretty eyes, he’s shit out of luck.
Sol scoots up to make room for me to take his place. I sink onto the couch, eyeing the hoodie that now covers Skylar’s torso.
It’s not his. It’s too big and I deduce he’s grabbed it from the stack of clothes folded on the sofa arm. I resent it.
Because his body?
Fucking hell.
It’s as perfect as it is disturbing.
The inked skin.
The lean muscles.
The absence of so much as a scrap of extra flesh, as if his metabolism is just that fucking efficient.
Sol stands and drifts into the kitchen.
I stop staring at Skylar long enough to study the board and win the fight not to track him as he rises and follows Sol into the kitchen.
The white pieces—Sol’s pieces—outnumber the granite opposition, but Jack has him boxed into a corner. “He’s right. You’ve stitched him up.”
Jack slowly shakes his head. “Look again.”
I do, and as Jack leans forward, nostalgia sweeps through me, rattling my soul. Jack raised me playing games like this, while our dad indulged his grief in the bottom of a whiskey bottle. How many times had I thought I’d lost, only for him to show me the way?
The board sprawls out before me, the big picture obvious. Sol has more firepower, but Jack has him throttled in the corner, the only move left a quiet retreat. A trap , I realise, as I spot Jack herding him into checkmate two moves later.
It’s reassuring to know my kind-hearted brother can still be a devious bastard. But he’s a better teacher, a patient one. He waits me out, and finally, I see it. The bishop. The knight. The pawn I have to sacrifice on Sol’s behalf for the board to breathe again.
I make the move. The board opens up and Jack takes it all in. I give him room to think, straining my ears for whatever’s going on in the kitchen to keep Sol and Skylar in there so long.
Radio silence, which is never good. Until the dust settles and you realise a whole operation has happened without you.
“Skylar brought me a chess set when I was stuck in the rehab unit. I thought I’d never played before.”
I refocus on my brother. “We played a lot when we were kids.”
“I know. I just didn’t for a while. Until all the fragments in my skull started talking to each other again.”
“How did you meet him?”
“Skylar?”
I nod, kinda hoping he’s forgotten, praying he hasn’t.
“He lived with Sol in Lowestoft.” Jack nudges a pawn. Changes his mind and goes for the knight move that’s going to wipe the floor with his best friend if he comes back in time to lose. “I only met him a few times before he found me in Birmingham, but I don’t think I’d be here without him.”
“Why’s that?”
Jack raises his stare from the board, steadier than I’ve seen him since I got here. “Because I didn’t always think living like this was worth it, and Sol couldn’t shout loud enough to reach me.”
“Skylar shouted at you? He doesn’t seem the type.”
My words are irreverent. But I hold my brother’s stare, letting him know I heard him. And that it fucking hurts to know he was so close to the edge—that it’s always hurt.
It’s all I have. We’re not good at this. Never have been. We’re the masters of brushing things aside and ploughing on, leaving abandoned thoughts and feelings in our wake. But here in Porth Luck, maybe we’ve run out of road.
Jack nods and answers my question. “Skylar doesn’t need to shout to be heard. It’s what makes him so good at being invisible.”
There’s no time for me to decipher what that means. Sol and Skylar emerge from the kitchen. Jack’s gaze reroutes to Sol and for a fleeting moment, he eyes his friend with the same scrutiny as the chess board, a healthy, firing synapse away from sniffing out the lie Sol told him earlier.
But it’s brief. However frayed I’m becoming from lack of real sleep, it’s nothing compared to the sudden exhaustion that descends on my brother.
“Fuck.” He blinks hard, his head dropping like someone’s shoved it from behind. “I’m going to bed.”
He rises from the couch, his body lopsided as if a fucking anvil tethers half of him to the floor, and it’s so profound I blow forward.
To help.
To bear his weight.
I don’t know.
And I never will. I take one step before scorching hands— Skylar’s hands—restrain me, and Sol gets there first.
He doesn’t speak. Just drapes an easy arm under Jack’s shoulders and guides him out of the room. A moment later, a couple of doors open and close, and Sol doesn’t come back.
It’s Skylar’s cue to release me. But his grip on me remains, and I do nothing about it.
I could easily break his hold.
Break his fucking hands.
I choose not to, and with my brother safe with Sol and out of sight, the heat of Skylar’s touch seeps into me, the thrill of it laced with something way more tranquil than any encounter I’ve had with him before.
Something easier, but no less entrancing.
I like that he’s behind me. So I can’t see his face as I allow myself an infinitesimal lean and he doesn’t step away. As he moves closer and the hands on my hips become an arm at my waist, his forehead resting on my shoulder, his torso shifting with the slow, even breath he takes.
That I take. As if my body is his.
And his is mine.
I like that too, but I know this surge between us is temporary. I know it’s over before he raises his head and lets his arm drop from its curve around my ribs.
We’re separate people again.
He moves back to the couch, stretching out with the hood of his borrowed sweatshirt pulled over his face.
It reminds me of the night we met. Of the hours and hours it took for me catch a real glimpse of him. It feels like a lifetime has passed since then. For me, though probably not for him.
This is his home. My brother and Sol are his friends— family , if I’ve read between the lines right. I’m the one who doesn’t know where the fuck to put his feet next.
“Mal.”
Skylar’s voice reaches me. I realise I’m staring without seeing a fucking thing and he’s noticed.
He’s sat up and his hood has slipped down, leaving me at the mercy of his ashy stare. Smoke and metal. Two things that used to mean death, but now mean him .
That missing lifetime has a lot to answer for. Mainly, that it hasn’t gifted me armour to weather the way he’s looking at me right fucking now.
I force the tension from my muscles, shaking it off. “What?”
Skylar eyes me a moment longer. Then lies back again. “Sit down or fuck off.”
What a choice.
And I should probably take the second. But I meander closer to him anyway and consider my options. Two couches. One has Skylar sprawled at one end. The other doesn’t, which gifts me the easiest decision I’ve made in a while.
I claim the space beside Skylar. He flicks me a glance, then goes back to watching the late-night news bulletin on the TV, his eyes as heavy-lidded as I want mine to be.
Simmering down, half asleep.
I’m fucking jealous. My body is knackered.
Even my faulty heart can’t be bothered to start a riot in my chest. But my brain…
it won’t shut the fuck up. I think about Jack.
Change my mind and think about Sol instead, and the conversation I had with Skylar in the utility room.
Put the pieces of the last thirty minutes together and shift to face Skylar in the same moment he looks at me again.
He arches a brow, waiting.
I don’t keep him long. “Did you check out Sol’s ribs?”
Skylar turns back to the TV. “Ask him.”
“I’m asking you.”
“So?”
“So I want to know if he’s okay, before I barge into his room and ask him myself. Or Jack’s room. Wherever he is.”
“He’s not in Jack’s room.”
“Why not?”
Skylar breathes that slow, deep breath again. The one that had me swaying on my feet four minutes ago but frustrates the hell out of me now. “They’re not together.”
“Not what I asked.”
“No?” He wrenches his gaze back to me again. “What are you asking then? And why the fuck are you asking me?”
Good questions. All of them. Maybe I will ask Sol—about all of it, not just why he’s come home from wherever with a wince and a fucking limp. Maybe I’ll ask him now, as the patience the Regiment taught me to access runs dry.
I stand.
For the second time tonight, Skylar catches me.