17. Mal
Oscar’s waiting on us when we get back. He wades barefoot into the water and catches the rope Sol throws him, securing the boat to land. “I saw the flare from my house. You are both okay?”
“Never better.” I hop from the boat and toss empty beer bottles into a nearby bin. “Might want to fetch Sol some new kecks, though.”
“Twat.” Sol alights on dry land beside me and gives me a stressed look. “You could’ve warned me you were going to unleash level ten Rambo on me.”
“Them. Not you.”
“Fine. You could’ve warned me you were going to shoot them then. How’s that?”
“Incorrect. I didn’t shoot anyone.”
“Tell that to the idiot going home medium rare. Or his harpooned sidekick.”
“If I’d hit him, he’d fucking know about it.”
I stretch muscles still tense with spent adrenaline, shaking my head a little, as if I can bully the static of a non-existent comms mic out of my head.
Sol frowns. “What if you had?”
“Then I’d have meant to. Killing people is what I’m good at.”
Sol flinches, his heart too soft for words that harsh. “Don’t say shit like that.”
Oscar, though, he doesn’t blink. “What happened?”
Sol fills him in. And by the time he’s done, Oscar is nodding as if it all makes sense, and maybe he’d have shot at them too. “You think they will come back?”
He’s asking me, not Sol.
I shrug, popping the cap on the bottle I’ve brought from the boat. “Maybe. I don’t know these fuckheads.”
“Then what?”
“I aim better.”
“Fucking hell.” Sol scrubs a hand through his wild hair, stress cinching his brows. “I can’t tell if you’re taking the piss and it’s freaking me out.”
Can’t help him with that. Or maybe I don’t want to engage in the kind of thinking that would allow me to.
Either way, I leave him with Oscar and another empty bottle, and head inside for no reason other than I want more fucking beer.
Cold beer this time, so I can drink it in the dark and pretend I’m not alone with the depleting rush of a successful mission.
Moron that I’ve become, though, I haven’t counted on how busy the Joker is at this time of night, and I slip inside to a wall of sound. Of unfettered fucking noise . And fuck me, I’m not in the mood for it.
I pick the locals’ bar to shoulder my way into. Regret it, but with a band tearing up the tourist side of the pub it’s the lesser of two evils. And make no mistake, it’s still evil as fuck. Idiots barge me and tread on my feet. I grit my teeth through it all until some fucker gets in my face.
Then I’m done.
I shove him, pushing his head down for good measure, sending him to his knees to headbutt the floor. “Fuck off.”
I spit the words through clenched teeth, but project them enough that anyone nearby gets the message not to lay hands on me, and the crowd parts to let me through.
The contact is brief, but I feel a collective stare follow me to the bar, and it’s a sensation I’m not used to.
I’m trained to blend in, to be unremarkable, it’s the Regiment way.
But down here, in this clusterfuck of a town, everyone sees everything and it chokes me like it did the first night I came here and I couldn’t fucking breathe through the breeze block in my chest.
This doesn’t feel as bad as that, though, and as I draw closer to the bar, I realise why.
Skylar .
He’s not at the bar, he’s on it, at the end, lounging against the wall with a bottle of beer I covet almost as much as the lips he wraps around it, gaze casual if you don’t know him.
Like, at all. I’ve come to learn there’s nothing casual about Skylar.
Every blink, every breath, has a purpose, and I know he’s not perched on the rum-stained wood because he likes crowds and bad reggae.
I’ve never seen him around this many people.
But the moment we lock eyes, he’s the only soul in the room.
My agitation fades, leaving me to contemplate why it was there at all when I’m used to feeling kinda high after a contact.
To contemplate it later . I don’t want to think right now.
I want a row of empty bottles in front of me and Skylar’s all-seeing stare flaying me open.
I want his hands on me.
Mine on his.
I want his fucking mouth, and perhaps it shows on my face, because his stare seems to hold a warning.
Fine. I reach the bar and slip through the gap at the opposite end and open the fridge that holds the beer we both drink. Grab a handful of bottles and chuck the cash in the till to pay for them.
Then I take them to where Skylar sits because it’s the only space available and I don’t feel like drinking alone.
I set the beers between us and crack two open with the heel of my hand on the bar.
Drink until the first bottle’s done. I’m halfway through the second before I sense him lean a little closer and take a slow inhale.
Sniffing me?
That’s a new one.
I offer up the beer without looking at him.
He takes it and sets it down. The quiet thunk of glass on wood seems deafening. So does his silence, and I turn my head without thought. Find him right there , which does nothing to calm whatever bullshit I’ve dragged in from the sea.
I need more than for him to fucking stare at me.
Kiss me. Punch me. I don’t give a fuck.
Someone behind me jostles my back. Violence rears in me again, sudden, untamed, and despite what I told Sol on the jetty, a million miles from who I am.
I spin around.
Skylar slides from the bar and blocks me, putting himself between me and a drunk local who’s already wandered off. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t do whatever you feel like doing.”
“Story of my fucking life.”
My Porth Luck life.
My life since I met him .
I reclaim my beer.
Skylar gives me a look that erodes the last of my patience.
“Why are you even here?”
Derision cools his gaze. “I live here.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” Sev wasn’t lying when he said Skylar was rarely around. “I haven’t seen you for days.”
It’s a cue someone else might take to ask if I’ve missed them. To fucking flirt or whatever.
Skylar doesn’t. He just props himself against the bar, leaning against it like liquid sex. “I don’t like randos touching me either.”
“You let me touch you.”
Skylar’s lips twitch. “Just once.”
“Aye, the first time.”
He smiles for real then, and it’s worth every shitty feeling that’s ever razed my soul. It’s worth the memory of his body wrapped around mine in the sunshine. It’s worth the reality of knowing that memory is likely it for us, even though I meant every word about fucking him in the rain.
Skylar’s used to me. It’s rare that he breaks first. But this time, he does, ducking his head as air shifts and I realise Sol has finally come inside.
The door slams shut behind him. He doesn’t punch anyone to reach the bar, so it takes him a while, but by the time he does, Skylar has put enough space between us for Sol to slot right in and swipe one of the unspent beer bottles.
He pops the cap and tips it down, draining half in a long swallow that has Skylar eyeballing us both.
“Something happen to you two tonight?”
Sol can’t lie. And I don’t want to. We both look away and I realise for the first time that my brother isn’t behind the bar, and I can’t see the shape of his broad shoulders next door either. “Where’s Jack?”
Skylar shoots me a flinty stare, letting me know he noticed I missed Jack’s absence when I blew inside and raided the fridge. And how he feels about it. “Upstairs.”
“Why?”
Skylar shrugs, leaving room for Sol to answer as the band in the tourist bar kicks up a gear.
“Hardcore bass rattles his brain too much.”
“Then why the fuck would you book a reggae band?”
“I didn’t. Sev did—he didn’t know.” Sol switches into what I’ve come to recognise as Jack mode . He drains his beer and ducks under the bar to ditch the bottle and head for the stairs. “I’m going to check on him. I’ll be back to close up. You don’t have to stay down here.”
That’s for Skylar. For me, Sol has nothing but the same conflicted frown he’s had on his face since the contact with the Mary Gloucester kicked off.
Disturbed gratitude. I’ve fixed a problem for him.
Maybe. Hopefully. But he’s looking at me like he doesn’t have a clue who I am.
Like he’s scared I’m a monster, that maybe Jack was once one too, and I fucking loathe that.
My brother is the best man I’ve ever known.
One of them, anyway.
Sol goes upstairs. I reach for another beer, wondering if Skylar will follow him.
He doesn’t, and I feel his sharp gaze drill the side of my head. I turn away from it again, thankful the godawful music muffles his humourless laugh.
I drink more beer while he simmers beside me.
Eventually, it pisses me off.
I drop a bottle, letting it clatter to a stop by Skylar’s elbow. “You have something to say?”
Skylar has his back to the bar. Too late, it dawns on me the soldier I brought back to this place has clocked him watching the crowd enough to allow me not to bother. That something fundamental inside me trusts Skylar as much as I’ve ever trusted Moth, Raven, and Orion.
He turns to look at me—to really look at me. “I could say anything right now, I don’t think you’d hear me.”
Skylar’s not talking about the band. The crowd. The sudden boom of thunder that batters the sky outside, rattling the pub’s ramshackle roof, a shudder of sound I feel more than I should. Somehow he knows the worst noise is inside me.
And…that it’s getting louder.
A grinding beat flares in my chest, like a Jackal engine rumbling to life. Or a meaty Harley Davidson, like the ones that put that sad fire in Skylar’s eyes.
It’s an odd thought to have alongside a sensation that feels like I’m dying. To feel a surge of attraction as my pulse booms like actual fucking death.