23. Mal
I don’t go to Madrid. The texts from Chris Morris go unanswered and I pretend they don’t exist. And that I’m not batshit crazy for blanking him or reaching out to him in the first place.
Both scenarios are strong possibilities, but I have other things on my mind.
So many fucking things.
I hang from the corroded drainpipe, threading cable from a bracket I’ve bolted to the Joker’s salt-worn bricks. My bare feet dig into a narrow ledge in the cracked wall, the wind battering me like an old pal, and I can’t deny that I like the snap of adrenaline.
Helps me remember who I am.
Who I want to be.
I screw the surveillance camera into place, ignoring whoever’s heckling me from the ground.
It’s not Jack. Of that I’m certain. If anyone understands how I feel up here, it’s him.
Unless he’s forgotten how it feels to jump, but I don’t think he has.
I think he’s forgotten how to remember , but I’m too much of a fuck-up to help him with that.
I’m too much of a fuck-up for most things right now, but this… this I can do.
Bolt cameras to the walls.
Build higher fences.
Bang my brother’s friend in the shower.
Against his bedroom door.
In the utility room in the pitch dark, my hand over his mouth, my lips fused to his neck.
Last night .
A screw slips through my fingers, clanging off the drainpipe. I catch it before it falls, but it’s a stark reminder there’s no buzz in the world matching how I feel when I’m with Skylar.
Like I’ll die if I keep fucking him.
Like I’ll die if I stop.
I finish up with the cameras and climb down from the roof.
Sol waits for me, shaking his head, brandishing a bowl of something as white as the clouds. “You’re going to give me a fucking heart attack.”
I can’t tell if he’s taking the piss out of me or himself. Or if he’s deadly serious. I peer into the bowl he’s offering. “What’s this?”
“Viennetta. We have too many in the freezer.”
“So stop fucking buying it then.”
Sol makes a noncommittal sound that spells far more trouble for my heart than a two-storey climb.
I wait for him to elaborate.
Nudge him when he doesn’t.
Sol sighs. “Skylar likes it. Sometimes, anyway.”
“Because it’s white?”
“You noticed that?”
“He doesn’t fucking hide it.”
Sol regards me, speculation dancing in his soulful eyes. Wisdom, that I haven’t had much time to appreciate while I’ve been caught up in his seafaring dramas. “What’s going on with you two?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Because I wasn’t joking the other night when I said you’re a hate fuck waiting to happen.”
“You didn’t say that.” Not to me, anyway. Which means there’s a distinct possibility he said it to Skylar. And that Skylar told him he hates me.
I take the bowl from Sol and glare at the stark white ice cream flecked with chocolate. It’s the same shit our mam used to bring home from the Spar shop on Comber Road when we crawled out of school with scraped knees, and I tell myself that’s why my heart sinks into my shoes.
I tell Sol, “I’m not hate-fucking anyone.”
Because it’s the truth.
“I know,” he says. “I was joking.”
“Your jokes are shite.”
“I know that too.” Sol speaks around a sigh. “But you should know, Skylar doesn’t hide this part of it because he wants us to think that’s all it is. Sometimes the more open he is, the deeper he’s sinking?—”
One of the bar girls calls Sol’s name. Calls him away , leaving one of the worst sentences I’ve ever heard hanging in the wind.
The cold from the ice cream bites into my hand.
I put together what Sol’s telling me with what I’ve seen with my own eyes, and I want to throw the bowl at the wall.
But I’ve been working on containing the rage flares my brain keeps throwing up.
I take the ice cream inside and find Jack at the alcove table reserved for staff.
He’s not alone, and it shouldn’t surprise me. After weeks and weeks of Skylar ghosting in and out of my life like a moody fucking angel, suddenly he’s everywhere.
It’s how I wound up on my knees for him in the utility room, but blowing him is the last thing on my mind as I slide onto the bench seat beside him. It was the last thing on my mind when I did fucking blow him, and somehow it happened anyway.
I drop the bowl on the table loud enough for Jack to glance up from the stock sheets he’s working on.
He frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Why are you chucking ice cream around then?”
“If I was chucking it, you’d be wearing it.”
It’s something we used to say when we were kids. Recognition lights Jack’s gaze. Combined with the feel of Skylar’s thigh close to mine, it’s a nice moment. But Sol’s words haunt me.
He wants us to think that’s all it is.
Makes sense. But what else is there? It’s killing me that I need to know so badly.
For once in my life, my phone is in my pocket. It buzzes with a text and I fish it out to glower at the screen.
Unknown: not heard back from you, but wanted to let you know the offer is still open. I’m in London for a bit soon, then Paris and Copenhagen. Let me know if any of that works for you — Chris
More than fair considering I’ve aired him since we first spoke, but I can’t decide if it’s the best or worst scenario. If I should be relieved my ticket out of here is still valid, or gutted it still exists.
Figuring it out has me reeling as I shut the message down and lay my phone on the table. My pulse thrums in my ears and I rub the back of my neck, adding fuel to the concern my big brother is sending my way.
“Bad news?”
“Hmm?”
“On your phone.”
“It was the bank wondering when I’m going to get a fucking job.”
“You can work here.” Skylar leans back in his seat, the challenge that gets me hard in his pewter-grey eyes.
Like a prick, I slide him the ice cream bowl.
He shrugs like it’s nothing and drags the bowl closer, picking up the spoon with one hand while he pushes his water glass my way with the other, and I’m too fucking aware we’ve danced this dance before.
That I’ve made this fatal error before. But I can’t find it in myself to back down.
Or tear my gaze from him as he slides the spoon into his mouth and licks his lips.
I forget Jack’s here.
I forget we’re in a crowded pub in broad daylight.
I forget every damn thing except how it feels to have those lips on mine.
His hair is messy today, hiding the taped cut on his temple. Resisting the urge to brush it back makes my hands twitch.
Skylar smirks.
Skylar wins .
I’m the first to look away.
I turn back to Jack, unsurprised he’s absorbed in his stock sheets again. Even before the TBI, my brother was the diligent one. Like Mam . It left me to be the same arsehole our dad became, but I don’t fucking want that.
Skylar’s spoon scrapes the bowl as I nudge my brother’s foot under the table.
Jack glances up. “What’s wrong?”
Again? Impatience rattles me. I swallow it down and try to fix my face into something that doesn’t make him think I’m having a fucking crisis. “I need to show you the new security system before you lock up tonight.”
So far, Jack’s seemed bemused by the changes going on around him. The cameras. The new locks. The guard fence I’ve added to the back wall. Now, though, he gives me a hard stare that makes me wonder how much he sees but doesn’t say. “Why do we need all this?”
“Stop you getting robbed every night.”
“We need a spiked fence to stop kids nicking bottles?”
“It’s not always kids, Jack. Grown men hoof that wall every fucking night.”
“Until you throw them off.”
“Aye, well. I won’t always be here, will I?”
Jack sets his pen down. “You’re leaving?”
Yes.
No.
Yes .
But the words snarl in my throat, caught in the same mess as the messages on my phone. I speak the truth instead. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Jack doesn’t like that answer, but it seems to make sense to him.
He goes back to his stock sheets and I watch him work, swallowing the impulse to swipe it away and do it for him.
Trying to ignore the hum of the fridges behind the bar, or wonder why they seem so loud today, tracking the information from the page to Jack’s brain.
By his standards, maybe it’s slow, but it gets there, and I’m suddenly choked by so much admiration and love for my brother I can hardly fucking breathe.
Tell him .
I want to. And it dawns on me that I want lots of fucking things that have never occurred to me before.
Skylar .
I turn and catch him so still it feels like the pause before a grenade detonates, eerie and ethereal. Dread swamps me. I reach for him, but he’s already in motion, up in the booth seat we’re sharing and evading my touch. Standing , to step over me and vault the table.
I half rise to stop him.
But it’s too late. He’s gone, like he was that very first morning on that distant beach, and this time, the urge to follow him is as suffocating as all the words I’ve never said to my brother.
My brother who frowns at the bowl on the table and the empty space Skylar’s left behind. Who frowns at me , rubbing his temple, confusion and perception fighting for dominance.
Compassion wins. For me or for Skylar, I’ll never know. Just that he means it with his whole heart as he leans forward and jabs a thumb at the ceiling. “ Go .”
I don’t need telling twice. I surge from my seat and blur through the bar, the urgency of a gunfight fuelling every step. Doors bang in my wake and my footsteps pound the stairs. I see Skylar ahead of me and I’m not quiet. I’m not trying to sneak up on him.
But the shock in his face as I overtake him in the hallway chills my blood. “Hey.” I block his path. “You left in a hurry.”
That shock. It doesn’t last.
Skylar stares with dead eyes. “What do you care?”
About him? So much. Too much. “I care.”
He laughs and it’s awful. “Piss off. You don’t care about anyone. You don’t care about Jack .”
That hurts. And it’s meant to. He needs me out of his way. And perhaps for the first time, I let myself truly see why .
His set jaw and fisted hands.