31. Skylar #2
I’m startled enough to gauge we’ve been silent a while. Sky. Disquiet tugs at me. Ghosts. Demons. But the truth is stronger. “I don’t mind when you do it. That’s what freaked me out.”
“When did you last see your mum?”
“Yesterday.”
Mal’s brows raise, I’ve caught him off guard. But he’s a fast thinker—too fast for me. He joins the dots before I do. “And before that it was the night in Saltkiss Bay, wasn’t it?”
“Nearly. I was seeing her the next day. She keeps—” I stop. I breathe. “I’m trying to stop going, and sometimes she leaves me alone for months at a time, but every summer she reels me back in and I?—”
Fuck.
My gut twists.
Mal feels it and applies subtle pressure to my abdomen, fighting the tension with the warmth of his touch. Unbelievably, he wins. “Take your time, I’m here.”
He is.
So am I.
I get a hold of myself and spit another truth.
A harsher one that narrows my vision until it’s all static.
“Some of the victims the Kings showed me…they looked like me. That’s why Cam’s dad sat me down one day and asked me if my parents ever tried to fuck me.
” I swallow, my throat raw with bile. “I told him no , but the thing is…they drugged me my whole life, so I can never be sure—and I know that’s why I can’t stop controlling every little thing that goes in my body.
Why I visit her…my mum, in the prison. To make sure she’s suffering as much as I am, because I fucking hate that she might not know what she did to me. ”
Mal doesn’t say anything for a long time. He just moves closer, filling the space behind me on the couch again and curving around me. He lets his hands roam beyond my belly and it’s not long before the shirt I’ve pulled on is back on the floor.
But it’s not sexual, it’s comfort, and I lean into it, even as my dick responds as if I haven’t spent the last month pushing my body to the brink, and most of the past few hours fucking around.
I close my eyes, nearly asleep when he finally speaks.
“I’m burning the next visiting order.”
Works for me. I fall asleep to his growled vow and I don’t dream. I don’t wake up in a vice of forced control either.
I wake up to Mal still holding me. Holding my face, to be specific, coaxing me to awareness.
“Jack and Sol are on their way back.”
I blink and glance around, taking in the hazy sunshine filtering through the windows, casting rays on the wood floor. “It’s morning already?”
“Barely, but Sol says Jack’s awake and wants to come home, so that’s what’s happening.”
I sit up and it’s easier than it was yesterday. My body aches with good feelings. Mal feelings, and when I look at him, something in my chest expands so wide I swear I feel my ribs crack.
He’s not even doing anything. Just swiping the lube bottle from the coffee table and glancing around for any more sex detritus.
But then he catches me staring, our gazes lock, and I feel it again, this quiet, relentless blooming in my heart. Stronger than shame. Louder than guilt. Brighter than all the dark, bad, and messy things I’ve let rule my life for so long.
I open my mouth.
Take a breath.
But the front door opens before I can speak and Jack and Sol seem to move at the speed of light.
They appear in the living room a split second later, and they’re not alone. They have dogs—plural—and it’s a phenomenon that absorbs Mal so fast I fucking laugh .
It draws Sol to my side as he joins me watching the Gallagher brothers fuss over the wiry silver dog and her pups. “They live here now, in case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t. It’s obvious.”
“That okay with you?”
Anything that makes Mal’s grin spread so wide his eyes crinkle is more than okay with me. And perhaps it shows on my face.
Sol threads an arm around my shoulders. “You scared the shit out of me yesterday.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I just…” Emotion gets the better of him. He shakes his head. Pulls me in tighter. “I’m glad you and Mally have each other.”
So am I. We’re three feet apart and I already miss him. I should buy a new bed, but I know I’m not going to.
Mal scoops a puppy into his arms just as the other fires a giant piss onto the floor at his feet.
I watch him sidestep the mess, his body moving with natural grace and agility. I picture him swimming in the lagoon, the sun in his face, and it feels the same, because there’s nothing ordinary or mundane about this man.
Tell him ?—
Bike engines sound outside.
I turn my head to the window as a hog rolls up.
Just one.
Cam .
Mal’s already heading my way. I stay him with a glance. “I’ve got it.”
He’s not as bullheaded as he thinks. He nods, letting me go, and I know he won’t follow me as I tug a t-shirt over my head— his t-shirt—stamp into my shoes, and trek downstairs and outside.
Cam’s leaning against the wall Mal repaired, helmet off, tilting his face to the sun. He’s more than a decade older than when I met him, but he’s still a hot fucker.
“Since when do you ride alone?”
He shrugs. “Since forever. Escaping from time to time helps me be less of a bastard.”
“Fair enough. What are you doing here ?”
“Saint got vibes when he saw Sol and Jack yesterday, you know how he is. Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure about that?”
“I am.” I step over the wall, moving closer, noting how it surprises Cam when I’ve spent the year that’s passed since Folk Whitlock’s wedding avoiding him. “Yesterday was shit, though.”
Instant concern straightens his posture. “More trouble? Saint seemed pretty sure there wouldn’t be.”
I don’t want to know how that came to be. As I shove my hand in my pocket and find the smooth stone I rescued from my room last night, I want to tell Cam the truth. “I told Mal.”
Cam sits with that, processing. “I was hoping you would.”
“Cam, I told him everything.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
Cam rumbles an affirmative and something seems to give in him. “He’s your person. Least, he’s meant to be, and you can’t hold onto shit like that if you’re bleeding from wounds they can’t see.”
“I’m not bleeding.” I’m so used to lying, it slips out of me without thought.
But Cam, he knows me, and has for a long time. “Yeah, you are. But it’s fading, Skylar, I can feel it, and I’m so fucking happy for you.”
I don’t know what to say to that. So I say nothing, letting it hang until Cam speaks again.
“I need to tell you something too.”
His tone is one that would usually chill my blood.
I don’t mind it today. “Go on.”
Cam waits a beat, breathing room for me to change my mind. When I don’t, the look he gives me is as resigned as it is uncompromising. “Folk was right to steer Mal down a different path with the Couch problem, but Saint overruled how it was left and I agreed.”
“What does that mean?”
“You really want to know?”
Do I?
I’m not present enough to be sure, and Cam sees it in my face before I find the energy to give him a real answer.
“Saint didn’t kill anyone,” he says with bluntness Mal would be proud of.
“But he made sure we weren’t repeating our own mistakes of the past and leaving things to chance—for you, or for Mal every time he gets to thinking what could’ve happened to you that night and wants to murder the world all over again.
” Cam’s not fucking around. His gaze hardens, giving me a truth I can’t hide from.
“This shit is dead, and it’s going to stay that way.
Oh, and we just put in for the contract to rebuild the lifeguard base.
Probably won’t get it, but if we do, we’ll be around a lot more until it’s done. ”
He leaves me on that note, roaring off into the morning loud enough to wake every neighbour we have.
It’s deliberate.
I know it is.
Showing his face at the Joker for me, for Sol. In the past I’d have chased him down and called him a cunt. But that fight…it’s not in me today, and given what he’s just dropped on me, it’s probably just as well.
I retreat inside, treading the gravel with my own feet, and upstairs it’s breakfast time.
Sol’s by the stove, where he belongs.
Jack’s at the table, Fiadh and her pups at his feet. His gaze finds mine as I slip into the room, and I see the empathy there. The concern. The anxious affinity that would usually send me straight to the gym or a double shift not on my schedule.
I take a seat beside him instead. I’m not running today. How can I when Mal’s perched on the counter, watching me without looking, giving me the space I need without letting go—because he’s already figured out how to hold on without caging me in.
Jack rubs my shoulder with his fist, leaving the hug he wants to give me for another time. When he’s sure he won’t break you . “You need anything?”
“Nah, I’m all right, Jack.”
“You didn’t hit your head again?”
“When?”
“When you fell. I think Mal caught you, but I’m not sure if I’m remembering it right.”
“You are.” Sol comes to the table with plates and sets one in front of Jack. One in front of himself.
Mal follows with his own and leaves another close to me without comment. Presence, not pressure. His shoulder brushes mine as he claims the same seat he’s been sitting in from the start.
The contact grounds me.
I reach for the plate.
Drag it in front of me.
Then I reach for him, gripping his chin, turning his head so I can see his beautiful face. “I forgot to tell you something.”
“Aye? What’s that then?”
“I love you too.”