Sol lets me be for a moment, and his open gaze drifts to Skylar, guilt shimmering in his dark eyes. To the friend he’s known all these years but not truly seen. It’s not his fault. But he’ll never know that. “I thought you might be hooking up—or at least on the way there. I never dreamed you were in love with each other.”
“That’s not what you heard this morning.”
Sol smiles, soft and melancholy, but there’s something sure behind it too. “Mally, it’s what Isee, now I’m looking with my whole brain, and it makes so much sense I don’t know how I didn’t see it in my tea leaves before you came home.”
“You don’t drink fucking tea.”
“Maybe I should.” Sol straightens from his doorway lean. “Would save a lot of wondering, eh?”
“About what?”
“Life. Love. Keep your phone close, yeah? Jack’s all in on that dog, but he’s still going to want me to text you every ten minutes, and it would make my life a lot easier if you answer.”
I can do that. For Jack, for Sol, I’ll do anything. “You’re really not coming back tonight? What about the pub?”
Sol shrugs. “The Joker’s been here a hundred years. One night’s not going to finish her off.”
He leaves and the world is quiet again. Even the wind and rain have packed in, though I can see from the bruised and sprawling clouds they won’t be gone long.
I like storms. Don’t you?
Beside me, Skylar stirs a little, edging closer to me, taking a deeper breath while I hold my own. But he doesn’t wake up,not now or in the hours that pass as the night draws in. It’s late evening when I have to leave him to take a piss, and without him pressed against me, reality bites my dick.
I find myself wandering the empty flat, the silence fucking deafening, even as Vinnie dies a hundred times, and I picture a young Skylar driving a knife into his father’s throat with no fucking idea the ghost he was trying to kill would haunt him forever.
It’s fucked-up. But none of it frightens me. It’s worse than that. I haven’t cried since I was younger than when Skylar took a life, but I feel like I might now, at the kitchen counter, my head in my hands, and that’s where Oscar finds me some time later.
He has the wind in his hair and a paper bag tucked under his arm. “White fish, my friend. For Skylar.”
I rub my eyes, trying to fix my face. “Thanks.”
“You are okay, Mal?”
“Aye. Sure.”
Oscar comes closer, peering at me in the dark kitchen with a gaze that doesn’t feel intrusive. Then he opens his arms and hugs the life out of me, no solutions, just comfort—and I let it go.
Not all of it, but enough to press my face to his big, warm shoulder. To unclench my fists and let my body tremble with the release of emotion, grateful he says nothing at all. Just holds me like a brother while Jack is gone.
When I’m done losing my shit, he makes me another sandwich and guards Skylar while I take a lukewarm shower.
Then he’s gone and I’m alone again, contemplating Skylar’s ruined bed.
It’s fucked.
I take it apart and carry it downstairs, piece by piece, dumping it in the half-filled skip, too aware that I should’ve done this in the first place instead of running out on everyone I care about.
Yeah, but then your brother’s new pal would still be tied to a caravan.
And of course Vinnie’s right.
He always was.
I dump the last of Skylar’s bed and drift back inside, checking every lock and camera as I go.
The footage of the hooded twat chucking the bottle bomb is already gone, and I’m as glad of it as I am that I didn’t kill him.You wouldn’t be here if you had.
A truth I readily accept, even before I go back upstairs to find Skylar awake and contemplating his empty room.