By him.
By myself.
By the way this place nurtures the worst version of me.
“Where did the bikers go?”
Jack frowns and repeats Oscar’s words. “What bikers?”
I point at the horizon. “The ones who used to run the streets. It’s already wild out there and it’s barely eight in the morning.”
“It’s eight already?”
“So they tell me.”
Jack moves closer and his shoulder brushes mine. He studies the outside world again, but not the bustle around the harbour. Instead he frowns inland and I swear to god, I try to soften the bluntness I’ve brought home and can’t seem to control, but my tone is still harsh.
“What’s bothering you?”
“Skylar should be home by now.”
“From where?”
Jack takes a breath to speak, but a car appears in the distance that instantly sucks the tension from him.
Skylar.
Now it’s me with bound shoulders and a tight jaw.
I force myself to relax. We didn’t part on bad terms, right? Fuck, we didn’t part on any terms. He walked away before the funny side of what almost went down between us could land, if such a thing fucking exists.
But nothing happened.
Nothing. Happened.
So why do I feel like I’m about to come face-to-face with a ghost I was point-two seconds from dragging somewhere dark and ruining?
A door opens and closes downstairs before I get the chance to remind myself I was more fixated on kissing him than anything else that day. Thatnight, when his simmering presence beside me in the dingy pub had been the only thing keeping me from downing a bottle of Bushmills and hurling myself off a cliff.
Footsteps sound on the stairs and my pulse kicks up, but it isn’t the scrape and thud of a misfire. It’s a legitimate flare of expectation, and it’s all I can do to remain by the window and letwhatever’s about to happen come find me instead of chasing it down.
But…it’s an anti-climax that leaves me dizzy.
Skylar doesn’t come to the kitchen. He heads straight down the hall to his room and shuts the door behind him.
I don’t know what my face is doing, but Oscar pauses halfway out of his seat and sits down again, giving weight to the impression I’ve been harbouring that he’s stayed in the kitchen this long for my sake. Or maybe Jack’s. Sol’s. Who the fuck knows?
Regardless, he doesn’t leave. He draws an abandoned newspaper towards him as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world and speaks without looking up. “Skylar works shifts at the hospital. He’s a nurse. He’ll sleep now, but you will probably see him before he goes back.”
I absorb the information like it’s meth. Pack it away for later.
“They aren’t here anymore.”
Blinking, I turn to Jack. “Who?”
He points at the window. “The bikers. Dog Crows disbanded and the Rebel Kings went legit. They drive lorries now.”
“Lorries?”