The droll look he gives me before he lets go. “Sol’s fine. Just some bruising from hitting a crate when he fell.”
“When he “slipped”?”
“Yeah.”
“Why’s he lying about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you fucking ask?”
“No, because checking he wasn’t seriously hurt was my priority. And it’ll always be my priority. Getting in his face isn’t going to help me with that.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. Skylar’s a medic—like Orion. But that’s his role in Sol’s life, not mine. That I don’t have a clue what my role is anywhere right now is beside the fucking point.
I let it go.
For now.
Skylar goes back to the TV.
I go back to fighting the urge to stare at him and try to tune out the world news headlines. Burning war zones make me think of Vinnie. Of how I wasn’t conscious enough to bring his body home when I’d always promised him I would. They make me miss him. Because I’m fucking this up, all of it, and I know he’d tell me how to fix it.
Skylar changes the channel. It jars me. How messed up is it that the damn TV blowing up in my face would startle me less?
More messed up than I want to think about. A vintage comedy fills the screen. I force my attention to it, but the figures blur, the sound a low hum of nothing, and I realise I’m sinking into the couch.
Instinct has me fighting it, and frustration curls my hands into fists. I don’t need to be battle ready. Whatever shit Sol’s got going on, it can wait till morning. He’s safe in his bed. Jack is too. So why the hell can’t I turn my brain off?
Skylar’s hand finds my forearm. His thumb skates over my skin. “Take off your boots.”
“Hmm?”
“Your boots. You don’t need to sleep in them here.”
“I’m not fucking sleeping.”
“I know.”
He knows.
As in, he sees more to my words than I actually said. And the thing is…he’s not wrong. So what’s the point in pretending otherwise?
I toe off my boots. This place is pretty neat for an all-male household. I think about getting up to tuck them away. But Skylar’s still holding my arm and I can’t make myself move.
So I leave the boots and go back to the push and pull between becoming one with the couch and staying awake forever.
The couch starts to win. I sink lower, and eventually my head tips sideways, using my arm as a pillow.
“There you go.”
Skylar.
His voice is distant. I lose the warmth cocooning my forearm, and I fucking mourn it. More than that, a weird sense of panic overcomes me without that magical touch. I breathe slow and deliberate, like I can trick my brain into relaxing, but it’s not happening. Not without him and the heat dancing between us like static.
My eyes fly open and I sit up, seeking him out before I think to wonder what I expect from him when I find him.
He’s not there and my mind is busy again in an instant. No stillness, no rest. I’m alone and I hate it. I miss my friends. I miss sleeping with a loaded gun under a scrunched-up flak jacket, and just like that, I’m on alert again, coiled tight even though I don’t move. I don’tbreathe, until Skylar comes back with a pillow and drapes it on the arm of the couch.