I shoot him a dry look. “Okay. When did this happen?”
“Last summer.”
“And they’ve been coming at you ever since?”
“Whenever they catch me alone on open water.”
“Not when Oscar’s with you?”
Sol snorts. “Would you?”
“Aye, I would.” Oscar’s big, but I’ve already figured out I’d rather fight him than Skylar. There’s lots of things I’d rather do with Skylar?—
“Yeah, well, that’s you.” Sol derails my errant thoughts before they get started, speaking around another heavy sigh. “These idiots aren’t SAS operators.”
“Neither am I.”Anymore.And I absorb that reality as I weigh the odds of an enemy I haven’t seen with my own eyes yet. “They come at you on dry land too?”
“With your brother around?”
“Just trying to figure out what level of idiot we’re talking about here.”
“Bottom feeders. There’s just more of them than there are of me. I’ve been waiting for them to jump the cove walls and burn this boat too.”
Not fucking happening.
I scan the horizon, assessing the tide. Survey the boat and the cabin Sol sleeps in when his job keeps him at sea for days on end. I’ve never been much of a sailor, but the endless ocean callsto me in a way solid ground rarely has, and I make a decision. “Take me to sea and show me these fucking pricks.”
9SKYLAR
Jack doesn’t do well without his best friend.
When we first came here, I thought I’d be enough when Sol was gone. That I possessed the innate calm Jack often needs from someone else. It wasn’t long before we both figured out I didn’t.
And I still don’t, as I make him repeat himself despite the worried frown creasing his face. The kind of frown that leads to all manner of stress and anxiety he doesn’t deserve.
“Mal went out with Sol again.” Hesitance drags his speech. “I think…”
Doubting himself, he glances to the ocean. Theroughocean. It’s dusk and summer has deserted our tiny slice of the world for the day. Sol’s pride and joy—theSirona—is nowhere in sight, and it won’t be for a while with the surf as high as it is tonight.
A fact not lost on Jack as his worry deepens. “Mal used to get sick on the boats.”
“When he was a kid?”
“Yeah.”
I move closer to Jack and swipe a few empty glasses from the picnic table he’s paused beside. The pub is rowdy as ever, but save a few smokers, the wind chill keeps the garden quiet. Forthe most part, we’re alone. “He’s been a paratrooper since. I’m sure he’s over it.”
“Hmm? Aye. Maybe.” Jack massages his left hand, his tell when he’s nervous, and it’s my fault.
I make an effort to smooth whatever terror of an expression I’ve brought home from a hellish nightshift, a twelve-hour nightmare that rolled over into an endless barrage of debriefs I only attended to not have to revisit the horrors of a four-car pileup another day. It’s what I do with shitty things. Burn them. Bury them. Shame some things never die. “Did you eat yet?”
It’s such a rare question from me that Jack blinks, yanked away from wherever his thoughts had gone. Confused still, but with less fear. “No. Why?”
“Let’s go have dinner.”
I take his elbow and steer him inside, letting go once we’re out of the wind and under the glare of the locals. The bar staff manage the crowd, the densely packed, mostly male bodies, the scent of stagnant sea water and beer thick in the air.
There aren’t many women, and I give the few who do frequent this side of the pub a wide berth to stop them trying to pinch my cheeks and touch my hair. I can handle it at work. Here, it’s a hard no.