Coming from him, it sounds so fucking reasonable. I heave a sigh of my own, my gaze drifting to the water again, searching the horizon for the boat that’s been stalking Sol’s smaller vessel from a distance every time I’ve gone to sea with him.
It’s conspicuously absent. Because Oscar is with Sol today, and he’s right about the goons on the black-hulledMary Gloucestercoming nowhere near him when Oscar’s around. BecauseOscarlives in a house that belongs to the Rebel Kings.
I turn back to Folk. “Your club is everywhere in this town.”
“Used to be,” Folk counters, eyeing me with the steadiness I expect from a man like him, even if he’s feeding me bullshit. “I told you the politics are complicated. And personal. Skylar doesn’t want the club anywhere near him, and Cam made a commitment to honour that even before we walked away from Porth Luck.”
Skylar.
Even if I want to, I can’t escape him either, and I chew on the feeling that leaves me with, even as my brain locks into a different mode. One that has no business rotting in Porth Luck.
It’s a lot to process all at once, and it must show on my face.
Folk drops a hand to my shoulder, the way Jack has started to when he catches me in a daze. “Listen, I was serious when I said the club can’t help Sol fight a war. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have him on this.” He starts his bike, covering his next words with the earth-shaking noise. “If you want to move on something, get a plan together and come to me. We can help with logistics if nothing else.”
He rumbles away. I go back to patching the wall, ignoring the locals bitching behind me, bitching at my methods.
I’m no bricklayer. It takes me all day, but keeping my hands occupied helps me think—about more than just Skylar, and by the time I take my tools inside, Sol’s who I need to see.
I find him behind the bar, unscathed from a day at sea with Oscar. He thunks a bottle in front of me and moves to walk off.
“Not so fast.” I catch his arm and pull him close. “I need you to do something with the windows.”
On his boat.
Sol frowns. “Why?”
“So next time I sail with you, no fucker knows I’m there.”
12SKYLAR
Mal’s up to something.
I haven’t seen him for days, but I know it like I know Sol is acting shady as hell too.
“Where are you going with that?”
Sol jumps, almost dropping what he’s trying to sneak out of the cellar storeroom at my feet. “Fuck. Why are you out already? I thought you’d be in there ages.”
The gym. And it’s a fair assumption, given how I’ve been. But the last week or so, the compulsion to punish my body for hours on end has been absent—as if spending my free time staring at the ceiling and thinking about Mal is any fucking healthier—and I’m done for the day in time to catch Sol in the act of whatever he’s up to.
I prop a shoulder on the doorframe, drinking water the way any reasonable person would after a thirty-minute workout. “The real question is why you have a sudden need for the one-way window film whoever lived here before was using to perv on the neighbours.”
“Maybe I’m finally chucking it out.”
“Maybe you’re the worst liar who ever lied.”
Sol cringes, shifting the shiny roll under his other arm. “Then don’t make me do it. Just let me go.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why can’t you tell me what it’s for? Don’t you trust me?”
“Of course I do.” Sol’s deep brown gaze swims with emotion. “That’s why I can’t tell you—because Jack trusts you too, and he won’t if he finds out you know stuff he doesn’t.”
We’ve been here before, but not with shit that’s left my friend battered and bruised, with shadows beneath his eyes so dark I see myself in them. This is different, and I know there are other reasons he won’t tell me. Reasons that shouldn’t matter. “You should talk to Cam.”