One: where the fuck would I go?
Two: Skylar’s wearing gym shorts and his tattooed legs are everything.
The second fact hits as Sev stomps away and I find myself alone with Skylar again, the summer sun beating down on us, seagulls heckling from the clouds.
He’s not wearing the clothes he came home in. Or the sweats that sit criminally low on his hips when he hits the gym. He’s wearing a faded blue t-shirt and athletic shorts, familiar trainers on his feet, and I cannot fuckingstopstaring at those fucking legs.
I stare so long and hard he taps my cheek, and the contact between his palm and my face does nothing to clean up my thoughts. I’m down if he wants to slap me. Just as long as he wraps those legs around my fucking waist.
Skylar chucks the bag at me. It collides with my chest, startling me out of a daydream that has no place in the early morning sun, and it’s the second thing in as many minutes I’ve had to catch before it hits my face.
“Choosing violence today, eh?”
Skylar slides a stick of gum into his mouth. “You have that effect on people.”
“Must be why they keep shooting at me.”
“No one’s shooting at you here.” He turns his head as he says it, gifting me his full gaze. “But we can run away from it all morning anyway if you like.”
“We?”
His lips turn up in the vaguest smile. “That’s your plan for the day, isn’t it? Run around this town until you’re fucked-up enough to pass out on the couch?”
It’s close enough to the truth to irritate me. Or, at least, it should irritate me. But… “You know, for someone who ignores me most of the time, you seem to know a hell of a lot about how I spend my days.”
“Your bad habits, you mean.”
“You’remy bad habit.” With one small step, I obliterate the distance between us. “And if you’re ever around after I have some banging sex, you’ll get to see another.”
Skylar’s smile dirties to a smirk. We’re standing way too close to each other again. If I stuck out my tongue, I could lick his sinful lips. He could bite mine—I know he likes that. Because we’ve already kissed, and with him a hairsbreadth from being pressed against me, it’s all I can think about.
His lips.
His skin.
The sharp edges of a body with too many stories untold.
Stop.
My thoughts heavy in the same moment Skylar steps back. Filthy humour still lights his eyes, but shadows dance there too, and I know he needs out of this conversation before it gets too real.
Or maybe it’s me. MaybeIneed out, but walking away from him is fucking impossible. “I’m going to run,” I tell him, because it’s the truth. “You coming or what?”
14SKYLAR
We run.
Mal in front, carrying the bag I threw in his face. Me behind him, matching his pace with ease while he takes it slow to wind me up, or because he has some fucked-up impression I can’t keep up with him.
I don’t really care which. He’s wrong on both counts. A leisurely jog in the sunshine is never going to piss me off, and if he wants to go hard, I’m here for it.
View’s not bad either, even with the bag obscuring Mal’s muscled back. Hisbareback; he tossed his shirt before we left. And even with the bag, I can still see the scattering of scars and marks on his tanned skin. Some older than others. Some not old at all, like the gnarly scrape stretching from his hip bone to his ribs. Looks like road burn, an injury I’m way too familiar with, but where Mal’s come from to be here, anything could’ve caused it, even shit I haven’t thought of.
And I try not to think too hard, about anything, even him. I focus on my breath, on the pleasurable heat in my muscles, and the smoke show running in front of me, scars and all.
The miles pass. We loop inland around Porth Luck and beyond, and take the coastal road that will lead us back into town.
It’s uphill and fire creeps into my legs, my lungs expanding with enough effort the reason I’ve followed Mal out here starts to gnaw at me.