He moves over, patting the bed. “Sit with me?”
No.
I need to fuel my body from the safety of the doorway. So he won’t notice if it chokes me. Or if I leave half of it to wash down the sink.
But whatever part of me remains irrevocably attracted to Mal betrays me, and I sit on the edge of the bed by his outstretched legs, the warmth of his thigh seeping into my back.
Mal starts eating.
Somehow, I do too, and I don’t even care that he’s watching me. Or that he sits up a little more, bringing us closer together.
“You want some of mine?”
I swallow the yoghurt in my mouth. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Try and fix me.” If it was that easy, I’d have done it myself.
“I’m not trying to fix you, Sky. I fucking hate bananas.”
Sky. He’s going to kill me with that.
I turn my head to look at him face on. To watch him eat around the offending fruit in his bowl. “You really don’t like them?”
He scrunches his mouth up. “Fuck no. It’s the only food my dad ever bought that didn’t come in a tin, and I used to hide them behind the radiators. Ask Jack if you don’t believe me.”
I do believe him. Mal’s too efficient to concoct such elaborate bullshit. “Don’t eat them then. But you should probably find another source of potassium. You need electrolytes in your diet.”
“So they tell me.” Mal takes a scoop of his breakfast, just yoghurt and banana on the spoon. “But you do too, right?”
Of course I do.
Everyone does. But my heart doesn’t beat like Mal’s.
Not yet.
I take the spoon from him and make a split-second choice.
Him or me.
I choose him and hold the spoon up to his mouth, a challenge of my own in the words I don’t say. A bargain.I will if you will. And the muted horror in Mal’s sage-green eyes tells me all I need to know about his honesty.
He steels himself and lets me slide the spoon between his lips, an instant gag I know all too well wrenching his throat.
“Fucking hell,” he grinds out before sealing his mouth with his palm.
I laugh, and it feels good. It feelseasyto take my turn, and that’s how life goes for the short minutes it takes to clear his bowl and mine.
Easy and fucking hilarious.
Mal remains unimpressed, but something else simmers behind the annoyance in his gaze, something that has me looking anywhere but at his face.
“I need to go.”
He drains the water bottle I brought from the kitchen. “How long’s your shift?”
“Till four.”