He studies me a moment longer. Then inclines his head towards the kitchen. “Go make dinner.”
Feels like a dare more than an order, but I’m open to both. I move to the kitchen and open the fridge. So much fucking fish, but I’m not in the mood for mackerel, and I’m out of ideas for anything that isn’t the same masterpiece I made Jack last night.
“Don’t leave Mal alone with them beans.” Vinnie jumps on my back, knocking the stick I’m about to poke our dinner with out of my hand. “This bellend would eat rocks if we left him unsupervised.”
A cool hand grazes my spine. “Not hungry?”
It’s hard to be anything as Skylar fills the tight space beside me at the fridge and peers inside. His hair is still damp from the lagoon, but his mood is different, like he’s left it all there, and my subconscious latches onto it, the way it always does around him. As if when he’s this close, his state of mind dictates every breath I take.
Answer the question.
Am I hungry?
No. But I could eat. I should. And so should he.
There’s bacon.
I reach for it.
Skylar redirects me to the chicken, and I let it happen.
“What else do you want?”
I expect him to claim the potatoes. But he points to the vegetable drawer.
“Pick some shit from there.”
He leaves me with a drawer that’s wall to wall green. I grab broccoli and some leafy thing and take it to the counter where Skylar’s already prodding at some contraption I figured was a rice cooker.
Apparently not. “What is it then?”
“Air fryer.”
“Looks like a fucking dalek.”
Skylar rolls his eyes. He presses more buttons and dumps chicken and veg in drawers, and I try not to watch him as he handles food items like they’re live explosives. Endure the weird little machine and its obnoxious beeping while Skylar cleans the windowsills.
“Those on your list? Or are you keeping busy before the broccoli comes to get you?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
There’s no bite in the words, only a request that I heed as he plates up dinner and we go to the table and take the same seats we always have.
Only then does he falter, and it’s subtle. If I hadn’t been so locked into him since the day we met, I might’ve missed the low-key tension threading through him. The tic in his jaw and his jittery leg under the table.
The leg thing I’ve seen before, so I do what I did then, and drop a hand on his thigh, mindful that he doesn’t seem to notice. But the tremor there…it doesn’t fade, and he makes a low sound that’s drenched in wretched frustration.
“You don’t have to babysit me.”
“I’m not.” I take my hand back and move closer to him, draping my arm loosely around him instead, using the wall to keep the contact a fraction of what my needy self wants to be. “And even if I am, it’ll only redress the balance from the freakshow I brought to your bed last night.”
“Because this is a freakshow too?”
“No, because I’m the fucking idiot who always says the wrong thing.”
“Wouldn’t be if you ever shut the fuck up.”
He’s said that twice now. He must mean it.