I wasn’t put on this earth to take sex and relationship advice from my kid brother. But I let it slide. He’s home. What else really matters?
Besides, he slips away after dropping that nugget of wisdom and I clean up the rest of the kitchen alone. Until Sol comes up behind me, and just fucking…stops, and it’s almost as affecting as when we touch.
I brace my hands on the counter and bow my head. “Come closer.”
He obeys and I feel the heat of him before his chest hits my back. Before his arms wind around my ribs and he rests his head between my shoulder blades.
This isn’t a new pose for us, but it’s usually the other way round. Because I lean on Sol and he leans on no one. A reality that has me pushing down the urge to turn in his arms and see his face. For a long moment, I let him be, and it’s…I don’t know. Affirming, maybe?
The old me might’ve known. Might’ve figured out Sol needed this hours ago. Then again, perhaps this version of me is the most aware I’ve ever been and my brother is right.
Don’t let the noise get in the way.
I turn as Sol lifts his head, catching him before he can lean back too far. He’s a little drunk, and he’s always emotional. But there’s more in his bronze-brown eyes tonight.
More than desire.
More than love.
My hand finds the home I’ve claimed wrapped around his jaw. I want to kiss him so much. Haul him against me. But I want more too, and his earlier vow comes back to me.
If that’s something you want, we can talk about it later.
When is later? Is it now, while our found family debate the Christmas movie status ofDie Hard? Is it when this night is over and we hover in the hallway, letting who the fuck knows what decide if Sol sleeps in his bed or mine?
I want him in my bed.Tonight and every night. I’ve grown to accept he sees me at my worst, but I want him to see the best of me too, and in the time it’s taken me to think the fucking obvious, someone has rolled off a couch and made tracks towards the kitchen.
It isn’t Mal.
I think it might be Sev and I release Sol in time for my listening skills to prove on point.
Sol is slower to step away, but Sev doesn’t seem to notice. He opens the fridge and grabs a beer. Offers one to Sol and shrugs when Sol waves it off.
Then he’s gone again, but the moment he interrupted lingers thick and heavy between me and Sol, and I realise with the startling clarity that so often throws me, that I don’t want it to end, unless it leads us somewhere better. I realiseexactly what I wantand how to say it.
But it’s Oscar who interrupts us this time, herding us back to the living room, and it’s hours before I’m alone with Sol again. Hours I spend picturing things I’ve never seen clearly before tonight, while the rest of them play card games I can’t keep up with.
They probably think I’m tired.
I’m not.
I’m wide awake, and eventually, I remember Sol’s Christmas present.
I slip away while he’s beating Sev at brag. While Skylar’s trying to pick up durak from Oscar. I tell myself it’s a coincidence I’ve waited until Mal’s passed out on the couch. Then decide it doesn’t matter. He knows I bought Sol a leather bracelet withpewter charms from the summer craft markets because he was with me when I got it, and when I stashed it in the one place in the Joker Sol never goes.
The gym.
It’s still locked, but Sol is terrible at hiding things. The key is on the doorframe—which lets me know Skylar could’ve got in here if he really wanted to. And that he didn’t.
A good feeling that I carry to the weight rack where I stashed Sol’s present months ago.
It’s habit to check the bar. To scan the dark wood and shadows for ghosts. At first, nothing seems out of place. Then my gaze lands on the charity box and I stare and stare and stare at it, willing whatever I’ve forgotten to come back to me.
Takes a while. Eventually, I remember it was stolen. That the RNLI lost out on the twenty quid or whatever that was in there. That’sstillin there, I realise, as I pick the thing up and feel the weight of it.
It’s not unusual for me to be confused. To be deprived of vital information that makes things make sense. And sometimes it doesn’t even matter that I can’t think of a rational explanation, just knowing one exists out there somewhere is enough. But this…it makes no sense at all. I’ve worked every day of the last six. Even if I haven’t noticed someone returning the box, I’d have heard about it.
I think so anyway, but it starts to bend my brain in all the wrong ways. So I turn my back on it and head back upstairs, seeking solace in Sol’s incense-laced room. In the colour and life that’s in here even when he’s not.