He looks freshly fucked too.
I turn away from them and go back to shifting barrels around.
Skylar leaves.
Mal doesn’t. He takes a barrel from me, bearing its weight with ease, though he pounds too many miles to carry much muscle. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Sure about that? You’re acting like the dog died.”
“Don’t say that.” A shudder passes through me. “Wash your fucking mouth out.”
“Want me to touch wood?”
The sated haze in his eyes tells me he’s had enough wood for one day and I’d glare at him if I was awake enough. But the truth is, I’m tired. In my head, not my body. I feel like I’ve been chasing thoughts for days and days and I still don’t know my own fucking mind.
Tell him.
Mal.
“Sometimes,” I say, slowly enough I have a chance of making sense, “so many things bother me I can’t discern one from the other. So I’m just…bothered, and I don’t know why.”
My brother has many strengths. Thinking before he speaks isn’t one of them, so I appreciate the frown creasing his face. A face that’s younger than mine, but has seen all the same terrible and wonderful things Regiment life had to offer.
I wish we could jump together again.
Out of an aircraft at fifteen thousand feet. The roar and the rush until we hit that note of perfect silence. It was just work to me back then. Part of the job. For Mal, it was freedom. The kind he won’t find here, and I know he misses it.
“You could write it down, maybe? The shit that rattles you?”
I reclaim my thoughts and shake my head. “Tried that. It’s even more confusing to read thoughts I don’t remember having. Don’t worry about it, okay? I just need a nap.”
“Then go have one.”
“You gonna pull pints for me, brother?”
Mal rolls his eyes. He’d do anything for me, I know that. But he can’t be trusted around prickly Porth Luck natives hollering for their beer. He’s decked three already, and those are the altercations I know about.
“Go on.” I nudge him. “Fuck off and spend the night with Skylar. I don’t need a babysitter.”
And Mal doesn’t need much encouragement to attach himself to his man. Tonight, though, he hesitates, consternation cinching brows a shade lighter than mine. “What were you and Skylar talking about?”
“You didn’t stop and listen on the stairs?”
“I didn’t know you were down here.”
“Okay…if that’s supposed to make sense, you need to explain it to me like I’m five.”
Mal glares. “Don’t talk shit about yourself.”
“Don’t talk in circles then. My brain doesn’t work like that anymore.”
“Says the twat who never loses a chess game.”
“Sol lets me win.”
“No, he doesn’t.”