He’s looking forme.
I know it like I know the salt of the sea and I vault the pub wall without stopping to think that he might back away, like he has all week.
As it happens, Jack blinks as I land at his feet. The stone-faced consternation he’s worn like a second skin the past few days isn’t there and relief colours his features instead. “Where’ve you been?”
“Porth Ewan.”
“Why?”
“Fancied some bad beer.”
“Before lunch?”
How does he know?“It was dinner time for me.”
Jack runs his gaze over me, like I’m a squaddie on his watch. No, like I’m his best friend and the drizzle clinging to my clothes and skin offends him. “Come inside.”
Command laces his gravelled voice, more Killinchy than it’s been in years now he’s around Mal so much. Can’t say if it’s conscious or not, but the effect it has on me is the same as it’salways been. Iobeywithout question, on instinct and trail him inside and downstairs to the cellar.
A building this ancient, it should be cold down here. Walls thick with damp. But Jack won’t allow it. The air is warm and dry as we pass the gym I’d happily set on fire to keep Skylar out of it, and that warmth…it settles on my skin like a hug.
Jack reaches the utility room and crouches to sort through a stack of folded clothes.
His.
Mine.
I lean in the doorway, regretting the beer I drank in place of whatever meal Oscar would’ve cooked on theSironaif he’d come to sea with me last night. I need a shower. A nap. Some food that isn’t box rations. I need Jack to face me again so I can drown—so I canheal—in his earnest gaze as he reveals whatever he wants me to wear today.
He finally stands, soft and worn clothes belonging to him and me both clutched in his big hands. Sometimes he’s so insistent on me getting dry he has me strip right here in the cellar, but he jerks his head at the ceiling. “Come upstairs.”
Another command. Another subtle pull low in my gut that’s a different hunger to the empty belly I’ve brought home from the Sea Bell.
I follow him up, back past the gym and through the quiet bar, every sense tuned to the swing of his broad shoulders as he walks ahead of me. To the barely detectable lag in his weaker side and the gentle purpose in every step he takes.
We reach the flat. Mal’s not here. It’s just us in the stillness of the tidy, cosy space, the sharp scent of Ajax in the air telling me one of the Gallagher boys took their turn at the housework.
I head for the bathroom, and it’s Jack’s turn to follow me, something he’s done a million times over our lifetime together,but it feels different today. As if the perfectly timed shift we’ve nurtured over the years is more deliberate.
The decency I don’t want.
That I’veneverwanted.
I turn on the shower and drag wool thick as rope over my head. Ditch it on the floor with a t-shirt I’ve been wearing since Jack joined the paras. Okay. Maybe not that long. But it’s old all the same.
Jack scoops up the shirt as I unbutton the weatherproof trousers I live in on the boat, colour faded from too much salt and rain.
I crouch to grab the jumper. Our hands brush, but Jack doesn’t seem to notice. He’s staring at my thighs, at the fabric that pulls taut across them, catching the muscle I’ve built without ever setting foot in a gym. Or maybe he’s just staring, looking through me, like he does multiple times a day when absence seizures take him.
The moment passes.
We rise together.
Jack takes the wool jumper from me and steps out, and I figure we’re done. That he trusts me to take the rest of my clothes off and shower myself warm.
But…he comes back as I’m peeling the grey trousers down my legs and fills the doorway, watching me, fixating on the frayed material as if he’s a victim of the same bewitching punch of heat as me. As if it’s starting to make sense to him.
Stop seeing things that aren’t there.