I hold out a hand. “Lie with me?”
8SOL
I falter in the doorway, already resigned to only a fleeting moment with Jack.
Because he’s asleep.
At least, I thought he was. So I’m sorely unprepared for how awake he is as he holds out his hand.
Open.
Waiting.
Lie with me.
Ten years ago, I’d have rolled into his bed without hesitation, even though I knew his platonic affection would destroy me later, when I was alone with the reality that my straight best friend had gone to war on the other side of the world and left me behind with no sound promise I’d ever see him again.
In this moment, in this life, I scan him for signs of distress or pain while he eyes me in a way that makes his tidy room seem smaller and more dangerous than it’s ever been. Because Jack…he’s not rattled or hurting or lost. He just wants me. My company. My head on his pillow while my stupid heart weeps next to his, and I’m so tired and wrung out that every part of me aches to take what he’s offering, even though it’ll hurt so much worse tomorrow.
I claim his hand and slide into his bed. My chest is tight from the stress of visiting my mum and snooping through the box file in my dad’s shed. I have numbers on my mind. Big numbers. Impossible sums that are almost meaningless to me. But as Jack keeps my hand tucked in his, it all fades.
He’s lying on his stomach, propped on his elbows. I turn to him in the dark, shifting onto my side. It shouldn’t feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, and yet somehow it does. “All right?”
“Are you?”
“That’s not an answer, Jackie.”
He waits me out, bringing his other hand to smother mine, his palms caging me, thumbs grazing the knuckles I split wrestling with the engine hatch.
“What happened here?”
I tell him.
He frowns, thinking hard about something, but whatever it is, he can’t find it, and he doesn’t seem too pressed about it. “Are you okay?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, Sol. You. I don’t think anyone asks you enough.”
“Lisa asked me tonight.”
“Doesn’t count if she didn’t listen to your answer.”
Jack knows my mum so well. How she drifts away from anything sharp, all soft edges and no bite against the chaos my dad brings home. Filing herself smooth to survive.
He knows I love her.
That I resent her.
And I’ll never stop defending her, even if it means lying to his face. “I told heryesand she moved on to feeding me cheese pies.”
His gaze flickers. “How many did you eat?”
“Enough that I almost fell asleep on the way home.”
I’m joking, mostly. But Jack doesn’t smile. He frees a hand to grip my chin and stare so deeply that my breath catches, and the tightness in my chest…it comes back.
“Something’s wrong.” His voice is barely a whisper, but he might as well be shouting in my face for the impact it has. “Why won’t you talk to me?”