“Jackie, I’m fine.”
He grunts and sets to work cleaning them anyway, that soul-pinning focus engaged again as he kneels at the side of his bed.
I throw my other arm over my eyes, wrecked as ever. “What were you wrong about?”
Jack doesn’t answer.
I breathe through it for as long as I can, which isn’t all that long. Then I let my arm fall away and face him.
He’s done disinfecting the abrasions on my knuckles. His own hands are flexing at his sides and his gaze drifts to the door, head tilted, as if he’s heard something I haven’t. As if the senses he’s so sure were forever dulled when that mortar hit him are as sharp as they’ve always been.
Another faint grimace colours his features, but it’s more wry than annoyed, and it looks good on him. So good, I reach for him and press my cleaned knuckles under his scruffy jaw. “What do you hear? Mice again?”
“More like fucking rabbits.” Jack rises and climbs over me, sliding back into bed.
Hisbed.
I should go.
He’s not upset or unwell. He doesn’t need me to stay, and gods,Ineed to sleep, just a little, before I face the world again. But the thing about Jack’s bed is that it’s the same as every other bed we’ve ever laid in together. It’s quicksand and nothing and no one can make me move, not even me.
Especially me.
“Did you eat?” Jack asks suddenly.
“Yeah.” I don’t remind him we’ve already talked about it. “Cheese pies with Lisa. I brought some home.”
Jack lies down. He’s silent a moment. Then he shifts again, onto his stomach, and it’s out of character enough to have me raising my head a little.
“All right?”
“Aye.”
“Sure? You don’t need?—”
A large clean hand clamps over my mouth. Jack’s hand, his palm so broad it blocks my whole air supply. Andfuck, I like it. I like it so much instant terror swamps me and I make a sound that rattles Jack too.
He rips his hand away. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it isn’t. Am I getting worse at talking?”
“You talk just fine.”
He snorts. “Now I know you’re lying.”
“Tell me what you were wrong about.”
Jack spears his gaze to the ceiling. He leaves it there as he spits words that slay me stone-dead. “I was wrong about not wanting your help.”
9JACK
I was wrong about not wanting your help.
Sol doesn’t immediately know what I mean.
Then he does and the disbelief marring his face has me wanting to pitch myself out of the nearest window.