“Will I?”
“Someone will,” I amend, and the visceral fear branding my heart is all the reassurance I need that the harsh words I had for Dav a few days ago were exactly that: words. “Tell me it was you who gave him that black eye, not someone worse. Saint, please. I need to know.”
I don’t mean to beg, but I’m not good at hiding my emotions, and all my current bandwidth is saved for Jack. And Saint…itwas years after he first appeared at Cam’s side before he’d even look at me. But as drizzly sleet starts to fleck from the sky, I get the distinct impression he feels sorry for me. Which I hate, but it’s not the worst thing I have to face today, so I’ll take it.
Saint claims the envelope from my outstretched hand. He flicks through the notes before stuffing it in his jacket pocket. “No more.”
“No more from me, or you’re not going to hit my dad again?”
“You choose.”
I laugh—can’t help it—and there’s zero humour in the rough bark falling out of me. “You have a map to that magical land of free will?”
Saint shrugs and it’s the most I’m going to get out of him. He’s the kind of man who walks away mid-conversation, but I beat him to it. I open my car door and slide behind the wheel, shutting him out with a rough slam.
After a beat, he goes back to his motorcycle and rides off with the money I need to fix the cracked engine block on the only real means I have to make a living.
You have the Joker.
Another laugh escapes me, but without Saint staring me down, it’s more fond than bitter. I love that old pub, and not because it gives Jack a reason to get up in the morning when I’m not enough. It’s the way those walls have always known me long before Dav unravelled our lives. How the floorboards remember my grandad’s booming laugh and my dad’s easy grin with coins and cards in the back snug—a confidence I once mistook for luck. Even the open space in front of the bar carries the soft recollection of Sev’s wobbly first steps, and those stitches in time, they bind me.
Theyareme.
And they make me a sentimental idiot. A notion underlined by the dry, mockingclickof my car as I finally rouse myself to drive home.
Gods, really?
I tip my head back in the threadbare seat and close my eyes. Blocking it all out for a moment, as I contemplate taking a nap before I find the will to get out of the car and crack the bonnet. But the trouble with blocking out the present is that it leaves room for the past, and I find myself instantly bombarded with memories both years old and mere hours.
Jack made me come.
My eyes fly open, but it’s too late to stop the red-hot recollection of every slide and twist of his rough palm. Every press of his lips to mine and the sweet, sweet pressure of his arm to my throat. Panic melds with arousal in a perfect squall and my heart beats so fast I have to wonder if I’ll survive this trip down memory lane.
Sweat coats my skin.
I get out of the car into the heavier rain and tilt my face to the sky, searching for guidance from whatever god or spirit can see me. But none comes, because I already know what I have to do.
Tell him.
I need to go home.
I need to find my dad?—
No.
I need to go home.
My phone has barely a breath of battery left. Just enough to send a rescue text and hope I’ve timed it right before the screen goes black.
I’m in for a long walk if I’ve got it wrong, on narrow country roads with no pavements, no street lights. Black water in ditches that already feel like death. And it’s dangerous to wait in the car. At least, that’s what I tell myself as I remain at the mercyof the rain. As it soaks me to the bone and I picture the extra disappointment in Jack’s green eyes when I finally make it home.
Fear squeezes my heart again. Fear that he won’t forgive me for keeping this layer of truth from him. Fear that he will, which makes no sense, but I am so so tired I can’t find the sense in anything right now. I can’t find thewhy, even though the reasons I’ve kept my mouth shut all these years still stand.
He didn’t know his own name.
Back then. When he woke up. He knew mine, but I could tell the second his lost stare found me that he didn’t know much else. That he didn’trememberand he was too fragile and vulnerable for anything more than what I gave him: friendship.
Safe. Familiar.