His door is open. He hardly ever shuts it. And he’s still in his underwear, though he’s kept his promise to rub his wild curls dry. “What’s up?”
I lean in the doorway, hiding my dick, just in case. “Do you think Mal’s okay? He’s not home yet.”
If Sol’s awake, he’s rarely doing nothing. Tonight, he’s reading on the bed pushed into the corner of the room. His boho sheets are rumpled from never being straightened and incense burns in a ceramic pot, smoke seeping from the subtle vents and curling up to the antique concertina hanging on the dented wall.
Skylar did that.
The dent.
Sol lowers his paperback, giving me his full attention, like he always does until the sea calls him home. “Mal took my car, so he probably drove to Devon to mooch with Saint.”
Saint Malone. Another Rebel King biker. It’s never surprised me that my brother came back here and made friends with a man who doesn’t speak.
“Want me to check?” Sol asks when I fail to respond. “I have a number for Saint. He might not tell Mally we asked.”
“I don’t mind Mal knowing I give a shit.”
“Okay.”
Sol reaches for the phone on his bedside table.
No.
I take it off him, invading his room without thinking. Without steeling myself for a featherlight collision that sends me reeling.
Our fingers brush.
A light touch that shouldn’t register given how often we have contact, but that inexplicable itch, that flare in my brain. It ignites again and I’m not ready for the bolt of sensation shivering through me.
I set the phone down, angling my body away from Sol. “It’s so bright in here.”
That’s not what I mean. Sometimes I pick the wrong words. But as well as Sol knows me, he’s not a mind reader.
He dims his lamp.
“I meant colourful,” I amend as near darkness cloaks us. “And that I like it.”
My room is grey and white. Can’t remember why. If I chose it. If I painted it myself. Except…I probably would if I could think past the memory of paint flecks scattered in sun-kissed brown curls. Inked and scarred hands that make magic from the simplest things.
One of those hands reaches for me now.
Reaches for meagain.
I evade him and go back to the door. “Don’t call Saint. Mal comes home for Skylar, right?”
“He comes home for you too.”
I’m not so convinced. Mal’s my brother and we’re closer now than I ever thought we’d be again. But what if he hadn’t fallen in love with Skylar? What if he’d never come back here?
I don’t like those thoughts. Or how they make me picture him drifting the same way too many fellas from the Regiment have.
Haunted.
Half-alive.
Alone.
Sensing the jumble in my head, Sol rises from his bed, feet whispering over the floorboards. He comes to my side, warm and steady, and skates a palm down my forearm.