“Is it your dad?”
I nod, and it all comes out—most of it, anyway. I don’t tell him about the parts I’ve stripped from theSironaand sold, or the money I’ve paid to the Kings for the stolen copper. And lucky for me, Jack doesn’t ask too many questions. Why would he? Of everything he’s forgotten, my dad’s ability to screw up my life on a regular basis isn’t one of them.
“How much?—”
I silence him with a shaky finger to his lips. “No, Jackie. We’re not doing that. I can handle it, okay? I just need some time.”
He knocks my finger away. “You shouldn’t have to handle it.”
“I know, but life is what it is, eh? Maybe it’s what I need to endure to earn better things.”
“If that theory was true, you’d live in fucking paradise already.”
“Some days I do.” Jack’s hands are still on me. I lean into his touch and he smiles, which is paradise enough for me any day of the week.
But he’s not done. “Does Sev know?”
“I think Lisa might’ve told him something. He’s called me a lot today.”
“You didn’t pick up?”
A new wave of guilt gnaws at me. I crave the sanctuary of Jack’s embrace, but I need him to choose it.
So I shift and lean on the bar instead. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
Jack lets it happen, waiting on my answer, even though his gaze keeps dropping to my bare chest. Where he bit me before this horrible conversation bulldozed its way through. “What’s different about tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. I just—” Just what? I don’t know that either. “Jackie, I’m tired.”
“Sol.” Jack moves as if he’s giving me time to stop him. As if I ever would. Then he tugs me away from the bar, wraps his big arms around me, and though he hugs me most days, this feels different.Thisfeels like the first time in months the sand isn’t shifting under my feet. It’s everything I need from my best friend, except one thing.
I nuzzle Jack’s neck. Then I wrench my head up, every instinct I have screaming at me not to. “I need you to promise me something.”
Jack’s getting tired too. I see it in his slow blink, and the way he has to consciously add resilience to his cognition as it starts to fray. “Anything.” He holds my face how he always does when he’s listening with every firing synapse he has. “Just tell me.”
My throat tightens so hard it hurts. “What I told you about Dav tonight, I need you to bury it. Don’t tell Mal or Skylar, or even think about trying to fix this with your own money.”
Jack’s brows pull together. “But?—”
“No.” The word shears out of me, messy and loud. “I can’t live through that again. It still kills me that you gave him so much and he spaffed it up the wall a year later. Please, Jackie. I need this from you, I can’t fucking breathe otherwise, I can’t?—”
“Okay,okay.” It’s Jack’s turn to silence me, his big palm sealed over my mouth, his lips at my temple. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise, Sol. I promise.”
15JACK
Sol trembles in my arms and I hate it.
But I love that he trusts me enough to do it, even though I know he’s given me a sanitised version of the truth tonight.
Not because he’s a liar—Sol’s honest to the bone—but because my stupid fucking brain has taught him he has to.
And he’s not wrong.
I hit overload and check out. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in my bed to a different day, and it’slate.
And I’m on top of him, naturally, curled around him, my head on his chest, his fingers carding absently through my hair as he flips the pages in a battered paperback.
I need to know he’s okay.