“—boys can’t keep disappearing when things get difficult. You know I can’t handle your dad on my own, and now there’s bailiffs at the door, Sol. What am I supposed to do?”
Boys.
Me.
Sev.
But mainly me, and the unfairness of it—all of it—is so absurd I nearly laugh. But I’m too sick and tired and hungover to set it free. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I say, because what else is there? “Don’t open the door. Just hang on, okay? I’m coming.”
The call ends. I don’t know if she hangs up first or I do. Just that I’m left with salt on my lips as Porth Luck comes into view, yearning for the home where the man I’ve loved my whole life might already be awake and waiting for me and the house that’ll be torn apart by noon unless I give the bank theSironainstead.
I’m not going to do that.
I won’t—Ican’t.
But after I’ve cashed out our haul, I borrow Oscar’s car all the same and drive to my parents’ house. Spend every hour of daylight arguing with bailiffs until it’s over, and then I pack my mum’s stuff into a couple of IKEA bags and take her to her sister’s clifftop cottage in Saltkiss Bay.
I don’t know where my dad is. I need to talk to Sev. But I drive home instead. Return Oscar’s car and walk back to find him working behind the bar.
Jack’s gone to bed.
Oscar urges me to do the same and for once, I listen. Because more than sleep, more than air, I need to be where Jack is. I need to feel his skin against mine, even if he’s not awake to tell me he wants it. That he wantsme.
He told you already.
A fact I hold onto as I shower a hellish twenty-four hours from my skin and leave my clothes in the bathroom. As I slip, barely dressed, into Jack’s room, close the door behind me, and crawl into bed with my best friend.
19JACK
I wake in the night wrapped up in Sol.
Instinctive.
Intentional.
He’s behind me, his body heat searing my bare skin, his chest at my back, his arm heavy around my ribs like it belongs there.
It’s darker than dark. My eyes blink open, but I’m aware of him before I’m aware of anything else. Before my surroundings. Before my staggered breath. Before the inevitable lurch in my brain as I fight for my bearings.
Not a dream.
That much I know, because my body knows it first. Knows I’m hot under the skin already, and so awake and alive it’s hard to believe I was ever asleep.
Sol’s not asleep either.
I shift just enough to be sure and get my answer in the drag of his lips down my exposed neck, slow and careful, as he says my name in a rough whisper.
“Jack?”
“I’m here.”
“You sure?”
I know what he’s asking. And what he needs to see before he believes me. I shift until we’re face-to-face. Frame his jaw with my hands and wait for him to search my gaze for foggy confusion, knowing he’ll find none even before some of the tension binding him tight melts away.
“I want this,” I whisper. “I wantyou.”
“Okay,” he breathes. “Okay.” Not permission so much as acceptance of something so obvious and yet undefined. Something he needs in this moment more than a conversation with no end.