He’s finally taking charge of his Holiday.
Loch’s face is an odd, sickly mix of pale and red.
Siobhán tosses a paint bottle back on the table. “When are they arriving? We’ll go change to—”
But Loch holds up his hand. “No. Go out to Belfast. Keep the schedule. This is—it’s na a—” He falters, mouth opening and shutting, before he swings his attention to Coal and Hex—and me, briefly.
He stands straighter. “I’ll be talking to them, then they’re off, probably to Belfast too. It will na be a long meeting. So go, have a presence there. I’ll handle this.”
Finn and Siobhán stare at Loch in concern, excitement—and anger, from Finn.
“You were na gonna tell us?” Finn hisses.
“I just did.”
“At the last fucking minute.”
Loch turns back to me, adds another green stripe to my cheek like nothing’s wrong. “It’s na a big deal. You’ve been wanting me to do stuff like this, haven’t you? So let me.”
Finn glowers at the side of his face before she rejoins Iris at the table, obviously ignoring her brother now. Siobhán follows, glancing back at Loch once or twice like she wants to argue, but she holds her tongue.
“You invited your court here,” I whisper.
Loch’s fingers twitch on my face. He purses his lips. “Do na talk. You’ll wreck the paint.”
“You invited them here,” I say again. I have to, Ihaveto make him feel this.
I smile.
Loch flinches, eyes cutting across the millimeter of space between his fingers and my lips.
“Do na look so smug,” he mutters, but there’s no annoyance in it, just a choked yearning I think he meant to cover up.
It damn near kills me to ignore it. “Are you kidding? The mighty Lochlann Patricklistened to me.My face might be stuck looking smug forever.”
“It was nayou.” He shifts uneasily. “Finn’s been getting on my arse about all these same things for years.”
My smile goes sly. “But why’d you do it now? What made you finally reach out to your court?”
Loch doesn’t speak. He screws the lid back on the paint jar and studies the marks his fingers left on my face.
His eyes go to the small bandage on my forehead. The reminder of my fall.
With a grimace, he ignores my question. “Be careful tonight, yeah? No more injuries.”
“Worried about me?” My smile’s failing so my words come out coarser than I mean.
Loch flexes his hands on the jar, veins bulging in his wrists, up the backs of his arms where his sleeves are rolled to his elbows.
He looks in pain.
Siobhán bounds over. “You ready? Look at you, Kris!” She touches the drying paint on my face.
She has a messy shamrock on one cheek. Iris has stripes that vaguely resemble the Irish flag. Coal and Hex have matching bands of orange and green that run from ear to ear across their noses, and Finn has a single thick band of orange down one side of her face.
I honestly don’t even know what Loch painted on me. I don’t care.
“We’re driving?” Siobhán asks—with a pointed look at Coal. “It is a trek—”
