Page 14

“He acknowledges you, he’s just quiet about it.”

Folk sighs again and glances up to meet Jack’s gaze. They share something I don’t quite catch, but I don’t think I’m meant to.

Regardless, it’s fleeting. Barely there. A moment later, Jack follows Mal and Skylar inside, and goes back to work. The Joker is open for a busy summer night in Porth Luck, and now the spectacle of a sea rescue is over, people want their beer.

Sol and I have a catch to unload, but I haven’t seen Rubi in a while, and so I linger a moment as Sol returns to the Sirona, letting him bear hug me and make a show of checking me over.

“We followed the chopper here. Shat myself all the way that I’d have to tell Riv we’d lost you to the drink again.”

Drink.

He means the water, maybe? Rubi speaks in tongues half the time and I have no idea what he’s talking about. On a good day, it keeps things interesting. Today—tonight—I’m tired, and I shake my head. “She’s calm out there. You and River don’t need to worry about me.”

Rubi snorts. “Right. I’ll get on that, brother. Just let me set my heart on fire first, you daft fucking dragon.”

I laugh. I have to. Rubi is ridiculous and I’m lucky to have him in my life. To have him call me brother when he has so many to choose from.

Folk has other brothers too.

Biker and blood.

I chance a glance at him, one he’d usually clock, but he’s distracted by his phone. And Rubi, who’s all up in his business again.

“Is your ma fretting about sproglet’s big move?”

“Call him sproglet to his face,” Folk retorts with a grin that looks good on him, but better on someone else. Someone a little taller and broader. A little younger, though Folk Whitlock hardly looks old. “But…yeah. She’s worried he’s going to get cold, of all things.”

“Maybe you should knit him a blanket,” Rubi says, and it’s hard to tell if he’s joking. But Folk is saved or sunk by his phone again and he steps away to take the call.

My gaze follows him and it shouldn’t. Folk is a handsome man, but I am surrounded by such things most days of my life—I spend my days with Sol. And yet I’m drawn to Folk anyway, studying hair that’s a shade too dark, eyes that don’t glimmer in the moonlight because there is no moon in the sky right now.

That is not why Folk’s eyes don’t catch the moonlight like the Baltic ocean at dusk.

Or why they never have.

“Oi.” Rubi nudges me. “Sure you’re okay? It’s not nice watching people nearly die, even when they’re strangers.”

“I didn’t really see anything.” I’m still stuck on Folk and I need to fix it before he notices. With more effort than I want to contemplate, I drag my focus back to Rubi. “It was mostly over by the time we docked. Skylar saved her.”

“He’s good at that.” Rubi gives me a sage look. Then cocks his head, and though he’s not the most perceptive friend I have, it’s a high bar, and he still sees more than I want him to. “What are you doing for dinner? Want to come over? We’ve got pie.”

“You always have pie.”

“I put green stuff in it.”

I know he does, and I love Rubi’s cooking as much as I do Sol’s. But as tempting as it is to drive all the way to Devon for a plate of it, I’m not done working for the day, and I really am tired. “Not tonight, my friend. But thank you.”

Rubi gives me another hug, checking on Folk over my shoulder. He seems torn between taking a deeper look at what he’s seeing in my face and whatever Folk is dealing with, and I’m not above steering his attention away from me.

“Everything is okay with Folk’s family?”

“No drama with the Whitlocks.” Rubi pulls back, already talking, already shifting where I need him. “Just the baby sibling flying the nest. Got a farm of his own lined up and the rest of them are scrambling to adjust.”

“What’s he like?” I do some scrambling of my own to remember how many Whitlock siblings exist. If there are more brothers than the one who fills my head with gold hair, deep blue eyes, and the softest, sweetest lips.

Rubi screws his face up in thought. “Like the monster child of Saint, Riv, and Mal Gallagher combined. Obsessed with apples, little shit to his brother, and won’t come indoors.”

I don’t mind the sound of any of that. I like the men Rubi’s poking fun at by comparison very much. And I like apples too. Enough that I remember the last time I smelled them and drift so much I come back to find Rubi waiting on me. “Um. That is good, yes? That he has his own farm?”