Page 68

“About what?”

“About who left teeth marks in your neck, brother.”

Bliamba. I reach for the pouch in my pocket and calculate the insulin I need to offset the egg and salmon wrap I’m about to eat. Ignore the urge to find a mirror and study whatever mark River has seen on my skin. “I am okay, River. You don’t need to come here every time I’m low in the night. It’s getting better.”

“That’s not going to stop me coming.” River lifts his lean frame to perch on the kitchen counter. “You live alone and I love you.”

I know he does. I love him too—and he’s my friend. There’s no reason to keep a secret from him, especially one that’s burning me alive. “I was not alone last night.”

River pauses in the act of unloading bags of Squashies and Wine Gums from his pockets. Then he carries on as if it’s normal for me to be out all night and come home with bite marks on my neck. “Did you have fun?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“Why wouldn’t it be good?” River opens a cupboard and tosses things in for me to tidy later, our friendship everything it has ever been. “Why are you acting like you’re knocking off someone’s wife?”

“I am not acting like that.”

“You are.” He gives me his full attention. “You’re always like this when you do something that’s just for you. I remember it from the two times you’ve ever done it before.”

“What times were those?”

“When you bought new boots and got new ink. Everything else is for Aras.”

“The ink was for Aras. He wanted me to have another Perkūnas symbol on my skin after the storm.”

“Okay. One time then.” River grins, showing me teeth that have no right to be as straight and white with how much sugar he eats. “What are you in your head about?”

“I spent the night with Folk’s brother.”

River blinks. His lips twitch as though he might laugh. But when he opens his mouth, nothing comes out.

I finish my breakfast while he thinks about what he wants to say. Answer a message from Sol that’s not dissimilar to River’s motivation for being in my house in the first place.

Oscar: I’ll be there soon

Sol: Everything okay?

Oscar: Yes x

“Since when do you fuck men?”

I sigh and slip my phone into my pocket, watching the numbers on my wrist. “Really? That is what you want to know?”

“No…I mean, I don’t know.” River hops down from the counter and ventures closer to me. “I just—fuck. Farmer Poet, really? He’s a smokeshow.”

“I know.”

I say it like it is fact, not a second skin I have worn since River married Rubi under Norfolk skies on the Whitlock family farm.

“When did you meet him?”

“At your wedding.”

River’s big brown eyes go impossibly round. “You’ve been banging him for two years?”