SKYLAR

SKYLAR

Eventually, Skylar will be found in the Men Of Porth Luck series. Which is why Skylar's POVs are always written in present tense.

"I thought you weren't working today?"

Sol's voice pulls me from the endorphin high I've been chasing since I hit the home gym in the cellar beneath the pub. Three hours ago. The nagging voice is quiet today.

Too quiet.

I spare Sol a glance, still working my body through a series of press-ups. "I'm not."

"Jack said you were going back to the hospital."

"I am."

"Oh." Sol frowns. "I thought he got confused."

I don't answer that because it's not an unreasonable assumption. Jack does get confused sometimes, just not as much as he thinks he does.

The circuit comes to an end. There's a compulsion to repeat it, a craving for just a little more peace, but with Sol up my arse that's a pipe dream regardless of how hard I punish my body for something my brain can't seem to help.

I rock back onto my heels and reach for my water bottle. Beside it is the pre-mixed protein shake I'm gonna drink for breakfast.

Sol doesn't approve. He has opinions on what I put in my body, but so do I, and recently, I've been letting myself win and he's been too caught up in his own shit to pay much attention to mine. "Was Jack okay last night?"

Still frowning, Sol drags his stink eye from the protein shake, answering my query with a vague shrug. "He was quiet, and Sev pissed me off, so I was lashed before I noticed, and you know how that plays out."

I do. Sol's an emotional drunk, ecstatically happy or tragically sad, not much in between. It's honest and pure, and I admire that about him so much, but sometimes it makes dealing with his best friend's long term brain injury messier than it needs to be.

That's why you're here. To help him.

No. That's why I came back here. There's no logical reason whatsoever for me to stillbe in Porth Luck, and yet here I am, part owner of a pub that makes no money while I work overtime shifts in a crazy busy A&E department.

"I'm sure he's fine," I say to ease whatever Sol's feeling guilty about. "He's better at telling us than he used to be."

Sol grunts and returns his glare to the breakfast I won't touch while he's in the room. "Why are you going back to work?"

"To check on someone."

"Who?"

"A patient." I haven't told him about the Rebel Kings' latest drama. His relationship with them is almost as complex as mine, but he has zero connection to Embry. To my knowledge, they've barely ever met.

Sol props a shoulder on the cellar door, not giving an inch, even though he knows I can out-stubborn him to hell and back if I'm in the right mood.

The wrong mood.

I tip water down my throat, disliking the sensation of it sloshing in my empty stomach, but unmoved by Sol's hard stare.

Eventually, he sighs, joining the dots despite my reticence. "Fine. Run around after them. See if I fucking care."

Sol stomps away. I finish my water and eye the protein shake. I don't want it. I never wanted it, but I pick it up all the same and take it with me as I jog up the stairs and pass through the closed bar on my way to my car.

Outside, Oscar is bringing Sol's boat into the harbour. It's early enough that mist still hangs over the water, meaning he's been out all night, or at least since an hour too ungodly for me to contemplate when I'm not working the graveyard shift.

I jog to the sea wall.

Oscar chucks me a rope.

I toss him the protein shake and relief eases the fatigue lining his face.

"Thank you, my friend."

"You looked hungry." I tie the rope to something I haven't bothered to learn the name of. My knots are on point, but I couldn't give less of a shit about fishing terminology. "Good night?"

"Long," Oscar grumbles as he comes ashore, his Lithuanian accent thicker than usual. "And rough."

"That's what those salty dog sea legs are for, eh?"

At that, he grins, and that's Oscar's baseline personality. Easy .It's why when he asks me where I'm going, I tell him, and he nods as if it all makes sense.

"River has been worried about Embry. I think they are friends now."

I can believe that. River O'Brian is a tough crowd, but Cam's chaplain is good with spiky people. He must be if he chooses to spend so much time with Mateo Romano.

"You are okay, Skylar?"

I refocus on Oscar. He's checking his blood sugar on his phone and firing up an insulin pen. "Still resisting the pump?"

Oscar scowls. "I had a pump. It was annoying."

"It's the future."

"I do not care. I have done it this way since I was six years old."

"You used to stab your thumb eighty times a day too, but you got used to the monitor."

"Yes, yes." Oscar waves me off. "If you see anyone I like, tell them I said hello."

I'm absolutely not going to do that. Oscar's a nice bloke. He seems to like everyone, and I'm not in the mood for talking to that many people. I'm not in the mood to talk to anyone, and I'd rather spend my day off sleeping on the couch, wild swimming in the river, or helping Jack pick out bands to play in the front bar next month. But I still find myself climbing back in my car and making the thirty minute drive back to a place I only left six hours ago.

It's early enough that I snag a parking spot as I count the motorbikes lined up beneath the windows of the HDU ward.

Four.

Not bad.

At one point, there were twelve and three police cars watching them, on top of the staff who can't stop ogling Cam.

Thankfully, his bike is gone.

Finally . It's been a few days since Embry Carter-Romanowas brought in on the HEMS chopper. I don't think he's left the hospital grounds and it annoys me how much that bothers me.

We're family, Skylar.

No.

We're not.

My family is dead. The one I was born to, anyway. I guess I have Cam to thank that I learned to make my own.

I go inside and swipe my way into the belly of the hospital with my staff ID.

The HDU ward is upstairs. Embry's been there since the ICU team transferred him late last night, and it's run by a sister that takes no shit, not even from overbearing bikers who are terminally unable to leave their brother unprotected.

Still, I'm expecting the relatives' room to be overflowing. The Rebel Kings…there's something about them that bends every rule. As it happens, though, I find only Nash, and I relax a little. Unless he's begging me for illegal medical care, this brother doesn't blink if I speak two words to him or a hundred and it makes him easier to be around than some of the others.

He offers me a bite of the sandwich he's eating.

I ignore it. "Have you been here all night?"

Nash shrugs. "Orls was worried, but I figured she was the only one who could make Cam get some shut eye, so here I am."

Know that feeling. "Where's Mateo?"

"Saint took him for a walk."

My scepticism must show on my face.

Nash grins. "Not that kind of walk. Fresh air, brother."

"I'm not your brother."

"Why are you here then?"

"I work here."

"In this bit?"

"Shut up."

Nash isn't Rubi Matherson. He lets it go without arguing the specifics and goes back to his sandwich.

I leave him to it and check in with the nurse looking after Embry, and it's the knockout bombshell that goes by the name Bhodi Jones.

My ex.

Kind of.

I banged him for three months straight before ghosting him, and we've barely spoken since.

Lucky for me, he's a nicer person than I am, and he doesn't mention it.

"Stable overnight." He taps a finger to the chart. "I don't think we'll have him for long. He a friend of yours?"

"Yup."

Bhodi waits for me to elaborate.

I don't. I study the chart for any evidence that his assessment is wrong, then I continue on my way.

I'm close to the bed bays when he calls my name.

Grinding my jaw,I turn around. "Yeah?"

Bhodi leans against the nurses' desk. "Just wanted to let you know that I put my notice in."

"New job?"

"New life. I'm moving away."

I don't care. I wish I did. Bhodi's a good guy. Clever. Hot. Sweet. And yet somehow kinky as fuck. But he's perceptive too, it's what makes him an exceptional critical care nurse, and I wasn't ready for that when I met him.

I'm not ready for it now.

I find a smile. "Good luck with that. Mind the sharks, eh?"

Bhodi stares at me a moment, then rolls his eyes. "All right, Skylar. Be safe, yeah?"

I nod and walk away without contemplating where he's going or why.

Embry's bed is in the last bay. There's another nurse with him, checking his IVs, and I half expect Mateo to be standing over her like he did to me downstairs in A&E, scrutinising her every move. Then I remember he's out with Saint, and I wonder if the nurse has any idea how easy she has it right now.

She finishes up and vacates the bay. She doesn't notice me take her place, but Embry does.

For the first time since I wheeled him from A&E to the operating theatre, I find him awake. Awake and alert, despite the drugs coursing through his veins, and the lingering effects of a five-hour surgery hanging over him.

"You're so quiet." His voice is rough from the intubations he's endured. "I never noticed until I saw you work."

"I'm not quiet at home."

"Rowdy?"

"I live in a pub. Everything's rowdy there."

Embry hums, licking his dry lips.

"You want some water?"

"Nah. If I drink too much while Mateo's gone, he'll have no way of annoying me."

"Did he get any sleep yet?"

Worry flares in Embry's weary gaze. "I don't think so."

"You think he needs some help with that?"

"Like what? A sedative?"

I shrug. "Maybe. I thought Cam might need one when Saint got hurt, but he slept in the end."

"Mateo won't. Not until I'm home."

"That might be a while."

"The other nurse said I could go to another ward tomorrow."

"Bhodi?"

"The one with the hair?"

"Yeah, that's him."

Embry's eyes spark with curiosity. Like he knows, and maybe he does. I know the Kings keep tabs on me. They can't help themselves, even if my life—when they're not fucking it up—is dull as shit.

"Bhodi might be right," I say eventually. "If you can get out of here and onto a ward, keep some food down, and walk around a bit, they'll probably let you go."

"But?"

"I didn't say but."

Embry plants his hands either side of him and pushes himself away from the bed.

It hurts, I can tell, but there's a doggedness there too. The iron will that saved him last time, when he'd rocked up in a different hospital with a stab wound so severe he died twice beneath my hands before we got him back.

I don't love Embry. We're not even friends. But I can't think about that night without a heaviness creeping over me. So I don't. I give Embry a lecture on taking care of himself instead.

Then I leave, dodging Bhodi on my way out. And Rubi as he bustles into the department without giving a single shit that it isn't open to visitors for hours yet.

I escape the hospital. Climb into my car, my empty stomach finally protesting my neglect.

There's a pack of protein bars in the glove box.

White chocolate flavour.

They taste like vanilla cardboard, but I stuff two down with some vitamin pills before I hit the road. I'm on an overnight tomorrow. I should go home and eat some real food. Rest and recharge from the nightmare week I've just worked.

I don't go home. Instead, I drive, missing the bike I set fire to ten years ago, missing the life that turned me into this, all the while knowing that if I just went home, the family I chosewould make everything better.

Because they care.

Because they love me.

Because they haven't spent my entire life pretending they're not godawful fucking monsters.

As if they've heard my noisy brain, my phone lights up with a text. Jack, texting from Sol's phone.

Sol: it's jack. r u okay?

I take a deep breath and text him back.

Skylar: omw home

It's not a lie if you don't lie.