Page 114 of Go Luck Yourself
That is definitely not the worst thing he could have said, yet it shoots that panic-horror mix down into my gut.
Coal drags Hex to the table, promising none too convincingly not to debase him.
Loch’s eyes are on the floor by my shoes. “It does na need to be elaborate. A few strips of orange and green, you’re good.”
“Are you sure you want us doing this? Doesn’t it feed into assumptions about your Holiday you want to undo?”
Loch looks at me. A quick impact, emotions rapidly flickering over him, surprise and gratitude, then it all dissolves in a small grin.
“This is na an assumption about my Holiday. It’s just become one of the biggest parts. It’s still an aspect I will na deny.”
“Yes, I can see how it’d be heartbreaking not to celebrate the impending headaches and projectile vomiting.”
“That’s only you, boyo. Some of us know how to drink good and proper.”
I smirk. I can’t help it. “Piss off.”
When I reach for the jar and brush in his hand, he waves me away.
My stomach tightens. “I can do it myself.”
“Nah. Youdon’tknow how to use your fingers.”
Heat bursts over my face. And I so badly want to sayyou have no idea what my fingers can do.
“Just hold still, ya eejit.” He pockets the brush, opens the jar, dips in a finger, and glides paint across my cheekbone before I can object. Not that I would have.
I stop moving. Stop breathing. Held there with his finger on my face, the hand with the jar propping under my chin and angling me up to him. I stare at his eyes even though he’s pretending to be focused on getting more paint, putting a second stripe under the first.
I wrote so many things about him in that notebook upstairs. I wrote and wrote and I could recite it to him now. Would it help? Would it change how he sees us? But my brother and Loch’s sisters are giggling over paint behind us, and my throat goes dry.
“Are you going to let me paint you?” I ask. It comes out rough and low. “It’s only fair.”
Loch hesitates, muscles stiffening up his arm, in his neck. “I, eh—I will na be coming with you tonight.”
My lips part, brows scrunching in confusion.
Siobhán hears him. Finn too. They stop what they’re doing and frown, and I’m staring up at him the same, three fronts of unspokenquestions he responds to by swapping the orange paint for green and working on my other cheek.
“What are you talking about, deartháir?” Siobhán asks.
Iris, Coal, and Hex are working with the paint, but they watch us none too subtly.
Loch exhales like he’s preparing to free-fall out of a plane, and the rush of air makes the paint drying on my skin contract, a jerky spasm of sensation that scrapes along my nerves.
“I have guests coming tonight.” He finally looks at Finn and Siobhán. “Aislin. Tadhg. Eamon.”
Those names mean something to them. They gape at each other, then back at Loch.
“You invited them here?” Siobhán asks.
“Who?” I look between them all.
“They’re each the head of a branch of our Holiday,” Finn tells me, her eyes on Loch, analytical.
Loch invited his court here?
Relief fizzes through my chest in a geyser burst. He’s going to show them what he’s been doing. He’s going to explain to them how wrong Malachy has been about him.
