Page 36 of Love Thy Brother
I called after him, “Keep it.”
Nothing.
He kept walking.
“Wanker.” I rolled off the drystone wall and jogged after him, catching him up at the end of the road. “Give me the phone.”
“No.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I am.”
“How’s that my problem?”
Rubi slowed, gaze fixed on something ahead, reaching for me that way a parent would on a busy road.
I evaded.
He didn’t seem to notice.
Or maybe he did and I wasn’t reading him right. Either way, he kept moving and I followed, trailing him to the chippie that had been in Porth Luck as long as the Joker, selling local catches by day and fish suppers by night.
Rubi slipped inside and waited for me at the counter. “What do you want?”
“My phone.”
He shrugged and pulled the same trick he had in the pub, ordering for me.
Chips with salt, no vinegar.
Bottled water.
He pointed at a plastic table and chairs. “Sit.”
“No.”
“Fine. No phone.”
He gathered the food and left the shop, crossing the road to the sea wall where he took a seat, waiting.
Idiot that I was, he didn’t have to wait long.
I leaned against the wall and claimed the box of chips he pushed towards me. I didn’t want them. I didn’t want anything except my phone and my life to go back to how it had been thirty-six hours ago.
Liar.Thirty-six hours was nothing. Give me a year. Two.Ten. Anything to not end up here.
“Eat, Riv. Your belly thinks your throat’s been cut.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but my stomach betrayed me, growling like an angry bear, so I ate, slowly, hearing my brother in my ear the whole time.
My mam.“Boyo, you always forget the easy things.”
Heh.
Rubi smirked as if he could read my mind. Ate his own chips. Drank his water, his wise eyes dancing between me and the inky waves below us. It was a calm night, but the sea was still loud. And I liked it that way. How it reminded me there was always something out there bigger than us.
There is nous.
