“Really?” I am hugely relieved. “I thought I was in for another long one, like last time.” I follow him into the kitchen. “Fuck you for that, by the way.”
“It was a bit dramatic, wasn’t it? With the gun and all?” Costa smirks.
He turns and places his hands on my waist.
I let him set me onto my usual spot on the counter—but not without question. “Have you been watching us?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Costa, have you been watching Sam and me? You know this is where I sit, don’t you? With Sam. And you knew my name when you showed up at my place.”
He fills his arms with food from a cabinet. “Maybe.”
“Why?”
He sets a can of tomato sauce down. “I don’t know. Look, I didn’t know what I was walking back into with Sam. We didn’t exactly part ways under the best of circumstances. I was wrecked. He was wrecked. So, I wanted to feel things out.”
“And you decided that the best entrance was to shoot him in front of me?”
Costa shrugs.
“Look at me.”
I wait until he stops fussing with a can opener. There is such sorrow in his face, and I’m now hyperaware that the last time he saw Sam—before he shot him in the living room—was right after his young son died.
“Were you…punishing Sam? For Toby?”
“No,” he immediately says. “No. Besides Toby, Sam is the only person I’ve ever given a fuck about. And I hate that he has to live with how Toby died. It must be all sorts of hell. This is a small town, and people will always talk. I know how they’ve treated him. When I came back and I saw him with you…how happy he was, howreallyhappy he was…”
“And you wanted to punish him.”
He slams the can hard onto the counter, and red sauce flies everywhere, half of it landing on my dress. “Shit!” He wets a dish towel and starts wiping my arms.
I’m fascinated while he cleans off my hands and then rinses the cloth. I look down and see red liquid seeping through the fabric on my legs. I feel it on my skin. He stands in front of me again, and I am shaking and engulfed in nausea and fear.
“Costa…”
“Sorry,” he says.
“Costa…Costa…”
He finally looks up at me. “Jesus, I’m sorry, Stella. It’s not blood, okay? It’s not blood.”
“Get it off me. Get it off me…” Speaking feels nearly impossible. “Costa, please.”
With one hand, he pulls me off the counter, and with the other, he lifts the dress over my head and then tosses it aside. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He brushes the towel over my legs. “Don’t look down. Just look at me, okay? Look at me.”
So, I do.
He soaks the towel again and returns, setting one hand just under my chin so that I can’t see the blood.
The sauce.The blood...
“You were right,” he starts. “What you said earlier. I was probably punishing Sam. I guess I didn’t think of it like that, but maybe I was.” Costa moves the cloth over my thigh, but he’s respectful, not roving once. “I’ve probably always been jealous of Sam. He’s everything I’m not. He has everything I don’t. And now, he even has you. It’s stupidly easy to see that he is in love with you—all the way. I haven’t had anything close to what you two have.”
When he throws the towel into the sink, I start to ease out of my fog. It dawns on me that I’m nearly naked, but before I can say anything, Costa is unzipping his hoodie and slipping it over my shoulders. He tucks my arms into the sleeves and zips it. All the while, he does this without a lurid look, which I appreciate. He seems like someone who could be an asshole about this, but instead, he’s very sweet.
“I know Sam loved Toby as much as I did, but this is an impossible situation. I can’t forget what happened, but I can’t hate him. Sam is the best thing to happen to me, next to my kid. But maybe I did need to lash out.” He grins. “Passive-aggressive, I’ll admit.”
“You two boys always seem to be unraveling me with dramatic bloody displays and then dressing me,” I mumble. “It’s quite gallant. And sickening.”
He smiles. “Sorry that the hoodie is red.”
“Sorry everything looks like blood to me right now.”
“You’ll toughen up,” he says.
“I hope so.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
