“Good morning,” she says, her accent deeper than anything I’ve heard during my time here so far. “Do you take tea or coffee?”
“Tea would be great,” I say. “Thank you.”
She steps away, lifting a ceramic pot off a side table and bringing it to me, but I rise and take it from her.
“I can manage,” I say, and she nods.
“Everything’s laid out there,” she says, waving to the side table. “A small spread this morning, but there’s toast and scones and sausage.”
“Thank you,” I say.
The door from the kitchen swings open, and an older man joins us, placing a bowl of some kind of porridge on the table.
“Iain,” the woman says, her voice gentle but chastising. “You don’t need to be doing this today.”
“Dinna fash. It’s the last of it,” he says.
“Last of it or not, I told you I’d be taking care of breakfast this morning.”
He huffs out a breath and goes back through the door to the kitchen. The woman follows him.
I pick up my plate, fill it with items from the side table, and begin eating, the room completely silent, until I hear someone clearing their throat behind me.
“Good morning,” a man’s voice says.
I swallow my bite of scone, knowing who it is before I even see him.
Jacob takes a seat in the chair across from me, and it takes me a while to realize why he looks different this morning. Pillow lines streak across his cheek, and faint hints of stubble run along his jaw. He must not have shaved this morning, and I think he might have just rolled out of bed. He looks so sleep-rumpled.
“Morning,” I say. “Food’s over there.” I incline my head toward the side of the room, but Jacob doesn’t move in that direction.
“I already ate,” he says. “I was down here earlier.”
“Okay,” I reply, unsure why he came back down, then. “We aren’t leaving until eleven, right?” That’s when the first bus we need to take is scheduled to leave. That is, if I decide to go with them.
“No,” he says. “Actually, I don’t think we’re leaving at all today.” He rubs a hand across the back of his neck. “That’s what I came down to tell you. When Maggie learned we were having car trouble, she asked if we could wait for it to be fixed before coming there.” He pauses. “She said she could use the extra time, a couple days to herself to figure things out.”
My brows rise. “Did she tell you this?”
“No, apparently this is what she told Ajit yesterday over the phone.” He stops, shifting in his seat. “Your father only told me about it this morning, when I checked in on him.”
The back of my neck prickles.
I wonder how my dad is doing. He looked so down after that call yesterday, but at least he’s sharing how he feels with someone now. Not with me, of course, but he’s talking to Jacob.
“I’m going to head to the garage in a bit to get a better estimate on when the repairs might be done, but I wanted to talk to you first.” Jacob’s fingers play with the edge of the tablecloth, his thumb smoothly gliding across it. “I’ve actually come down a couple times, but I didn’t see you here until now.” His fingers still, and I find him watching me, his gaze steady behind the thin frames of his glasses.
“I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”
Surprise hums through me, but he’s not done speaking.
“You were right last night. I made all these assumptions about everything, about your father and you, and I’m sorry about that. About the things I said, and how I’ve been acting since…I hadn’t understood—I still don’t understand everything, really.” He pauses. “I’ve been in and out of therapy for years, though I’ve been out of it for a while now, and I’ve been told I can be a little overprotective. That losing my parents has made me overprotective of the people I love.” He huffs out a breath. “My therapist wasn’t the only one who said it. My sisters did too. They thought I was too overbearing as an older brother. It’s maybe why they left, why they live so far away now, but I can acknowledge that I have a tendency to act that way. With them, and with Maggie. And your father too. But it…it came out wrong here. I made all these judgments about you, and you were right. I don’t know your story, or your relationship with your dad, and I’m…I’m just sorry. About all of it.”
“I…” I lick my dry lips, and I don’t miss the way he notices the gesture, the way his eyes follow the movement. Words escape me for a long moment, but then I finally speak.
“Thank you,” I say. “I appreciate that.”
I inwardly wince at how cold my response sounds, but I’m taken aback. I didn’t expect an apology from Jacob this morning. I didn’t know what to expect from him at all.
