Page 31 of Blue in the Deep Blue Sea

“Sir,” the man on the other end said, “we need to go through the candidates for the maid position.”

It was George. My right-hand man. Short, bald, thick around the middle, with a mustache and goatee that, frankly, belonged anywhere but on his head. He looked harmless until he smiled, and even then, only to people who didn’t know him. He loved three things with religious devotion: women, food, and arguing about both.

“George, with all due respect, now’s not the time,” I said through gritted teeth.

“If we want to sail tomorrow morning, it is,” he cut me off.

“Do you like any of the candidates? Just hire the ones you think are the best. I don’t need the details, please.” I rolled my eyes and let out a slow breath.

“Very well, Sir. As you wish.”

I hung up before I did something stupid and took my anger out on the poor bastard who’d walked straight into the middle of the crossfire.

I lay down, exhaled, rubbed my palms over my face twice, then forced myself back to my feet.

If I truly wasn’t coming back, I had years of my life to fit into two suitcases.

Dragging my feet across the wooden floor, I made my way to the wardrobe and pulled the door open. Most of my clothes were scattered across the different estates, and this closet hadn’t been opened in months. Even so, it was the one I hated opening the most. The top shelf had memories I’d spent years trying to bury.

The moment the door swung open, a paper box slipped from the shelf and struck me on the head.

The lid flew off. Letters, photographs, and little souvenirs spilled across the floor, skittering over the wood. Among them was a letter from Gabriella, dated 1996.

My jaw tightened as I crouched down and picked it up.

It was still sealed. I never read it.

I didn’t have to, because I already knew what she wanted to say.

When I found out her mother used to bring her here to keep my mother distracted while she climbed into my father’s bed, I blamed Gabriella for it. Gianni had never been around, so somehow that made it different. Or at least, that’s what I’d been telling myself ever since 1993.

I slipped the letter into the back pocket of my linen shorts, gathered everything else back into the box, closed the lid, and returned it to the top shelf.

With a quiet exhale, I pulled a few shirts from the wardrobe.

As I turned, my eyes moved to the garden beyond the window.

Before my mother died, every flower out there had been blue. Afterward, my father had them all ripped out. He planted roses instead, with the pavilion overlooking the sea.

The deep blue sea.

My mind dragged me to 1993.

Gabriella had just started her first year of middle school, while I had just begun my third. A year ago, she had been at a completely different school, but now she was at the same one as Gianni and me. I tried to ignore her for as long as I could, but she kept finding her way back to me.

We weren’t little kids anymore. Other kids from school started gossiping that she had a crush on me. And me, the selfish asshole I was, I laughed right in her face when I heard it.

Middle school was different from elementary school. Playing in the mud and running along the beach near our house had been replaced with conversations about girls and cars. There had been a time when I’d thought of Gabriella as a friend, but after my mom died, and after Gianni became my bestfriend, she was only my best friend’s little sister. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I knew she liked me.

I never liked her.

The thought of her beside me made my stomach twist.

When she turned nine, her mother started cutting her hair into a strange bob that barely brushed her shoulders. She always wore the denim bucket hat her father had left behind, and for some reason, she dressed in my old clothes. The same clothes my father sent to Gianni after I’d outgrown them. Somehow, they fit her now. Well, almost. It hung off her. Oversized shirts, baggy jeans, sleeves that swallowed her hands.

In winter, her face was always pale. In summer, it turned so red that freckles showed across the bridge of her nose.