Page 17 of The Girl Beneath the Sea

I don’t know what it is. I just know that I feel his loss and for some inexplicable reason, it feels ridiculously personal.

The coffee is cheap and bitter and I drink every drop because he made it. He smells of coffee too, but the good kind. Strong and rich. The kind that makes you want to pour yet another cup.

I still haven’t seen his face.

All I can see of his face is wool with two holes in it.

I want to know what he looks like so badly it is almost funny. I am desperate to know the line of his jaw and the shape of his mouth.

Whether he is handsome or plain or scarred. Whether he is old. I don’t think he is old. He doesn’t move like an old man.

I know some things.

He has to duck coming through the container door. He is broad enough to fill it. The canvas jacket sits square across his shoulders and pulls at the seam when he bends to set things down, and when he straightens, his arms strain against the sleeves. I saw his forearm this morning where the cuff of the jacket rode up. Dark hair, a vein, a knuckle scarred white. Big, big hands.

I have been dressed by other people my entire life and I have never thought about what was underneath anyone’s clothes. Now I can’t think about anything else.

I get up and get one of the water bottles from the line against the wall and drink half of it standing. I am too hot. The box was freezing an hour ago. Now I am sitting here shaking under two blankets.

Sweat pours down my spine under the torn shirt. I can feel my face burning.

I press the cold plastic of the bottle to my throat. It helps for as long as it takes to warm.

And I am hard again. I have been hard, or half hard, since the door opened this morning.

There is slick on my thighs. I can feel it drying tacky on my skin. It should be completely humiliating yet I don’t care.

I want him to come back. I want him to come back and put me on the floor and hold me down with those hands and I want to find out what is under the wool.

I am a crown prince. I have never so much as been kissed.

I drink the rest of the water and sit down and put my hot face in my hands and try to think about nothing.

The padlocks click, one then the other.

I am on my feet instantly.

It is not mealtime. He only just left. I don’t know why he is coming in.

The coffee and warmth of him rolls into the box and I have to lock my knees again.

He has a folding chair in one hand. He does not come in.

“Back up,” he says. His voice is deep and something in it resonates deep within my belly, making it feel like his voice alone is enough to make my body purr. “Far wall. Sit down.”

I back up. I watch him while I do it, then I sit down on the plywood with my back against the cold steel, knees drawn up, hands folded on them where he can see them. I don’t know what this is.

He snaps the chair open and sets it just inside the door and sits on it, elbows on his knees, and the chair complains under him. He is far too big for it. From down here on the floor he looks even bigger.

He points one finger at me. Then he turns it and points at himself, wagging it between us.

“So,” he says. “You and I have a problem.”

Something inside me goes cold.

Something has gone wrong. I don’t know if it was me, pushing it and asking for coffee and the cuffs to be removed. I don’t think so.

Maybe it is something else. Something that has happened outside of here. Maybe they asked for a ransom and the drop has gone wrong. Or maybe they have refused to pay it, although that seems unlikely.