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Well, until she spoke.
And now she was back in his line of vision, and he felt like a teenager, growing suddenly hard. So, as he had back then, he thought of the boats coming in and piles of fish being tipped out, waiting for him to gut them.
That worked.
‘I’m ordering some food,’ Mary said.
‘Go for it,’ Costa said, still refusing to look at her. But then came the prickle of conscience, for she was a guest in his home and had not eaten. ‘Seriously,’ he said, making the mistake of meeting her eyes, ‘whatever you want, just order it...’
His disgusting fish thoughts that had never yet failed him were letting him down now. Or rather,notletting him down, he thought wryly. Meeting Mary’s gaze had made him acutely aware of the feeling of her novice hand on him, and he lived the moment again.
Go to bed, he wanted to say.Just... Go. To. Bed.
But it would seem Mary had more random thoughts that she cared to share. ‘I thought I might get asouvlaki, and I want to try the chocolate cake...’
‘Get whatever the hell you want!’
He saw the press of her lips as she closed them, and the flash of her eyes as his words silenced her, and then she flounced off.
If she was upset, then it would serve her well—to remind her of the emotional desert she was dealing with.
Costa ran his tongue over his new crown and felt the itch of his stitches. That worked better tolet him downthan his stupid fish thoughts.
He wished he’d never laid eyes on Mary Jones.
Liar!
His conscience, which rarely put in an appearance, seemed to have taken the microphone and challenged him loudly, as if on Surround Sound.
Well, then, he wished he’d just said his piece to Ridgemont that night and walked the hell away.
No, you don’t.
Okay! Costa silently submitted a final amendment for his conscience to consider. He wished he’d sent Ridgemont off, as he had done, then said goodnight to Mary outside the restaurant and never looked up from his phone as she teetered unsteadily away.
That seemed to silence his conscience.
In fact, the pounding in his head was easing a bit, and the carousel of his thoughts was slowing down.
Thegrylowere loud tonight—or the crickets, as Mary would say. They chirruped outside the window, and though he tried to train his hearing towards the soothing swoosh of the ocean, really it was trained entirely on the guest suite.
He might as well have his ear to her door, for he was straining to hear her.
And it was her silence that killed him as he sat there.
It was herlackof tears that burrowed into his cold black heart.
She’d almost cried earlier tonight, though—he was sure of that.
Costa stood, walking over to the fridge to see what she’d been doing. He looked at the odd magnet that now clung to the gleaming appliance and thought of all the places it must have been and all the things it must have witnessed.
Adrift.
Maybe he needed that moment in a debriefing room, with pie charts and markers and such, because he still had questions for Mary.
He knocked and entered and there she stood, phone in one hand, late-night menu in the other, completely naked.
Costa loved it that she did not reach for a towel, just stared at him.
