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“You shut up!” I barked at the paparazzi, then flung my sight back to Gibson. “Explain why I should reconsider.”
“Because if you press charges those images will be entered into evidence,” Gibson explained with far more calm than I could muster—oh. Oh. Fuck no. “At least I think they would be. I’m no legal expert, but they’d need to use them in court. I’m not sure we want the world to see these. Or even the state police. Maybe we should just delete them?”
I wanted to rage. I even lifted the camera into the air to smash it, but then, when the reality of what might be exposed to the world set in, I lowered my arm.
“This is utter bullshit,” I whispered, flipping the camera over to delete every image. Then I removed the memory card. “What’s your name?”
“Lawrence Montclair. I’m freelance, so there’s no magazine or website to go after.” He spoke into the tiles, wincing every time the gulls squawked. I so wanted to punch him in the throat for violating our privacy this way. “Can you move the birds? I was attacked by my stepfather’s parrot as a kid and lost a chunk of my upper lip. Please, move them?”
That explained that miserable, patchy mustache.
“No, the birds stay.” The man was trembling like a dog on the Fourth of July. “Did you follow me here?”
“Yeah, it was pretty easy. Just had to look you up online, see where you were born, then rented a room and got an island pass. Look,” he turned his head to the side to look up at Gibson and me with one wide eye, “keep the fucking camera. Just let me…can I get away from the birds? Please. I’m fucking begging you!”
He did look a little green around the gills. I glanced at Gibson. He shrugged as if to say this was my call to make.
“Fine, go. Crawl around to the front of the cabin and then go. I know this island like the back of my hand and all the people on it. If you’re not gone by midnight, I will call the cops and I will press charges. Trust me when I say I have enough money to sue you so hard your fucking grandkids will be making payments to settle your debt. Do you understand?”
I was channeling Connor Days. The final performance. Actually, it wasn’t all an act. If I did see this man on Kesside Isle again, I would turn this over to the state police and pray that a new scandal would not scare off Caiden Dell.
“Thank you, thank you,” Lawrence whimpered, rising to his hands and knees and scurrying away as fast as he could scuttle. We followed at a distance, his camera still in my possession. When we got to the end of the drive, we saw him jumping into a late model green Mercury Marquis. The tires kicked up dust as he sped away.
“There is no justice as satisfying as watching a worm of a man slither on his belly.”
I looked to the left. “Is that some famous quote from a dead Greek philosopher?”
“No, that’s all mine.” He draped an arm around my shoulders and then steered me inside. “Shower and change. I’ll try to salvage dinner.”
“Give Oregano and Basil whatever they want. They are premier guard gulls.”
“That they are.” He kissed my hair and took the camera from me. I made my way to the bath feeling as dirty as I had ever felt in my life, and that includes when the images my ex shared had first appeared. Those racy images were partly my fault for allowing him to possess them. This was a whole new level of violation. I scrubbed for a long, long time and then pulled on some summer shorts and a tank top. The romance of the evening had been ruined. Fuck you, Larry.
When I was washed off and dressed, I let Gibson have the bath. While he speed showered, I looked for the camera but came up empty-handed.
I took some sardines in a can out to the wonder gulls. They were happy for the treat. When I was at the kitchen sink washing sardine goop off my fingers, Gibson appeared. He’d changed into a burgundy and yellow kaftan.
“The food’s almost ready,” I said while drying my hands on a kitchen towel. “I’m not sure I can eat much of it, though.”
“No, me either. We’ll store it for tomorrow.”
“I could use some ice cream, though.”
That made him smile feebly. Side-by-side, we tidied up the meal, stashing the food in the fridge for tomorrow’s supper, then hit the freezer. We found two tubs of ice cream, rocky road and mint chocolate chip, and fell into the sofa with spoons.
“What did you do with that scumball’s camera?” I asked as we settled in.
“I deleted all the images, took a hammer to the memory card, and then in a fit of anger that was not at all like me, I beat the living hell out of the camera. The bits are in the trash if you’d like to piss on them?”
“Maybe later,” I replied, tugging the lid off my tub, then shoving a spoon into the rich, green ice cream. “Right now, I just need to decompress.”
“I’m sorry that happened on such a happy day for you,” Gibson wearily said as he spooned rocky road into my mouth. I sighed around the ice cream, my eyes drifting shut for a moment.
“Mm, heaven.” I sighed after I swallowed. “It’s not your fault. You don’t need to apologize. That man is scum. What kind of decent person does such a vile thing? We should have let Oregano pluck his pornstache off his face.”
“She would have been happy to do so,” he replied as his shoulders sagged. “I’m mentally and physically exhausted. Also, I am mad at that asshole for ruining a beautiful moment after our lovemaking. There is nothing I enjoy more than cuddling with you after sex. And he stole that from us on a night that was incredibly special to me. A night where I had plans to feed you, pleasure you, and tell you how much I love you.”
I lowered my spoon back into my mint chocolate chip tub. “You were going to tell me you loved me?”
