“Because she forced me.”
“She dunked your face in it?”
“No. But she stared at me.”
“Stared at you?” he asked as he cocked an eyebrow. “And that was enough?”
“Come on, you know the look she gives. It’s scarier than Dad’s sometimes.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he said. “Neither of them ever gets mad at me, so…”
I elbowed him in the side.
He playfully gasped for air as he cringed. “Aaannndddthere she is.”
I rolled my eyes, feeling the first moment of joy in over a week.
He looked at the sunset again, the cool evening breeze moving through our hair. He didn’t ask me about Callum or how I was doing. It seemed like his intention was just to distract me. “Want to head to the pub and play a round?”
“Not really in the mood to gamble.”
“You’ll probably still kick everyone’s ass.”
“Or I’ll lose every hand because I can’t focus.”
“You could talk to a couple girls for me.”
“Do you need me to talk to girls for you?” I asked suspiciously. “Because you never needed help before.”
“Look, I’m just trying to spend time with you and snap you out of this sadness. Is there something you’d like to do?”
“I don’t know. It’s been a while since I’ve been out on the sea.”
“You want to go sailing?” he asked.
I shrugged. “We could catch lunch and fry it ourselves.”
He looked out over the horizon again. “If that’s what you want to do, I’m in.”
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
We stared at the Great Sea before us, slowly watching the light leave our land inch by inch, the ocean growing darker. The air started to get cooler, the torches flickering in the wind.
My brother spoke again without looking at me. “You’re going to be okay, Lily.”
My brother and I caught a couple sea bass before we took them to my villa and cleaned them on the kitchen counter. Then we fried the fish with lemon juice and herbs and vegetables and ate it over a bed of rice.
It was the first time I’d actually had an appetite, because sailing was a lot of work.
“Pretty good,” he said between bites.
“Yeah, the lemon really brightens it up.”
“I’ve never cared for fish, but this is pretty damn good.”
“Thanks.”
