“It’s more complicated than that.” Instead of the grin she’d hoped to coax, he scowled so hard she was afraid his face might break.
“So you admit you love her!” She pointed a victorious finger at him.
His scowl deepened. She looked for a crack in his face.Nope. Not yet.
“Look,” she said, “I know you have some sort of damage when it comes to your father.”
He blinked and looked like he was ready to murder someone. The whole thing with him and his dad was a minefield. A tinderbox. An emotional Syria. But somebody needed to jump into the bloody fray and talk some sense into him. Never one to run from conflict, Alex figured that someone might as well be her. Besides, she’d grown to love Bran like a brother, and she hated that he was hurting.
“Don’t worry,” she was quick to tell him. “No one has been telling tales out of school. I don’t know the specifics. And I don’thaveto know. Because I knowyou.”
His jaw was sawing back and forth, but he didn’t say anything.
Hanging out with Mason too much, obviously.
She sighed and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “You are a good and decent man, Brando Pallidino. Everything else, all that stuff in your past, it’s just dirt in your eye. Blink it away.”
“You’re awfully young to have all the answers,” he said, tapping his fingers impatiently on the desk.
“What can I say?” She spread her arms wide. Meat followed the movement of the Pop-Tart in her hand like a hawk follows a mouse in the grass. “I am the oracle. All knowledge starts and ends with me.”
He harrumphed.
“And now you’re starting to sound like Mason,” she accused.
She knew her mistake the instant his dark eyes glinted. When he said, “On the subject of Mason,” she groaned. “You still got the hots for him?”
The hots? Sure. If by hots he meant she couldn’t stop thinking about Mason every hour of every day. Unfortunately, Mason had taken to treating her like the bubonic plague, running in the opposite direction every time she got near him. Which only encouraged her impish side, making her seize every opportunity to seek him out.
“Look,” she said. “The man’s got that whole I-paint-pictures-and-own-a-cute-flatulent-dog thing going for him. It’s like girl porn.”
Bran snorted.
“And on that note,” she told him, “I’m out.” She’d said what she wanted to say, planted the seeds. It was up to Bran to let them grow.
Pushing to a stand, she tossed the last bite of Pop-Tart to Meat. The dog caught it expertly and swallowed it without chewing. A familiarsqueak-squeaksounded from the rusty hinges on the screen door when she opened it. But before stepping over the threshold, she turned back and imparted one final thought. “You know, in the end it’s the love we withhold that we regret the most.”
When he simply blinked at her, she stepped out onto the porch and let the screen door slam shut behind her.
Now, where is Mason?
It’d been a couple of hours since the last time she’d tortured him…
* * *
“She’s right, you know.”
Bran turned to find LT leaning against the doorway leading to the kitchen, bare-chested, beer in hand, freshly showered after a day spent doing search dives in an effort to locate more artifacts from theSanta Cristina. “Who?”
“Alex,” LT said. “She’s right about all of it. About your past bein’ nothin’ but grit in your eye. About the thing we regret bein’ the love we withhold.”
Bran felt a muscle in his cheek twitch. “Does no one on this island believe in privacy?” He pushed back in his chair and glowered at LT. “How long were you standing there listening to our conversation?”
“Long enough to hear younotdeny lovin’ Maddy.”
What is that I’m feeling?Impatience? Exasperation? Anger? He couldn’t tell for sure. The only one he could pinpoint with any certainty was heartbreak. The last two weeks had felt like two years.
Maddy had kept up her end of the bargain, going on like nothing had happened between them. Like nothing hadchangedbetween them. Her emails were just as funny and poignant and openhearted as ever. As alternately light and serious as they’d always been. Funny clips one day and mournful ruminations about her uncle the next. You know, just like always, she was being his…friend.
