‘I mean, it’s my grandmother’s for the moment, but I guess one day it’ll be mine.’ She repositioned herself so she was facing away from him, taking his arm with her and remodelling him into the big spoon. ‘But yeah, I wasn’t worried about being arrested for trespassing or anything,’ he murmured into the back of her head.
She sighed contentedly. ‘I’ll think of that day every time I cut into a grapefruit for the rest of my life,’ she whispered. He smiled into her hair.
Declan had been a mess that morning. Jack smelled him before he saw him, a nauseating mix of body odour and vomit.
‘There’s absolutely no way you can come on the excursion today,’ Jack had said sternly, as Declan groaned over the toilet bowl. They were a steward down, so Petra was already doing double the work and Stuart had to remain on board, which meant there was only one person he could ask to sub. Since their terse exchange on the deck they had successfully managed to only see each other at meal times, and he was going to have to propose a truce, at least for the day.
He had felt nervous going into the kitchen, his palms sweaty on the door handle, like some sort of teenage boy. In the end it had been much easier than he expected to convince her to come; perhaps she wanted to quash the bad blood as well, he thought.
He was a little ashamed to say that his first thought when Sofia stepped onto the tender was how good she looked in the stewardess uniform. The burgundy, which he had been certain up until that moment didn’t suit anybody, somehow looked tasteful against her tanned, brown limbs. He suspected she had borrowed the uniform from waif-like Tabitha, because it was a little too tight and a little too short, but in all the right places. Jack had had to give himself a bit of a talking-to. It was one thing to admire women out in the world, but they were supposed to be working. He had to fight his pervy compulsion to steal a glance at her whenever she was bent over or looking in the other direction.
It was not entirely her fault then that the picnic box was left behind; he too had been preoccupied. She had looked so panicked when she realised her mistake, and Jack recognised that feeling, from his first few charters. When he had everything to prove and everything to lose, and it felt like there might be a parade of people waiting for you back home, all eager to remind you that they had ‘told you so’, that running away to sea would only end in disaster. He had done what he would have done for any member of the crew, but he was aware that her gratitude felt particularly bracing.
The citrus grove was the first time he knew, for certain, that he was in trouble. He had brought her into his world, even if she didn’t know it. The grapefruits she ate were from the same trees he had picked as a boy. Her present rubbed up intimately with his past, and he had enjoyed it, to accompany this new person in this old world of his.
After the debacle with Brian and the sea urchin, when they sat in the moonlight, toes soaked in sand, when the darkness and the alcohol had emboldened them to speak frankly, Jack felt a deep sense of calm. The sea, the sky and Sofia, everything seemed exactly as it should be – maybe that was what peace felt like, he’d thought. Nevertheless, if he wanted to keep his life, perfect as it now felt, the only place for Sofia would have to be as his friend. In the past he might have belittled the idea of the ‘friend zone’ as an acceptable place to end up, but with Sofia, it didn’t feel like a consolation prize.
‘Shall I turn the light off?’ Jack breathed into Sofia’s ear now. She stirred, blinking lazily, and turned her head to look at him out the side of her eye.
‘I like it like this. It feels like the day isn’t quite over yet,’ she said, although she was closing her eyes again.
‘At some point we’re going to have to work out what to do about... everyone.’ Jack dared to say what they had both been avoiding. Sofia just shook her head calmly and then brought his hand up to her mouth and planted a soft kiss on his palm.
‘Not tonight,’she mouthed.
He stroked her cheek, mesmerised by her deepening breaths as she fell into sleep. Tomorrow they would have to work out a plan. He tallied up a list of people he was dreading having to tell.
He had felt envious of Declan’s puppy love for Sofia, not because he wanted Sofia for himself, but because it was so joyfully uncomplicated. The way Declan spoke about her, and his adoration of her reminded Jack that for some people it wasn’t so hard, to open themselves up like that. To Jack it seemed suicidal to wear your heart on your sleeve – you were just asking for someone to skewer it.
He had confided in Declan about Petra in a bid to warn him that no good would come of trying to start something with Sofia. He was also worried about his own feelings about Sofia, and sometimes when Declan would wax lyrical about her beauty or her food, Jack would find himself agreeing with him. In that way, telling Declan about his and Petra’s tryst was also a way of throwing him off the scent. It was pretty clear from the off that Declan was a hopeless gossip, as well as a man in love. It was best for everyone that he not suspect for a moment that Jack had any feelings other than friendly disinterest and mild irritation towards Sofia.
When Declan recounted his sorry tale of rejection though, Jack had to admit to himself that he was relieved. He hated to see Declan’s tender heart broken, but he had begun to understand the nature of his feelings enough to know that his own heart would have been bruised to see them together.
Jack reached over and turned off the light. Sofia was by now fast asleep. How strange it was to have her in his arms. Never mind his own mixed-up feelings, he had also had to convince himself that she felt nothing for him, and certainly not romantically. But up on the deck, when the others were on their day trip and it was just the two of them, he thought he had spied something like admiration in her eyes when she looked at him, or at least his bare chest. And then yesterday morning, in the dawn, when she had left him with his mother, he felt sure that she had wanted to stay and to hold him. When she was gone, he had missed her too.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jack
Jack woke up in the dark, momentarily disorientated by the weight of Sofia’s body at his side. He got out of bed slowly, so as not to disturb her, and closed the bathroom door behind him before he turned on the light. He stared at his reflection, dissociating as he scrutinised his own face. He thought that he looked different. He wondered how he could go about his day as if nothing had happened, how he could face Captain Mary without her seeing his transgression written plain across his face.
He splashed cold water over himself, and ran his hands through his hair, that tick of his that everyone seemed to find so infuriating. He remembered how his father had once slapped his hand away from his head, how it had only made him want to do it more often.
He took a deep breath. He would wake Sofia up and they would have to talk about what to do next, before the rest of the boat woke up. When he turned on the light, she was gone, the sheets crumpled into a pile. Maybe she had gone out to the deck, as had become their strange joint ritual, but out in the morning mist, there was no dreamy figure waiting for him by the railings.
The sun was beginning to come up and Jack was growing concerned that she was avoiding him, but also that they were running out of time to get their story straight. He searched the boat, starting in the kitchen. He could see the light was on and was so expecting to see her behind the door that he called, ‘There you are, Harlow,’ before it swung open to reveal the empty room.
The top deck, the large deck, the saloons, nothing. As he came back down the stairs to check the cabin again, he bumped into Captain Mary.
‘Morning, Jack, I see you’re up with the early birds as usual,’ she said, seeming a little distracted.
He felt a flash of panic. He hadn’t expected to have to face Captain Mary before he and Sofia had agreed on how to handle ‘the situation’. He was convinced that Mary would be able to smell the guilt he felt was radiating off of him.
‘Morning, Mary,’ he said a little stiffly.
‘Sofia’s up and about as well. I just bumped into her.’
Jack’s heart began to beat loudly in his chest. He tried to compose himself. ‘Oh really?’ He impressed himself with how nonchalant he sounded.
