‘I’ll go see her soon.’
With the signatures in place, they sipped their drinks in silence for long enough that Gabri’s thoughts strayed into dangerous territory.
‘Is everything okay? With the pregnancy?’ He didn’t risk looking at her, but he could feel the trauma they’d shared, a connection between them that would never break.
‘Not too bad,’ she answered carefully. ‘Baby is fine, it’s just becoming a strain on me, but it’s all looking okay.’
‘That’s good,’ he said with an emphatic sigh.
‘How are you doing?’ Her wary glance made him wonder how much she’d worried about him over the years. ‘How was your goodbye with Toni?’
Leaning his elbows heavily on the table, he answered, ‘Awful.’
That silenced her for a long moment, but perhaps that had been his intention. ‘Awful because you did a bad job with the flowers or awful because of what’s going on between the two of you?’
He answered that with only a dark look.
‘Was it my fault for interrupting?’
‘No!’ he rushed to insist. ‘Nothing to do with you. It’s just the usual mess.’
It was her turn to prompt him with only a look.
‘She has a son.’ That wasn’t where he’d expected to start, but that’s what came out.
When Rosa just nodded slowly, her expression grave, he knew why he’d started there. She would understand. ‘How old?’
‘Nine.’
‘And an ex-husband too?’
He shook his head. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Oh.’ More proof that Rosa understood his dilemma, although dilemma wasn’t the right word. A dilemma implied difficulty deciding between options, whereas he had no options for a relationship with Toni.
‘So, we said goodbye,’ he continued with a shrug, turning back to the view of the calm sea, the rocky headlands and the shadow of the island of Capraia in the distance. ‘And it was awful.’ Lifting his spritz in a sarcastic salute, he took a sip.
‘You’ll miss her.’
He didn’t react to that understatement beyond a lift of his eyebrows, hoping she didn’t ask any more questions.
A vibration in his pocket distracted him from his self-indulgent grump and he tugged out his phone without thinking. He didn’t receive many texts, so he peered at it critically, going still when he saw the first line of the message:
Cilli’s really disappointed…
Fumbling to open the message, he read it twice before his heart rate calmed down enough to take it in.
Cilli’s really disappointed he didn’t get to see the turtles hatch and he asked if you can send updates. Only if you hear something, of course. I’m sure he’s not expecting you to hold a vigil yourself.
His shoulders slowly returned to their normal position, not sure if he wanted to admit to himself his own disappointment that all Cilli wanted from him was an update on the turtles. He should be happy it was something he could easily deliver.
‘What’s the matter?’ Rosa asked. ‘She didn’t forget something at your house, did she?’
If only…
‘No, her son was just asking for turtle updates.’
Rosa’s brows shot up. ‘He was here? You met him?’
