The thought made me nauseous.
Because I hadn’t.
I wouldn’t.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, then opened them again, forcing my focus back onto the tank in front of me.
I had only a month left in my contract position here, and it felt like a tight band of anxiety was squeezing around my chest whenever I allowed myself to think too much about it.
“Deep in thought?”
I jerked, head turning too fast toward the voice.
Tobias stood a few feet away, hands neatly behind his back like usual, posture straight, and his expression composed.
Watching me.
Heat rushed up the back of my neck.
“How long have you been standing there?” I asked, a little too quickly.
He took a step closer. “Only ten to fifteen minutes.”
“You’ve been standing there forfifteen minutes?!”
“Yes.”
“You could’ve said something.”
“You appeared occupied.”
“With what?” I asked, immediately regretting how defensive that sounded.
He glanced—not at my face—but at my hands, which were still resting on the rim of the tank, fingers tapping without me realizing it.
“Thinking,” he said.
Oh.
Right.
Heat crept a little higher into my face.
“Still, you could have said something. You wouldn’t have been interrupting anything important.”
He hummed thoughtfully as his gaze shifted toward the conch, slowly making its determined progress across the sand.
“You’ve been observing it for some time,” he said.
“Yeah,” I answered, relieved to have something safer to talk about. “They move a lot slower than people expect. Most guests think they’re not doing anything, but they actually cover a decent amount of ground if you watch long enough.”
“How do they navigate?”
“They use a muscular foot,” I explained, already leaning closer to the tank again. “It kind of hooks and pulls. And they’ve got sensory tentacles that help them figure out where they’re going. They’re not fast, obviously, but they’re not random either.”
He was quiet for a few seconds before joining me at the side of the tank. Then he said, “You appeared concerned.”
My fingers stilled. “I was just thinking about some things.”
