“I like your plan. Let’s blot the world out together. For a while,” she added, as if they both needed to heed that reminder. Now, more than ever.
“Have you tried therapy?”
The look on his face would have made her laugh under different circumstances. He looked as though she’d just asked if he’d brushed his teeth with honey.
“In what sense?” To his credit, he covered the reaction swiftly.
“With Paolo.”
He laughed then. A deep, husky sound that was coated in rejection. She settled back in her seat, enjoying this despite his obvious scepticism. She liked being on the water with him, watching him drive. Did one drive a boat? She didn’t know for sure. If she’d grown up in this world, like Luca had, she’d have all the terminology down pat, but this was as far removed from Ally’s version of ‘normal’ as it was possible to get.
She pulled her hair over one shoulder, stroking the ends, then stopping when Luca’s gaze fell to her fingers and clung in a way that made her brain grind to a halt.
“Are you asking if my half brother and I have gone and shared cups of tea whilst discussing our feelings?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t act all macho.”
The coastline to her left was a blur of warm lights against the cliffs. The moon was silver and full again tonight, though not yet as high as it had been.
“It’s just not really who I am.”
“Therapy can be helpful.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“But you don’t agree?”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
She lifted her shoulders. “I talked to the school guidance counsellor, when my dad first got sick. It’s not the same thing. I couldn’t afford a full shrink or anything. But it did help, yeah.”
“In what way?”
She knew what he was doing. Turning the conversation skilfully away from himself, and onto her, because that was more comfortable for him. She let it slide, though.
“I had to learn to let go of the idea of control. There was only so much I could do to help him. Only so much I could change. No matter how much I wished it, or how hard I tried, some things can’t be fixed. It’s hard.”
He grunted.
“You know this is true.”
She watched him carefully, saw the way his knuckles gleamed white through his skin, as he gripped the wheel more tightly.
“You felt it with your friend.”
He turned to face her, eyes glittering darkly. She curled her legs beneath her on the seat and held his gaze. She was notafraid of him. If anything, there was something about Luca that empowered her, and made her think she could say or do whatever she wanted.
“It’s not the same.” He stared straight ahead. “I was not powerless.”
“What do you mean?”
He cut the engine, so the silence was instantly jarring. She leaned forward, and a balmy breeze picked up off the ocean, drawing her hair away from her face. Luca leaned against the driver’s seat with an appearance of nonchalance that she knew to be assumed. “I was his commander. I sent him out that morning. I’m the reason he died.”
She blinked, not quite following his logic. “That makes no sense.”
A muscle jerked at the base of his jaw. “But for me, he would still be here.”
She sighed softly. “You were in a warzone. Sending him out to do what he’d signed up for was part of your job. Unless you wrapped him up in cotton wool, there were risks everywhere. He knew that, too. He went on deployment accepting what that might mean.”
