Page 53 of Shark’s Pride

He looked at his plate from another angle and made a confused grimace. “How am I going to get the underside?”

“Most people don’t worry about the underside.”

“Most people aren’t me.”

I bit back a full grin. I couldn’t argue that point in any form. “You have to wait until it dries. But it will dry quicker than you think. Are you painting the whole thing black?”

“You worry about yours, and I’ll worry about mine.” He didn’t break his concentration to grab even a second of eye contact with me. I had a feeling he lived his life similarly. Why glance to the side when he’d always had his most important things and people in front of him? His thriving business, his dream building, his sister, and his niece. What and who else did he really have to worry about? It seemed a simple concept, but thinking about it now in light of all my memories, I felt a little sad for him. But at the same time, perplexed. He’d come from nothing and now had everything—but in so many ways, his world had remained exactly that small.

My rumination must have extended my silence longer than I realized, because Sebastian rammed his brush into the rinse bowl with a loud clatter. “Are you upset now? For Christ’s sake, you can’t really be that sensitive, Abbigail.”

I whipped my head up. “What are you talking about?”

“Why are you always trying to make small talk instead of talking about your family?”

“What was all the sharing just now about the Sunday dinner memories?” I gritted my teeth in frustration. “But way to have a hissy fit, chief.”

He quirked a brow. “A hissy fit? Chief?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Explain.”

I was tempted not to—but for the first time, he made the word a request instead of a demand. “All right, fine.” I set my own brush down and turned to face him better. “You act like a bratty child when you don’t like what’s going on around you,” I asserted. “And I suppose it’s always worked for you, and that’s why you continue doing it.” As I paused to think for a second, I shrugged again. “But I have to admit, it’s hard to imagine Grant or Pia tolerating being manipulated like that.”

His gaze nearly matched the pigment on his plate. “Woman. What are you talking about?”

Well, well, well. It appears I’ve struck a nerve.

I straightened my spine and set my chin. “It’s pretty elementary psychology, Sebastian. You have to consciously know what you’re doing when you behave that way. All that bluster?” I waved toward his discarded paintbrush, as well as the dirty rinse bowl water he’d spattered across the table.

“Please,” he snickered. “Enlighten me.”

“Don’t patronize me either. It’s rude. When you throw those fits, you think you’ll intimidate whoever you’re trying to bully at the moment with your show of dominance. It seems so obvious to me. I suppose it works on a lot of people. I think it probably even worked on me more than once.” Heat spread across my face as I flushed at the admission. I was pretty sure he saw it too—but reading his reaction past his shadowed gaze and tight frown wasn’t a remote possibility.

We sat in silence for a few moments.

Long damn moments.

We ended the standoff by simultaneously retrieving our paintbrushes and then resuming our painting.

For a second, I tried looking at the bright side. At least he didn’t insult me again by trying to deny my assertion. Nor was I going to apologize for what I’d said. I seriously hadn’t been trying to start an argument, but he’d pushed until I vocalized my theory.

The longer we stayed silent, the higher our tension mounted.

Eventually, Sebastian broke the silence. “How long has it been since you’ve been back east?”

I squinted my eyes in concentration. “I think it’s been a year already. Wow, that’s crazy. Sometimes time passes too quickly, doesn’t it?”

“You have no idea.” He shook his head but smiled. “I remember when Vela learned to walk. And also said my name the first time. And her first day of kindergarten…” He set down his paintbrush again, but this time it was with a gentle motion. “That feels…strange,” he murmured. “To admit that. Christ…time is slipping away faster than I can deal with.”

I slid my hand over his. “Your face lights up in the most magnificent way when you talk about your niece. It’s beautiful that she’s so deeply entrenched in your heart.”

His scowl wasn’t the reaction I expected, but it wasn’t a shocker. “I don’t know about beautiful,” he returned. “Terrifying seems more accurate.”

I tightened my fingers across his. “Well…that’s love for you.”

He shifted in his seat from my bold declaration. And here was the response I’d fully anticipated—though his follow-up, so blatantly real and soul-felt, was nowhere on my agenda at all.