Page 13 of The Trick of It

To him, she knew she looked unharried and calm. Her hands were steady, her breathing was quiet. He didn’t know her insides were in tumult. And he never would.

She lit the range and set the kettle above it, blinking at the heat that rose into her eyes.

He appeared at her side, leaning a little too close to the range for comfort until she batted him away, making him giggle again like an errant schoolboy. “I like to feel the steam,” he said.

“I’m sure you do,” she replied, turning to retrieve a pair of mugs.

He watched her. She could feel his shiny, green eyes on her back. She could picture the mop of unruly, brown curls on his brow. She could sense the way his lean body was propped carelessly against her furniture.

She almost sighed.

This happened every time she had to see him in person.

It had never been fair, how beautiful he was. It had never been just.

“Do you want green tea or black?”

“What the Devil is ‘green tea’?” he asked, straightening. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll have that. Oho, and what have we here?”

“Oh, you might not …” she began, wheeling around as he drifted toward the open pink tin Libba had left on her dining table, his fingers wiggling as he reached toward it. She stopped herself, clamping her lips shut, as he picked up a cube of dried pineapple that was heavily dusted with red powder.

And simply watched as he popped it into his mouth.

She counted in her mind.

One, two, three, four …

“Iesu Mawredd!” he shouted, dropping his jaw down and gasping for breath. “What in the blazes …? Seph!”

She smiled blandly at him, leaning back to watch him panic. “Tea will be done in a moment,” she murmured. “Cream and sugar?”

He wheeled around, eyes falling on her little jar of cream, and leapt for it before she could swipe it out of the way, tipping a large portion into his mouth.

She crossed her arms, making a face at him as he sighed in relief, swishing cream over his tongue and collapsing in slow stages into one of her chairs. “What the Devil is wrong with you, woman?” he demanded after he’d completed his performance. “Why would you man-trap your own living quarters?”

“I did no such thing,” she snapped. “You are buying me more cream.”

He was frowning, his usually smooth brow wrinkled, thick, dark eyebrows drawn together as he considered the tin. “You knew I’d be coming,” he said with an air of entirely incorrect realization. “And you left this to poison me.”

“Oh, grace to God,” she muttered, turning away from him and retrieving her jar of green tea leaves. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

He narrowed those green eyes at her and shot his hand out for his tea, flexing his fingers impatiently.

Once they’d sat down, had a few sips, and Seph had made a point of slowly and deliberately eating a chili-coated piece of dried watermelon, she felt a little more at ease. A little more herself.

This was just a table, after all. Her table, but just a table.

And so what that they hadn’t shared one since they’d been children? Since he’d … or since she’d …

Well, that didn’t matter.

“My mail?” she prompted before taking another sip of her brew. “Hand it over?”

He fished the green envelope back out of the inside pocket of his jacket and slapped it on the table between them, his hand pinning it down. “Now,” he said. “First thing to know is that this wasn’t the only thing in the larger, original envelope. There was also a card for me.”

“Addressed to you?” she asked, her fingers inching out to try to wedge the green envelope free of his grasp.

“It was for me,” he said again, frowning. “I should’ve brought it.”