Page 10 of Prima
He turns around, expecting her to make some comments about his body—or his disrobing in front of her. But she only asks, “You were part of the Dawani Coast Watch?”
“So I’m told.” He wonders how she managed to discern at a glance the faded emblem on the chest pocket of the t-shirt. “Not for long, apparently. I served for less than a year.”
But long enough to cement Prince Four as an implacable enemy.
“If you want, I can tell you something about it,” she says, smiling in a way that is almost sadder than it is enthusiastic.
That hint of melancholy evokes a disproportionate desolation in him, a vast, lonely grief, an entire hidden ocean in the depths of his heart.
When he can speak again, he tries for a measure of flippancy. “You, my lady?”
“But only after you offer yourself to me.”
Her words are without inflection. He can’t tell whether she’s dead serious or merely deadpan.
“My lady, I have lived this long without throwing myself at someone just to hear about my time with the Coast Watch. I can hold out for a good while yet.”
“Can you?” she laughs softly. “By the way, sir, your water boils.”
* * *
She speaks very little at dinner and eats as if she is at an important exam, tasting every bite with a sober concentration. He, on the other hand, studies her hold on her chopsticks, the delicate shape of her earlobe, and the soft panels of her half-sleeves, draped over one another like the petals of a half-open flower.
The only comment she makes comes at the beginning of the meal. “This is a very good scallion flatbread. But these days I can probably make a better one.”
When she finishes and sets down her bowl, she sits silently for several minutes. He is about to clear away the table when she says abruptly, “Years ago, a boy grilled me some scallops and they were the most delicious anything I’d ever had. I was hoping to enjoy the same dish tonight. But yours is a completely different preparation.”
What boy?
He waits for her to say more, but she only gazes at him as if he were the final question on her exam that counts for half of the score.
“Is it just different or is it inferior?” he asks after some time.
Personally, he thought tonight’s scallops—blanched, then braised after a quick sauté—turned out beautifully.
“I don’t know,” she murmurs. There is doubt in her eyes. Doubt, frustration, and perhaps even a simmering anxiety. “They say no man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
“But you wanted the same scallops?”
They are absolutely not talking about scallops. But what are they talking about, exactly?Him?
She sighs. “You know what, prince? You cooked, let me do the cleaning up. You probably haven’t slept in forty-eight hours. Go ahead and have some rest.”
With her still aboard?
He pitches a brow. “I wouldn’t wake up to find myself already yours, would I?”
She bursts out laughing. Her laughter is a different kind of enchantment, a bubble of joy that leaves a shimmer in the air even after it dissipates. And that she laughs easily with him—he is tormented by a lightness of being unnerving for its utter rarity.
Rare—or forgotten?
She rises from the table. He does likewise and helps her carry dishes to the galley. “You don’t need to do anything, my lady. You’re my guest.”
She pushes him out. “Go check on your instruments or something, before you fall asleep in five minutes.”
His fatigue, which has been kept at bay by the unsettling excitement of her presence, comes roaring back now that she has named it. “Let me also lower the sails then, while I’m on deck.”
“No, leave them up. I like to sail.”
