Page 72 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
I gave her arm a light nudge, a silent beckon for her to hang in there, and to seek solitude if she couldn’thang any longer. And she seemed a little calmer when I turned away from thebuffet and headed back to my table, so I hoped some of my messaging had gotten through.
Jackson and I had picked a table in the center of the room, thankfully some distance from the bouncing bagpipes (although the space did nothingto dampen the noise), and Jackson had manned the fort (and guarded my glass of wine) while I’d perused the buffet.
“Ugh,” Jackson groaned lightly when I slid into my chair with my packed plate. “There’s a fungus among us.” He flashed me one of his handsome, boyish grins as he took a pull from his beer.
And then…
I squinted, sure the hazy fatigue over my eyes was playing tricks on me. “Jackson…are yousmoking?”
He winked as he raised the chunky cigar to his lips again and inhaled. “Kian was handing these out.”
“Kian?”
“Yeah. Kian Reed.” At my blank face, Jackson waved the cigar. “He works logistics at Magix.”
“Ah.” I tucked my napkin into my lap, fighting the squirm of irritation in my chest.
I didn’t particularly care if he smoked, especially since it was just a cigar—not much harm was going to come from it. But there was a dark thought burrowing into my brain, one that said he looked ridiculous, puffing on the end of that cigar, with his chin popped up in the air.
It turned my insides sour with shame to have my brain wander that way, but I couldn’tnotthink it now.
My eyes burned as I turned the long edge of my fork into the ravioli, cutting a bite-sized sliver. And I hoped, as Jackson swiveled his head around to give me a loose, loving smile, that he couldn’t see those thoughts on my face, or feel them assaulting his own emotions.
“There’s prime rib up there,” I said, my voice turning to my customer service chipmunk style. Thankfully, the headbanging battle anthem circulating around the room softened the chirp.
“Is there?” Jackson’s eyes brightened. “And someone was walking around with lobster.”
“Oh, yeah. I saw that up there too and thought about grabbing some, but the mushrooms won.”
Jackson pulled anickface. He hated mushrooms with the same fervor I loved them with.
“Everything looked delicious, though,” I added. “Everything.You might need to roll me out of here at the end of the night.”
“We’ll probably be rolling each other.” Jackson went a little cross-eyed as a woman sauntered by the table clutching two plates, one stacked high with oysters, the other weighed down by the biggest, juiciest steak I’d ever seen. “Oh shit,that does look good! Here, hold this!”
“Jackson, wha—” I grunted when he plonked the cigar out of his mouth and shoved it into my left hand. It was gross—all slimy and hot where he’d had his mouth around it—and lazy tendrils of smoke tickled my nostrils. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Just hold it. So I can go get food.”
A few fat ash flakes tumbled off the end of the cigar and fluttered over my plate. “Don’t they have places you can put these? Ashtrays or something?”
Jackson gulped the last half of his beer and motioned to our black-clothed table. “Do you see an ashtray here?”
“They probably have some at the bar.”
“Yeah, and it’ll take me as long to get an ashtray as it will to get my food. Just hold it for a few minutes. Please.”
“Maybe you should’ve waited untilafterdinner to light this.”
The bitterness in my voice shook me to my very core.
That wasmean. The snappish way I’d hissed that.Mean.
It was the way my mom used to throw words at my dad when she was mad and hankering for a fight.
Jackson, thankfully, had already started walking toward the buffet line. If he heard me over the rallying music, it would’ve only been snippets.
ButI’dheard the words. And had felt the heat behind them.
