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“Nope. Easy as pie. He just seems to want to mope around the villa. Looks to me like something on the mainland has got him upset. My money is on divorce.”
“Yeah, probably,” I said as if her news wasn’t like a needle to the heart. No doubt about it: I was the reason for Deacon’s unhappiness.
* * *
Deacon had already put in his order for lunch. I picked it up from Sam, and this time managed to avoid the snark. The look on my face probably told him that I wasn’t in the mood.
It felt like there was a large stone sitting in my stomach.
I slowly wheeled the food cart down the wooden pathway and to the villa, trying to delay as much as possible.
“Oh hi, Deacon,” I imagined myself saying, “How was your day? Say, remember telling me about the man who destroyed your father’s life? Well, funny story about that…”
I sighed and knocked.
“Come in,” Deacon called.
Here goes nothing. I opened the door and pushed the cart in.
Deacon was sitting on the couch with his laptop. He looked up and then did a double take.
“Kendall!”
In an instant he was up and striding across the room. “I’ve been so worried. That woman—I forget her name—she said you were feeling ill. Are you okay?”
I found I couldn’t meet his gaze for long.
“I’m fine,” I said.
He made a step forward as if to embrace me, but we had the food cart between us and when I didn’t move forward, he did a strange little dance, shuffling back and forth.
I pretended not to notice and got started on setting out his food. Looked like it was a Caesar salad day.
“I’m sorry I didn’t order enough for both of us,” Deacon said. “I was under the impression that… you weren’t coming by.”
“My manager requested that I get back to work.”
“When you’re sick?”
I’m not sick, I thought. Sick at heart maybe. Instead, I shrugged.
It only took a few moments to set the simple meal out. Straightening, I finally forced myself to look at his face.
Deacon looked like he hadn’t bothered to shave today. He wore his five o’clock shadow well, and it looked good with his messed-up hair. It looked like he had been running his hands back through it a lot in worry.
Great. Just add another dollop of guilt to the pile.
No, this was insane. We had to get our relationship back to a professional footing. “Do you have any events planned for today?” I asked. “I didn’t see anything on the tablet.”
“No,” he replied cautiously, still looking at me. “I didn’t think that you were well enough to go anywhere. I didn’t want to presume.”
I paused for a second. “If you want to go out, I think I should refer you to one of our professional adventure guides. They’re good guys. A lot of fun —”
“What the hell is going on?” Deacon demanded. “Why are you acting so weird?”
Seeing his frustration made me feel even more miserable which in turn just added to the big steaming pile of guilt inside.
“I’m not doing anything,” I said. I opened my mouth again, maybe to tell him some sort of excuse, but nothing came to mind that wouldn’t be an outright lie.
