Children of the Sea 02 - Sea Fever

familiar.
    The quiver went away. “You think you could get some sleep now?” she suggested.
     
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    He could, because she was here. Maybe because that guy Dylan was here, too, keeping an eye on her.
     
    Nick snuggled under the covers, and when she leaned over to kiss him good night, he put both arms around her like a little kid. And was able to let her go.
     
    *
     
    Regina closed the bedroom door behind her and leaned against it, throat tight, pulse jumping. She closed her eyes, flattening her battered hands against the smooth, cool wood. She never brought men to the apartment. Never. Nick came first, always.
     
    She sighed. Which was why she couldn’t ignore his very real fear or miss the hero worship in his eyes. If Dylan’s presence made Nick feel better, if it eased her son’s mind or helped him to sleep, then she was grateful Dylan was here . . . and never mind why.
     
    He was here.
     
    He knew about the baby.
     
    Her mind kept struggling with those two things, worrying at them, trying to make them add up, like she was in seventh grade again and wrestling with an uneven equation. Maybe if she’d been better at algebra, she would have gone to college instead of to work as a dishwasher, a prep cook, a line cook at Perfetto’s.
     
    She remembered telling Alain she was pregnant, late at night when the dinner service was over and the rest of the staff had finished drinking and gone home. Alain had teased her because she had stuck stubbornly with club soda all night, and she’d let herself hope because he’d noticed, because he’d been watching her. She’d offered to take him home with her. He wasn’t completely wasted, but he’d had enough to make driving dangerous. Enough to make him want her. And she . . . Well, she’d always wanted him.
     
    So she’d told him, standing in her living room, twisting her hands together at her waist, her voice rising and falling with apology and hope.
     
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    He never came home with her again. Bastard, she thought wearily, out of habit.
     
    But Dylan was here.
     
    He was bringing her soup.
     
    And even though Regina knew better, even though she told herself she was just prolonging the inevitable disappointment, she set her tiny table for two.
     
    She heard him come up the stairs, and her stupid heart bumped into overtime. She opened the door.
     
    His gaze rested on her face. “We need to talk.”
     
    She did her best not to wince. “Which one? You hope we can still be friends? Or it’s not you, it’s me?”
     
    He gave her a flat, hard stare.
     
    “Sorry,” she muttered. “It’s been a rough day.”
     
    His gaze fell to the mottled collar around her neck. Emotion flickered in those black, black eyes and was gone too quickly to be identified. “Yes,” he said.
     
    He followed her into the kitchen and saw the white bowls, the lit candles. One eyebrow arched.
     
    Embarrassment rose under her skin, a faint warm flush. She was annoyed with him for noticing and with herself for caring. “Old restaurant trick,” she said, ladling the soup— her mother’s minestrone, good for whatever ailed you— into bowls. “Candlelight improves the food.”
     
    He carried the bowls to the table. “And the company.” She joined him. “Are you saying I look better in low light?”
     
    “It suits you.” His gaze met hers across the table. “Your eyes shine.”
     
    Another arrow, straight to the heart. She clenched her spoon to hide her hand’s trembling.
     
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    “Good soup,” Dylan remarked.
     
    “Two compliments in a row. Be careful, or I’ll start to take you seriously.”
     
    “Why shouldn’t you? Your mother is a good cook.”
     
    Regina let the soothing broth trickle down her throat. It brought back memories, of being sick, of being sad, of being fed. “More than that. Ma supported herself and me and Nicky on an island where a lot of businesses pack up or die in the winter.”
     
    “She is a stubborn woman.”
     
    “I’m proud of her.” How long since she had told her mother so?
     
    “Yet you left.”
     
    Regina sipped her water. This was so not the discussion she expected to be having with him. This was not a conversation she would have with anybody on World’s End. Everybody here knew everybody. Knew everything, or thought they did. “Antonia’s is . . . Antonia’s. It’s good. It could be great. It’s just not . . . mine.”
     
    “Your mother is afraid of change.”
     
    She shrugged.