I got to work.
Thirty minutes later, I had a beef stew on the stove, biscuits in the oven, and a cup of coffee in my hand for Sully. He’d said no to tea, but a hot, strong cup of Joe might be a different story. When I walked through to the living room—so weird that there were no straight lines in the entire ground floor of the house—Sully was crashed out on the couch, head tipped back, both hands clasped over his stomach now, and he was sleeping.
“Well. Shit.”
Sully cracked one eyelid open, peering at me. “Mr. Von Trapp would not be impressed by the color of your language.”
“Mr. Von Trapp can kiss my ass.”
That made him snort. Carefully rolling his head forward, he sighed heavily. “Come on. Let’s have it then.” He held his hand out, eyeing the steaming cup I was still holding.
I surrendered it to him, thankful he wasn’t putting up a fight. “I didn’t know if you took sugar.”
“I don’t.”
“Let me guess. You’re sweet enough?” My voice dripped with sarcasm.
“No, Lang. I’m not sweet. Not even a little. And coffee isn’t supposed to be sweet, either. It’s meant to taste like battery acid. It’s meant to keep you awake, not put you into a sugar coma.”
“Duly noted. You’re quite blunt, aren’t you? Does it entertain you to make people feel uncomfortable all the time?”
Sully sipped his coffee, and then grimaced, clutching at his side. Once the pain had passed, he put down the mug on the small table beside his beaten up leather couch and directed his attention at me in that terrifying way he had perfected. “Does it entertain me to make people uncomfortable?” He thought for a second. “No, it doesn’t entertain me. Other people’s discomfort is an unfortunate by-product of my ‘no bullshit’ policy. It has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with them. They only feel uncomfortable because they’re being dishonest, or they’re hiding something. I don’t like being untrue to myself, and that makes them feel bad because that’s all they ever are. Their lives are shambolic.”
“Shambolic?”
“Mmhmm.”
“That seems a little harsh, don’t you think?”
“Not at all. I think it’s a pretty fair assessment.”
“And me? You think my life’s a sham?”
He smiled, sharp and wicked, and I knew I wasn’t going to like what came out of his mouth next. “Lang, of all the people residing here on this tiny spit of land, your life is the biggest sham of all. You pretend to care about Connor and Amie, when really all you care about it the pay check. And you pretend you came here to be a Good Samaritan, when the truth is that you’re attracted to me, and you were worried about me.”
The door was only five feet away. Two seconds? Maybe even less. It would take me no time at all to storm out of Sully’s lighthouse, get in the Land Rover, drive back to the children and never see this man again. Though it wouldn’t be that simple, because on an island as tiny as the Causeway, I was bound to run into him again at some point. He was waiting for me to do it; he was waiting for me to get pissed and leave, I could see it in the hard, dark depths of his eyes.
It was better for me to stay and defy him than to do exactly what he expected me to, if only so I could flip him the bird and prove he didn’t know me as well as thought he did after all.
“I don’t like lying,” Sully said slowly. “I especially hate when people lie to themselves, Lang. It makes society a very dangerous place. If everyone’s walking around, choosing to believe they’re good people, they’re incapable of doing wrong, they don’t want things that are bad for them, and that their problems will simply vanish if they ignore them for long enough, then who’s going to fix things when they break? Who’s going to take responsibility when things go wrong? And who is going to tell the goddamn truth?”
“I don’t give a shit what you think, Sully. I always tell the truth.”
“Is that so.” It wasn’t a question. His voice dipped down at the end, telling me he didn’t believe me for one split second. “Then tell me. Why did you decide to stay on the island? Was it because Linneman told you there wouldn’t be a pay out at the end of your six-month contract if you left? Hmm? I know all about your parents’ restaurant back in Cali. How would you have saved the day if you didn’t come home with that nice fat check for a hundred grand sitting in your back pocket?”
“You’re right. Going home without that check would have been a disaster. But I would have found another job. I would have taken on three extra jobs if I’d had to. I’m not afraid of hard work. I would have figured it out, because that’s what I’m good at. Figuring out shitty situations.”
“Like the shitty situation with your ex-husband?”