EverHeart

Chapter 3: Marco, Apparently

LUCY

Someone was moving in my kitchen.

Memory arrived a second later. Blond. Blue eyes. Half-dead. Fire.

Right.

I found Marco barefoot at the counter in the clothes Cami had brought yesterday. His hair had dried overnight into complete disobedience. Three cupboards and two drawers stood open. He held my coffee pot in one hand.

“Are you robbing me?”

“Good morning.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I couldn’t find the coffee.”

“So you searched everything I own.”

“I found it.” He poured a cup and slid it toward me.

The smell stopped me. I took a sip, then another.

“Where did you learn to do this?”

His smile disappeared. He looked at the pot. “I don’t know. I woke up and knew how.”

There it was again: a skill without a memory attached. I took another sip.

“Whatever terrible person you were before, they made acceptable coffee.”

“Terrible?”

“You may have been.”

“Based on?”

“Your personality.”

His mouth twitched. Good.

He opened the refrigerator and surveyed its nearly empty shelves. “You ate everything yesterday.”

“I was recovering.”

“From death?”

“Possibly.”

“Fair.” His stomach growled.

I closed my eyes. “You cannot be serious.”

“I haven’t eaten since dinner.”

“That was eight hours ago.”

“Exactly.” He said it with the solemnity of a man presenting evidence before a court.

This was becoming financially irresponsible.

* * *

By seven, Marco had eaten enough breakfast to alarm a small family. Then he washed the dishes. I found him at the sink after changing, sleeves pushed above his forearms.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I ate most of it.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

I opened my mouth. He waited. I didn’t have one.

“Thought so.” He turned back to the sink.

I narrowed my eyes at his back.

“You can’t see me,” he said.

“I can feel it.”

“Concerning.”

He dried the last plate and reached toward the correct cabinet. His hand stopped in midair.

“How did I know that?”

“You watched me yesterday.”

“Did I?”

“Probably.”

Neither of us sounded convinced. He set the plate down with unnecessary care. I had begun noticing that about him. Whenever something frightened him, his hands became precise. The mango yesterday. His wrists on the beach. Now this plate.

A knock sounded, and Cami entered without waiting for an answer.

“Morning!”

Marco glanced at me. “You really don’t lock it.”

“I’ve stopped pretending.”

Cami appeared in a yellow sundress, dark curls piled on her head and two paper bags balanced against one hip. Her gaze traveled from Marco to me and back.

“Oh.”

I knew that tone. “No.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were about to.”

“I was going to say he looks less dead.”

Marco dried his hands. “Thank you?”

“You’re welcome.” She deposited the bags on the counter. “I’m Camille. Cami.”

Cami collected people the way Mrs. Reyes collected ceramic roosters: enthusiastically and with little concern for available space.

“Marco.”

“Lucy gave me the dramatic version.”

“I did not.”

“She said she found you bleeding on the beach with no memory.”

“That’s fairly dramatic,” Marco said.

“It was factual.”

Cami ignored me. “So. Just Marco?”

Something shifted in his face. Cami saw it, and her teasing vanished.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Clean. True. To her credit, she didn’t ask again. Instead she asked whether he preferred coffee or tea, whether Moira’s heat bothered him, whether he’d tried Mrs. Reyes’s pastries. Questions with answers. Within minutes, they were talking as though they’d met under less unusual circumstances.

Cami opened the second bag. “I brought clothes. My brother is six-one, so unless you’re secretly enormous—”

“He is,” I said.

Marco looked offended. “Unnecessarily,” I added.

Cami held a shirt against him. “Hm.”

“Is that bad?”

“You’re annoying to dress.”

“I’ve been told,” I said.

Marco smiled at me. Traitor.

* * *

Cami stayed despite having already eaten. Marco discovered the cheese bread and made a quiet, reverent sound.

Cami stared at him. I covered my face. “Don’t encourage him.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You brought food.”

“He looks hungry.”

“He always looks hungry.”

Marco pulled the bag closer. “I feel attacked.”

“You’ll survive.”

“Apparently.”

His smile faded. Cami looked into her coffee. I reached for the bag.

“Give me that.”

Marco moved it away. “No.”

“It’s my kitchen.”

“Cami brought it.”

“For everyone.”

“I almost died.”

“Yesterday.”

“Very recently.”

Cami laughed. Marco followed, and the moment passed.

Later, an empty cup slipped from my hand. Marco caught it inches above the floor.

Cami blinked. I looked at the cup, then at him.

“Good reflexes.”

“Apparently.” He turned it over in his hand, more unsettled by knowing how than by what he’d done.

“Maybe you played sports,” Cami said. “Boxing?”

“Why boxing?”

“You have the shoulders.”

Marco looked at me.

“Don’t involve me.”

“You dragged me out of the ocean. You’re already involved.”

Unfortunately, he had a point.

* * *

By noon, I had decided Marco needed rest. Marco had decided he needed to be useful. Only one of us was correct.

“You’re not fixing the shutter.”

“It doesn’t close.”

“I know.”

“That usually indicates a problem.”

“It indicates character.”

“It indicates a broken hinge.” He crouched beside the veranda window.

“You nearly died yesterday.”

“So you’ve mentioned.”

“You fainted into my flowers.”

“They recovered.”

“The bougainvillea has been through enough.”

Marco looked solemnly at the plant. “I’m sorry.”

“Did you just apologize to it?”

“It was your argument.”

Cami laughed into her drink. I regretted introducing them.

Marco touched the hinge and went still.

“What?” I asked.

“I think I can fix this. I know what it needs.”

“How?”

He looked at me, frustration tightening his face. “I don’t know.”

For a moment, nobody spoke. Cicadas rasped beyond the veranda, and a boat engine sounded below.

I crouched beside him. “What do you need? For the shutter.”

“Screwdriver. Oil. Maybe a washer.”

“I have two of those.”

“Which two?”

“Oil and optimism.”

Cami snorted. Marco smiled.

“I’ll work with it.”

Twenty minutes later, the shutter closed properly for the first time since I’d arrived. Marco tested it twice. He looked pleased, and I suspected the hinge was only part of the reason.

“See?” Cami said. “Useful.”

The word struck somewhere old and unpleasant. I looked toward the sea while Marco tightened the last screw.

“Apparently,” he said.

Apparently he made coffee, fixed hinges and caught falling cups without thinking. Apparently he was warm enough to dry towels in his sleep and make blue-gold fire curl over his fingers. I watched him brush dust from his hands.

“What’s next?” he asked.

“Rest.”

He groaned. Cami pointed toward town.

“Food.”

Marco brightened.

“No.”

Two faces turned toward me. “Absolutely not.”

Marco looked at Cami. Cami looked at Marco.

“We outnumber her,” Cami said.

“I can hear you.”

“Two to one,” Marco agreed.

“Still hearing.”

His smile widened. “Democracy.”

“This is my house.”

“Dictatorship, then.”

Yesterday, he’d woken on a beach unable to tell me his surname. Today, he was barefoot on my veranda conspiring against me over lunch.

I picked up my sandals. “Fine. But I’m not paying for everything you eat.”

His grin vanished. Cami laughed.

We started down the path toward Puerto Espera. Marco fell into step beside me. At the bend above Cala Verde, he slowed and looked toward the sand where I’d found him. The tide had erased the blood and our footprints. His hand curled once at his side before he turned away.

“Coffee was good,” I said.

Marco glanced at me. “That sounded painful.”

“It was.”

“Want me to make it tomorrow?”

Tomorrow. Cami was already several meters ahead, calling something about lunch. Marco waited for my answer.

“Yes.”

His smile came easily. “All right.”

And just like that, apparently, he had plans for tomorrow.