Page 93 of Whiskey Splash

Desmond.

I twirl around and scan the room, but he isn’t doing something silly and obnoxious like lounging in one of the armchairs with a pipe in one hand and the crossword puzzle in the other. I stroll up to the table, snagging a fresh strawberry, only to notice Desmond’s half-eaten pancake drowned in syrup, the silverware still on the plate, like he was mid-bite when it was abandoned.

“Des?” I call into the room, my brow furrowing. “Deessss–monnnnd?” I sing-song, peering around the room like he might be playing hide and seek, ready to jump out from behind a couch. Dirty rascal, I wouldn’t put something like that past him.

But when I walk toward the front foyer, I see him outside on the terrace talking into his phone. Talking is a polite word for it. His hands are slashing through the air and I’m pretty sure whoever is on the other end of the line is getting torn a new hymen. I hope it’s not Tam. I wonder if they shifted the shooting schedule and he has to leave sooner than expected.

I open the French doors that lead to the terrace and Desmond’s clipped and angry voice ruins the sparkling view of the ocean.

“I don’t know!” he hisses into his phone. “Call legal and sue their asses off. Get it done!”

“Des?” I wave at him and his head shoots up like a hawk. “Is everything alright?”

“I gotta go,” he growls to whomever he’s talking to. “Get it done and call me back in ten.”

He shoves the phone in his pocket and strides toward me, angry tendons taught in his neck. My back prickles at the fury wrought on his face, all the playfulness and banter from earlier long gone.

“Hey? What happened? Are you okay?”

He doesn’t answer when he reaches me, wrapping an arm around my back instead and kissing me on the top of my head.

“Des?”

“Where’s your phone?” he clips out, moving me backwards into the living area.

“Um, I donno,” I answer, tripping over my feet and confused. “In my purse, maybe. In the bedroom. Why?”

He kisses me on the top of my head again and lets go of me, stalking toward the bedroom.

“Desmond? What is going on?”

He disappears behind the bedroom door, then walks out a second later with my phone in his hand.

“I promise I’ll replace this,” he says, looking at me across the room for half a second, before he opens the back of my phone and pulls the battery out.Snap!He breaks the battery clean in half.

“What the—?!” Cold shoots through me at the sharp aggressiveness of it, at the fact that he’s breaking something of mine without even explaining what’s going on. “What the hell, Desmond?”

He chucks the battery in the trash, the clang of the metal echoing through the room, shooting a shrapnel of sound into my skin.

“Give me my phone!” I snap, marching toward him with my hand out. Desmond is tense, his whole body knotted in anger as I approach him. “Start talking!” I grab my phone from his hand, clearly it won’t work now, but I don’t want him doing any more damage to it. “What the hell was that?” I point at the battery in the trash.

He doesn’t look at me, a balled-up fist clenched under his nose. “Fuck!” he hisses, that fist swinging to hit a decorative basket on the side table next to him. Fake flowers spray across the room as the basket is launched into the air.

“Woah, woah, woah!” I scold. “Sit down right now!” I snap, and he does.

He drops into the armchair to his right and puts his head in his hands. All the hair on the back of my neck stands at attention.

Obviously, something has happened.

Something bad.

I almost start barking demands, but when I reach him he looks so damn spooked and scared my blood runs cold.

“Okay, okay,” I lower my tone, slowing, like I’m approaching a spooked animal. “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad, alright?” I crouch down in front of him and delicately remove his hands from his face, replacing them with my own. His shallow breathing catches, easing slightly, as I tilt his chin up so he looks at me. “Desmond? Talk to me. What is going on?”

His face is devastated, torn between anger and fear, but there’s a glint in his eyes of something more—something that makes my lungs squeeze all the air out of them.

He looks like he’s lost a child, like the world just fell out from under him, like he has to tell me my sister has died.

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