A poorly hidden one

“Red, wait!” Red had managed to get about fifteen feet before the sound of Brenan’s voice caused her to stop dead in her tracks. It wasn’t her fault that her warning had felt so horrible to him, he decided, she simply didn’t know enough about his past to realize that the mere suspicion that she would think him possible of doing something like that to a woman could cause him so much pain and heartache.

“What?” Red asked as she turned around and waited for Brenan to catch up with her. Again, she was kicking her feet into the sound and generally acting as though she was nervous about something.

“I don’t do that sort of thing,” Brenan declared, stopping himself before blurting out the word “anymore” and generally trying to look and sound as calm as possible, to ensure that she wouldn’t recognize how upsetting an effect her words had had on him. He failed.

“I didn’t mean…” Red turned regretful as she viewed Brenan’s distraught expression, leaving him surprised at how her voice wavered as she tried to find the right words, “I don’t think that you could or would, it’s just that Cindy’s the only thing I got in this world.”

“I understand,” Brenan cut Red off, though he remained ignorant of the fact that him doing so to try and alleviate her distress only made him seem more like the man she had told Cindy that he was, “I don’t like it, but I understand.”

“Good,” Red’s immense relief at Brenan’s face losing its haunted quality made it hard for her to come up with anything more to say.

“There is one more thing though,” Brenan began, the suspicion that Red had spotted how distraught he’d been making him eager to move on and put his silliness behind them, “you still haven’t responded to my offer. I’ve got a ship and I need a first mate.”

“You really meant that? I haven’t been served aboard a ship for years…”

“The ocean doesn’t really change all that much in the span of four years,” Brenan observed, trying to dissuade Red’s objection.

“Look, I’ll think it through and give you my answer before you leave, alright?” Red too seemed happy to steer their conversation away from the more emotional subjects, “Now, you should probably go talk a little to Cindy, and make up your mind on whether or not you want her as part of your crew. You shouldn’t make that kind of decision based solely on my recommendation.”

“Fine, but she’s watching us at the moment,” Brenan said as he spotted a blonde figure standing in one of the cottage’s windows, his lips curving into a smile before he added “maybe you should kiss me?”

“What?” The stunned look on Red’s face told Brenan that his joke hadn’t worked, although he did have reason to wonder why her cheeks suddenly flared up the way they did.

“Is that some sore of joke?” Red added a second question a few moments later, while looking past Brenan’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Brenan once more experienced feeling like a complete idiot while in Red’s company, “I’ve developed a sense of humour over the last couple of years.”
“Well, at least it isn’t a very good one,” Red appeared more relaxed as she teased Brenan.

“Could we stay out here a little longer?” Brenan now asked her, finally getting to act like a lovestruck teenager for the first time ever, just fifteen years or so too late. He wasn’t fully aware of it yet, but the fact that Red had used him as an example of what a man should be like had released all kinds of warm, strange feelings within him.