Page 32 of Salt Kiss
“Twenty million dollars, and thirty million in stock?” the man says incredulously, and I fight to control my expression as I realize exactly how much money is being discussed over an empty cappuccino cup right now. “Trevena, that’s not possible.”
“Ah, Richard,” says Mark. “You know that I know it is.”
There is a silence.
“Fine,” the other man grinds out. He sounds furious. “But that’s contingent on you getting this done.”
“A problem for another day,” Mark replies lightly, and then ends the call.
“Tristan,” he greets, and there’s no sign of anything on his face pointing to our conversation last night—no wariness, no pity. It’s the same cool expression I see every morning when I go up to his office after the daily security meeting.
“Good morning, sir.” I hope I appear as cool as he does and not like I just rode my own fingers thinking of him.
“Please, have some breakfast. And take your time. Today is an easy day. I only have one job for you.”
I sit and help myself to fruit and coffee. “Anything you need me to do, sir.”
“Tonight, I’ll need you to order room service,” he says, setting his tablet back down on the table. “And then receive it without your shirt on.”
I stare at him, my hand frozen on the spoon I’d been using to serve myself cut papaya. “Sorry?” I ask.
I was expecting an excursion into the city, perhaps another visit to last night’s club. Not whatever this was.
“Let’s say”—Mark glances at his watch, seems to be doing math in his head—“at twenty-three hundred hours.”
“Is the shirtless part important?”
“Very. Also, order enough food for two. With champagne.” Mark thinks for a moment. “And have the shower running when they come to the door.”
“Sir,” I say in affirmation, although I’m still confused. I’m not above ordering room service for someone else or anything like that, but it’s strange to be planning it this early in the day.And planning to be shirtless. But it’s my job to do as I’m told, so ordering room service without a shirt it is. With the shower running.
So fucking weird.
“And there’s one more thing for today...” says Mark, and that’s how, an hour later, we end up at a narrow church tucked between apartment buildings, kneeling in the back row while the priest does the liturgy of the Eucharist.
The service is in English, as are the songs, and even though it’s been years since I regularly went to Mass, I recognize the hymn from my childhood, and start singing along about one bread and one body and one Lord of all.
But I’m only a verse or two in when I become aware of a pair of blue eyes fixed on me.
“Sir?” I whisper.
Mark’s looking at me like he’s never seen me before. “You can sing,” he says.
I don’t even know what to say to his observation; it’s like having someone tell me that I have green eyes or freckles on my nose in the summer.
It is strange to think that I can spend nearly every moment of every day with someone and have them not know this about me, this thing that it feels like the whole world knows. Tristan Thomas can sing. He sang in high school, and he sang at West Point, and then when he was deployed, he’d sing if someone had a guitar. He can’t even go to a bar that has thepotentialof karaoke without being cajoled into singing.
It’s a pointless talent for a soldier. Like a sledgehammer that’s also able to paint miniature oil portraits. Yes, it’s interesting, but when has that ever gotten the job done?
I turn back to the hymnal, even though this song has, like, five lines to it and I’ve had it memorized since I was little, and start singing again.
He keeps watching me. And after we go up and get our Communion, I can feel his gaze moving back to me when we sing the final hymn.
Finally, Mass is over, and rather than get in a car back to the hotel, Mark has us walk.
“Is there a reason we went to Mass today, sir?” I ask after we’re a block away from the church, knowing it’s not actually my business but still curious. Mark’s residual Catholicism seems at odds with his present job and maybe even his past one. That he still feels the need to come sit in Mass sometimes is strange to me. He is hardly what you expect to see in the dictionary if you were to flip the pages open toGood Catholic Man.
A priest torn apart in his own sacristy...they had to rip out the floor and the walls...
