My eyes followed along the edge of the rocky cliff, looking for a way down until I spotted one.
The blanket fell from around me. With one hand gripping the hot mug in my hand, my coffee seeping over the rim, I balanced the other on the sharp edges, heading down barefoot.
When I reached the same lower level as him, he watched me with raised brows under the shade of his hat as I teetered over the rocks. Nerves skipped up my spine to the back of my neck as he stood tall, rubbing a stone between two fingers. His body twitched as if he might bolt from the scene at any moment, but something was keeping him rooted in place.
I walked around him and stepped up on the higher side of the rock. "I couldn't hear you."
"And you took that as an invitation?" He turned, keeping his attention on me, watching my every move.
When my bare feet found balance, I looked up at him, and his cold eyes froze any warm thing left in me. The chill rushed from my head to the tips of my fingers, probably chilling my coffee too. His stare fixated on me, probably trying to figure out this strange girl who disrupted his peaceful morning.
"What's your name?" I asked. His eyes flicked skyward then down as he faced the water again, shaking his head. "Okay …" I sipped from my coffee, and a wave came and splashed over the rock and onto my bare toes. The glacial temperatures pricked my skin like a thousand needles, but I didn't jump back. My eyes steered to him, noticing the way his were distant, uninterested, locked on to the horizon of the black waters under the steel sky. "You always come out here in the morning?"
"Not always." He bent down and picked up a handful of stones. They jumped in his palm, and one slid between his pointer finger and thumb.
"You like the water?"
A vein in his neck popped. He darted a stone far past the waves, and it skipped along the smooth surface, past the choppy whitecaps. "I despise it."
"Then, why come?"
His shoulders lifted, and my gaze slid over his profile. He was tall, possibly six foot two. He chucked another stone against the water's surface with a side throw. "If I tell you, will you leave?"
"Depends. Will you be real with me?"
His chin dropped, and his chest expanded before looking back up at the water through thick lashes. "You wouldn't know the difference."
"True. But I'm a stranger. You have no reason to be anything but real."
He tilted his head and finally looked at me—really looked at me. We were only a few feet away from each other, but it still managed to collect my breath with the one sweep of his gaze. His eyes, dispassionate as bullets, traveled over my features with unnerving thoroughness, unearthing me, studying me, learning me.
Then he let go as if he'd dropped me from his arms, and returned his gaze to the ocean. "Okay. If I said that when I throw the stones, they'll make ripples, and that these ripples are like sound waves. And" he pitched another stone, "these sound waves can cross over to the other side and send a message, would that be real?"
"Yes." Another wave splashed over our rock, and the foam sizzled at the toe of his boots. "Can I help?"
The stones popped up in his palm again. "It's a one-person job."
"Well," I started to say, looking down and around at the rock we were standing on for a place to set my mug. My foot took one unsolid step as I bent over, placing it behind us. "Maybe, between the two of us, we'll reach whoever you're trying to send a message to. Plus," I continued, balancing myself beside him again, "I'm a pretty badass stone skipper." I offered a smile and the palm of my hand. I couldn't tell if he was smiling or not. His eyes remained distant and as lifeless as the bodies that passed over my table at the morgue back in Texas.
"Alright," he dropped a single stone in my hand, "Let's see it."
"You give me one?"
"Make it count."
"Whoa, the pressure. Okay." I popped the stone in the air, and my foot lost balance when I went to catch it. The guy snatched my arm, keeping me from falling into the ocean.
"The stones aren't toys," he scolded. His eyes darted to his hand on my arm, and he cleared his throat, releasing his grip just as quickly as if he'd touched something that burned him.
I steadied his conflicting reaction, and whispered, "My bad."
He straightened his shoulders. "Rookie mistake."
Seagulls squawked ahead. I rubbed the stone between my fingers, feeling the smooth surface, feeling his eyes watching me, his chilling stare sliding over my body like a blanket of something cold and fierce and familiar, like home. It flared goosebumps over my flesh. I tried to shake it away, and with a flick of my wrist, I threw the rock.
It only treaded a few feet out, plopped into the water, and sank.
"You're right. That was … badass," he stated dryly.
"Hey!" someone shouted in the distance. I turned to see a woman in a robe and rain boots, curlers in her hair, waving a newspaper high in the air from a few houses down. "I thought I told you to stay off our land!"
Following the cliff's edge, she marched toward us, looking down over the rocks and shouting threats about taking his trespassing to the next Town Hall meeting.
I snapped my gaze to the guy. He nudged his head with a crinkle in the corners of his eyes before he turned and swiftly moved across the rocks. The lady shouted again. My gaze bounced up to her, and when I looked back to the guy, he was already gone.