“This first game will be a blackout,” the caller announced. “You must cover the entire card. I’ll call the first number. B-10.”
The room fell silent. Next to him, Marjorie marked her card. He scanned his, too, but didn’t see the number. Christ, there was nothing more boring than bingo.
“O-75.”
Which one of his assistants had suggested bingo? They were fired. This was like watching paint dry. The next few numbers were called in a droning voice. He daubed at each number on his card, and glanced over at Marjorie. She was busy marking her card, and then looked over at him and gave him a tentative smile. “Having fun?”
“A blast,” he said in a flat voice.
She faltered, and then reached over and marked a number on his card. He looked at her in surprise, and she pointed at the screen. “It’s in the hopper.”
The hopper? There was a screen? “I thought you didn’t know how to play.”
“Oh,” she said, and her eyes went falsely wide. “I don’t. How do we win this one?”
Was she trying to be stupid? “It’s called ‘blackout.’ I think it’s pretty obvious.”
Another crazy giggle erupted from her. “Of course!” She reached over and touched his arm again. A pink smear from her bottle showed on his gray sleeve. “Oh dear.”
He was getting a fucking headache. “Can you stop touching me for five fu— uh, freaking seconds? Please?”
Marjorie flinched backward, and he felt as if he’d kicked a goddamn puppy. “Of course.”
“And stop looking at me like that,” he snapped.
Her eyes got suspiciously shiny and she stared down at her card while the caller droned another number over the microphone.
He should apologize. He really should. Not that he was good at apologizing, but he should at least try, right? Rob heaved a sigh, and then put his marker down, turning toward her. “Look, Marjorie. Maybe we should call this off. Tonight just isn’t working for me—”
She abruptly stood up from the table. “I have to use the bathroom!” Her pink marker bottle rolled onto the ground, and he automatically bent over to get it for her.
When he sat up, though, she wasn’t heading for the restroom at all, but the exit. And she was running.
Well, fuck. Maybe he shouldn’t have started his apology that way. Rob rubbed his face, and then was annoyed to see a blue streak on his hand from his own marker bottle. Goddamn it.
“You’re a prick,” a raspy voice said behind him.
“What the fuck?” He turned around and stared at the old geezer who was glaring at him. The man sat next to two older ladies and they all looked utterly pissed at him. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Someone who knows how to talk to a lady,” the old man said, raising his chin. “Unlike you. Prick.”
The two ladies next to the man shot him dismissive looks between marking numbers on their cards.
“I have gone out of my way to make that girl happy,” Rob began.
But the older guy shook his bingo marker at him again. “Doesn’t look like it to me. Looks like all you can do is make her cry.”
Make her cry? Ah . . . fuck. Rob got up. Now he did feel like a dick. “She was crying?”
The old man shot him the bird.
All right, whatever. He gave the man his card and bottle and headed out the door Marjorie had run through.
The resort was a big place, but apparently it wasn’t too hard to find an extremely tall, upset woman. After a few minutes of asking, people directed him outside the hotel, toward the beach.
Of course it would be the goddamn beach, wouldn’t it? With a sigh, Rob headed in that direction. Fucking water. Fucking island. This trip had been a mess ever since he’d stepped off the plane. Maybe he should have just cut his losses and gone home. Despite this depressing mind-set, he found himself following the path out to the beach and began to walk down the shore. In the distance, he could see a small, huddled figure sitting alone in the sand. Rob’s steps picked up, and as he approached, he saw it was definitely Marjorie. She hugged her knees, her face buried against them, and her shoulders shook with silent tears. Her high heels were discarded in the sand nearby, and the waves lapped a scant few inches from her bare feet.
Ah hell. Why was she being so goddamn sensitive about this?
Rob gazed at her for a long moment, trying to decide what to do. She hadn’t noticed him there. Then, with an inward sigh, he sat down on the beach next to her and looked out at the dark, murky water. It looked rather ominous at night. He had a brief mental vision of Marjorie holding him under the water and drowning him for hurting her feelings.
She looked up as he sat down and flinched away. “W-why are you here?”
“Hell if I know.” Rob stared out at the waves.
Marjorie swiped at her cheeks and he heard a loud sniff, but he didn’t look over. Better to give her time to compose herself. He sucked at handling tears. Most of the time they were just used to try to get sympathy, and he had no sympathy to give. But seeing smiling, happy Marjorie crying made him feel . . .
Well, it sure as shit didn’t feel good.
“You should know I wasn’t trying to be critical,” Rob began. “I’m just . . .” he sighed. “I don’t know. I was kind of hoping this would go better than it did.”
She sniffed again. “I’m sorry.”
He glanced over. “Why are you apologizing?”
Her cheeks gleamed in the moonlight and her eyes looked swollen. Shit, she looked terrible. All woebegone and miserable, and he felt so damn bad that he immediately regretted coming out here. It seemed that puppies, good ratings, and weepy amazons were his weaknesses. And wasn’t that just ducky.