My expression went blank, and Trent hesitated, a silk sock in his hand as he felt the underside of his big toe. He looked at me, and I put a hand to my mouth, face flaming. “Oh. My. God. Trent. I’m sorry.” Crap on toast, could I screw this up any more?

“Um,” Trent said, clearly at a loss.

“Call me tomorrow,” Al said seriously, pointing at him with a bottle as he reclined on the cot. “I’ve got a curse that will take care of that.”

“Ah, I had a scar on my big toe,” Trent said, his thoughts clearly scattered. “It rubbed sometimes.” He put his sock back on, the firelight making the creases in his forehead obvious.

“Unless you like the snake in a turtleneck look,” Al said, and I hung my head and massaged my temples. “Ceri did. But she was earthy in her desires. Delightful little animal she was.”

Al went suddenly still, his breath rattling as if he was in pain. Ceri. Suddenly I understood. That was why he was drunk. But it didn’t excuse Al’s presence. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, mortified. “I didn’t think—”

“She called it my purse of delight,” Al was saying to the ceiling, flopped back on the cot until only his legs showed beyond the curtain, one foot on the cot, the other draped down onto the floor. A little sob came from him. “I should have freed her. I should have freed her . . .”

Trent had turned away, his steps long as he strode to the wine rack. “Rachel, have you tried my family label?” he asked, almost frantic as he searched for a corkscrew. “It’s fairly palatable for having been grown at this latitude. My father shoved a few more genes into a species or two for better sugar production.” Hands shaking, he poured white wine into a glass, downing it in one go. If I didn’t know him better, I would say he was babbling.

This was going really well, and I glumly sat back down on the raised hearth, my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. The kettle had begun to steam, and I pushed it off the fire. I didn’t feel like coffee, and by the looks of it, neither did Trent. From behind the curtain, Al was either singing or crying. I couldn’t tell. Asking him to jump out probably wasn’t a good idea.

The clink of glasses brought my head up, and I wasn’t surprised when Trent gingerly sat next to me, setting the glasses on the hearth between us and filling them both. “He misses Ceri,” I said softly, to which Trent nodded, his own eyes filled with a private heartache.