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committed.
    He’d
been committed his mother, changing his entire life plans because she’d needed
his help. He’d been committed to his work, spending days and nights on even the
most mundane of tasks necessary for the campaign.
    He
hadn’t really changed. He was exactly the same way now.
    It
made her feel close to him. The way she’d felt when she was seventeen.
    When
he’d completely cleared the dirt from the bracelet, he turned to look at her
suddenly.
    She
couldn’t help but respond to the smile in his eyes. She smiled back, feeling a
glow of connection, of memory.
    They
held gazes for just a little too long. She suddenly felt self-conscious,
uncomfortable.
    Dropping
her eyes back to the bracelet, she said, “It’s so tiny.”
    “People
were smaller back then.”
    “I
know.”
    When
she darted a look back up at his face, she saw he was peering at her the way he
had last night—like he was trying to read her mind, read her soul, figure her
out.
    Last
night, she’d resented it, but now it just confused her. It felt intimate
somehow, but they’d never been intimate.
    Despite
what she’d believed back in college for a while, they’d never even been
friends. He might have committed to other things, but he’d never been committed
to her .
    She
cleared her throat and stood up, her stiff muscles resenting being held in a
squat for so long.
    Philip
looked up at her, a silent question on his face.
    She
didn’t understand it. She didn’t understand anything.
    She
turned and walked back to the trailer.
    ***
    Philip didn’t
understand Lucy at all, and he didn’t like what he couldn’t understand.
    At
the moment, it was two o’clock in the morning, and Lucy was still wandering
around the island with her cameraman.
    Philip
couldn’t sleep, and two hours ago he’d come outside to sit in his doorway,
staring out at the weird, shifting shadows of the island on a summer night.
    He
wasn’t sure what Lucy had been doing all this time. She must be on the far side
of the island, since she was out of his sight.
    For
all he knew, she was screwing her cameraman.
    He
didn’t really think so, though. He was pretty sure the cameraman was screwing Lucy’s
assistant.
    He
shouldn’t be thinking about Lucy in the context of sex anyway.
    It
was absolutely ridiculous the way he kept swinging back and forth between
feeling close to her and feeling annoyed with her, between wanting to strangle
her and wanting to take her to bed.
    He
led a very orderly and controlled existence—he’d made sure of it, after his early
years had been so rocky—and her presence here obviously wasn’t good for him.
    She
needed to leave. Soon.
    At
last, he saw her approaching with the lanky cameraman. Lucy told the young man
goodnight as he turned to his room in the second trailer.
    Lucy's
eyes were on Philip as she approached.
    She
stopped directly in front of him, looking absurdly pretty and appealing with
hair slipping out of a clip and a frown turning down her full lips.
    “Are
you really staying up all night to spy on me now?”
    “I
wasn’t spying on you. I couldn’t sleep.” He was well aware that his tone was
less than patient.
    “Are
you normally afflicted with insomnia?” she asked tartly.
    Philip
stood up, since he didn’t like the way she loomed over him. It put him at a
disadvantage. “Are you normally this prickly?”
    “Just
with you.” Her cheeks were flushed, and her breathing had accelerated.
    For
some reason, she was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.
    “Lucky
me.”
    The
flash of angry tension that had tightened her body suddenly slumped. She blew
out a resigned breath. “This is ridiculous. We shouldn’t do this, Philip.  I
really am trying to be professional and cordial, and I don’t know why you
always get on my last nerve.”
    He
was glad that, at least, he wasn’t the only one so unsettled by their
interaction. The only one without any good explanation for it. “It’s an awkward
situation,” he said