Re: [The Lake: Atticus & Cass]
He could gnaw and gnaw and he wouldn't find the bottom. There was no bottom, her thoughts were shadows and light like that on the water as the sun fell over the boat. She was impossible; she had been told so and her head was quicksilver when it wasn't weighted like lead. She felt lighter, the shock of cold water opened a chasm and let the black, massing there, sift through.
"But you've never needed to steal. I've never needed to steal. Money runs in the family," she said with the casual lack of interest of the wealthy, as if she had pockets and pockets full rather than a credit card tied to a guarantor. "Someone stole my bag in Paris once. He was talking to me and then he stole it. I would have thought it harder to steal from someone whose face you knew, but he made it look easy."
She'd been looked at before. In the Home, there were men and women both who looked as if they were taking without permission. Permission was hard to grant in a place you had nothing of your own save yourself, and they took that without asking. Atticus didn't look, not at all, not one bit. It wasn't skin and wet silk. Cass didn't care a fig about that. He took nothing, with his slow, steady voice. She liked him for it, as simple as that.
"Oh, that's what you meant." Still amused. Smoky-voiced with it. "I could, if you'd like one." She looked toward the shore, squinted a little. It felt like very long away and not very long at all. "Don't cross the Rubicon for a moment, would you? I'd like to see it from here. The dock."
He spoke in short sentences, that felt unfinished. She looked at him, boldly, candidly. "Are you slow, deep, thoughtful or just on quiet lake mornings?"