Here goes nothing. “What about Folk? Would you be okay if he stayed with us sometimes?”
“In your bed?”
“Yeah.”
“Because he’s your boyfriend?”
“Um. Yeah. Maybe not forever, but he’s nice, right? You like him?”
“He’s a merman, Daddy. You’ll have to build a pool in the garden.”
Didn’t really answer my question. Any other time, I might’ve left it and waited for another shot, but not about this. If she wasn’t comfortable with Folk being here, I had to know. “Ives, Folk’s gonna come over later and stay the night. That means he might be in my bed when you wake up. Is that okay with you?”
Ivy nodded and stuck her nose back in her sweet bag. “Can we make him a bracelet?”
“Sure. You want to do that now?”
“In a minute.”
That told me. I retrieved my phone, while she finished her sweets, and tapped out a message.
Decoy:i talked to ivy. she’s okay with u sleeping over... if you’re still okay with it?
It dawned on me that maybe I should’ve triple checked before I dropped it on Ivy. I hadn’t spoken to Folk since yesterday, when he’d asked me if I was okay. When I’d replied with the same question.
Fuck.
Irrational anxiety seized my nerves. I felt shit enough about misleading Ivy. Having to undo it all ten minutes later was a clusterfuck I couldn’t contemplate without giving myself a—
My phone buzzed in my hand. I jumped and it slipped out of my grasp.
Ivy picked it up and poked at the screen, frowning when she couldn’t figure it out. “Who is it from?”
“I don’t know. You have it.”
She passed it over and Folk’s name lit up the screen.
Folk:I got you. When do you want me to come over?
The panic in my chest evaporated, replaced by a heightened thrum in my pulse that was far more pleasant as I considered his question. Timing was everything. Ivy needed to go to bed soon, and she’d be an absolute terror about it if she knew Folk was here or that his arrival was imminent.
But I was also running on empty. Three days on the road had done me in, and the thought of keeping my eyes open until the dead of night, even for him, made my head spin.
Decoy:she should be asleep by 9
Folk:I’ll be there.
My soul settled more than it had any right to. I set my phone aside and focused on Ivy. “It was Folk. He won’t be here until late, so you’ll see him in the morning if he doesn’t have to leave early for work.”
“Can we go swimming with him again? Can Lili come? She wants to swim underwater too.”
“We can ask. Pretty sure Liliana can’t swim at all, though. So it might be awhile before she can do the same things you can.”
“Folk can teach her.” Ivy spoke with a certainty she usually reserved for Saint. “Can we make the bracelet now?”
I rose to fetch the bag of multicoloured threads she used to make friendship bracelets for her favourite uncles. My stubby man fingers were better with hair, but Ives had it down.
She chose moon blue for Folk, naturally. And sea-green for Locke. Apparently he’d made her list without me noticing, and that put a smile on my face.
