“When I was a kid, I had glow-in-the-dark sticky stars on my bedroom ceiling,” he said.
“Lucky. I wanted those. My parents wouldn’t let me.”
“Neat freaks?” Carter asked sympathetically.
“Perfectionists. My father was a Korean diplomat who met my mother when he was posted to England. She was English aristocracy, the sort with a huge ancestral manor they can’t afford to maintain. He got a job in DC and they settled down in the US. I grew up in a big posh house where nothing could be messy or tacky or ugly. No pets, no ripped jeans, no glow-in-the-dark stars.”
“No Babysitters Club.” He was beginning to get an inkling of why Fen, or at least the public persona of Fenella Kim, was the way she was.
“Classics, literary fiction, and highbrow nonfiction only.”
“What did they expect you to read when you were a little girl,Moby Dick?”
“Oh, no, I got all the best, most award-winning, and age-appropriate children’s books.” Fen huffed a soft, warm chuckle against his throat. “Guess what those were like.”
“Stultifyingly boring and full of improving moral lessons?”
“Sometimes. But mostly they were depressing. I got books about grandmas dying of cancer, grandpas dying of heart attacks, sisters dying of leukemia, best friends dying of freak accidents, and dogs dying of rabies, grief, getting hit by a car, and getting shot by racists. In retrospect, I’m lucky it didn’t turn me off reading.”
“It should’ve turned you off your parents,” said Carter.
She shrugged. “They were brilliant and did everything perfectly. I was this gawky, absent-minded girl who lost her homework and flunked classes and generally didn’t measure up. They had sophisticated conversations about politics and current events at the dinner table, and God help you if you got bored and spaced out. They used to ask me to repeat what they’d just said when they thought I was daydreaming, and I don’t think I ever managed it. Most of the time I didn’t even remember the general topic.”
Carter was indignant on young Fen’s behalf. “It’s not fair to expect a kid to keep up with an adult diplomat’s conversation about politics.”
He felt rather than saw her turn to look away from him, up into the night sky. “Yeah, I get that now. But enough about me and my parents. What was your family like?”
“Warm,” he said, after a moment of thought. Normally he could easily describe his family without having to consciously edit out any reference to shifting. But lying there on the slightly damp grass with Fen in his arms, he felt like he was doing everything for the first time. “Relaxed. A bit chaotic. There were always a bunch of uncles and aunts and cousins and foster kids and so forth around. We had a big house, but people were still always unexpectedly showing up and sleeping on the sofa. I took over the attic so I didn’t have to share a room. I always had bits and pieces of things I was building lying around, and I was sick of them getting stepped on and moved around.”
“Did they appreciate what you could do?” She sounded so concerned for the young Carter that he rushed to reassure her.
“Oh, sure. It wasn’t like there was so much going on that I got ignored. I like things more organized and less noisy, that’s all. If I can’t keep everything exactly in its place, I can never find it again.” A yawn stretched his jaw so wide that it gave an audible pop. “We should get some rest. I already set my watch alarm for dawn.”
“How do you know when dawn is? We don’t know the time zones here.”
He smiled. “It’s light-sensitive; it’s set to the sun.”
“You’re so smart,” she said, and snuggled in close. Before he could tell her she was too, her breathing evened out into sleep.
He lay awake a while longer, knowing he needed to get as much rest as possible in case he had to fight tomorrow but unwilling to miss a minute of having Fen in his arms. It wasn’t only the pleasure that went bone-deep, but an unexpected tenderness. She felt sorightthere; he felt so right holding her. And he might never get this chance again.
As he drifted off to sleep despite himself, he wondered if Precious had delivered his note.
Chapter 7
Fen awokehot and sweaty yet strangely content. A song was playing and warm arms held her tight. She stretched luxuriously, thinking vaguely that she should probably get up and turn on the air conditioning, but it felt so good to lie at ease, draped all over the body of…
…Carter Howe!
She sat upright with a gasp as she remembered where she was. Carter lay on the grass in the pale dawn light. His watch was playing Green Day. He blinked, glanced down at it and turned it off, then saw her. His hazel eyes widened as she watched him replay the day before in about two seconds. She expected him to jump to his feet as he regretted everything and rushed to distance himself, physically and emotionally.
Instead, he reached up and ruffled her hair. She instantly understood why cats purred when people did that as she leaned into his touch.
“You’re beautiful in the morning,” he said. “Definitely the highlight of the swamp.”
So he didn’t regret their kissing and cuddling, nor was he going to pretend it hadn’t happened. Well, well, well. If he had no regrets, she certainly wasn’t going to pretend she did.
Fen leaned down and kissed him. Neither of them had brushed their teeth, but just this once, she didn’t care. And once they got going, she forgot all about that.
