"Disney."
I wait for the punchline. It doesn't come.
"Disney," I repeat.
"Don't judge me."
"I'm not judging."
"Your face is judging."
"My face is my face."
She rolls her eyes and drops onto the bed beside me, the mattress dipping under her weight. "I grew up on Disney movies. My mom worked doubles most weekends, so I'd sit in our apartment and watch the same VHS tapes over and over. The Little Mermaid. Beauty and the Beast. Mulan."
"Mulan," I echo. "The warrior."
"She saves China by being smarter than everyone around her." Kristen's voice goes soft. "I loved that. A girl who didn't need a prince to rescue her."
"And now?" I ask. "You still watch them?"
"With Lily, yeah. It's different now. Watching her discover them for the first time." Her eyes get that faraway look she gets whenever she talks about her daughter. "She's obsessed with Tangled right now. We've seen it maybe forty times."
"Forty."
"At least."
I try to imagine sitting through the same movie forty times.
"The song," Kristen continues, oblivious to my wandering thoughts. "The lantern scene? Makes me cry every single time. It's embarrassing."
"Why embarrassing?"
She shrugs, not meeting my eyes. "It's just a cartoon."
"It makes you feel something. That's not embarrassing."
Her gaze snaps to mine. Whatever she sees there makes her breath catch.
"You're strange," she whispers.
"So I've been told."
"No, I mean—" She reaches out, her fingertips brushing my jaw. The touch is feather-light, barely there, but my pulse kicks hard against my ribs. "You act like this cold, calculating man. All business and threats and intimidation. But then you say things like that."
"Like what?"
"Like feelings aren't weakness."
I catch her wrist, holding her hand against my face. Her skin is warm from the shower. "They can be. In my world, they usually are."
"But?"
The word hangs between us.
"But you're not a weakness," I say slowly, testing the truth of it. "You're something else."
"What?"
