Trent leans in. “For hissmile.”
“And this doesn’t break you?”
Trent shifts back, slow, deliberate. “I’m already broken,” he says simply, like stating a fact.“But it’s been over a decade now. I’ve done my grieving.”
Like he thinks there’s a difference between feeling and grieving. Like one exists, but the other surely can’t anymore.
I look from his stoic face to the room around us.
Fool.
But Trent doesn’t see it. There in his eyes, in the set of his shoulders, in the quiet surety of his posture; hebelieveshe’s done grieving.
My gaze drifts to the neatly made top bunk.
A slow laugh presses against my ribs. “It was always the plan I sleep there, wasn’t it?”
Trent moves to the ladder, rests a hand on the fourth rung. His fingers curl around it and... just for a second, less perhaps, there’s a slight tightening. A strain around the skin of his knuckles.
Then, just as easily, he releases the ladder rung and says, “This one’s dodgy. Careful.”
I already smell like Ika. I might as well slide into his sheets too?—
A deafening bang has me leaping into Trent’s arms. One moment, I’m standing my ground just as coolly as Trent the Flooder, the next moment, an ear-splitting bang and I’m clinging onto all that solid mass with a curse, head tucking right under his chin, hands fisted against his chest. It’s a wonder, honestly, my legs aren’t around him as well.
It all happens so fast, and my extreme reaction triggers Trent’s.
He cups a hand protectively around my head and turns me in towards the bed, his back shielding me from whatever might come through the door.
But there’s nothing.
Just a wild voice demanding someone take this pesky chicken away.
Trent’s shoulders ease, and I allow myself a silent groan against an Under the Sea starfish on Trent’s collar before I push him back.
I toss out a laugh. “At least yours is safe.”
Trent blinks. “My what?”
“The chicken. She didn’t—” I make a slicing motion. “Didn’t ravage your zucchini.”
A slow blink.
“Poor Grandpa though.” I shake my head. “That’s not the way to go.”
The slowest exhale. A deliberate pinch of his nose. And maybe, possibly, the slightest quiver at his lips.
kelp forests
Grow thick and tangled; impossible to escape once caught inside.
We go shopping early the following week, and I insist on carrying the bags from the truck. Maybe to show I’m helpful. Maybe just to keep my hands busy. I keep fidgeting with Ika’s wristband, and Trent keeps looking at it, and... Eyes elsewhere!
“I can take that one, too.” I grab the paper bag and heave the four in that hand out of the back seat.
Oof. The paper handles dig into my skin.
Just a short pedestrian hill to the house...
