Next time. Said with the assurance there’dbea next time. I turn my head and look up at him. It’s my turn to nod, and I do so as I stand and dust off my shorts. “Go ahead. You’d be the best at making sure things stay in.”
Trent categorises everything and starts shifting it methodically away. I’m helpful. I find a crown made of a mosaic of paua shell, and I put it away, right where it belongs, in its new spot.
Trent startles and feels the top of his head. He takes the crown off?—
And puts it on again. “My colour and everything. Regal.”
“A total kelp king.”
“Yes.”
“That was an insult. Or a very apt description of how very tangled up all ofthisis.” I wave a hand between us, a gesture meaning him and me—Ika, me.
He pauses. “Interesting.”
“What is?”
“Your perception.”
“You’re not growing a tangled forest impossible to escape from?”
He hangs ribbon, and then meets me kneeling on the floor. I still have to look up to meet his calculating gaze, the gentle flash of light in it.
He tips his head down.
My palms clamp to the bits of visible floor.
His voice is soft, even, and just a bit teasing. “The keyword is growing. Regenerating. Giving them a new beginning.”
His face tilts closer. The air changes, a flicker of warmth skimming past my cheek. My breath stutters before I can stop it.
And then, as if it meant nothing at all, he bends to retrieve a mermaid’s tail.
A flicker of something,damn it, something,twists low in my stomach.
He glances at me sideways. A hint at the edge of his lips. A suggestion of a smirk trying to sneak through. “A total kelp king.”
A total lost cause.
Would be me. Scrambling to put things away in the correct order.
There are a lot of thoughts.
Mostly along the lines of:stop this foolishness. Stop it all.
And then, Holly laughs. From the next room.
A breath. A pause. A choice.
Fine.
I’ll keep this up.
But he’s supposed to be your sibling, Ika.
Older. Bigger.
Brother.
