“That’s so creepy,” I mumble, even as a wild shiver slinks through me.
He shifts the pen and something slides off it to the desk.
“There’s been a stray feather in your hair all day,” he says. “You were about to inhale it.”
Waking up to that damn chicken sharing my pillow hadn’t been my finest moment. I shrieked so loud poor Trent bolted up the ladder in a mess of tangled hair, a shirt rucked around his hips, and boxers covered in shrimp in sunglasses—and a very not-shrimp-sized bulge to go with it. I shrieked louder at that.
I scowl over a rising flush. “At least it’s not another spider.” I shudder, and then add, “But you know, Grandpa’s right to complain about that pesky chicken.”
Trent’s lips flatten. “You left the pen gate open.”
“I don’t leave my gate open willy nilly. And if you check, be warned, you won’t find any eggs.”
Trent’s gaze flicks, quick, but not quick enough. “That was not thinly veiled at all.”
“More veiled than what I saw this morning.”
Trent exhales through his nose. The slight twitch of his fingers against the desk is almost imperceptible. Almost.
He taps his pen against my chin. “None of that now, Ika.”
I feel it like a pull in my ribs. The warning. The step backward. Ika. If that wasn’t a bucket of frozen water.
I run my tongue along my teeth and glance at the stray feather on the desk. Trent’s already looking at his laptop screen—nottapping, of course.
“Back to the chicken,” I say. “If she’s so important, why doesn’t she have a name?”
“Grandpa forgets. So we just stick with Chicken.” He cocks his head at me. “What is it you do exactly?” he asks.
“That’s my question,” I mutter, playing with the feather as I explain how the studio works. It’s a place for hire. Actors use it to run drama lessons, or as a rehearsal space, or even a place to hold events. I run twelve to twenty hours of classes in a week and manage the marketing, bookkeeping, and organisation ofthe space. “Us actors stick together and help one another out—whether it’s to jump in for line reading when someone’s sick, or to help set up for a production. Whenever one of us lands a gig, the rest of us will run their classes.”
“How supportive.”
“We’re the only ones who understand how tough it is.”
He eyes me, as if he’s tracing all the lines of my sleeve left from my snooze. “Very tough.”
I flick the feather at him, forcing a sharp exhale through my nose. “You know what, you’re just as annoying as the chicken.”
He tilts the pen at me, a quiet challenge. “Then you must like me. I too get rid of spiders.”
A traitorous laugh leaps out of me and I hurriedly zip it away. Thankfully the kiddos are flurrying out from their lesson. I immediately snag Moana into conversation, but I’ve used this trick too often. She rolls her eyes, grabs her coat, and calls out, “Thank Gramps for the vintage stuff. I’ve passed it on.”
She and the kiddos head outside to the parent-pickup spot, leaving Holly fussing with her school bag. She rises from it with sheets of paper and a pencil case and her nervous green eyes find mine with a wobbly smile. “Can I do my homework while I wait for Mum?”
I bolt off my chair and tell her to use my side of the desk.
Trent eyeballs this sudden move, but says nothing and resumes not tapping his laptop. Holly settles in and starts sketching. She outlines the trunk and pauses after doing half of the branches, at which point she starts counting. She opens an envelope and tips photos out over my desk. It happens so fast.
A blur of colour and faces.
I shift my weight slightly. Just enough to see better over her shoulder. Then just enough not to.
“What’s, ah, the homework?”
She lines the photos up beside her in a neat grid. “Grandad, Nana, my other Gdad and granny, my aunt, uncle, and mum. Then there’s Dad. Those are my cousins, and this is me, and...” She hesitates and searches for a missing photo. There’s one face down behind her pencil case. She drags it across her tree—family tree, I get it now—without flipping it. But her little frame folds in and mine folds with her in sympathy. “Dunno about this one. It’s not like I ever met her.”
Trent is taking far too much interest in Holly’s homework; or maybe he, too, reads the palpable shift in her mood. He turns in his chair. “Don’t do anything that makes you sad.”
