Then, upon glimpsing one madly-keen runner headed in our direction, he unzips his hoodie and hurriedly whisks it around my shoulders. He pulls it smartly over my exposed scar, his fingers combing my collarbone, and he holds it there tightly. One, two, three long breaths before he finally loosens his grip and slowly lets go.
The hoodie shifts, exposing it again. Trent glances away, throat jutting with a swallow, and he tracks the path of his runaway umbrella.
“You need a shower now too.”
“What?” His eyes snap back to me.
And I gesture to him, steeping in a large muddy puddle, as I zip into his hoodie properly. His gaze traces the roll of the zip and skips sideways again.
“How’d you find me anyway?”
“I was coming back from the supermarket . . .”
When he spied me, pulled over, and called.
I murmur, answering the question still lingering in his gaze, “I just needed a walk.” And somehow ended up on the City to Sea walkway in only jandals. “I was also on my way back.”
He rubs his head again and pushes himself to his feet, then holds out a hand for me to take. He clasps my palm solidly and I spring up against the hammering rain. There’s a moment our hands linger. Just one beat too long.
But the tip of his finger brushes the fish band and I pull free fast. I start racing towards the umbrella. “First to catch the umbrella gets the hot water.”
“Careful,” he calls, chasing after me. “It’s a slippery slope. You might fall.”
dancing shrimp
Small and energetic, swaying with the current, seemingly unbothered.
Grandpa is in a right grumpy mood, squinting over surfaces as he snaps his way around the house with his beechwood walking stick. “Where’s my damn hat?”
I stifle a laugh and point from the couch I’m lounging on to his head.
Even that he doesn’t see well, and I tell him too.
He prods me with the end of his stick. “Rascal. I always wear my other one when I rock. Been with me every concert of my life.”
“Pax Polo doesn’t play for another forty minutes,” Trent says, not looking up from his laptop. “Squint a little harder.”
“I’llhelp you, Grandpa.” I leap off the couch, adding in a staged whisper, “Remember you love me more.”
Grandpa huffs a laugh but lets me help, and I loudly declare myself the greatest hat detective to ever live—acting talent has to be put to good use sometime.
Grandpa snorts. “If we find it in the freezer, I don’t wanna hear a word about it.”
I search the hooks by the front door where Grandpa claims it was hanging. The only smallish thing I find is a doily on the floor. Must’ve slipped out of the bags I stowed here for Moana.
“What does it look like exactly?” I ask.
Grandpa jerks his walking stick at one of the hallway photos. “Denim newsboy cap from the 70s.”
I glance at the photo. And . . . a flicker of familiarity . . .
A denim cap. Faded at the brim. Slightly tilted on Grandpa’s younger head. It looks like?—
Itreallylooks like . . .
Oh.
A prickle races up my nape. My stomach tightens.
