“I’m not alone.” Miller’s knee bounces up and down. “My friend—she’s here with me.”
“Who?” his aunt practically shrieks at the same time his uncle makes a noncommittal sort of noise, asking, “The dinosaur girl from the internet?”
Miller grimaces, eyes cutting to me, and I straighten my shoulders, nodding in permission. He shifts in his chair, angling the phone so I can pop my head into the screen.
I do, smiling brightly.
“Hi! Dinosaur girl here!” I wave. “I’m Ren. It’s so nice to meet you both.”
His aunt inhales, immediately glancing sideways at his uncle, and whispers, not all that quietly, “She’s pretty.”
“She can hear you,” Miller cuts in.
“It was a compliment.” His aunt rolls her eyes before they flick to me, warmth spreading across the swirls of honey living in them. She’s beautiful—dark chestnut hair, woven with threads of silver, pulled back from her face, the same slope to her nose I see in Miller and pictures of Matthew, and the same shape to her mouth. “It’s so nice to meet you, Ren. I’m Emilia, and this is Mitchell.”
Emilia drops her chin to her hand. “What are you two doing?”
I turn to Miller, waiting, but he’s staring determinedly at the ground, the skin around his knuckles white.
Waving a hand, I look back at the screen. “Playing catch. I’m not particularly coordinated. Miller was teaching me a few things.”
“You did great,” he murmurs, and when he shifts in his seat beside me, his knee knocks against mine.
I leave mine there, pressing encouragement against his skin. Leaning forward, I whisper, “I really didn’t. I could only catch underhand.”
“Everyone starts somewhere,” Mitchell offers, smiling, but sadness creeps in around the corners of his eyes, deep blue like Miller’s, but not quite the same shade of navy.
“I should maybe—start again,” I say wryly.
Miller snorts a laugh beside me, and his aunt and uncle light up again. Not because of me and my bad attempt atself-deprecation—but at the sideways smile carving across their child’s face, like it’s a sunrise they haven’t seen in a long, long time.
Emilia blinks, once, twice, a third time, and she drags her hand absentmindedly across her chest where it rests over her heart, and she stares fondly at Miller through the phone. Mitchell’s hand finds her shoulder, a gentle prod reminding her not to stare directly at the sun for too long, and her eyes snap back to me. She smiles brightly before she leans closer to the screen, asking, “So, Ren, tell me—did the dinosaurs really have feathers?”
“Jesus Christ.” Miller drops his head back, groaning.
I cut him a look, and when he straightens again, smiling, and light, and wonderful, and unburdened—I think I have to look away too.
I make a show of folding my hands together. “To answer your question, Emilia, I’m going to have to start by telling you about a very important fossil called Archaeopteryx.”
“The one from Germany?” Miller glances at me before he looks back at the screen, and he turns a new shade of crimson when he tells them, “Ren lived in Germany for a bit, uh, studying that fossil.”
“Oh!” His aunt glows, cutting another look towards his uncle. “She’s smart, too.”
“Come on!” Miller slumps down in his seat again.
I chance another glance at him—the brightest star in the sky most people don’t deserve to see—offering him a tentative smile. He returns it, a ray of sunlight stretching down. I have to look away again, or I think I’d stare forever. Turning to his aunt with a nod and a lift of my brows, I start, “Emilia, you came to the right place. Prepare to have everything you thought you knew about these little terrestrial reptiles known as dinosaurs forever changed.”
“You know,” I say, finally looking away from the flashes of city light stretching out beyond the passenger window. “This stupid car is growing on me.”
“Yeah?” Miller laughs, lazily flicking the signal to turn onto my street.
I smile, nodding. “Yeah. Not terribly practical, and seems like maybe, you know, a big waste of what’s surely a very capable engine that’s probably a feat of engineering to drive it around in a city with some of the worst traffic in North America, but yes, I do have to say, it’s growing on me.” I shift around in the seat. “Very comfortable leather.”
“Should I?” He throws me a sideways grin, glancing away from the empty street leading to my townhouse, fingers drumming along the gearshift.
I narrow my eyes. “Should you what?”
He shrugs a shoulder, bottom lip dipping right as a streetlight casts shadows across his face that make his jaw look sharper than usual. “Open it up a bit, see what Matty’s stupid car can do.”
