He's looking at me like he's unsure.
He needs to be sure. Because I need him to give Emmaleen what I can't while she and work out what we are.
So I say, "She deserves you, Lorcan. I find your brand of dominance to be… theatrical. Not in my wheel house, so to speak. But she found your style to be…" I glance at Emmaleen again and this time find her blushing. "Explosive."
I walk over to her, take her face in my hands, look her in the eyes. "As much as it pains me to admit it, I can't do theatre like that."
Emmaleen laughs. "Of course not. You're completely different animals." She shifts her gaze between us, weighing, comparing. "You're an octopus, Giovanni. Just like me. Three hearts. We slip inside the smallest openings and suddenly we're everywhere, filling up all the dark empty spaces with light that only shines when we're together."
She turns to Lorcan, her expression shifting into something more thoughtful, eyebrows drawn together in that way that tells me her brain is about to spiral into some absurd tangent.
"And you," she says, pointing at him. "You're like… a swan."
I blink.
Jino makes a noise that might be a suppressed laugh.
Lorcan's face goes carefully blank. "Aswan."
"Yes. Hear me out." Emmaleen starts gesturing, warming to her topic. "Swans are these elegant, beautiful creatures that glide across the water all graceful and serene, right? Very romantic. Veryoh look at the pretty swan in the park." She pauses. "But underneath the surface, their little webbed feet are paddling likecrazy. Just absolute chaos happening below the waterline that no one sees."
She looks at Lorcan with an intensity that makes him shift his weight.
"That's you. You've got this whole refined Irish aristocrat thing—the three-piece suits, the castle, theliturgy—but underneath?" She laughs. "You're paddling so hard you're about to take flight. Which, fun fact, swans are actuallyviciouswhen threatened. They'll break your arm with their wings. Theyhiss. They're territorial as fuck and will chase you across an entire lake if you piss them off."
Lorcan opens his mouth.
Emmaleen keeps going.
"Also, swans mate for life. Like, they pick one partner and that's it. Total devotion. They build nests together, raise babies together, and if one dies, the other one getsdepressed." She tilts her head. "You're a monogamous chaos bird pretending to be a romantic poet, and honestly? It works for you."
The room is completely silent.
Then Jino laughs so loud, it echoes off the ceiling.
Emmaleen turns to Jino with that manic gleam in her eyes that means she's about to unload something completely unhinged.
"And you," she says, pointing at him. "You're amantis shrimp."
I have no idea what that is.
Jino tilts his head. "A what?"
"Mantis. Shrimp." She enunciates each syllable like she's teaching vocabulary to kindergarteners. "They're these tiny ocean creatures that look harmless—kinda pretty, actually, with their rainbow shells—but they have the fastest punch in the animal kingdom. Like, faster than a bullet. They can literallyboil the water around their clawswhen they strike."
She's gesturing wildly now, fully committed to this metaphor.
"They also havesixteen color receptorsin their eyes. Humans have three. Dogs have two. Mantis shrimp havesixteen." She pauses for dramatic effect. "Which means they see colors we can't even imagine. They perceive reality on a completely different level than everyone else."
Jino hasn't moved, but I notice the smile creeping up his face.
"That's you," Emmaleen continues. "You see everything. Every micro-expression. Every hesitation. Every single tiny deviation from protocol that I think I'm getting away with." She laughs, but there's genuine exasperation underneath.
She crosses her arms.
"Also, mantis shrimp aresolitary. They live alone in their little burrows and only come out to hunt or mate. Very territorial. Very particular about their space." She looks pointedly at Jino. "Sound familiar?"
Lorcan is trying not to smile.
