Page 125

BARYN

Faun has somehow acquired one of the decorative pillows from the bed.

I don't know when this happened. I don't know how a seven-pound dog managed to drag something approximately twice his size onto the floor without either of us noticing. But he's currently burrowed into the center of it like a very small, disproportionately hairy emperor while my mother sits cross-legged at the foot of the bed and continues planning the rest of my life.

“I like her,” she says for what has to be the sixth time since Serena left.

“Yes, Mother.”

“No, Bear, I mean I really like her.” She points at me with one of the cherries she still hasn't eaten, probably because she's been too busy interrogating them for consent. “She's intelligent without needing everyone in the room to know she's intelligent, which is rare. And she's funny, but I don't think she realizes she's funny, which is even better. And the way she looked at you⁠—”

“Mom.”

“—was very revealing.”

I set my laptop on the desk and pull the drive toward me. “You spoke to her for twenty minutes.”

“Twenty-three.”

I give her a flat look.

“And it doesn't take twenty-three minutes to recognize compatibility.” My mother says this with absolute confidence. “Sometimes you know immediately. Your energies are very complementary.”

“My energy is currently asking you to stop talking.”

“Your energy has been asking me to stop talking since you were fourteen. I've never found it particularly persuasive.” She smiles and pops the cherry into her mouth, having finally received whatever spiritual authorization she'd been waiting for. “I'm only saying I can see it. You balance each other. She's very grounded, and you're⁠—”

“If the next word out of your mouth is air, I'm putting you in a cab.”

“I was going to say emotionally constipated.” My mother beams.

“Can we please watch the tape?”

“Yes, yes.” She waves a hand at the laptop, but makes no move to reposition herself toward it. “I'm just thinking practically. If Serena's work keeps her where she is and yours can be done from anywhere, obviously you would move. I don't think that would be difficult. You’re barely home as it is.”

I close my eyes. “We've known each other for less than two weeks.”

The most concerning part of this is that she isn’t saying anything I haven’t already considered.

“And I would never interfere.”

I turn slowly to look at her.

She has the decency to hold my gaze for almost three seconds before adding, “Excessively.”

“You found me in another state.”

“That was an emergency. And look how well it worked out.” Her eyes drift toward the door Serena walked through less than ten minutes ago, and her expression softens. “She's good for you, Bear. I know you're going to make that complicated because you make everything complicated, but I hope you don't make it so complicated that you lose her before you even have her.”

That is closer to something real than I'm willing to let my mother know, so I look back at the laptop and slot the drive into the port. “Great. Thank you. Very normal conversation. We're watching the tape now.”

Faun abandons his pillow the second I sit down, trots over, and scratches once at my shin until I pick him up. He circles twice in my lap before settling with his chin across my forearm, effectively pinning one hand while I navigate to the video with the other. My mother finally moves closer, pulling the desk chair beside mine, and for approximately five seconds the room is blessedly quiet.

Then her hand closes around my wrist. “Wait.”

I glance down at it. “What?”

She doesn't answer immediately. The change in her is subtle enough that I almost miss it. Her attention has gone somewhere else entirely, the teasing expression disappearing as she looks toward the window and then the door. Faun feels it too, or feels her feel it, because his head comes up from my arm. “I don't like this.”