The sky is streaked bright pink and purple.
Dinner is a seafood platter of prawns, fresh fish, calamari, mussels, and chips.
Solenne screams as soon as she sees it. “Daddy, what is that!” she yelps, pointing at the bright red prawns, looking very bug-like on the platter.
I scrunch my nose in disgust. I’ve never been a fan of deskilling prawns, even though they taste amazing.
“It’s seafood, baby, a prawn,” Selene explains, picking it up and holding it up for Solenne to see. Solenne screams again, and Aroon almost falls off his chair, trying to shoot backward.
“It’s not scary!” Selene packs up laughing. “Look, you take the meat out like this. You don’t eat the whole thing,” she explains, showing the twins how to do it.
My face turns pale as I watch her handling the red ocean spider.
“It’s aspider,Mommy!” Arron cries out, horrified by the feelers and legs.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” I groan.
“It’s not a spider. It’s like a crab. Here, your dad will de-shell it for you so you can taste it.” She picks up a few prawns for me to de-shell for Arron, while she does the same for Solenne and puts them in my place. Instantly, my face goes even more pale.
Selene notices that I don’t move to touch them.
When she looks at me, she laughs so hard it makes her cry.
“Your face looksexactly like the twins,” she gasps for air through her laughter.
“It’s not funny. They are seriously creepy,” I grumble.
Selene pulls the plate of prawns away from me and starts de-shelling them for all of us. “Well, at least now we know who they inheritedthatirrational fear from,” she muses, throwing me a sideways glance and winking at me.
I chuckle, feeling foolish, but also somehow proud. A silly reason to be proud, really. But I have hated the feel of prawn shells since I was a kid. And now my kids hate it too. And it just makes me feel that much closer to them.
Arron crawls onto my lap, staring down at the white prawn meat in front of us.
“Is it okay to eat, Daddy?” he asks, looking at me with full trust.
“Oh yes, now it is. And it tastes amazing,” I tell him, picking up a piece and popping it into my mouth to prove a point. Without hesitation, he does the same. His littlemmmof pleasure makes Selene and me both laugh.
“Goodness. What a funny thing to inherit,” she muses.
Chapter16 - Selene
Our holiday is going so perfectly, I swear it feels like I am living in a movie.
This morning, we spent a few hours swimming with dolphins, and Solenne lost her mind with happiness when she got to hold onto the fin of one of them and have it pull her around. And when we got back, as we were getting off the boat, Arron found a glass bottle, an old-looking bottle sealed with a cork and red wax. And inside it was a treasure map. The map was made so beautifully, with such care and artistry, that it almost made me cry.
The man who puts in this much effort for my children is a man I want to keep close to my heart.
Simon helped Arron read the map, and together they tracked down and dug up the treasure. It was buried pretty deep to be authentic. When Arron helped Simon lift the real-looking treasure chest from the hole they had dug, they discovered it was filled with an emerald pendant, golden coins, and anabundanceof toys… He immediately gave me the emerald necklace. It was obvious Simon had planned that part for me. The green of the stone is a perfect match for the green of my eyes.
“Why are their toys in a pirate treasure box?” Arron asks, thrilled to find them, but not understanding how they got there.
“What? You don’t think kids can be pirates?” Simon says in shock. “I think this pirate was about your age. But it looks like this creature was buried years ago, so he would be older now.”
“What if he comes to look for his treasure!” Arron blurts out, suddenly worried.
“There is no way he can look for his treasure. You have the map. It’s pirate law. Whoever has the map, whoever finds the truer… it belongs to them now.”
“Really? This is my treasure now. For real?”
