“I am.” I shrug. “You know that Tritonese hotpot is my favorite?—”
“I’ve never seen you this excited about food, Baba,” she says. “Notever.”
Then she smiles, tensing like she’s holding back a stream of questions that I am not even close to prepared to answer.
“It’sLyn, isn’t it?” she breathes.
I sigh and let my head rest back, which Flicker takes as an opportunity to wiggle away from me. She sends the pillows flying as she shoots into them, each one going in a different direction.
It’s time to give up on the pillows, I think.
“Yes,” I say. “I am…happy about Lyn, I suppose.”
“‘I suppose’ isn’t very romantic.”
I lift my head to narrow my eyes at my daughter. “Did you learn that from your picture books?”
“It’s called manga,Baba.”
I’m not sure if I like the tone she used there, but I let it lie.
“I like her,” Solvi says. “Why can’t you just like her?”
“Because adult relationships are complicated.”
“But why?” She cocks her head. “You like her, right?”
Like her? That is…amassiveunderstatement. “You weren’t even supposed to know about her yet,” I murmur. “That’s what your mother and I discussed.”
Solvi chews on her lip for a moment, her eyes downcast…then she looks up at me. “I knew about Wulfric before Mata told me, too,” she whispers.
My brows shoot up. “You did?”
“Yeah, pretty much like…right away,” she says, her face flushing a dark violet. “Grown-ups aren’t as sneaky as they think they are. Ever.”
I can’t help it—I laugh.
A real, full laugh, deep and helpless and unguarded.
Solvi looks startled for a second, then smug.
“There it is,” she says. “That’s the new toy face.”
I cough into my sleeve and try to school my expression into something vaguely authoritative. “You are far too observant.”
“Iamyour daughter.”
I extend my arm and she comes over to the couch, abandoning her sketchbook to snuggle into my side. It reminds me of when she was smaller; we have so few moments like this now.
“How did that make you feel?” I ask. “When you found out about Wulfric.”
She shrugs. “I think…” she pauses. “Sometimes we have friends that we don’t talk to anymore, and new people you and Mata like are kind of like that. They might not be around that long, and that’s okay. I know you and Mata are going to be here for me, no matter what.”
It’s a line we’ve both used with her for years.
It’s good to know she’s internalized it.
I tighten my arm around her. “You’re a good kid, you know that?”
