He looked away, back to whatever notes he had on the datapad he brought outside. His ears moved in a subtle shift adjacent to embarrassment.
I looked back at Pip, who had recovered from her dramatic collapse and was now studying the blanket with focused interest. Through the bond, I felt her curiosity catch.
I loved Pip, and I was falling for her father.Stars above, my heart was doing something inconvenient.
“You’re happy,” Andrek said one evening, maybe three weeks after the storm.
We were in the kitchen, the remnants of dinner pushed to one side, Pip having gone to sleep an hour ago in the way she always did now our bond was stable. A pot of something warm sat on the heating unit. Andrek described it as a traditional Yxian winter drink, and I held my cup with both hands.
“Are you surprised?” I asked.
“About a month ago, you seemed to reconsider every decision that had brought you here.”
“I was.”
“And now?”
I looked around the kitchen. I smiled at the clutter of Pip’s things on the shelf by the door, the datapad with my notes beside the window where I studied while Andrek cooked. The house stopped feeling like an employer’s residence and started feeling like something else.”
“Now,” I said, choosing my words with care. “I find I’m not thinking about the past very much at all.”
Andrek looked at his cup. His tail, once resting along the floor behind him, made a slow movement. “Good,” he said at last, and left it there.
We sat in silence for a while. Through the bond, Pip’s sleeping contentment hummed at the back of my mind. The two-moon light shone through the window; the colors competing on the kitchen floor.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
Andrek raised one eyebrow.
“The night of the storm, before you got to us,” I kept my voice measured. “You said managing alone was manageable. But when you came through that shelter door you looked…” I searched for the word. “You looked scared, and not because of the storm.”
He was quiet for so long I thought he might not answer. When he spoke, his voice was low. “I heard Pip screaming,” he said. “Through the walls, through the debris. I couldn’t get to her. I couldn’t get to either of you. And I…” He stopped and pressed his thumb along the rim of his cup. “I have lost people before, Dani. And I am aware of how quickly things can be taken away.”
“We were fine,” I whispered. “Pip was fine. Your song helped, actually. Hearing you sing to her before the storm happened,” I paused. “It gave me the idea. When I couldn't do what you do with the frequency, I figured out what I could do.”
Something shifted in his expression. “My grandmother’s lullaby became your grandmother's lullaby.”
“Something like that.”
“Hmmm.” He reached to touch my cheek, but moved his hand back as if he’d thought better of the idea. “Goodnight, Danielle.”
I raised my eyes to meet his. “If you want, call me Dani.”
“Goodnight, Dani,” he whispered as he disappeared down the hallway.
I thought about it for a long time after I went to bed.
Chapter 8
Dani
Afterdinner,therainstarted. I hadn’t noticed at first; I was too busy watching Pip try to fold herself into a clay pot she’d found in the corner of Andrek’s supply room. Her hind legs stuck out at a funny angle while she made increasingly confident chirping sounds, as though volume alone might convince the pot to accommodate her. It didn’t. She toppled sideways with a hollowclunkand lay there on the stone floor, feet in the air, blinking at the ceiling with an expression of profound betrayal.
“She does this every time,” Andrek said from across the room.
I looked up. He was standing at the long worktable, cleaning one of his field instruments, some kind of calibration device I didn’t know the name of. It looked expensive with all brass fittings and delicate dials. The cloth in his hand had seen better days.
“Gets into the pot?” I asked.
