I touch the edge of the frame once, then turn around. Evan looks down at me through the little face hole in his ridiculous costume, eyes soft and honey warm and so full of love that it still feels like sunlight through my ribs.
“You okay?” he asks.
I take stock of myself. Feel the ache. The warmth. The strange steadiness inside me.
“Yeah,” I say. “I am.”
His expression shifts at the answer, and I know he believes me because he doesn’t ask again. Instead, he reaches out with one inflated wing and taps the tiny beak on my head.
I blink. “Excuse me.”
“You were getting that look.”
“What look?”
“The one where you’re about to climb into your own head and redecorate it badly.”
I narrow my eyes. “Did you just flick my beak?”
“Yes.”
“In public?”
“I’ll do it again.”
“Bold threat from a man who can’t fit through doorways.”
“Careful.”
I grin. “Or what?”
He flicks the beak again.
“Unbelievable,” I say. “I survived a fire and you’re bullying my costume.”
“You’re terrorizing me in public.”
“You’re eight feet wide and full of air. I think you’ll live.”
His mouth twitches. “Keep talking, Lucky Penny.”
I step closer, letting my silver heel brush against the edge of his comically large penguin foot. “Or what?”
For a second, all the noise in Neverland fades beneath the way he looks at me.
Then Elle barrels into his side, bounces off the inflated costume, and lands on her butt with a delighted shriek.
“Daddy is squishy!”
The entire bar loses it.
Evan closes his eyes. “I’m taking this costume off the second we get home.”
I lean in close enough that only he can hear me. “Good.”
His eyes open again, slowly. I smile and tap my little beak against his inflatable chest. “I have plans for you.”
For the first time all night, Evan Prince is rendered entirely speechless. It’s beautiful.
