Page 102 of Tailwind

‘Lena, you should have come anyway. You’ve always been family!’

I had to raise my voice to be heard over their reprimands. ‘It’s okay!’

The yelling stopped. But the disapproving looks didn’t.

I picked at the edge of the thin circle of dough I’d been working at, trying not to show how much their affection got to me. ‘It doesn’t matter anymore.’

I felt Theo’s arm tense next to mine.

‘I’m here now.’ I said it to the dough, but the mhmms and knowing nods could be felt around the room.

Theo still wasn’t moving.

‘And now you’ll show the boys how a woman flies,’ said Ophelia. She’d been delighted when Theo and I had made the same team in the Wyvern Cup, so she could finally stop buying two sets of fan shirts to support us. She hadn’t changed.

She took the completed parcels from our production line to a pot of oil and dipped them in, sending me right back to being a kid, watching her do the same thing over and over as I not so patiently waited to be fed.

The whole house felt stuck in time. Except when I’d crossed over the threshold I had brought the past five years with me, along with the baggage I’d collected. Asking Theo for help suddenly felt much harder than I’d anticipated.

Stars weren’t needed above the Crescent, not when the city scape was more colourful and vibrant than the night sky could ever be. From the flat roof of Theo’s family home I could see the city stretch along the coastline, the infinite glowing lights reflecting in the water, looking like the stars had fallen down into the ocean.

‘I had a feeling I’d find you here.’ Theo’s voice came from behind me. He climbed over the lip of the roof and joined me leaning against the chimney stack.

I’d excused myself after dinner for some air, overwhelmed by the warmth – both literal and emotional. My parents were frosty at best, the perfect example of how relationships soured the longer they lasted. Theo’s parents were the exception. They didn’t have any expectations or criticisms, certainly not for Theo. Or if they did it had never changed the way they felt about their son.

The wind was blowing inland, leaving our spot fresh with the salty sea breeze. Our spot. It hadn’t changed. The same rickety deckchairs we used to lie in all night talking about our plans were still there. The markings we’d drawn on the chimney to compare heights were worn, but visible – the wobbly lines were labelled with our names and ages. The oversized and underlined ‘Theo, fourteen’ from when he had grown three inches in one summer. Even when we’d stopped growing, we’d kept track just for fun. The labels stopped at eighteen.

The wind whipped Theo’s hair the same way it always did. His dark curls bounced around, both sticking up and getting in his eyes all at once. He shoved his hands in his pockets as he leaned next to me, his elbow brushing mine as we listened to the waves crash against the shore down below.

‘Do you remember the last time you were here?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I lied.

It had been before the last race of the season in the Wyvern Cup, our sixth year. We’d been dodging the subject of one of us having to lose.

‘Liar.’ He bumped into me and didn’t pull away, his shoulder pressed against mine.

I could feel the heat of him through our clothes, prompting the vision of him in the spa to come back to me, undoing the cooling effect of the breeze.

‘Well,’ – I pushed away from the chimney and away from him. – ‘since it has been a long five years, it’s about time we checked who’s ahead.’ I nodded to the wall behind him.

Theo grinned.

‘I’ll get a pencil.’ He stepped over the deckchairs and opened a crate.

‘That’s new.’ I peered over his shoulder.

Inside was an assortment of items that I hadn’t ever seen up here before. Wine, first and foremost, filled most of the space. Some magazines, a casting augment and, bizarrely, journals.

‘Theo, please tell me you don’t come up here to get drunk on fancy wine, look at dirty magazines and write poetry.’ I made a gagging noise.

He laughed. ‘Well I can’t hide it in my room. Ma would take it all.’

I groaned. ‘Here I was thinking we weren’t teenagers anymore.’

He tossed a magazine at me. I let it bounce on to the floor, unwilling to touch it in case of sticky pages. As it landed I saw the cover: Airborne, the long-running Volitant fan publication.

‘Oh.’ It wasn’t fun if I couldn’t tease him. ‘I thought you were into women, not dragons.’