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“Isn’t the role of a parent to want better for their children than they had?”
Our eyes caught and held. “You’re right,” he agreed.
I shot him a gentle smile, and feeling brave, I let my hand slip higher, higher and higher until mine covered his fist. “I need to buy your parents a gift.”
He nodded. “Call Bagpipes.”
“I will.”
“Inessa...” Brennan pulled a face. “Inessa bought them a set of slippers each. Ma liked that.”
“Yes, it’s custom in our culture not to wear shoes in the house.” I cast a look at Brennan’s dirty footwear. “It’s rude.”
“It’s rude in every culture to wear filthy shoes in bed,” he said dryly.
“Then why did you do it?”
“Because it never mattered before. I could do whatever the fuck I wanted.”
Could?
Past tense?
I’d take that as a glimmer of hope.
“I’ll be more mindful in future, but this morning was not an ordinary morning.”
“I can see that,” I whispered, then, squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry, Brennan. I won’t let you down. I promise.”
“No one can make that particular promise,” he rasped, turning his face away.
Maybe I was a fool, maybe I was borrowing trouble, because he was right—it was a promise, in our world, that would be difficult to keep, but, voice husky, I repeated, “I can and I do, Brennan. I won’t let you down.”
He turned back to me, stared at me for what felt like endless seconds, then rasped, “Call Bagpipes.” Inside, I deflated. I didn’t know what I’d been waiting for, but I didn’t get it. “I need you to be ready by four, okay?”
“We’ll be leaving that early?”
“It takes ninety minutes in good traffic to get to their place.” He reached into his inside pocket and slipped something out. A credit card. He passed it over to me. “We should have discussed this before, but this is yours. Use it however you want. I’ll top it up once a month.”
My throat tightened at the financial freedom he was giving me. “You don’t have to do that.”
“No, maybe I don’t,” he muttered, “but... for those future kids of ours, yeah? We’ll trust one another.”
I sent him a soft smile. “We will.”
