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Sitting upright in bed, I blinked away the nightmare.
The guest room sat calm and still around me, its chest of drawers standing watch, and the haphazardly drawn curtains shielding me from everything the night sky could bring.
It didn’t feel like I’d been asleep all that long, but the urge to use the bathroom had me swinging my legs out of bed and shuffling in my boot to the door. I didn’t know if I was meant to sleep in the damn boot, but after taking it off today and feeling how painful my ankle was, I opted to keep it on.
Cracking open the door, I went to hobble down the corridor, but I pulled up short at Neri’s voice. “You can’t just forbid me from being friends with someone, Dad. That’s just stupid.”
“I’m not forbidding you from being friends with him. I’m forbidding you from harbouring any fantastical ideas that it could be more.”
“I’m not a child anymore.”
“Being twelve is the definition of a child.”
“Says who?” Nerida demanded.
“Says life.” Jack’s tone hardened, but didn’t grow louder, staying just above a harsh whisper. “I know you love saving things and nursing creatures back to health. I love your caring heart and will never say no to you when you demand we bring back a sick octopus and somehow cajole me into donating to the damn cat shelter again, but I am putting my foot down when it comes to that boy.”
“That boy has nothing. He needs a friend.”
“So be his friend, but so help you if you try to be anything more.”
“You can’t stop what’s going to happen anyway.”
Jack groaned under his breath before muttering, “Whatever you think is going to happen, Nerida, let me tell you once and for all that it will never happen beneath my roof. Aslan is sixteen. You are twelve. He’s a nice boy, but we know absolutely nothing about him. If you want him to stay and give him a chance at a life here, then you will be his friend and only his friend, got it?”
“Okay, Dad, but don’t get angry when I marry him.”
“Marry him—” Jack huffed and uttered a stream of unintelligible curses. “Heaven help me, child, one of these days I’m going to toss you overboard and leave you out there. You won’t be able to cause this much nonsense if you lived with those bloody dolphins.”
“But you’d miss me too much.” Neri’s tone brightened with a smile. “And don’t worry, Dad. He has to want to marry me too, and right now...he barely wants to be alive. So you have nothing to worry about. Friends only. But I am going to be the best friend he’s ever had because he needs one, and I’m not going to shy away from the responsibility I made by pulling him from the ocean when he would rather have sunk beneath it.”
Fuck, I told her that in confidence.
I’d barely even acknowledged those thoughts myself. What the hell was she doing spilling my darkest confessions to her father?
Her voice quietened. “He’s hurting, Daddy. He told me that I should’ve asked him before saving him. And you know what...I get what he means. I’ve done my best to put myself in his shoes—moonboot and all—and I honestly don’t think I’d be able to breathe if I lost you and Mum and suddenly lived in an entirely different country with no one I knew.”
She sighed before adding softly, “Don’t stop being nice to him, Dad. I cross my heart that he’s just a friend. And besides, you wouldn’t want to hate on your future son-in-law, would you?” Her quiet laughter slipped down the corridor and licked around my ankles.
Chills shot up my spine.
There was no way that would ever happen.
No way.
I would be gone in a week.
I had my own life to figure out.
And she’s twelve!
“You’re gonna make me wish I was born a eunuch and was never able to produce you, aren’t you?” Jack asked with a groan-chuckle.
“What’s a eunuch?”
“Never you mind.” A rustle of clothing and a grunt of a violent hug. “I love you, you crazy fish. Even if you terrify me.”
“Aslan said I terrify him too,” Neri murmured, barely audible.
