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Honor snorted. “Pretty sure they don’t teach you how to take irqed dick in health class.”
It was a challenge not to pitch the coffee mug at him. A challenge I barely won. “God, seriously? Don’t make it weird.”
“What? I’m not making it weird! I guess I just assumed… I mean, if you’re doing it the other way, there’s nothing wrong with that. You’d just better be taking serious precautions.”
I got up to deposit my dishes in the sink overflowing with other dishes. “Fuck, forget I asked, okay? Jesus, why do you have to make everything weird?”
“I’m your pop. That’s my job.” He frowned and put the paper aside. “Seriously, though, be careful. Irqed are rumored to bite the heads off their mates. Your boyfriend is more tame than most, though. You’ll probably be okay.”
“He’s not a monster, you know,” I said a little rougher than I meant to.
Honor arched an eyebrow.
I sighed. “You know what I mean. He has thoughts and feelings like everybody else.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I know what you’re saying,” I barked. “And I’m saying you’re wrong. You and everybody else think you know what his kind are like, but you don’t. You all make it sound like irqed are violent beasts. Like they’re animals! They’re not! They’re thinking, feeling beings. Ghost isn’t an outlier just because he was raised here. I’m sure irqed have a whole culture—a whole language—that we don’t understand and you’re ready to dismiss them.”
Honor gave a long, loud sigh and crossed his arms. “I didn’t mean it like that, Axel, okay?”
“How you meant it doesn’t matter,” I ground out.
Honor looked at me for a long beat before he wiped a hand over his face. “You’re right,” he said, to my surprise. “Dammit, you’re right, kid. I’m sorry. I should know better. I’m sorry, okay? I’ll…I’ll try to do better.”
“That’s all I’m asking,” I said quietly, and left the room to go get dressed for work.
I dressed, threw my hair into a messy ponytail, and grabbed my keys. When I made it back out to the kitchen, Honor was filling a bucket with dish soap and water. I smiled, knowing it was his secret trick to getting the worms to come up out of the ground on a dry day. I wasn’t sure it’d work in the cold. Seeing him like that with Ghost leaned excitedly over the bucket, weaving back and forth, reminded me of what it was like when I was a kid.
We used to go fishing, Honor and me, even before Mom and Dad died. I didn’t have a lot of memories of those early years, but I remembered standing in shallow water, squishing mud between my toes, watching bugs skip across the lake surface while he tried to show me how to bait a hook.
“You got to use the right bait for the right fish,” he was saying in the memory. “You can’t just go fishing without knowing what you’re fishing for.”
I shook the memory away and held up my keys. “I’m leaving for work.”
“Not in that van, you’re not,” Honor scoffed, shoving the bucket of soapy water at Ziggy. “We’re taking Lucille.”
I frowned. “I have to return Ursula’s van. I thought we agreed—”
“She can come get her van. You’re letting me drive you, and that’s final.”
“Ugh. Fine.” I rolled my eyes and put the keys down on the table.
Honor’s van smelled likea concert hall. Sweat, sex, beer, and weed had permeated the walls and carpet in there enough that I was glad for the seat cover. Despite the cold, I rode with the window cracked so I could breathe. I rested my head against the window, listening to long dead rockers sing about falling in love.
It felt weird to be in the front seat next to him, trundling down the bumpy road. It was like I was twelve again, and we were on our way into town for groceries. I half expected him to pull into the store parking lot when we passed it.
“You’re okay with Ziggy, right?” Honor asked suddenly.
I frowned and lifted my forehead from where I’d let it rest against the window. “What?”
“I mean the fact that I married him. You’re not…pissed, are you?”
“No,” I scoffed. “Why would I care?”
Honor frowned, but kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “I just thought… I don’t want you to feel like I don’t care about Kit and Jesse still.”
My throat constricted. I crossed my arms, trying not to show how much hearing their names bothered me. I wished I had more memories of them, or pictures. Something. Growing up with Honor, he hadn’t ever talked about them. Every time I tried to bring them up, he’d change the subject. My parents were strangers, ghosts lost to time. It didn’t seem fair that I should get the chance to know Ziggy and not my own parents.
