Page 144 of Every Silent Lie

I turn to follow them but stop when the pink head pokes back out from the teepee. I tilt my head, meeting his curious little eyes.

He shoots back inside, and I smile to myself, going to join Dec and April, putting myself back on the stool as April makes Dec a coffee and he talks on the phone to the school. “I don’t know what to say. He was all for it until this morning.”

I bite at my lip when Dec reaches for my knee and starts stroking my lower thigh.

“Sure, I’ll let you know.”

“Tell them I’ll drop off the costume,” April says over her shoulder. “Albi’s understudy will need it.”

I snort in laughter, and Dec smiles down the phone, passing the message on, minus the remark about the understudy. He hangs up and drops his phone. “Well, this is a fucking disaster.”

“Can we revisit the hairy frogfish?” I ask, making April bark out laughter. “Since when is there a hairy frogfish and a prawn in the school nativity play?”

“Since they’ve been learning about the oceans and seas.”

“Makes perfect sense,” I muse. “What’s Baby Jesus, a shark?”

Dec turns a tired look my way and April chuckles again. “Ha. Ha.” He curls an arm around my neck, hauling me close, forcing me to wedge my palms into his thighs to keep myself on the stool. He scrunches his nose and kisses the tip of mine, but my attention is captured when a darling prawn appears in the doorway, and I have to press my lips together to stop myself cooing at the utter cuteness before me. I tap Dec’s leg, and he looks over his shoulder.

“Here he is,” Dec murmurs, as Albi checks us both out, his face sullen and moody. I quickly withdraw my hands from Dec and move out of his personal space. Curiosity is painted all over Albi’s face. At least, the part of it I can actually see.

“Hey,” I say quietly, giving him a small wave.

He doesn’t answer, just maintains his scrutinising eyes on me, and I inevitably start to worry again that he might not like me. My stomach drops at the mere thought, my own fears superseded by that fact. It’s been Dec and Albi his whole life.

I’m an interloper.

“Where’s your pretty dress?” Albi asks flatly.

I flinch, and Dec frowns, both him and April looking at me expectantly, like I might be able to answer him. “I split coffee down it,” I blurt like a fool.

“That’s okay.” He pulls the hood of his costume off, and his dark hair, wafts out, poking up all over the place, static getting it. “You can borrow my costume.”

Huh?

He starts to strip out of it, while we all watch on, silent, and once he’s down to his little underpants, he brings it all to me and dumps it on my lap. I stare down at it.

“Try it on then,” Dec says with a ton of amusement in his tone. I look up at him through my lashes. Oh, how he goads me. But proving I can take being a prawn isn’t the objective here. Getting Albi to school in this prawn costume, however, is.

I scoop up the bundle and push it into Dec’s chest, and he frowns. “I may as well go,” I say, standing and getting my coat on. I don’t kiss Dec or even cuddle him goodbye. Baby steps. I saw how Albi looked at me. Suspicion. I also saw the curiosity on his sweet face when he poked his head out of his teepee. I’m depending on the latter, and I won’t push the former.

“Are you going home?” Albi asks.

“No, I have some shopping to do.”

“Boring!” he sings.

“Well, I was really looking forward to seeing my first ever prawn in a Christmas nativity play. And actually, that stuff Uncle Blaine told you about isn’t poop. It’s brains. Prawns are the cleverest creatures in the sea. I guess I’ll just have to do my boring shopping and be sad.” I pout, Albi freezes stock-still, and Dec and April look between us. I’m going to hell.

“That’s a real shame,” April murmurs.

“Yeah, a real shame.” Dec sighs. “My special friend was so excited.”

“You want to come and see the play?” Albi asks.

Fuck, what am I doing? “Yes.” Christ, I need to shut the hell up before I get myself into a situation I’m nowhere near prepared for. “See you, Albi.” I throw him a wave and get on my way, caught somewhere between dread and hope. I want him to take the bait for Dec. I don’t want him to take it because there’s no way in hell I can put myself in a pre-school full of four-year-olds.

When I make it all the way to the street, I turn and look back at the house. He didn’t take the bait. I hate that a small part of me that’s relieved. I would have figured it out somehow had he bought into my ploy, maybe declared a horrible sicky bug before we got to the school and made my escape before I had endless triggers thrown at me.