Page 97 of Goldilocks
“I’m sorry for abandoning you here. I didn’t mean to just ditch you like that.”
Jasper nodded, then he spoke softly and accented. “How are you recovering?” If someone Sam had met twice had hired him for a job, brought him to another world and then abandoned him to run off and do something else, he was confident he would handle the situation with far less grace.
“Good,” Sam answered Jasper’s question. “Adonis healed me yesterday.” Sam remembered now why Roan had pulled a displeased face in the hospital; he didn’t think much of Adonis’s healing abilities.
“Merfolk are skilled in many ways,” Jasper said. There was an uneasiness to him. An edge of tension. “I have been patrolling here, and I will search your home when you wish me to.”
“Have you been given a bed to sleep in?”
“He has,” Connor said through a yawn as he walked into the kitchen. He wore long pyjama bottoms with nothing on his torso, and his waves were a wild, tangled mess up top. He rubbed the back of his neck as he ambled to the nearest kitchen chair and sat with a sigh. “Are you making tea?”
After one look at Connor’s eyes slitted against the light, Sam asked, “Do you want a cup?”
“Please.” Connor sank into his chair as if he wished to become part of it. “How are you feeling? Want another round from Adonis?”
“No, thank you. I’m well enough,” Sam said. “If the memories about what happened were going to come back, they would have already, and this” – he gestured to his bandaged brow – “is better off staying. I have check-ups. I don’t want to stand out.” Sam made tea and brought three cups to the table.
Connor pulled one of the mugs toward himself and picked up a second cup and put it in front of the chair nearest to Jasper. “Sit. Try that and see if you like it. You put any sugar in his?”
“A spoonful.” Sam eyed up Jasper with his sword and his uncomfortable expression.
“I can guard,” Jasper said, his voice confused. His gaze shifted from Connor and away, as if he had trouble meeting his eyes.
Connor looked like he was used to long-tailed people getting shifty when he looked right at them. “Sit,” Connor repeated. “And relax. Dad will fuss over you if you stay standing there.”
Jasper slowly lowered into the chair, looking supremely uncomfortable. Sam suspected he thought Connor was higher up on the pecking order than him and that they shouldn’t be sitting at the same table.
The ticking clock above the door caught Sam’s eye. The morning was bearing on, and he didn’t know how early Eric and Ivan got up in the mornings. “Roan is having trouble shifting back. Can you come over?”
Trevor entered the room as Sam asked, and he pulled the door shut behind him. He’d changed out of his pyjamas and tidied his hair.
“Course, yeah,” Connor said.
“I’ll help,” Trevor offered. “Although I might need to go wake up Nick too if we need to carry him all the way to someone’s car…” He trailed off doubtfully. Roan was a fraction of the size Adonis was when shifted, but that didn’t mean he would be easily lifted. Sam seriously doubted Roan’s pride would allow them to carry him like that.
“He’ll be able to shift back. He just needs Connor around,” Sam said, his own voice uncertain.
Trevor blinked. And expressionless, he said, “I see.”
Connor tilted back his head to peer at Trevor’s face. “Don’t be so weird about it, Dad.”
Trevor walked behind Connor’s chair, squeezing his shoulder as he passed, and continued on toward the cupboard, where he picked out a cup for himself. “I’m only ‘Dad’ when you’re half asleep or in trouble.”
“In trouble?” Connor snorted. “I’m the best-behaved kid you have.”
“You’re not wrong there,” Trevor agreed. “I couldn’t believe it when Laurence came back with Jasper. It wasn’t until later that we got the truth about him trying to go through The Tear with the windsurf, and we only got that because his school called about him missing the day without notice.”
“He’s grounded,” Connor explained for Sam’s benefit. “Strictly no ocean for him, so don’t let him on board your boat even if he begs. And the worms are in trouble too, for aiding and abetting. I’m still deciding on their punishment. I think I’ll let Adonis free against them, see how they like it when he’s allowed to chase them to the ends of the earth for a few weeks.”
Sam cleared his throat. “Sorry for bringing him along. I didn’t want to leave him out there on the windsurf.” He hadn’t even gotten the chance to tell them about it.
“Don’t be sorry. I am very grateful that you picked him up.” Trevor sounded painfully genuine. “I don’t want to even think about what would have happened if you hadn’t come along.”
Laurence probably wouldn’t have come to any harm, not with Bee and Dew with him. But…he wouldn’t have gotten through The Tear on a windsurf. Not with the choppy waves and rushing gales that came blistering out of nowhere. What if an errant breeze dragged him straight to the edge? What if he touched it? The mermen would probably be fine if they did the same, so would they even think it was dangerous and try to stop it?
Sam recalled the stressed look that had been on Laurence’s face when he’d instilled in him the danger of what he’d been trying, and he thought of the wonder that eclipsed that stress the moment he’d caught sight of the settlement across the bay. “I don’t think I’ve done you any favours,” Sam admitted. “He wants to see that world.”
Trevor poured himself a cup of tea. “I know,” he said.