Page 81 of Red Rooster

“Like somebody’s dad,” he grumbled. “Got it.”

“But also scary,” she went on. “Like a big, scary, muscly Viking guy who could kick everybody’s ass. And responsible.”

He felt a smile of his own threatening. “So, like, a Viking dad.”

“Ugh.” She rolled her eyes. “You don’t look like a dad. Especially not my dad. That would be weird.”

He said, “Would it?” and wasn’t sure why. It just slipped out, one of those impulsive, dangerous questions better off not asked.

This happened, sometimes. More often now than it used to. These little…hiccups. They were close – how many nights did they fall asleep curled together on the same hotel bed? – and they loved one another, that selfless, unspoken love as certain as breathing, as sure as the sun rising every morning. It was something heknew; something they both did, unquestioned and untroubling.

But there were moments, like these, when a question took a certain stuttering step; when a normal, familiar touch felt like the prickling of ice. When he would notice her watching him, through a mirror or from the corner of her eye. When he caught himself watching her. And for those moments, the world would tilt, just a fraction, and all the things he thought he understood about their relationship tilted, too, until he was afraid something might spill out. Something might crack. Something might change in a terrifying, irrevocable way that he wasn’t willing to acknowledge, not even in his imagination.

Red smoothed her hands down her thighs a few times, jacket fringe swaying. “Yeah,” she said, missing casual, her shrug more of a wince. “It…yeah.”

Rooster cleared his throat, determined to bulldoze his way past the moment. “So, a Viking?” He managed a grin. “Maybe I oughta cut my hair.” He ran a hand through it, as always surprised by how long it was getting. He could have borrowed one of her elastics and pulled it back into a man-bun. Geez.

The joke didn’t land, though. She stared at him, expression almost…wistful. The sweet, guileless wistfulness of a girl who hadn’t gotten the chance to have the things she wanted. “No, don’t. It looks good like that.”

“Yeah?” His voice came out shaky. Vulnerable in a way he didn’t want it to.

She smiled, soft and…and, well, beautiful. He didn’t want to think that, but it was true. “Yeah. I like it.”

He glanced down at the table, flicked the paper that lined his now-empty taco basket. “Alright,” he murmured, not liking the way his chest felt. The warmth there. The strange tightness.

He cleared his throat again. “Come on. Let’s go.”