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“Are you thinking about him?” Mom asks.
I startle, remember to smile, and discover I’m buttering toast. “Him? Josh? I hope I don’t need to adjust his curriculum again after testing.” My dodging devolves into sincerity as my brows lower. “Crap. I think I forgot to ask parents to chaperone our ice skating field trip next Sunday, too…” Fancy that. It’s like I’ve been distracted or something. “I need to figure that out. I don’t like taking all my littles out in public with just Zahra and me.” The rink is an hour away, too, not nicely tucked into the familiarity of Mountain Vale. “Yeah. I really need to get on that.”
I’m halfway out of my seat with the rest of my food when Mom veers the conversation back to her point. “Why don’t you see if Pollux would like to go with you?”
Dad lifts his chin and points his fork at me. “That’s an excellent idea. People would think twice before messing with a big man like him.”
“And it could be like a date,” Mom adds.
My heart jumps, and my smile evaporates. “It’s not a date. We’d be there to protect the littles. Also, he’d have to complete a background check before next Sunday.”
Mom’s brows rise. “Do you think he wouldn’t pass?”
“Or he’d be unwilling?” Dad comments.
I press my lips together. I do not know how to express the fact I don’t know whether or not Pollux has a background to check. He’s fae. He lives in a phantom house. Does he even exist to the human government? No idea.
“It can’t hurt to ask,” Dad says, with finality. “We won’t be around forever. It would be nice to know you have someone to take care of you after we’re gone.”
“Dad!”
“Well,” he states, “it’s true.”
I very strongly am against that truth. “All right. All right. I’ll talk to Pollux about being a chaperone. And only a chaperone.”
“Excellent!” Mom cheers.
I pretend my stomach isn’t twisted into a million tiny knots as I cart my food to my bedroom, open my laptop, and regret all my life choices…
Chapter 29
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bumbling through…
Being myself is hard when I don’t know who myself is. It hasn’t even been one day with Pollux’s words from last night’s dream in my head, yet I’m more exhausted than usual on a day off. He’s stripped me of the comfort I found in the things I use to cope, because—suddenly—those things are wrong.
It makes me angry.
As angry as the furious, foot-long, fat bee I am cradling as I march up his sidewalk to his stupid haunted house.
The door slams open before I get there, and I stop in place as the sound rattles the foundation of this whole place.
Um. Crap.
Maybe I should have called?
“Kassandra,” he states, takes two steps to me, and cups my chin in his palm.
“Uh. Hi.”
“You smell like Castor.”
My eye twitches. Double crap. I completely forgot Castor was in my bathroom this morning.
At the very least, I flushed his phantom dust residue down the toilet?
“Pardon me,” I say. “You could smell Castor on me from all the way inside your house?”
