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Huffing, she looks out at the restaurant.
Pollux sighs and returns his attention to me. “It is painful to not be believed, but it’s not something we can or should force. It’s also not something we should attempt to manipulate with our behavior, but emotions are complicated, and Meda’s a little too young to fully manage hers. Don’t let her display interfere with your emotional response.”
“Zahr-Zahr and Mrs. Role are my best friends,” she mumbles. “My feelings are wounded, but I feel even worse for Zahr-Zahr, because this means you don’t believe her, either.” She shoots me a lethal scowl before she goes back to looking at the other people in the restaurant.
Her words hit me straight through the chest like a dagger.
Pollux flicks Andromeda in the back of the head.
She whips full around and bites him.
As though a child isn’t latched onto his arm by her teeth, he provides me with an exhausted expression, grips her hair, and attempts to casually tug her off.
She doesn’t budge.
His voice drones. “I’m almost positive this isn’t entirely approved behavior for your feeble sensibilities, Kassandra. For that, I apologize.”
I don’t even know where to begin in the correctness of his statement.
But, hey, at least I know why biting has been mentioned several times now.
One mystery solved.
Yippee.
An equally-concerned waitress appears to take our orders and bring us a saucer of herbs and olive oil to go with a sliced baguette. Andromeda only unlatches for half a second to tell her father that she wants both the calzone and the ravioli. Then she chomps back down.
He gives up on pulling her off in favor of rubbing one eye. “I’m so sorry about this.”
She grabs his shirt and shakes him. “You’re ashamed of me now?”
“Meda. Your emotions are important, but they are not the only ones that are.”
Scowling, she slips under the table, effectively bumping my knee into Pollux’s.
With his heat leeching through his jeans to meet my bare leg, I attempt to remember what I’m supposed to do in a situation that I have never been in before. I’m stuck like a deer in headlights, my brain utterly focused on the sensation of Pollux’s leg against mine.
“How do you like your playground?” Pollux asks, breaking me from the trance into territory I somewhat understand how to navigate.
“It’s amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it. I still don’t understand how it was possible to construct in such a short time. Did you…fund it?”
Andromeda pokes her angry face up beside me and Kubrick stares. “If only you had cameras fixed at the backyard with recorded footage you could pull up.”
“Andromeda,” Pollux growls, and she sinks back under the table. Pressing his hand to his eyes, he deflates and mutters, “I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve not added enough enrichment to your enclosure. Perhaps you are at the age where I should be sending you out on solo quests.”
Beneath the table the tiny chant of quest quest quest arises.
I whisper, “Please don’t do that.”
Andromeda kicks me in the ankle, and, somehow, now one of Pollux’s knees is sandwiched between mine. “Kiss her, Daddy.”
“Meda,” he grits.
“Do it.”
Rocking his body to the side, he reaches under the table. The action traps one of my legs firmly between his.
But I’m not paying attention to that.
