Page 32 of Scars of the Sun
She sent her eyes skyward, “Dude, you’ve got to get over it.”
“Are y’all all right?” Delaney ran over with the kids behind him.
“Tooney!” Ollie screamed and waved his little hands toward the giant fucking dinosaur of an insect.
Dahlia tugged on Delaney’s shirt, ushering him to crouch again, and when he obeyed, she whispered in his ear, “Auntie Mona is scared of spiders.”
“Damn right—Petunia is huge!” I pointed at her, and when did I start thinking of the thing as a ‘her’ and referring to her by name?
Dahlia said some other things to Delaney, but I was far too focused and horrified when Sylvie took Petunia in her hand and transferred her to Ollie’s eager little palms. The little boyput the spider on his headand took off, wandering around the pathways while babbling in excited baby talk.
My stomach churned and my skin crawled with a hundred imaginary bugs. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Pssh, you don’t have to be so dramatic.”
Delaney and Dahlia giggled, and I realized that they were looking atmeas they did it. I shot my palms toward Ollie, running and laughing in high-pitched joy, “Comeon. That’s insane. Am I the only one rooted in any sort of reality?”
Dahlia’s new best friend, apparently, stood, body trembling with suppressed laughter. “It’s okay to be afraid sometimes.”
I narrowed my eyes but cut it out when I saw Delaney’s joy start to crumble in the face of my sharp expression. Before I could apologize again, my phone dinged in my back pocket, and I didn’t have a thought in my mind aside from hoping that it was who I thought it was.
Río
Morning, Princess. Wanna hang later?
“Is that your boyfriend, Auntie Mona?” My niece nearly screamed her question, and my fingers fumbled, dropping my phone into a raised garden bed.
Her open, curious stare had me choking back my instinct to shoot something back at her. I took a deep breath as I picked my phone up and dusted the soil off of it, reminding myself that my four year old niece was not going to try to use whatever Río and I were against me. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
When I straightened, they were all looking at me, and disbelief, amusement, and confusion were swirling violently around us. Ugh. “Are you sure?” Dahlia asked, obviously not able to read between the lines.
Sylvie swooped in, placing a hand on my niece’s shoulder and beginning to steer her in another direction. “I don’t think she is, sweetheart. But that’s okay.”
I opened my mouth, closed it, and looked frantically at Delaney who barely knew me but witnessed this humiliating ten minutes. My face was hot, and I tugged at my sleeves, not knowing whether to prepare for questions, shoot while he was hesitating, or just flee in another direction and ignore it all.
“What do you think we should do next?” He asked instead.
“Uh…” I started to stuff my phone back in my pocket, but remembering I hadn’t responded to Río had me bringing it back out and firing off my response before tucking it away again.
Me
Sure. Whenever’s good.
“Let’s go get the pruning shears and see what needs clipping, I guess.”
Delaney gave me a determined nod and followed me toward the little shed that held all of the tools. While I pulled out all we needed and handed it to him, he accepted everything with concentration and nods when I named each thing. When we started back toward Sylvie who was holding an outstretched hand over a growing cluster of mint, Delaney whispered, “I’m agood listener if you ever wanna talk. And thank you for being my friend.”
My eyes itched, and I mumbled something back, too stunned and affected by his simple yet powerful words.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RÍO
Princess
I’m here
Ismiled down at my phone, despite being splattered with marinara sauce and being at the tail end of my opening shift. My freakout at Tyler’s had been quickly forgotten when I’d woken up the next morning, sprawled in jaguar form in the woods beside his house. I’d prowled lazily back to my shit at the pool and pulled my phone from my jeans pocket, only to squint when the screen was just a blur. At some point, I’d plucked out my contacts to shift—it was a literal pain when I’d forget and leave them in—and had to rely on my previous visits and sense of smell to lead me to my backpack still left in the practice room. By some miracle, I had a spare pair of glasses shoved in the front pocket.