Page 76 of Severance

“I know, right? I had blue in my hair for a week. All the kids at school made fun of me.”

“How old were you?”

“Seven. Mikah was nine. Our mom was so pissed that she sent him away to his dad’s for a week.” Dakota pauses.

“Do you and your brother have different fathers?” I ask carefully, wondering if this is the real reason behind the tension I sense between them sometimes. Although I didn’t notice it when I saw them together on stage. At that moment, they were at peace.

“Yes, but…his old man is…out of the picture now.”

“How do you mean?”

“He didn’t stick around. Got married, moved to a different state. Mikah doesn’t talk much to him. It’s just my mom and my dad now.”

I feel it’s time to change the subject. “How do you come up with your song ideas?”

Dakota rolls onto his side and rests his hand on my stomach. His large palm feels as if it’s burning a hole in my t-shirt. “I don’t know. How do you come up with your cupcake ideas?” he murmurs against my cheek.

“Pinterest.”

“Maybe I should try that.”

“What? Pinterest for your song ideas?”

“Yeah.”

“Why are your songs so…sad?”

“Why do you think they’re sad?” He props his head on his palm to see my face better.

“They just feel sad because they’re all about dying,” I confess. “Not that they aren’t beautiful. They really are.”

“You think my songs are beautiful?”

“Yes.”

“You know what I think?”

“What?”

Dakota leans forward and brushes his lips against mine, his hand sliding across my rib cage to cup my breast. “I think you’re beautiful.”

I don’t do anything to stop him. I let him touch me because I like how it feels. Sinful, dirty, and wonderful.

We lie next to each other like this for a little while, his fingers tracing circles across my ribcage and around my collarbone as I watch the hummingbirds.

“When Mikah and I were in high school,” Dakota says in a hushed voice after a few minutes, “our mom took us to a park in Washington. She’s a bit of a nature freak and she knows all these secret spots tourists never find. So if you drive north maybe an hour and a half from Seattle and exit near the creek, there’s a trail that takes you to a small grassy area in the middle of the forest with a huge hummingbird statue. It’s carved from wood and I believe it’s been standing there for decades, maybe centuries. It’s so old. I don’t have a clue how my mom knew about it, but she took us there to see it and it was freaking awesome.”

“Who do you think made it?”

“Not sure. People who lived there…” Dakota rolls onto his side and brings his face close to mine. “I want to take you there one day. It was so peaceful and we just sat for an afternoon and listened to the trees talking. It was awesome.”

“I’d love to go there with you sometime,” I say.

“We will.” Dakota smiles and continues talking about the day he spent there with his mom and brother.

The part of me that’s falling for him fast and hard is contemplating staying over, but the other part of me, sensible and reserved, realizes that if he doesn’t drive me home right now, before my parents get back from Vancouver, we might end up getting caught by my father. Which is not something I want to happen today. Today’s been too perfect.

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