She didn’t even look up. “Yup.”
He had a sneaking suspicion that she was mad at him again, and try as he might, he couldn’t figure out why. “Puck, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Dad.” This time she did glance at him, just long enough for her dark eyes to meet his with a gaze so sharp and deep that Mercer couldn’t help but see her mother in it more and more often. That scared him in ways he wasn’t ready to admit to himself. Lydia snorted. “I just want to hang out with my friends—is that like a crime now or something?”
“Or something,” Mercer grumbled, and maybe he had meant it to be funny, but maybe at the same time he hadn’t, and it came out with a bitter edge he regretted instantly. He was the adult—the only adult Lydia had. He was not supposed to be arguing with his own daughter. Even if she was being an absolute pill for no apparent reason. But he couldn’t help her if she wasn’t willing to talk to him about it. Mercer sighed. “Have fun with your friends, then.”
He shoved the last few marshmallows into his mouth as he stood. They were undesirably sweet suddenly, little memories of days that seemed like a different lifetime. Who had he been when he’d sorted the pink marshmallows out of their cereal with an eight-year-old Lydia because she had learned that the pink food dye was made from bugs? It felt like just heartbeats earlier that he’d tossed similar pieces at her mother as they fed the fussy toddler, calling herThe Puckfor the first time. He swore a moment before that he’d been on his second date with Leah, where she’d told him she often ate cereal for dinner and they’d left their prestigious restaurant reservations for two bowls on her couch, his head in her lap as she tried to land marshmallows in his mouth.
When had those days slipped so far into the past? It felt as though there was nothing he could have done to stop the progression, and yet he was the one left hurting for it.
He, and his daughter, who’d gone back to ignoring him like it came as easy to her as breathing now.
Mercer threw out one last-ditch life preserver. “I guess I’ll just be paddleboarding by myself, while crying about uneaten movie popcorn. All alone. No one to save me from the Lake Ness Monster.”
He hoped their inside joke would buy him an extra moment of her attention. They’d been out on the lake the first time he’d made it, four—or was it five?—years ago, Lydia bouncing in front of him as he’d paddled their canoe.
“This is a lake, Dad. Lochs are in Scotland and Ireland. They’re Gaelic.”She’d sounded like a general then too, come to think of it.
“Well, then it’s the Lake Ness Monster,”Mercer had replied,“and it’s coming to eat you!”
Lydia didn’t laugh or squeal now, but the way she rolled her eyes seemed a little softer than before. Less irritated, at least. “I thought it was sexist and only ate little girls.”
“I could be a little girl. You don’t know my gender.” Technically, he’d played around enough when Lydia was younger to be fairly certain his gender was a boring match to the one that had been labeled on his birth certificate. But imaginary sexist monsters didn’t have to know that.
“Gross, Dad. You’re a full-grown adult. You’d be awoman,” she complained, but her lips twitched as she got up and she hit the faucet long enough to drench her bowl, even if she left it in the sink after.
Mercer didn’t have the heart to remind her to stick it in the dishwasher—he still had his late night queso dishes “soaking”, so it would be hypocritical anyway.
He watched as Lydia snatched her med bag off the rack and shoved her feet into her boots without bothering to lace them, but as she reached the door, she glanced back, her lips a little crooked. “Later!”
“Be safe, Puck,” Mercer replied. “Stay out of the forest—and the cemeteries. Call me if you’re tired, or you feel a spell coming, or you just want to rest—anything. I’m always here if you need to be picked up!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
The door didn’t slam, and that felt like a success. Every step she took away from the house still broke Mercer’s heart, the cracks bleeding with an anxiety that had lived there ever since the police officer had knocked on his door that night. He could still hear the crisp, cautious question,Is Leah Bloncourt your wife?The rest of their conversation might not have existed, besides a scattering of words:hospital won’t accept her. Transformation. Unfortunately. I’m sorry.
When Lydia was out of the house, there was still a part of him that panicked at every doorbell and phone call, as though this would be the one where he’d learn he’d lost his little girl irreversibly; that she’d had an accident, her meds had stopped working, someone from Vitalis-Barron’s research department had realized what she was and decided vampires weren’t the only species worth studying. It was an illogical fear. Her meds had been doing a fine job for years and no one would want to study a girl whose nonhuman qualities were constantly trying to kill her. And accidents…
Is Leah Bloncourt your wife?
They’d used up their family’s share of bad karma, hadn’t they?
Besides, Mercer was doing everything he possibly could to prevent anything like what had happened to Leah. He knew all his daughter’s friends and ensured their parents were aware of any emergency procedures; took loops around the neighborhood as a local watch; confirmed that every time she left the house, she took extra meds, water, electrolytes, anything she could possibly need, and never engaged in anything dangerous, never overexerted herself, always had a way to reach him if she needed it. This summer was the first time he feared she wasn’t taking those precautions seriously, though. Maybe he needed a phone tracking app…
No, he didn’t want to bethatparent.
But if something happened to her…
Mercer breathed in and out and tried to think of anything but her bloody and gruesome death. Instead, his mind just went right back to Leah. Oh, how things would have been different if she were still here. He wouldn’t have accidentally ended up with a dating app on his phone, that was for sure.
He knew, technically, how it had gotten there—too much gin and not enough club soda—right after finishing the reunion episode of his favorite reality dating show, which, based on how many of the couples had already split up, should really have had the opposite effect on his ideas of kindling a new love life. That was where the gin had come in. Seeing all the smiling faces on the app, though, with more bared skin than he thought he’d ever be comfortable presenting in return, he’d felt the courage of the alcohol slip out of him one left-swipe at a time.
Is this your future spouse? Each profile seemed to scream at him. He’d almost deleted it then and there.
Mercer leaned against the kitchen counter, fiddling with his phone before giving in and opening the app, like this time would actually grant him the conviction to press uninstall. Instead, it showed him a list of the reasons he’d kept it around: one short stream of messages from the only match in his inbox, completed by an icon of a devilishly grinning twink with sparkling brown eyes, a cascade of dark hair, and lean little fangs.
R. BabyCock
