Page 119 of Nine-Tenths

"Good."

"And perhaps she can give our shopper advice," Dav says. "Your taste is wretchedly hard to pin down."

"Ah!" I laugh. "Can't name what doesn't exist."

"Your taste?"

"Bingo."

"What about inviting your family?" Dav ventures coyly.

"Friends first. The horror of the Levesques, second."

"Horror?"

"On my part," I clarify. "Mum'll bring baby photos, and Stu will tell you it was not his fault the dock came unmoored, and he is full of shit so don't you believe him for one second, and Gem's gonna eat you alive."

"Sounds delightful," Dav says, with a dopey, dreamy look on his face.

He's asked tons about my family, but I've never heard a thing about his, except passing mentions of distant cousins, or far-off ancestors.

"So, uh, hey," I say, trying for casual and sounding the exact opposite. "What about, um, your family?"

Dav goes still again. "They're in Wales."

"I don't mind long flights."

"I don't know if…" he trails off, cornered. "Father has had to take on so much, recently. Perhaps nearer to the holidays, when they'll have the extra staff in. We'd be less of an imposition."

"It wasn't a demand," I say gently. I take his hand and kiss the tips of his fingers. "I'm in no rush."

"And mother is…"

"Passed?" I ask, heart seizing for him, that he can't say it. That I know how he feels.

"Brooding. I'm to have a sibling."

"Oh! When?"

"Anytime in the next decade," Dav says, casual-as-you-please, andfuck me.

He could be a big brother, like, tomorrow, or… or when I'm in my mid-thirties.

"Well," I say shakily. "Um. Yay? And that's normal, then? One, uh… baby?"

"Egg," Dav confirms.

"One egg at a time?"

"Generally. I am an only child. For now."

"Looking forward to it?"

"I believe so." He cups my ass playfully. "Though I ought to ask Stuart and Gemma for advice on being an older sibling."

"Please. Don't."

"So, it's not in good taste to unmoor a dock—"

---