Page 17 of Sweet Thing

“I can take that.”

I jumped so high, I almost hit the low ceiling. I turned to find Lars at the bottom of the stairs. “Hey, don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Sorry, thought you heard me.” He stepped forward, out of the shadows, and took a long, hard look at me. “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing.”

Closer again. “You’re shaking.”

I inhaled a couple of short, sharp breaths. “Just got a fright, that’s all.”

His look of concern almost undid me. I turned away, grabbed Bear, and placed it in the tote box along with the supplies.

“That’s your guitar, I’m guessing,” he said.

I looked at the instrument’s hard case in the corner, covered in Hello Kitty stickers and other labels that screamed “little girl.” “That’s my old one. My newer one, a Martin, is upstairs. But it needs to be restrung after I was away for so long. Old strings become brittle and prone to breaking.”

Quit your babbling. You’re worse than Mabel.

“I bet Tilly will love hearing whatever new songs you come up with.”

Nonsense songs for babies were about the limits of my intellect right now.

Lars reached for the bassinet and our hands brushed. I pulled back quickly, not liking how I felt around him, all fluttery and floaty. I should have been over it, and now this new situation was dragging me into his orbit again. This crush needed to die.

He frowned. “Adeline, are you still pissed at me?”

Yes, but not because of what you think.“No. I’m sorry I got all judgy back there.”

“I get it. I didn’t respond as graciously as I could have. It was a knee-jerk reaction to very surprising news. I’m not even sure she’s mine.”

“Mom says she has your eyes.” I agreed. I’d spent enough time gazing into them at the Empty Net. That kid was Lars’s through and through.

“Not sure that’s definitive. People say I don’t look like my dad but there’s no doubt I’m his son.”

He sounded somewhat bitter, though whether it was because of the lack of likeness or the certainty that he was Sven Nyquist’s son, I couldn’t discern. I didn’t know the entire story, but I gathered the gambling issues had driven a wedge between them. I couldn’t imagine never speaking to my father, or him leaving this earth knowing I didn’t want to see him.

I searched for something to say to smooth over the awkwardness.

“Not sure I look like my dad all that much. The boys all do.”

“You favor your mom more. But your eyes—those are the Kershaw green. And beautiful.”

My body flushed, but then I remembered that he was likely trying to pacify me because he needed my family’s help.

“Spend a lot of time gazing into Theo Kershaw’s eyes, do you?”

“Gotta practice our telepathy for the games, y’know.”

I laughed. It wasn’t so much funny as it was a welcome release of tension.

Another tilt of his head. “Are we friends again?”

“We weren’t before.”

“But everything’s changed. And I need all the friends I can get right now, Adeline.”

Adeline.It sounded sensual on his tongue.

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