Page 30 of Tail, Dark and Handsome: Celestial Mates
Oh no.
The entire situation was absurd, but her sucker of a heart moved in sympathy for him.
“If your father is so awful, what makes you think I’ll last longer than any of the others?”
He tilted his head to one side. “I don’t know. I just have a feeling.”
Great. A feeling.
“What’s so difficult about your father?” She had a fair idea, his tetchy attitude and prickly disposition being first among them. If Zero confessed that his father shoved the previous pilot out the airlock, she wouldn’t be surprised.
“He needs a friend.”
“A friend or afriend? Because that’s well outside the job description of a pilot.”
The kid grinned, awkwardness draining away, and Mari realized that her quip was a little too racy to say in front of a dangkidabout his father. Shit. How old was Zero?
“My father—”
Bursts of laughter bubbled up over the noise of the surf. Mari caught sight of a group of teens at a nearby patio, sitting on the tabletops rather than the chair, sharing baskets of food, and laughing. Typical kid stuff.
She turned back, catching the unguarded look of longing on Zero’s face, and melted. Her mother moved them around constantly when she was his age, and Valerian had a reputation for being difficult. By the time she got over her shyness, it was time to move again. If it weren’t for Joseph, she’d have no friends at all, and she suspected that her brother didn’t count as a best friend.
“I didn’t mean, you know,that,” he said.
“That is the first thing you said that wasn’t weird,” she replied without thinking. A smile—a real smile—spread across his face, and his wintry blue eyes thawed.
“My father is overprotective. I need you to…be his friend. Distract him so I can be an average kit. He’s not a bad male. He’s lonely, I think, and that makes him moody.”
Moody, antisocial, and overprotective. Delightful.
Zero’s gaze drifted back to the gaggle of teens. He claimed his father was lonely, but she suspected that description included him too.
“So, home is on Corra?” It wasn’t the worst planet, even if it was on the ass-end of nowhere.
He nodded, hair flopping on his forehead. “For the school year.”
“Look, you seem like a great kid, but I don’t think—”
“But you’re perfect!”
“I’m really not.”
“Is it money? I have lots. Do you need more?” He looked so damn earnest.
This kid made her heart hurt.
The whole situation was weird. She said she wanted a fresh start, right? The universe answered and gave her this awkward kid who wanted a friend and didn’t know enough to realize he couldn’t buy them.
Scheming universe.
Foolish heart.
Embrace the weird, she whispered in her mind, and said, “If we’re going to do this—”
Zero gave a whoop of delight, and she waved a hand to get him to turn down the volume.
“The first lesson is the people you can pay to be your friends aren’t friends worth having.”
