Page 8 of Tail, Dark and Handsome: Celestial Mates
“Are you saying I don’t know how to be normal around people? No, don’t answer.” A recluse for the last few years, Winter did not know how to be normal around anyone. Not that he ever excelled at sociability. He lost his polish and with it the social niceties like being polite and refraining from growling when someone shoved a camera in his face.
“We’ll revisit. Point two, I want to stay in one place for at least a year, to maximize social investment.”
“Our ship is not good enough?” Their private yacht had all the luxuries a person needed to cruise the stars in comfort.
“Dad, you don’t understand,” Zero whined, suddenly sounding very much a teenager. “I want to live on Corra.”
“No.” Absolutely not. He would never return to that horrid place.
“That’s it? No reason, just do as I say?”
“You know the reason,” he growled.
Zero’s ears went back, but he lifted his chin in pure stubborn determination. “I want to visit Mama’s grave.”
“She is not—” Winter closed his eyes, wanting to say that Rebel’s body might rest on Corra, but her heart and spirit were not there. Zero carried them with him. Instead, Winter recalled the dark skies as the storm swallowed their vehicle and tossed it about like a toy. For a moment, they had been weightless, then the vehicle slammed into the ground. He awoke to fractures in his hips and legs, and Rebel had vanished.
It took six months to recover her body. In that time, Winter’s broken bones healed, and he learned to walk with an artificial hip. The court of public opinion shredded his reputation.
The official investigation deemed Rebel’s death an accident, but the damage from what had been said about him, about their family, speculated on the front page of every news media site, could not be undone.
Winter fled the planet the moment he could, and he never wanted to return.
“I know. I just want—” Zero reached for his tail, spilling the cards onto the ground.
“Would you consider an academy? You could stay there for the entire school year?”
Zero’s ears went back, disliking the idea. “Then you’d be alone.”
“I’ll be fine.” He had kept his mind occupied for the last few years by traveling the stars in his private ship. He had shown his kit many wonders, but there were more places to visit. He could explore on his own. It was not running away, and he always had his work.
“I just want to be regular.” Zero slumped down, leaning back on his hands, and his tail dangled at his side like a limp noodle.
Winter’s heart ached for his kit. He would do anything for Zero, but what the kit wanted…he was too young to remember the media storm after the accident or, if Winter were being honest, the constant rumors before the accident. Staying in one place for too long brought attention, even now. There were always those who wanted to stick a camera in his face and discuss Rebel, hoping to get a reaction. Constant travel protected Zero from that.
But it left his kit feeling rootless and without friends. It pained Winter to seemake friendsa goal. Seclusion may have been right to him, but it harmed Zero.
And it had to be Corra, because his kit needed to see a hunk of polished granite engraved with his mother’s name.
“One year,” he said.
Zero immediately perked, his tail vibrating with excitement. He threw himself at his father in an increasingly rare display of affection. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! This is going to be the best year!” He rubbed his cheek to Winter’s, a soft kitten purr in his throat. “But—”
“The house may be in disrepair,” he cautioned. Harboring too many painful memories, he left the property—and all his research—to a caretaker. Other than the occasional update and request for repairs, he knew nothing about the condition of the house. “It will not be as comfortable as the ship.”
“I don’t care! I’m so excited. When? Can we go now? Let’s go now.”
The journey to Corra would take a solid month from their current location. “When my project has concluded.”
“And I’ll find a nanny,” Zero nodded, as if he settled the matter.
Ah, that blasted nanny.
“No nanny.” Zero opened his mouth to protest, but Winter held up a hand. “No. If you want to be a peer with your cohorts, you must have the same accommodation. You are too old for a nanny.” Avoiding media attention and simply being the child of his parents would make Zero’s plan difficult enough. Having a nanny follow him around would further ostracize him from his peers and potential friends.
“Fine,” Zero said, dragging out the word to indicate that it was, in fact, anything but fine. “This will be great. You’ll see!”
Chapter 2
