Page 4 of A Suitable Brat
If he hadn’t, he certainly would have by the time Westin had drawn him up to kiss river water from his mouth.
“Another outguard?”Hely’s voice pulled Westin from the memory.Hely seemed confused although not troubled; outguards probably were not frequent customers, not with Solace House being so close to the capital and the Outguard barracks, where a bed and a meal were free.“Did you invite him?”
Westin shook his head.
“Sun,” he explained, watching Sun approach the bar and lean in to say something to the worker there.“Sunlark,” he added.
“Sunlark?”Hely asked with real surprise.“That’s a name for a horse, not a person.”
Hely wasn’t wrong.People tended to have names from the long-forgotten ancient tongue.Pets and working animals tended to have more fanciful names.
It wasn’t Westin’s place to share details, but Hely ought to know there were topics best avoided around the brat.
“His mother named him that while drunk, he says.”It was all Sun ever said of his mother, except to sometimes joke, or not joke, that until then, people had simply called him “Child.”He likewise shared no information about his father.Westin half suspected that Sun was part fae, but there were no obvious signs of it.Sun wasn’tthatlittle.And his hair, while a pretty color in the sun, was a normal human color.Sun either had no family or was ignoring the one he had, because instead of a family name, he identified himself as Sun of South Burrow, wherever that was.
That hair, currently curled around Sun’s ear where he’d tucked it back while smiling at the bartender, was shining, although its gleam was nothing to the glitter of two ear cuffs high along the shell, or the darker cuff hanging from his ear lobe.There was, Westin belatedly realized, a slim cuff on one side of his nose as well.Except for the darker cuff, they were all polished silver.The darker one might have been pewter.One of them seemed to have agate or amber stones set in it that flickered in the candlelight.
Those were new.
Someone had been generous, Westin thought with a pain in his wrist and a faint ache in his chest.
“He’s what?Half your age?”Hely guessed quietly.He wouldn’t have missed how Westin was staring.
Westin tore his gaze away to blankly consider the far wall.He took a breath, then tried a smile.“Not quite that.”His attention returned to Sun, who seemed amusingly taken aback by the selection the bar offered: ales, wines, and teas from all across the country, with no loyalty to any particular noble family, not even the one who controlled the land the inn was on.“Five or six years off from that,” Westin added, then made himself turn to Hely and Hely’s expression of patient interest.There was no judgment in Hely’s tone, but there didn’t need to be.“Though still far too old for him.”
Hely met his stare levelly, evidently wanting Westin to know he was sincere.“I didn’t say that.”
Westin only sighed.That he was on the verge of retirement said enough.He poured himself a cup of tea and answered without tasting it.
“Too old for anything beyond what any outguards might do together,” he amended.His future should be spoken of.“Hely, I plan to leave the—”
“There you are!”Sun called out, and Westin knew it was directed at him from both the flip in his chest and the reproach in Sun’s tone.Westin had done something to vex the brat, which happened often and was rarely explained, although since the consequences mostly meant Sun teasing him, Westin had never fought hard for an explanation.
Sun moved with swift purpose, as if he intended to plant himself in Westin’s lap despite the height of the chair and the table in his way.Sun hadn’t once ever sat in Westin’s lap in public despite acting as if he were entitled to; Westin was weaving fantasies with that summer day and his lonely future on his mind.
Sun was halfway to Westin’s table when his gaze fell on Hely.His open-mouthed smile sharpened.His demeanor shifted from eager and excited to something altogether more calculated and worrying.Tura’s customer tracked Sun’s dangerous, deliberate progress until Tura clucked his tongue and left the table without a word of farewell.The customer, realizing his mistake, scrambled after him—too late, unless that was a game they played.
“Confidence works for your Sun,” Hely remarked for only Westin to hear.He was watching the brat’s approach as well.
Westin couldn’t blame him.“Yes, it does.”
“West,” Sun showed his teeth in a different smile, “there you are.”
Westin forced away the sliver of worry, or perhaps fear, at that smile and whether or not it was for Hely.“Is someone looking for me?”
Sun stopped.His hand tightened around the straps to his travel pack.“Lani said you often come here on your way to the capital.”He didn’t make it a question, but Westin heard it as one.
Sun glanced to Hely, then turned on his bright, charming attitude the way Westin had turned on the tap to the hot water for his expensive bath.Suddenly, Sun didn’t look like someone who could be considered a walking armory of hidden weapons.
Westin normally approved of those weapons.The life of an outguard could be dangerous, and Sun was on the smaller side and needed extra protection.But he would prefer to avoid bloodshed in an inn known for peace.
“I do often stop here, yes,” Westin said in the mild tone he used to end fights before they began.Perhaps Sun recognized it, because his eyebrows flew up.Then Westin, who ought to know better, who was certainly old enough to know not to poke wild creatures, couldn’t resist adding, “Was there a desperate need for me?”
“Westin,” Hely chastised, although Westin didn’t dwell on what he’d done to deserve that tone.Not with the brat’s cheeks flushing darker and his eyes wide and alarmed and pretty.
The surprise was only for a moment anyway.Then Sun fluttered his eyelashes and answered in an overly sweet voice, “You know you’re irresistible to me, West.”
Westin scoffed and shook his head.He was about to tease back in kind when Hely tapped the hand Westin had resting on the table.
