Page 60 of The Child of Rue Royale
I wake to Bastian having another nightmare that night. Sweat dampens his forehead, his face twisted like he’s enduring some kind oftorture. Pressing on his head, I bid the nightmare to cease. It does in seconds, and his breathing steadies, his heartbeat returns to normal, and he pulls me into him like I’m a life raft. His body cocoons mine, like I’m keeping him afloat in the darkest of waters. I don’t wake him to question him, I let his poor body rest.
“Baby!” Bastian yells the next morning while I’m in the bathroom, wrapping a towel around my chest. My heart falls flat as I run into our bedroom, relieved to see a bright smile on Bastian’s face. He’s hovering over Aven, who’s lying on our bed.
“He just smiled at me. Look, he did it again!” He pulls my elbow so I can get a closer look, my mouth widening with surprise at the huge gummy smile on Aven’s wet mouth.
“Oh!” I yell, clapping as Aven’s green eyes circle the room. “My baby’s a genius!”
Chantal races in from her room, hands outstretched with excitement. “Smiles?” she asks.
“Cousin, look!” Bastian yells and makes this crazy buzzing sound with his mouth that only he can do, and there’s Aven’s smile again.
“Look at those gums!” Chantal says, covering her mouth, and the three of us start making sound after sound, his face sending our hearts into fits of affection.
We sit there for twenty minutes, doing every silly thing under the sun to get him to smile again, and he obliges until Chantal announces she needs to run to the store, and Bastian decides he has somewhere he wants to take Aven and me.
Though I had seen and heard of the Santa Cruz Wharf many times, I had never taken the time to walk it before I brought Bastian back. But Bastian insists before we leave that he buys Aven his first lollipop from Marini’s, a candy shop he’s loved since he was a child.
“You know he can’t have a lollipop for like, years,” I say, pushing Aven’s stroller down the wharf that stretches into the ocean.
“I don’t care. It has to be from Marini’s, and it has to be bought now.” He smiles at me, his hair more wavy than usual, maybe from his more frequent dips in the ocean.
We pass fishermen as we walk, their rods hooked onto the wharf, their coolers sitting opened.
“They want those coolers filled with kingfish or white seaperch,” he whispers, loving when he can be a tour guide.
I nod because I’ve never heard of those kinds of fish, and then he’s waving at them, hand up, smile big.
“How’s it going, guys?”
They small talk with each other, and it only reminds me why I gravitated toward him. He’s friendliness, his charm. The characteristics I admired in others but was unable to adopt for myself. I’m not a waver; the most you get from me is a smile on a good day. But I love that about him.
“Do you hear the sea lions?” he asks when he turns back to me, his white T-shirt glowing from the sun.
“They sound angry.” I squint, shielding my eyes from the sun.
“When we get back, I want to do something special for Cousin, okay?”
He looks down at me, eyes sincere. The first night he met Chantal he called her Cousin, and it seemed to stick. “She was there when I couldn’t be. I owe her a lot.”
“I owe her everything,” I say, exhaling deeply. “Maybe a trip somewhere unbelievable?” But that doesn’t even scratch the surface of what Chantal deserves.
Bastian nods, taking in our surroundings. “Definitely. Speaking of trips. We’ll bring Aven here every summer, okay?” He slings his arm around my shoulder, his other hand moving into his pocket as we pass restaurants and shops. “I can teach him how to surf, can you believe that? During the day. Surfing.”
This wouldn’t sound so wild for most people, but for a former vampire, I can see how it’s thrilling.
“As your partner, you’ll have to get my permission before anything too dangerous. You can’t break my baby.” I laugh, looking up at him, but he doesn’t get the joke or think it’s funny. Instead, his face falls serious. “Oh, I was just kidding,” I say quickly.
But he just pulls his sunglasses on top of his head, stopping to stare me in the face.
“Partner?” he asks.
“Well…” I stammer. “Yeah, we’re partners, right?”
“We’re partners?” he asks, eyebrows raised, chin to his chest.
“Aren’t we?”
“Oh, Aster.” He shakes his head with mock disappointment then quirks his mouth up. “We have to work on labels.” And with that, he drapes his arm back around my shoulder as we arrive at the candy shop, and he’s radiating with excitement again and it’s the most beautiful thing.
