Full of Briars (6 page)

“Oh.”

Was it my imagination, or did Dean sound just a bit relieved? I decided to push my luck. “You know I'm here on blind fosterage. That means I'll have to go home when I reach my majority.”

“In what, twelve years?” Dean smiled lopsidedly at me. “That's a long time. Twelve years ago, I was living in the Undersea, looking forward to a lifetime of SCUBA gear and air locks. And you were what, back with your folks, waiting for your fosterage to begin? Twelve years can change everything.”

“It really can,” I agreed. In for a penny . . . “Besides, even if Raj wanted to go out, I'd have to turn him down. I sort of have a thing for someone else right now.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. He's smart, funny, cute—really, if it weren't for the part where I'm squired to a knight with hydrophobia, he'd be pretty much perfect. And I guess the hydrophobia thing means we'd never have to worry about Toby interrupting when I was over at his place.”

Dean turned to fully face me, blinking slowly. “You're bold today.”

“I just had a bit of a shock to the system,” I said. “My parents threatened to end my fosterage. Made me really think about what I wanted to do while I was still here. And I like you, Dean. I like you a lot. I have since I met you, and I like you more every time I see you.”

“Are you sure you're not scrambling for something to make you feel like staying here was the right thing to do?” Again, the identity of my parents hung between us like an unspoken oath. He knew. His comment about my father's hair . . . he knew. He was just doing the socially appropriate thing, and not saying anything about it.

“No.” I'd been honest so far. Might as well stick with it. “And I'm not saying I'm in love with you, either. But I like you. We're still kids. Isn't that supposed to be enough?”

“I'm a Count. You're a squire. We have duties.”

“And one day we'll both be expected to marry long enough to provide heirs for our family names. I know that. I'm not asking you to be in love with me. I'm just asking you to . . . to hold hands with me, and see a movie, and maybe go out for ice cream.”

He smiled a little. “My parents spent their first real date looking for ice cream.”

“See, and now we have modern refrigeration. We can
find
ice cream, no problem.”

“Quentin.” Dean sobered. “You know that in the Undersea I was considered sort of, well, a freak. My dad's Daoine Sidhe. I can't breathe water. I can't even put on scales. Mom nearly lost the Duchy because I was so weak and wrong.”

I nodded slowly. “Is this your way of saying you haven't dated much?”

“It's my way of saying I haven't dated at all.”

“That's okay. I've only had one serious girlfriend, and we had to break up after Blind Michael turned her into a horse and she found out Faerie was real and then the Luidaeg wiped her memory. So we're on pretty equal footing here, I'd say.”

Dean blinked. “I think the worst part of that sentence was how every part of it was awful, and yet it all still made sense.”

“That's life with Toby, and by extension, I guess that's life with me. So if you don't want to, you know, risk it—”

“Sometimes I think about how soft your hair must be, and then I have to go sit quietly for a little while until I stop blushing.”

I stopped.

“And sometimes I think ‘I should ask him out,' and then I go no, he's a blind foster, he's someone's important son, he has better prospects than some Merrow-maid's half-breed son who's still not sure how he even wound up with a title and holdings of his own. So I don't.”

“Maybe you should,” I said softly.

“Maybe.” Dean took a deep breath, smiled, and asked, “You want to catch a movie?”

I smiled back. “Only if you'll let me pay for the popcorn.”

“It's a deal,” he said, and reached over to take my hand in his. His fingers were cool, with the ghosts of webbing extending from his palms halfway to the first knuckle. We sat there on the edge of the dock beneath the mountain, and we watched the tide roll out, and for a little while at least, it seemed like there was nothing else to say.

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