“Dude, I’m going to do it,” Thunderlane said as he shoved himself back from the table.
Bulk Biceps looked more amused than anything else. He paused for a moment, then crammed the last few fries in his mouth. “How many times have you said that?” He could have waited until after speaking to stuff his gob.
And, truth be told, Thunderlane could have waited until after his self-appointed task to have lunch. Now he probably had food stuck in his teeth, and a full stomach wasn’t the best idea for something that sent his nerves tingling.
“Why’d you even wait this long?” Bulk added. “We’re all going off to college in a couple months. Will you even see her?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Thunderlane took the first step toward the food court’s trash can, and the cold prickles predictably ran down his back at the view before him. He really hadn’t planned this well. Buying from one of her competitors, and now how was he even going to approach her? He wasn’t hungry enough to order another lunch, and going up there just to stutter and hold up the line would only make him seem like an idiot.
“Always figured you’d go for Zecora anyway,” Bulk said with a chuckle.
Thunderlane ran a hand through his mohawk, a feature he did share with Zecora. “Naw, she’s more like my sister. All that anime you watch says I should end up with her, I guess?”
Only a shrug came back. Bulk always had shipping goggles about them, but nope, it wasn’t going to happen. This, however…
Thunderlane drew a deep breath, strode over to the trash can, dumped his wrappers in, and tossed his tray on the stack. Only to have it clatter to the floor. Several conversations around him paused, and a lot of eyes turned his way. Including hers.
With a gulp, he walked up to the ¡Taco Loco! counter, with her watching him the whole way. Conveniently, no other customers were waiting right then.
“What would you like to order?” Sonata Dusk asked, that same huge smile splayed across her face that always made Thunderlane’s mind go numb. It was beautiful. She was beautiful. Just as her smile began to fade, he caught himself staring. He took a glance back to make sure nobody had lined up behind him.
“Um… I was wondering if you’d like to go out sometime?”
It took her a second to process, but it only caused a brief tic in her smile. If he let himself believe it, maybe it lost the customer service aesthetic a bit and softened to something more natural. “Okay.”
Well… that was a little anticlimactic. She remained grinning. “A-are you sure?” Oh yeah, real smooth. Try and talk her out of the answer he’d hoped for.
She nodded rapidly. “Yeah.”
“Alright, when are you free?”
“When do you want me to be free?”
Thunderlane just barely avoided the temptation to sigh. He hadn’t spent much time around Sonata, but he’d heard bits and pieces about her from Rainbow Dash at soccer practice through the years. And this particular tendency of hers had come up before. He hadn’t believed it. “What’s your work schedule like?”
“I’m off tomorrow,” she said, and this time, her smile definitely softened.
“How about six o’clock, out at the mall’s front entrance? Or I can pick you up somewhere else closer to where you live, if that’s too far away.”
“That’s fine.” Was she agreeing just to agree? But then the manager leaned out of the kitchen doorway with a scowl. “Um… I’d like an order of churros, please.” No way he could eat any more, but Bulk liked churros.
When he returned to their table, the thumbs-up got an even bigger grin out of Bulk than the churros did.
Thunderlane swept his arm toward the tee box as a mechatronic gorilla periodically blocked the cup with a bunch of bananas. “You want to go first?”
Sonata clasped her putter behind her back and gave a sheepish grin. “Go… what first?”
He hadn’t known what to suggest for dinner, but once he’d started listing off possibilities, her eyes lit up at the mention of seafood. So fish it was, and thank goodness they had an all-you-can-eat special, because that girl could put away some shrimp. But she really didn’t know anything about putt-putt?
“Alright, I’ll go so you can see how.” Thunderlane set his ball in the little depression and lined everything up. “See, there’s a gimmick to every hole. This one’s simple: just time it so the bananas are out of the way by the time the ball gets there. And hopefully after a few holes, you’ll have the feel of how hard to hit it so it goes about the right distance.” He lined up his shot, timed the gorilla… and then flinched, sending a weak putt to clang off that stupid ape. Thunderlane rubbed his head. “Sorry, bad example. But you get the idea. You ready?”
Sonata nodded, such an angelic smile on her face, like she couldn’t imagine being anywhere better. She set her ball down, squatted behind it, counted under her breath as the bananas swung past, gave one of the bricks lining the edge of the turf a long glance, and then… muttered some calculations to herself? Yeah, she did always ace the math tests. Science, too, though she seemed to get lost in history or English.
And she gave way too big a backswing, ripping the ball off that angled brick, which popped it in the air, only to land right on top of the bunch of bananas, nestled in its curve. As it swung back and forth, the ball rolled a little further to each side until it just slipped out and fell directly down into the hole.
With a little cheer, Sonata hopped up and down. That ponytail swishing around, her bright grin. She was adorable. But had she actually planned that shot?
“Yay! I figured the pendulum motion’s frequency would resonate something of the ball’s mass, but I thought it’d take four swings to drop out, not three.”
Well, that answered his question. Unless it was just luck. He tapped in for a par, and then on to the second hole. This one had a ship theme, where the ground would rock side to side as the fiberglass crewmembers stared open-mouthed at a trio of scantily clad…
Oh yeah. He’d forgotten about this one. Really smooth, though he hadn’t played the course in a couple of years, so how could he have remembered? Sirens.
“Sorry,” he said.
Sonata already had her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth as she stared intently at the twisting deck. “For what?”
“Those.” He pointed with his club. “The sirens. I forgot about them being on this hole. I hope they aren’t offensive.” Yeah, Canterlot High had become a strange place in the last few years. Students from another world, everyone agreeing to keep it secret, former villains turned nice. Not the first time he’d felt a weight on his heart knowing what she really was, but that didn’t change how he felt about her.
She walked up to the closest one, took its outstretched hand, and peered closely into its eyes. “Really? No hooves. Human heads. And nobody in their right mind would wear a seashell bra. That would be totes uncomfortable.”
He only had a vague memory of how Sonata had looked in her siren form, hypnotized as he was with the rest of the students. “Yeah, I guess you didn’t even wear a bra when—” Speaking of uncomfortable, sticking his foot in his mouth certainly qualified.
She twirled her hand behind her back, not taking her gaze away from her supposed twin. “Semi-reptilian, nah, we got no use for that.”
“Right… um, well, that’s how sirens are usually depicted in this world, anyway. Though we don’t have any real ones, not like you.”
“Not really one anymore,” she replied with a hint of a frown. “Though…”
Sonata turned away from the statue and held her arms behind her back again, but she wouldn’t look at Thunderlane. He waited a minute, but the pressure of words in her face abated. Still, she seemed to want to say something. He leaned over to get both of their balls out of the cup, and another group was waiting, so he waved them past. There was kind of a cave nearby as part of the scenery with a bench in the shade. He motioned toward it. “You can tell me. I won’t judge.”
The stare she shot him could have bored through his head. Had he said something wrong? “I’m serious,” he added. “But if you don’t want to talk, that’s okay.”
Sonata finally sat, and she gripped her knees. “It’s just… I’m not used to that.”
“To what?”
“Not… being judged.” She looked away again. “I don’t know if that’s okay.” With a grimace, she shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No! No, don’t you feel bad about that!” Thunderlane sat next to her, as close as he dared, and leaned forward so he could see her face. “I promise, I’m a good listener, and I won’t criticize.”
Holding a breath, she glanced over and blinked a few times. Then in a tiny voice: “I’m not a siren anymore, but it’s been nice that nobody acts scared of me like I’m going to turn into some monster again.”
“Again?” He’d better pick his way carefully. “Were you one before?”
“I can get how people would think so—” she shoved out a sigh “—but I’m just me.”
“And nobody seems to have a problem with that.” She did smile faintly, but it died quickly. And she undid the top button of her shirt… “Hey, whoa,” he said, peering around to see if anyone was looking. But she stopped there and pulled her collar open.
Right below her throat, a cracked red gem gleamed.
Did… did Twilight Sparkle know about this? Or Principal Celestia? “How’d you get that?” he said, unable to keep his voice from going unnaturally high-pitched.
“They grow back. But it takes a long time.”
“Will you be able to sing again?” By luck, he’d managed to make the aim of both of his questions vague, at least what motivation she might interpret from him. But the answers seemed kinda important…
She only shrugged at first, though a little twitch passed over her face. “Oh, you mean like making everyone mind slaves? Dunno yet, but I don’t think I’d do that anyway, unless Adagio told me to, and she’s not interested in that anymore, not since our concert tour got a bunch of bookings. We’re doing fine without it, so I don’t think we’d need to.”
With just about anyone else, he’d seriously have to pull his punches here, but Sonata really never took offense to anything. “And if you did need to?”
She shrugged again. “It’d take a lot to make Adagio do that again. She doesn’t wanna.”
Any time he’d gotten involved in one before, a heart-to-heart left him feeling drained, but she appeared as perky as ever, if a bit deflated. “You’re really trusting. That’s one of the things I like about you.”
Her eyes widened, that piercing stare alighting on him once more. “Wait, you like things about me?”
“Well, yeah. Why do you think I asked you out?”
“…’Cause that’s what people do?”
“Is agreeing to also just what people do?”
Her gaze went distant. Yeah, he’d seen her lock up like this once or twice, but never from up close. At least if she had to think about it, there was a chance she accepted because she actually wanted to. But first, that lack of confidence.
“I asked you out because I think you’re nice. I like the way you volunteered to help conduct the school choir. No student’s ever done that before! It’s amazing you knew how. And you’re some kind of math whiz. Did you ever get below a ninety-five on any test? Considering you never even took notes in class, it all clicked with you right away.”
Sonata twitched her nose, held a hand to her mouth, and blinked away the beginnings of tears.
“You’re sweet, you get so happy about ordinary things, you just light up a room wherever you are. And you’re really pretty, too. I love the stripe in your hair.”
Sonata gingerly pulled her ponytail over her shoulder, gazed at it for a second, then drew it across her mouth and her reddened cheeks. “I’m… pretty?”
“Yep.” Thunderlane added a smile, though with her hair in the way, he couldn’t judge her reaction.
“This me, or all the scales and fins and hooves and fangs too?”
A really fair question. “I hadn’t thought about it. There’s a difference between cute and badass, and I get what you’re saying. But”—time to tiptoe—“I don’t have a clear memory of how you look as a siren, since I wasn’t exactly… aware, I guess?.” He flicked a hand to consign it to the past. “Point is: I like you. Whatever form you’re in, you’re still you.”
With what he knew of her, she probably wasn’t even trying to make that a pointed question. But after a moment of silence, she still didn’t look as if she had any more to say. “So… that’s what I like about you. That’s why I wanted to ask you on a date. I thought we’d have fun hanging out together.”
“That’s why people do that?” she asked. “Huh. I didn’t know they meant it to be some regular thing. I guess I bored anyone who asked before. We never went on more than one date.”
Thunderlane chuckled to himself, and Sonata raised an eyebrow at him. “I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine anyone saying you’re boring.”
“You’re the first one who actually talked to me much, and the first who asked me what I wanted to do.”
“Really? How many dates have you been on?” Thank goodness her stiff posture had abated. She was rather easygoing, regardless of the topic—another great thing about her.
She shrugged and rolled her eyes up. “I dunno. Three or four?”
A full-bore laugh this time. “That’s all? Man, the guys at school really don’t know what opportunity they’re missing. They really dropped the ball.”
There went her eyebrow again. “I thought you couldn’t pick up the ball in soccer.”
This… charming naivete. He hadn’t even known about that, but what an endearing quality. “The goalkeeper can, but it’s just an expression. It means they made a big mistake.” Then something clicked. “Wait, how’d you zero in on soccer like that?”
Her stare practically burned the word “idiot” on his forehead. “You’re on the soccer team, right?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think you knew that.”
And the laser beam didn’t let up. “I came to, like, most of the games.”
He hadn’t seen her there. “Why?”
“Because…” She frowned and wrinkled her brow. “Um… because I knew I’d see you there?”
“Did you go to any other teams’ games? Or any other club events?” Please say no, please say no, please say no. Thunderlane waved on yet another group to play through.
“Besides choir… I guess not.” And she smiled as if she’d solved a riddle.
“Maybe there was someone you wanted to see at the soccer games?”
She fidgeted with her hands briefly before she got her “aha!” face again. “Rainbow Dash is pretty fun to watch.” Oh… “But I guess I liked seeing you. You’re always so friendly to everyone. You’d talk to everybody in class, and it made them seem happy. I kinda wished you’d talk to me too.”
“Oh… uh, I, uh…” Years of teenage stupidity came plowing through his skull. He really just could have asked her that long ago and saved himself all this trouble? “So don’t you think that’s a good reason to want to hang out with someone or… say yes when they ask you out?”
Her eyes widened. “That makes sense!”
Thunderlane turned to face her directly, and this time without the kind of shaky hands he had at the taco stand. “Then let me ask again. And this time not because ‘it’s what you’re supposed to answer’ or ‘you don’t have anything better to do.’ Will you go out with me? Do you want to go out with me?”
Sonata squinted and covered her mouth with one hand as she peered at the green turf. “I don’t usually think about what I want.”
“Does Adagio ever tell you she doesn’t care about something, and you decide?”
She nodded, more as an afterthought, but then she brightened. “Ohhhh…” And she looked back up. “Yeah, I do want to!”
Sonata had somehow scored a twenty-three on eighteen holes. She was amazing. And his chihuahua Rufus adored her. Rufus hated everyone, even Thunderlane on a bad day. But there the dog sat in her lap, all splayed out while getting a belly rub, with his leg kicking madly.
“Where should we go on our sixth date?” Thunderlane asked.
Sonata paused, eliciting a growl from Rufus. “Wait, we’ve been on five already? I thought it was only four.”
“Yeah, it’s five.”
That squint of hers had gotten rather endearing. Not only was it cute, but it meant she was listening. “Oh, I guess it depends on whether you count the golf thingy. Since you asked me out again at the end, I figured it reset.”
“You had fun, right?” She nodded. “Then it was a date.”
“Okay!” And with her attention available again, Rufus quieted back down.
He thought he remembered her schedule. “The local orchestra is doing a pops concert here in the park”—he gestured toward the amphitheater down the hill from their bench—“this weekend. Is the CHS choir also performing?”
“Nope, enough seniors graduated that we’re taking the summer off until we have auditions when school starts up again.” Rufus flipped over abruptly at some sound that probably only he detected, but Sonata scratched behind his ears, and he soon returned to lolling.
“You’re going to keep volunteering even though you also graduated?” She’d never spoken of any plans for the future.
Another squint, but this one had her frowning. “I don’t know if I can.”
He took her free hand in his. “Hm. Yeah, you do have a lot of competing interests.” Now the squint roved to his hand.
“Why do humans have such a need to touch?”
He relaxed his grip a little. “I won’t if you don’t want me to.”
Slowly, her frown bent into a smile. “No, I like it. I just don’t know why. Maybe ’cause I have to be human now?”
“I don’t think that’d change you into someone you’re not.” She didn’t answer. “Anyway, it’s so cool you get to do that with the choir, and so cool you have the skill to. Were you thinking about doing that as a career? You could easily go to college and become the choir director, and—well, you’re great at science, too, and good at explaining things. You’d make a good science teacher, and you could do both at the school, but honestly, you might enjoy being a scientist yourself more than teaching it. But I get it if the Dazzlings are already what you want to do long-term.”
“College?” she said as if it were a strange word in a foreign language.
“Well, yeah. Depending on what you wanna do, you might not want to. But you’re already so brilliant in both of those, and if you did decide to be a teacher or whatever, where you’d need a degree, you wouldn’t have any trouble.”
Her mouth twitched at the compliment, but she still had her brow creased. “I don’t think people like me go to college.”
Time to go to work again. “Sure they do, if it fits their plans. What do you want to do with your life?”
“Whatever… Adagio…” She hid her eyes. “…tells me.”
Against his hand, her own trembled. He gave it a squeeze. “You wanted to go out with me, remember? You made your own choice on something that’s important. Just think about it, alright? No hurry. Then you wouldn’t have to keep working at the taco place.”
“But I like working at the taco place. They have tacos!” Sonata squeezed his hand back.
The orchestra’s final note echoed in the dusk, something Thunderlane guessed came from a Bridleway musical, but not one he knew. Fun tune, though, and when the conductor lowered his arms, everyone applauded. “Did you like that?” he asked Sonata.
She nodded, and he put an arm around her back. On the next picnic blanket over, Bulk Biceps and Derpy cheered and whistled toward the stage. Honestly, those two would make a great couple, but they both said they were just really good friends. Pretty much the same thing Bulk used to say about Thunderlane and Zecora. And for her part, Zecora sat a short distance away with Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle.
“Have you ever sung that in choir? I didn’t recognize it.”
“Nope, not that one, but another from the same musical.” The quickly fading light left deep shadows on her face, but he thought he saw a smile. “I really like that musical, and Miss Cheerilee had a DVD of it in the school library, so I borrowed it last year.”
“Cool. You ever thought about putting on a musical at school?”
A quiet snorty laugh sounded. “Seems like these kids kinda do that already on their own. And not just the choir members.”
True enough. People did seem to break out into song a lot in this town. Even Thunderlane had joined in, and nobody’d ever mistaken him for a good singer. “So… did you think about it any? Doing any of the school stuff as a career?”
Her posture crumpled a little. “Yeah. I don’t think Adagio would let me. Maybe a sub or something, where I could agree to teach if we weren’t out on tour.”
Hm, the scheduling could get complex. “I see what you’re saying. Could you keep performances to weekends only? I guess if the other two are depending on that to make a living, it’s not fair to ask them to cut into how much of it they can do.” If they’d all talk about it, they might be able to work something out. “What if I talked to Adagio about it for you?”
“She won’t listen.”
He did get that vibe from her. But the Battle of the Bands had changed things. He couldn’t put his finger on how, but when he’d seen them at the PostCrush concert last year, Adagio had dropped the scary-manipulative feel. She just seemed bitter now, without the malice. “Wouldn’t do any harm to try, right?”
She’d just opened her mouth to reply when Thunderlane heard a resonant thump. “Oh, here we go! The fireworks show is starting!”
A huge bang rang out, and a great yellow ball of sparks burst above them, the afterimages of each one trailing across his eyes even after they’d faded. Then one of those cool green ones that exploded into a bunch of smaller whistling firecrackers, a blue star inside a red ring! How’d they even design the things to do that? Knowing Sonata, she could explain it easily. “Hey—”
He jumped as another explosion rang out, this one with only a brief strobe—his heart raced! Thunderlane held a hand to his chest, and he couldn’t help laughing. “Ha, that one got me!” he said. “What’d you think of…?”
She had his hand in a crushing grip. Seriously, sirens probably had a lot more physical strength than humans, but he’d never seen it on display before. “Sonata, ease up a bit!”
Her other hand clawed at his back, and her wild eyes stared at nothing in the sky. She gritted her teeth, and when the next shell went off, she lurched to the ground as if she’d been shot, heaving for breath. “What’s wrong!? Sonata, what’s wrong!?”
“Stop it, stop it!” she keened, covering her ears with her arms.
“Did I do something?” She shook her head, but with her eyes clenched shut, did she even know who’d asked? “Bulk!” he shouted. His friend took a few seconds to respond, but when he saw Sonata, he gaped. “Help me get her to my car! Something’s got her freaked out!”
Bulk nodded immediately and picked Sonata up, Thunderlane jogging ahead of them to lead the way. He glanced back to make sure they were still coming, and he saw Derpy trailing with her arms full of Thunderlane’s picnic blanket and basket.
Sonata wailed incomprehensibly, and Bulk looked like a puppy who didn’t know what to make of an alien noise. “Here,” Thunderlane called, hitting the unlock button on his key fob. Derpy put his stuff in the back while Bulk set Sonata in the passenger seat. Thunderlane flashed him a brief nod. And in that moment, he appreciated the psychic connection friends shared more than ever before. They’d catch up later.
So Thunderlane shut his door behind him, started the car, and turned up his PostCrush playlist until it drowned out the fireworks.
At least it seemed like she’d calmed down, just a little. He pulled her against him. “Shh. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“Please, no, Adagio, please, no!”
He hugged her harder. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
Her gasps turned into sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ruin the picnic…”
Yeah, he definitely needed to have a talk with Adagio. But wherever her panic had sent her, he had her back now. “You didn’t ruin anything. C”mon, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay with you as long as you need.”
Adagio opened the apartment door without so much as a hello. She gave Thunderlane a once-over as if he were a salesman, and then leaned against the frame and waited.
“I’m here about Sonata.”
She let out a sigh. “What’d she break this time?”
A few possible arguments lodged in his brain, but he went with the least confrontational one: “Why do you assume she did something wrong?”
Adagio blinked, then opened the door wider. “Oh, so you’re the one she’s been jabbering about. C’mon in.” She turned and headed for the couch, leaving him to shut the door behind him. The chair across from her had dirty laundry draped across it, but he would have wanted to stand anyway.
“She freaked out at the fireworks show last night.”
Briefly, Adagio squinted, but she uncapped a bottle of gin on the side table and poured herself a glass. “Dunno why she’d do that. Maybe the noise? As far as I know, we’ve never gone to a fireworks show.”
Thunderlane set his jaw. “She was begging you not to do something.”
Halfway through a sip, she widened her eyes, and she paused to put her glass down. “Oh. Uh, yeah. I guess I know what she’s talking about.”
Now it was his turn to let her wither under his stare.
She leaned forward and clasped her hands. “Look, I got raging drunk one night years ago, and she really pissed me off about something. Don’t even remember what. There was a hard rain, lots of thunder, and I pretty much beat the shit out of her. Storms put her on edge now.”
His fists clenched so hard that he practically dug his fingernails into his palms. “Let me guess: she got really obedient after that.”
“No, she was already like that. It’s her nature,” Adagio replied, covering half her face with a hand. “Look, I know it was wrong, and I wouldn’t ever do it again.”
“But you knew it still haunted her, and you never apologized or explained it?”
“You know her. She doesn’t understand that people would want to apologize to her. I didn’t get anywhere.”
Yeah, he figured that Sonata might get obtuse about it, but he’d made significant progress with her in only a few weeks. “You didn’t really try.” She reached for her drink again. “Don’t you think that’s caused enough problems?” he asked.
“I don’t get drunk anymore. A little doesn’t hurt.”
“People normally err on the side of having none, not assuming they’re in control of it.”
She very deliberately took a long gulp. “Alright, Dad.”
Okay. Next subject. “What do you think about her dreams?”
Adagio raised an eyebrow. “Like… you want me to psychoanalyze her?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head at the ceiling, “for her future. She likes leading the choir at school. But she’s graduated now, so she can’t do that anymore. Maybe they’d let her as a volunteer, but she’s also an ace at science, and she’d make a good teacher. She was afraid to tell you, and I guess she still hasn’t.”
The glass still hovered by her lips. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“I get that it’d interfere with the Dazzlings. She seems to want to keep doing that, too, so maybe there’s a compromise? Keep the performance dates to weekends, or some of the science classes are only one semester, so if she took those on, she’d be free half the year. It’d take her some time to get her certification first. I don’t know. But it’s worth talking about.”
“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“I care.” He added a nod.
Finally, her drink landed on the table again, still half full. “Okay. I’ll talk to her about it. We’ll see what we can work out. It’d actually pay better between gigs than her job at the mall.”
“So you do care.”
“She’s my sister.”
Which hadn’t seemed to mean much before, but he had his foot in the door. “Good.” The silence stretched on as he went down his mental checklist. It hadn’t gone anything like he’d planned, but he thought he’d covered everything he wanted to say. “Good.” He turned to leave.
“Take care of her.”
As he opened the door, he glanced back. “I will.”
Thunderlane reached over the ¡Taco Loco! wrappers and squeezed Sonata’s hand. “Really? Adagio’s being a good sport about it.”
“I know, right?” she replied, her face lighting up like a PostCrush stage. “She doesn’t like touring in the spring anyway, since it’s all rainy, so I can be a teaching assistant in physics and still lead the choir club while I’m taking classes at the college then. Same school you’re going to!”
“Good.” He flashed her a grin.
And as inexperienced as Sonata was at doing so, she gave him a death glare. “You talked to her, didn’t you?”
Thunderlane held up his hands. “What makes you think that?”
“Well… I saw you here yesterday, and when you picked me up today, your odometer read exactly what it would have if you’d made a trip by our apartment in between.”
Yeah, he couldn’t argue logic with her. “You got me.”
She giggled, but then a timid frown crept up. “Why would you do that for me?”
“Because… because I love you.”
Sonata blinked, and her frown deepened. “W-why would…” She gulped. “I don’t think I know what that means.”
“You understand friendship now, right?” She nodded. “So think of a best friend, but who you also like to hold hands with, or go do things with just them, not as part of a group. You’re important to me, more important than myself, and I’m happiest when you’re happy.”
“People… can feel that way about a siren?” she asked, her voice tremulous.
“Well, I do.” She smiled, an infectious grin that he’d give anything to see. “And I hope my name doesn’t have any unpleasant associations for you. You could call me something else if you want—”
“No! It… it makes things better. It does.” Her shoulders relaxed, and she squeezed his hand back. “It makes thunder less scary.”
“Good. I love you.”
Another giggle. “I… I like that.” She touched a finger to her blushing cheek and wrinkled her brow as if figuring her way through a puzzle. “I like it a lot.”
