Page 244 of Red Scale Daddy
Lyra kicks one socked foot.
I lift my mug in salute. “She gets me.”
“She tolerates you because you provide entertainment.”
“And snacks.”
“You are not supposed to give her snacks without checking with me.”
“I meant emotional snacks.”
Roma’s mouth twitches, and that tiny almost-smile still hits me like sunlight through armor. Years ago, I would have foughtthrough monsters and collapsing ships for one glimpse of it. These days, I get it over coffee and baby drool and the ongoing legal dispute regarding hallway boots, and somehow that feels more miraculous than surviving the galactic core.
From the next room, Dad’s voice booms, “Who moved my stabilizer bracket?”
Roma closes her eyes for half a second. “It is under the blue cloth, exactly where I told you it was.”
A pause follows, full of muffled rummaging and wounded pride.
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is.”
More rummaging. Then, quieter, “Found it.”
Roma says, “Miracle.”
Dad appears in the workshop doorway a moment later with the bracket in one hand and Lyra’s stuffed moon-bear tucked under his arm. He looks older than he did when we dragged ourselves back into Alliance space, but not weaker. Never that. The years have softened the edges of him without dulling anything important. His hair has gone more silver, his limp is worse on rainy days, and he has developed the deeply suspicious hobby of pretending he is not sentimental while carrying a baby toy everywhere “in case of tactical need.”
He points the bracket at me. “You. Tall menace. Why is there a pair of boots in the hall?”
I spread one hand. “Thank you. I was beginning to feel outnumbered.”
“You are outnumbered,” Roma says.
Dad nods. “Always have been.”
“I married into a tribunal.”
“You married my daughter,” Dad says, “which is what we call a high-risk decision made by a man with questionable self-preservation instincts.”
Roma looks at me then, and there is warmth under the dry line of her mouth. “Accurate.”
I cross the room and set my coffee on a shelf far away from anything explosive, glowing, or emotionally important. I learned that lesson the hard way when I once placed tea beside a live ignition manifold and spent the afternoon being lectured by Roma in three languages, two of which I’m fairly sure she invented specifically to insult me with scientific precision.
“I had self-preservation instincts,” I say. “They just got overruled.”
“By what?” Dad asks.
I lean down and kiss Lyra’s soft, dark hair first, then Roma’s temple. “Better priorities.”
Roma’s hand pauses on the schematic controls. She does not melt. Roma does not melt. She simply goes very still in the way she does when feeling catches her in public and she has to decide whether murdering the feeling would be inefficient. Lyra grabs at my collar with a damp fist, saving us all from excessive sincerity.
Dad clears his throat with no subtlety whatsoever. “Well, that was disgusting. Do it again later when I’m not holding precision equipment.”
“You’re holding a bracket and a stuffed bear,” I say.
“Both require respect.”
