As Lyric dove for the oxygen mask hanging from the headboard, the elder Lyric batted the hissing plastic cup away. “Enough… with… that…”
Given the refusal, all she could do was sit and wait until things quieted down again—while she wondered if she needed to go wake up her other father. But the male was indeed out like a light, and she hated that she’d added to his worry tonight. On her first break during the subscriber event, she’d been sure to FaceTime him, along with hermahmenand Xcor, from the bathroom to offer reassurance she was okay.
Talk about proof of life—
“Now, tell me about the coat,” the elder Lyric said weakly.
She kept the face mask in her palm, feeling the stream of air against her wrist. “Well, I was doing an event at this club and…”
When Lyric got to the end of the story—and she cut things off before the part about her bringing the hard hat over to the job site—hergranmahmenseemed to be breathing much better.
“So about this man…” the female whispered. “He must have been quite strong to hold up an entire billboard.”
As Lyric’s cheeks turned red, she cleared her throat. “Ah, yes, he was very strong. For a human.”
“They’re not that different from us, actually—and that blush on your cheeks tells me you noticed this, too.”
“He’s a total stranger.”
“And yet you have his jacket.”
Lyric ran her hand over the sleeve, feeling the rough weave of the outer layer. “Just a stranger.”
“Everyone starts out that way.”
“I’m never going to see him again.”
Well, she supposed that wasn’t exactly true. She’d see him from afar, maybe. When she went back to Bathe.Ifshe went back there.
Partying suddenly didn’t seem any more interesting than posting and promoting herself on Zideo.
“May I offer a piece of advice… as an old female who has seen a lot?”
Covering a yawn, she nodded. “Of course,Granmahmen.”
When that frail hand patted the bed on the empty side, Lyric had to smile. Getting up, she went around the footboard and stretched out on top of the quilt, curling onto her side and taking that thin palm into her own.
“Tell me,” she prompted. “I feel as if my life is going nowhere, so I’m very open to any wisdom from you.”
“Our time here is so very short.” All the elder Lyric could do was turn her head, and she did that, their eyes meeting. “You need to find that man and follow that blush into his arms—”
“Granmahmen!” she exclaimed with a giggle.
“I haven’t always been old, you realize.” The elder Lyric smiled in a knowing way. “And your grandfather wasn’t always an accountant.”
“I… I don’t know what to say to that.” She smiled back. At least until she thought again of her meeting—Devlin, was it?—at the site. “And anyway, it was just a path-crossing thing.”
“A man doesn’t give his coat away to just anybody on a cold winter’s night.”
She remembered standing in front of him and was relieved to recall how tall he’d been. How broad through the chest and shoulder.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she mumbled. “Maybe he just happens to have good manners.”
Hadn’t he said something about his mother raising him right? Jesus, even their conversation was spotty in her memory.
“In January around here?” Hergranmahmenmade a dismissive sound. “Plus you are the most beautiful female he’s ever seen.”
“You are biased.”
