Page 77 of Sucker For You

Screw that.

“I want them to meet you, Isabel.” He accelerated too hard onto Casa Verde Way. He forced a laugh to lighten the weight of her pause. “I also want you to meetthem. Just in case you change your mind and decide to run, once you see what you’re in for.”

“I. . .”

“Which you can. Run, I mean. I wouldn’t blame you. But I’m not running.” Not next week anyhow. Not until a new contract drew him to Antarctica for penguins, or the Great Barrier Reef for coral. “Erin and Adrian are the family sprinters. I’m faster in the water. Happier. Maybe. . . like you are?”

Thank God, that question finally worked.

Sort of.

They pulled up to the curb and Isabel extracted her napkin list from the flannel pocket of her shirt. She cleared her throat. “Water, yes. What inspired you to become a marine photographer?”

Quick, clipped, all business.

A transactional inquiry.

Muffling his sigh, Wes followed her stiff steps and hunched shoulders through the driftwood gate. While she prepared food for their octopus in the kitchen, he scanned the living room rug for mussel shells—none—then removed the aquarium’s lid, dropped a hand into the tank, and told her, “Visual’s easy for me. Seeing patterns. Noticing things in my environment. Colors, textures, behaviors, when prodigies like Erin—or even most other people—are looking for numbers and words. Plus, I’ve always liked the water. I like feeling self-sufficient when I’m submerged. Like I can trust my body.”

Chop, chop, slice.

“I’ve got skills in the ocean that don’t depend on my brain decoding symbols. It’s where I can be really good at something. Useful. Where I’m not the odd one out, because—hell, it could get obvious on Wednesday, so I’ll give you a heads-up tonight.” He stroked a finger over the octopus’s third arm; Thalassa was holding a half-eaten shrimp from breakfast, evidently disinterested in its protein. “I used to take care of Erin and Adrian at school when we were kids. In the hallways, on the playground. I didn’t mind fighting if bullies tried to tease them about being nerds or having panic attacks. But they don’t need me to win their battles anymore. I’m not smart enough to get a degree in marine biology. Definitely not smart enough for the kind of credentials they have. They’re fighting fights I don’t even understand. I—I can’t keep up with them. They’ve gone on to places where I can’t help. That’s good. It’s fine. . . But the ocean? Anywhere I go on David Attenborough’s blue planet, that’s still mine—”

Squish, from the kitchen.

Isabel appeared in the doorway to the living room. She wasn’t carrying Thalassa’s dinner shrimp. Instead, her fists were balled, her knuckles blanched. She was frowning. Frowning right at him—and her voice was loud.

“That’s not true.”

“What?”

“It’s not true that you’re not smart. You’ve just said that you notice colors, patterns, textures—behaviors. You have an eidetic memory for what you see in the bay. You can name thousands of species underwater by sight. You have all the practical and observational experience that makes a good photographer. A good biologist. The curiosity and compassion and patience thatmake a good person. If Erin and Adrian don’t need your help now, that’s because you were there when theydidneed you. When you were there to make them safe—safe enough to take risks. To try, to fail safely, and try again. To succeed—and. . . and anyhow,” suddenly breathless, “Idon’t have a degree.”

Again:what?

“. . .uh,” he managed after a minute.

What else could he say? How the hellshouldhe respond to Isabel’s abrupt vehemence—in praise and defense not of an octopus, but of him? Gratitude and confusion knotted hotly under his ribs. But he didn’t dare answer her in kind. He couldn’t risk scaring her back into her shell. Not when he still couldn’t suss out what he’d done wrong at the fish market.

Instead, he reminded her, “You were a researcher at the Seattle Aquarium.”

Her shoulders sagged and she retreated into the kitchen.

Fuck, not again.

She was back a minute later, however, carrying a shrimp-andmussels special to the tank beside him. She offered the meal to their two-spot with downcast eyes.

“Sorry, I didn’t—”

“I was,” she said. “Ididconduct research on cephalopod consciousness at the Seattle Aquarium. Or at least, I was in the laboratory. I wasn’t qualified, though. I had no credentials. I’d spent time on the University of British Columbia’s campus after I left government care, before I moved to Washington State. But I wasn’t enrolled in the marine biology program. I was just. . .there.”

“How—”

Thalassa’s lax fourth arm dropped a prawn; Isabel coaxed the shrimp back into her grip. Despite her efforts, the finickyjuvenile ignored the mussels. “How? Yes, you need to know. And—it’s simple: professors and graduate students always need extra hands for grunt work. For night shifts. They didn’t ask questions. That’s how I was in the university lab, but not earning a degree. I couldn’t. The government hadn’t started to provide support funds for people like me yet, so I’d exited the system with no resources. When I left the federal home, I rode the bus to UBC. The university has a twenty-four-hour library. I stayed in the stacks. I slept inside during the day for almost two years. I wasn’t the only one napping at the study tables, either. No one asked me why I was there. I was lucky. There were Good Samaritan pantries nearby, too. There usually are around universities, since even the research assistants who get paid often don’t make enough to. . . Anyhow, the system did its best for me. But I had nowhere else to go.”

“Isabel. . .”

“I took night shifts in the marine laboratory. I didn’t have badge access. There was always at least one other person working very late or very early who could let me in, though. Sometimes there were even leftover donuts in the kitchenette. Then, in the wet lab, I cleaned and prepared feed. I monitored neutral octopus behaviors under red light, or I administered simple cognitive tests—with pencils or live crabs—that the professors and graduate students had developed. The animals responded well to me. They were calm when I handled them. That made research and veterinary care easier. I liked it there. I liked the quiet and the routines. The clean floors, the doors that locked. I liked the octopuses. They liked me.”