There are conversations you plan, conversations you wing, and conversations that go so catastrophically sideways they qualify as natural disasters. Guinevere was about to have all three at once.
"Kael, there's something I need to tell you."
She began to pull out of her hug. She didn't get very far before Kael corrected that. He picked her up with one arm, walked to the armchair, and sat down with her on his lap the way a toddler reclaims a stuffed animal that was briefly confiscated.
The stuffed animal had opinions about this. The toddler did not care. The stuffed animal's opinions could go fuck themselves six ways to Sunday, because this toddler had already moved on to nap logistics.
She opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Looked at the lap. Looked at the man attached to the lap. Looked at the door Maddox was going to walk back through in approximately thirteen minutes.
