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I pressed my lips together. It didn’t help.

He watched the smile happen, but he didn’t point at it. Didn’t make it into a discovery that required my cooperation.

That was becoming one of the more dangerous things about him.

“I liked laughing with you,” he said. “I’d like doing that again. Without a defective coupling, preferably.”

“The coupling wasn’t the only problem.”

“No. I had something to do with it.”

“You aimed.”

“I did.”

“With intent.”

“Premeditated splashing.”

I let the laugh out.

It was quieter than the one in the field. No shock of cold water to pull it free. Just the two of us at a table, discussing a completely indefensible use of rented equipment.

Cash’s smile softened.

I looked down before I could start accounting for that too. The pen had left a small dot beneath my thumb. I rubbed it against my finger, making the mark worse.

“What if I don’t know what I like?” I asked.

He didn’t answer immediately.

That helped.

If he had come back with a cheerful list, I might have found a reason to leave the table.

“Then we find out,” he said eventually. “And if you don’t like something, we stop doing it.”

“An innovative system.”

“Could catch on.”

For a moment neither of us said anything.

I cleared my throat. “The name you mentioned. Daddy.”

The word felt different spoken by me. Less like a category in a conversation and more like something I had picked up to see whether it fit my hand.

Cash went very still.

I noticed. I wasn’t too tired to notice that. “I don’t know about it,” I continued.

“All right.”

“That isn’t a no.”

“Doesn’t have to be a yes either.”

I nodded.