symbol of pride. It’s his status.”
“Men are estúpidos,” she said, but she could almost
understand.
“Don’t I know it,” Alejandro said, and before she could
stop him, he was reaching out to twirl a lock of her hair
between his fingers. “I really could help you with this, you
know. I could even give you that short hairstyle you’ve
always favoured... with a few improvements, of course.
You have so much potential, darling. It’s criminal to let it
go to waste.”
She eyed him, and touched her own hair. She did miss
her old style, and much of the hair she’d lost had grown
back in. Maybe it was time to bring the old Taz back.
“Have you got any headbands? Maybe in red?”
Up wondered if he’d dreamed it all when he woke and
Taz wasn’t beside him. The ache had returned, and he was
slower than usual getting dressed, thinking of her small
body next to his, her soft lips on his skin. It happened, it
must have happened.
He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, a bent old
man struggling to tie his own shoes. But how can she even
look at me like this?
A knock on the door, and he opened it to see not Taz but
Rosie in her lab coat, with a boy of no more than two
perched on her hip.
“Hi, Up,” she said, shifting the little boy’s weight. “I
thought I’d bring Ty in for a visit before my leave begins
tomorrow. I don’t believe you two have met.”
“Dead God, Rosie,” Up said. “He’s the image of his
daddy.”
He was. Tripp’s eyes, his chin, heck even his nose were
staring up at him in apprehension out of the little boy’s
face, and the finality of his friend’s death washed over him