“So should I wish to have one, which I don’t, the nickname Frannie is not only abhorrent, it doesn’t make sense. It should be Frahnnie and that’s just ridiculous. Or more ridiculous than Frannie.”
“Could call you Koko,” he remarked, and I felt my lip curl. I then felt the bed slightly shake with his chuckle as he said, “Okay, that’s out.”
“How about calling me Franka?” I suggested.
“Can’t call you Kaka because that’s just wrong,” he went on his own bent, as was his wont, completely ignoring my suggestion because it went against what he wished to do.
But my curiosity got the better of me.
“Not that I desire you to call me Kaka either, but why is that just wrong?”
“In my world that’s shit. As in it means shit, crap, excrement.”
The lip curl that earned was more pronounced.
Noc exploded with laughter.
I sighed yet again and nibbled more toast.
“So it’s Frannie,” he said when he was done laughing.
“I suppose,” I murmured, finishing my toast and going after my fork to spear some scrambled eggs.
“So you’re good with the visit to your folks and you’re lookin’ forward to your brother showin’. What else is up for your day?” Noc asked.
I chewed and swallowed eggs (it must be said, the queen’s cook was superb, even the eggs were delicious), still curious.
“May I ask why you wish to know?”
“Why wouldn’t I wish to know?” he answered my question with a question.
Yet it was still an answer.
He was interested in me. Even the mundane goings-on of my day. He came in first thing in the morning for no reason whatsoever, except, it seemed, to be in my company.
I felt my throat start closing, cleared it daintily and turned my attention back to my tray.
But I did this speaking.
“Josette and I are going to be making the final selection of a new lady’s maid. After that and also after my brother arrives, we’ll be sledding into town to order some clothing for her. It’s time we start preparing for our journey and the seamstresses who’ll be making her new attire will need to get to work on it as soon as possible. I don’t suspect Kristian will wish to stay long. He tends to prefer to be at home.”
“What journey?” Noc queried and I looked to him.
“Pardon?”
“You said you’re preparing for a journey. What journey?”
I took hold of a rasher of bacon, raised it and answered, “Once Kristian leaves, Josette, the new maid we select and I will be on our way to Sudvic to see about purchasing passage across the Green Sea.”
“Come again?”
My bacon held aloft, I turned my attention back to Noc.
“We’re sailing across the Green Sea,” I repeated. “Not many people journey there so I imagine we’ll be in Sudvic some time, waiting for a galleon that makes that journey to return, or to prepare to make the journey, as I can imagine that takes some doing as I hear it’s many weeks. In truth there may be no galleons who sail the Green Sea that harbor in Sudvic. We may need to find another port city, perhaps even travel to Hawkvale, passage across the green waters is so unusual. But we’ll find our way over,” I finished decidedly.
I crunched bacon, chewed, swallowed and started mumbling again, this time mostly to myself.
“I hope we can make the island nation of Mar-el, for Josette’s sake. But then I dearly wish to see Airen.”
I finished my bacon, had eaten more egg and was slathering marmalade on another corner of toast when I realized Noc hadn’t said anything for some time.
I looked his way to see he had his gaze fixed to my tray but his eyes were distant.
“Have you had breakfast?” I asked.
He said nothing.
“Noc,” I called, his head twitched and his ice-blue eyes came to me.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “What?”
“Have you had breakfast?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you still hungry?”
“Not really.”
“Then will you explain why you’re staring at my tray like you wish to nick my bacon?”
His mouth spread in a grin that for the first time I didn’t believe was real.
“No one can have enough bacon,” he quipped.
This was quite true, bacon was delicious.
However I had the uncomfortable feeling he was lying and I didn’t like this. I’d lied and been lied to by many people, starting from so far back I didn’t even remember when it actually began.
But Noc, I knew instinctively, had never lied to me.
And thinking that he was now, about bacon of all things, troubled me far more than I’d care to admit.
“You can have my bacon,” I said quietly.
“Baby, I don’t want your bacon. Honest,” he replied in my tone.
I studied him closely before asking, “Is all well?”
“I just got something on my mind.”
I shouldn’t extend the invitation.
Nevertheless, I extended the invitation.
“Would you like to share it with me?”
His gaze on my face warmed and his words made my chest do the same when he replied, “Yeah.”
I put my cutlery down, the wedge of toast, and twisted to him to give him my full attention.
Even so, he carried on by saying, “Just not now. Seems you have a full day. But can I ask that we end it together?”
“End it together?”
“Yeah,” he gave me a genuine grin that time. “You and me in a room somewhere with a bottle of whiskey.”