Everyone sat in stunned silence.
Victor, even though still pale, was grinning at Nate.
Nate’s eyes moved to Fazire who, he should not at that point have been surprised but he was, Nate saw was floating and wearing a ridiculous outfit the colours of turquoise and grape, including a fez and curly-toed shoes.
Fazire was looking down his nose at Nate. “Nathaniel, I am very good at my wishes and if you don’t do something and soon, I’ll lose the Wish of the Century award,” he declared.
“It’s nowhere near the end of the century, Fazire,” Victor explained.
“Time flies when you’re immortal,” Fazire shot back. “Competition is heating up, just yesterday –”
Nate didn’t let him finish. He didn’t have time to process the fact that Lily had her own personal genie. He just looked up at the man floating, cross-legged, in mid-air (something, Nate noted, his father didn’t seem at all surprised about).
“Fazire,” Nate cut in and when he had Fazire’s attention, he said simply, “Tash.”
Fazire nodded. “Of course.”
Then Nate grabbed his car keys and with long strides and without a look back, he walked out the door.
* * * * *
Nate opened the front door to Lily’s house, his house, their home.
It was late but not late enough for the hen night festivities to be over but he heard, standing in the entry vestibule, no laughing voices, no tinkling glasses, no music and no merriment.
This did not surprise him.
A week ago he’d set himself the task of forcing Lily to fall out of love with him so when she found out about who he was she would not be destroyed.
At the silence of the house and Lily’s recent behaviour he worried that he had, as usual, succeeded swiftly and soundly in his aim.
He opened the stained glass inner door and stopped dead.
Laura, wearing a dove grey satin dressing gown, her face free of makeup, her hair pulled back, was sitting on the stairs waiting for him.
Mother and son held each other’s eyes for long moments then Laura got to her feet and came forward.
She lifted her hand to Nate’s cheek and said softly, “I knew you’d come.”
At her quiet assurance that she knew innately he would do the right thing, that she believed in him and Nate realised always had, Nate’s arms went around her. Laura rested her cheek against his chest.
Finally she tilted her head back to look at him. “Lily’s upstairs. We decided to have an early night.”
Nate nodded and they disengaged. Then he took his mother’s elbow and escorted her to the door of the guest room where he kissed her cheek and watched her enter. When she closed the door he turned with purpose to his and Lily’s bedroom.
The door was closed and when he opened it the room was dark, the curtains drawn and he could see Lily’s sleeping form in the bed. He walked to the side and stared down, noticing in the dim light she was curled around his pillow, hugging it close to her.
Quietly, he took off his clothes, dropping them to the floor and pulled back the bedsheets. He slid into bed carefully and pulled away the pillow, righting it behind his head and positioning his body in its place. Unfortunately, before he had completed this task, she woke.
“Nate?” she murmured, her voice husky with sleep.
His arm went around her quickly holding her tight against his body and he reached out and turned on the light.
She lifted up with her hand on his chest and blinked at him as his other arm closed around her, bringing her body over him so she was lying mostly on top of him.
“What is it?” she asked, still blinking but her face was clearing. “Is it Tash?”
“Tash is fine,” Nate assured her quietly.
Lily stared at him then her eyes dropped to the clock at the bedside table then they came back to him and he saw, in that short time, she’d put her shields up. She looked wary and she tried to push away.
His arms got tighter.
“What’s going on?” Lily asked.
“Do you know,” Nate began conversationally, having mentally rehearsed his words in the car, doing this in order to shove away the thoughts and memories that had been pelting his brain viciously for the past week, “until Laura and Victor adopted me, I didn’t know my birthdate?”
Lily’s body stilled and she stopped trying to pull away.
“I’m sorry?” she queried, her face melting from annoyed and watchful to confused.
Confused, Nate thought, was good. Nate could work with confused.
So he went on. “I didn’t know my birthdate until Laura and Victor adopted me and told me. It’s the fourteenth of September.”
Her head jerked at this news but she recovered swiftly and bit her lip then released it.
“How could you…” Her eyes shifted away and he could tell she was trying to decide how to respond. Curiosity, he was pleased and hopeful to see, won. Confused was good, curious was much, much better. She continued. “Not know your birthday?”
“My mother never told me,” Nate answered matter-of-factly.
Lily’s eyes grew wide with shock, wary and guarded gone. She was staring at him with undisguised disbelief.
“Why on earth wouldn’t your mother tell you?” Lily was holding her body still, tense and he sensed she was unsure how to react to his unprecedented sharing.
He wasn’t surprised. He’d been behaving erratically, pushing her away and pulling her close, holding her at arm’s length and then demanding her attention, yelling at her when she bought him presents, keeping himself from her and then, finally, brutally showing her who he was.
Or who he thought he was.
And he hadn’t just been doing this for the last two months; he’d been doing it since they met.
“I never asked,” Nate replied, quelling his thoughts to focus on the very important matter at hand. “She probably didn’t remember considering most of the time she was drunk and when she wasn’t drunk, she was high or, more often than not, both.”
He watched as she closed and opened her eyes slowly as if this was beyond her comprehension.
“High?” Lily whispered.
“She was a drug-addict, Lily,” Nate responded softly then before she could react or put her shields back in place, he continued. “Her name was Deirdre.”
At more news of his life, his history, coming forth, Lily’s eyes grew soft and before she could control it, she said with a horrified reverence, as if he’d just shown her the fountain of youth and it was flowing with blood, “Deirdre.”