Taking as many bags as possible from the boot, she struggled, arms laden, to the house.
She was barely halfway up the walk when the door was thrown open.
“Mummy!” Natasha flew out with her usual spiritedness, followed urgently by Fazire who had a look on his face that could only be described as “stormy”. “You would not be… lieve!” Natasha cried excitedly.
Nate followed Fazire and Lily fought back her reaction at seeing him casually strolling from her house. She couldn’t count how many times she’d dreamed of that very vision coming real.
She found it immensely annoying that he was more charismatic, more attractive, more handsome than eight years ago. He wore jeans and a long-sleeved chambray shirt, the sleeves rolled up partially at his forearms and he looked immensely masculine.
“Believe what?” Lily asked, trying to smile at her happy daughter at the same time ignoring Nate and finding both difficult.
She decided that, too, annoyed her.
Fazire walked by her, flashing her a glance filled with barely contained ire.
He muttered as he passed her, “Tash confiscated my mobile thingie-whatsit and would not allow me to use the house line.”
Then, on that strange announcement, he stomped to the boot to get the rest of the groceries.
“Daddy has been busy today. Busy, busy, busy,” Natasha told her with delight. “Fazire wanted to call you but I wouldn’t let him because it was a surprise!”
Nate walked straight to her.
“Lily,” he greeted.
She spared him the briefest glance and started to look back at Tash to ask about this “surprise” when Nate leaned into her. She had stopped to talk to Tash but now she reared back to avoid Nate.
He simply reached in and took all of her carrier bags of which there were five and he spared her a glance, his, again, annoyingly knowing. Then calmly, as if he had carried groceries into their house every day for the past eight years, he turned and walked into the house.
She glared at his back and decided she found that annoying as well.
“Come look, come on, come on, come on!” Natasha urged excitedly.
Tash grabbed her hand and tugged Lily forward. Lily threw a look over her shoulder at Fazire who was carrying the last three bags into the house. His lips were thin and his face was set.
Fazire, Lily knew, took Nate’s defection personally. He had, he thought, been the one to bring Nate into Lily’s life through her wish. Even though Lily tried to talk him out of it, Fazire felt personally responsible for all that happened to Lily. She knew it weighed on him heavily and he was determined to chastise himself and had even gone so far as to vow early retirement from Genie-hood considering the enormity of his blunder.
“Mummy, come on!” Tash demanded and Lily allowed herself to be pulled into the house, up the stairs and to her bedroom.
Then she saw her “surprise”.
In the doorway to her room, she came to a dead halt. Her eyes widened. Her mouth dropped open. And she stared.
“You can’t go in because the floors are drying. They’ll be back tomorrow to put in the new furniture. Isn’t it great? It’s just like Changing Rooms, except not done yet.” Tash’s excitement was barely contained, she was practically dancing in glee.
Lily’s room had been transformed. All of her furniture was gone, not even a trace of it in the hallway. The walls were smooth and had been painted in the palest blue. The woodwork was gleaming with a new coat of white gloss. An enormous ceiling rose had been affixed to the middle where also an intricate elegant light fixture dangled glamorously. The cornices had also been replaced, looking beautiful, classic and clean. The floors had been sanded and re-varnished.
Lily looked down at her watch. She left that morning at eight. It was now six thirty.
She could not believe it had all been done in that time. It took her six months just to paint the hall.
“There were, like, seven men here. I couldn’t believe they could get all of them in your room but they did. They even hoovered and dusted when they left so it would be tidy when you came home,” Tash explained and then breathed in awe, “Isn’t it lush?”
“It’s lovely,” Lily murmured, now way beyond annoyed. So far beyond annoyed, it wasn’t funny.
She was ready to do battle.
“Do me a favour, baby doll, and help Fazire with the groceries.” Tash was so thrilled at what she thought was her father’s grand gesture, she didn’t notice her mother’s glittering blue eyes. “And, ask your father to come up here. I’d like a word with him.”
“Okay,” Tash agreed readily, blind to Lily’s mounting fury, and raced headlong down the stairs. Her natural ebullience ratcheted up twelve notches to immeasurable at all the good fortune that she thought had befallen them upon the arrival of her father.
While she waited, Lily paced the landing. Every time she turned back and caught a glimpse of her room, her temper flared even further out of control.
When she caught a glimpse of Nate’s dark head sedately ascending the staircase, without a word, she broke out of her pacing and alighted the stairs that took them to the next floor. She wasn’t going to confront Nate on the landing, she needed privacy for what she had to say.
She walked angrily to the living room and stood, hand on the door while Nate silently followed her and entered the room. When he did, she slammed the door loudly and whirled on him.
“How dare you!” she shouted, letting her rage loose.
“Lily.” This was all he said. He had crossed his arms on his chest and was watching her closely. She knew he didn’t miss a thing. He never missed a thing.
Not that she was exactly trying to hide her fury.
His gorgeous face, she noted, her anger hitting the stratosphere, was carefully controlled. She decided his control annoyed her most of all.
“Where’s my furniture?” she snapped.
“Gone,” he said shortly.
“Bring it back,” she demanded.
“It’s gone,” he stated implacably as if he had every right to toss out her belongings without a word to her.
He walked toward her and she, unfortunately, was standing in front of the door she herself had closed. She had no retreat and realised her error immediately.
Instead of moving back and being pinned by his body and the door, which she knew, in recent experience, he’d do, she stood her ground and he came up to her and stopped.
He was close to her, very close. So close she could smell his tangy, earthy cologne. So close she could feel the heat from his body. Her belly threatened a gymnastics lesson and she resolutely ignored her reaction to his proximity. Letting herself go once was allowed, even expected. She had been, of course, pining for him for years.