Nate

by Tijan

  Because of that, I had a few lovers over the years. We’d meet or call, and then we’d go about our lives. It was probably much the same as what Valerie had with Nate. But maybe because of dance, or maybe it was just how I worked, but I’d never been one for relationships.

  I wasn’t one for romance either.

  Despite the romantic, sensual magic that I tried to convey through dance, it had never made sense to me.

  Sex had been an urge or a need that I took care of, like eating. Or needing water.

  The whole heart palpitations, fluttering stomach, weak in the knees experiences were alien to me.

  “Hey.”

  Nate had turned and saw me, and so like him, he wasn’t ruffled one bit.

  I moved farther into the kitchen, seeing Nova in the corner. She was taking a bunch of plastic cups and bottles from one corner of the room to the other. I paused, watching her. Always so busy and with such an unknown purpose.

  Nate chuckled. “She’s very intense when she’s working.”

  Something eased inside me. My chest felt looser, and not wanting to second-guess that, I moved forward. I slid onto one of the barstools. I was also trying hard not to only watch his chest.

  Or his back.

  Or how his muscles seemed to be endless and smooth, and how he moved so lithely through the kitchen.

  Nope. That wasn’t drool at the corner of my mouth.

  Still, I pressed my lips together, brushing my mouth with the back of my hand.

  He caught the motion, his eyebrows dipping together. He paused, his eyes going back to my mouth, lingering. Darkening.

  I was pulling myself out of this lust-filled spell, but he yanked me back down, with just that one look.

  Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he yanked his gaze away and turned to the fridge.

  Reaching in, he pulled out some salad. “Are you joining us for dinner?”

  His voice was hoarse.

  I needed a second, because that look from him unearthed a wash of yearning in me—yearning that I hated feeling. A slight gurgle left me, and I looked to him and he had stopped, once more. That sound seemed to ripple through him as well.

  The lust was still there for him. I saw it waving like wind slowly moving through a bonfire. The flame swaying back and forth. He didn’t bank it.

  I couldn’t bank mine either.

  Then, abruptly he put the salad on the counter before me.

  “I—”

  He said, cutting in, “Because that’d be nice since we do all live together.”

  The back of my neck got all hot. Why was I reacting to that, too?

  I crossed my arms in front of me but hugged the counter. “I can do that.”

  “Good. We gotta get to know one another, whether you want that or not.”

  He turned back for a bowl, and I almost sagged back in my chair.

  Get to know each other. What did he mean by that?

  Not…

  No way.

  Not what I was thinking, that’s for sure. Ricci was in my mind. Hell. Ricci was in my body because my stomach was doing those same damn somersaults right now.

  I groaned internally because I couldn’t blame Ricci.

  This was all on me.

  Nate was gorgeous, and wealthy, and young. He was Nova’s father, and I was living with him. I was single. He was single—was he single? He hadn’t said anything about a girlfriend, and as far as I knew, he hadn’t been meeting up with anyone. Hell, maybe he had a similar relationship with another woman like he’d had with Valerie.

  Because he wasn’t here all the time.

  He could’ve been meeting a woman. What did I know?

  “Are you single?” I blurted out the question and made myself hold firm when he looked at me.

  He raised one eyebrow. “I assumed your PI would’ve included that information in his report.”

  I shrugged, telling myself my cheeks weren’t hot or flushing as I looked away. “He didn’t, but I just thought I should ask. Because of Nova, I mean.”

  Nova, who was starting to wander into the other room.

  I moved off the barstool and went over, gently herding her back to the kitchen.

  He hadn’t answered. “Are you?”

  Pausing, Nate stared at me for a moment, a long moment.

  An emotion was there, simmering just beneath the surface.

  I was staring back, the back of my neck heating again.

  My throat dried.

  He hadn't answered the question.

  “I’m single.”

  I could’ve sagged from the relief.

  “Oh.” I looked down, still herding Nova forward.

  “You?”

  “What?” My head jerked up at his soft question. He was staring at me. Oh. Right. “No. I’m not—that’s not me.”

  “What’s not you? Being single?” He put a few slices of bread on a pan, laying it out. There was a bowl of melted butter next to it with garlic seasoning beside that. “Or don’t you do relationships? Or just sex?”

  He was teasing me.

  God. My throat was suddenly so parched.

  “Relationships.”

  He flashed me a side grin. “Sex?”

  “Why are we talking about this?” I felt like I was a shy and clumsy junior high school girl all over. I groaned. “I bet you were popular in high school.”

  Both his eyebrows shot up at that. “I can guess how you jump from one thought to the next sometimes, but not that one. You lost me.”

  I pressed my mouth tight. I wasn’t explaining that jump either.

  I said instead, “You were, weren’t you?”

  “You weren’t?” he countered, a small sparkle in his eyes.

  My whole body was warm, and my organs were all melting as he was coating me with a blanket inside my body. It was nice and not at all normal for me. “No. I wasn’t.”

  “Daddy Duke didn’t let you party with the delinquents?”

  I barked out a laugh. Nova looked content to go through her emptied bottles and cups again, so I sat down to help block her in. I started stretching once I was down there, and I bent forward, my forehead going to my knees. I took a deep breath in, resting my arms behind me on the floor. My fingers moved to grip my shirt’s sleeves, knotting them, and I took that one moment to center myself.

  I missed dancing.

  Moments like this reminded me of the reasons that I danced.

  I needed to dance again.

  Pushing that thought away, I sat back and blinked a few times. Nate was watching me, almost curiously. He was finishing up buttering the bread. “You do that so naturally as though you don’t even know you do it.”

  I considered his statement. “I probably do. I’ve been dancing since I was three. It’s just what I do.”

  “You danced through school, too? Is that why you weren’t ‘popular’ as you put it?”

  He was teasing. I recognized the tone, but that just took me back to those years.

  “There were times I had some people over to the house, but it was weird. They were all ‘approved’ by my dad to hang out for that day or that event, like a birthday. And after, I couldn’t keep them. I wasn’t allowed to have friends except for Ricci.” That wasn’t totally true. “I had another friend. We danced together until she was hospitalized in seventh grade. They moved away after that.”

  “What was she hospitalized for?”

  There was a big boulder sitting smack in the center of my chest. I spoke around it. “An eating disorder.”

  He was quiet, but he had paused. All his focus was on me, and man, it was a lot of focus. Intense focus. Unwavering focus. A girl could fall in love simply from the focus he was giving me.

  I needed to tell him.

  “We both had it. We were eating disorder partners, which, if you know anything about the disorder, is not a good combination.” I didn’t want to look at him. I couldn’t. I pulled my gaze to Nova, who had chunky legs, chunky arms, and a chunky face, and
she was so perfect, I wanted to cry. “One of my therapists told me it made sense that I developed an eating disorder. Not because of my dancing, which you’d think, right? But because of my dad. She said it had to do with not feeling loved by him. That got transferred to looks, my dancing, and that’s what I could control. I couldn’t control him loving me, but I could control what I thought might make him love me. I kinda over-controlled it, if you know what I mean.” Gah. I made it sound so trivial, and it wasn’t. “Surrah and I danced together. We worked out together. We stressed together. And we were competitive. When Surrah left, I kinda stopped trying with friends. There was no point.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “What?” I lifted my head, looking at him.

  He was frowning, but not at me. “You had a friend. You both had eating disorders. She got better and moved away?”

  I stared at him a moment. “She didn’t get better.”

  His head jerked around, his eyes lifting to mine.

  I recognized the stricken look in him. I used to feel that way, back then.

  “She never got better. She was hospitalized, and for some reason, they thought her being around me wasn’t good for her. They moved away because of me.”

  He was staring so hard at me now.

  Shame crept up in my throat. It was threatening to coat over my neck and up my face. I felt it starting to squeeze around my lungs, putting them in a chokehold.

  “What happened to her then?” he rasped out.

  “She died.”

  “Jesus. I’m sorry.”

  I had to say the rest. He needed to know. “You asked me before what my father might use against me. That’s what he’ll use against me. Surrah’s parents sued us after she died. They blame me for her eating disorder.”

  He took a beat. Just one.

  “You know that’s bullshit.”

  I frowned, and my voice came out raspy this time. “What?”

  “No one can blame another person for their psych disorder. If blame was going to be assigned, it’d go to the parents, and there’s a whole environmental/biological argument happening there, too. Nature and nurture shit. There’s a ton of literature debate just on that subject, so Surrah’s parents suing yours was a payout. That’s it. They wanted money, and if they really blamed you, they just wanted a scapegoat.”

  I was stunned.

  No. I was speechless.

  I was trying not to gape, but I was. “I said that to you and nothing. You took one second before responding with that.” I stood from where I’d been sitting. Nova was sitting on the floor in the far corner. She was sucking her thumb, staring at both of us.

  She was going to start getting hungry soon. It was nearing her eating time.

  I needed to check her diaper, too.

  Going over, I scooped her up but swung back to Nate.

  I didn’t know why this was affecting me how it was, but it was. Everything he did affected me.

  “Look…” He was trying to be gentle.

  Fuck that.

  Anger exploded inside me, but I held it back. I was being burned on the inside.

  “I can guess about your sad and lonely childhood. I’m even willing to put a good ninety percent of the blame on your father, despite what I just said about Surrah’s parents, but if you think anything you say to me is going to shock me, you’re wrong. You grew up without a mom. You were a dancer. You had a friend. You had an eating disorder. So did she. You got better at some point. She didn’t. And what? You got crosses to lay on me, do it now, but if you’re looking for a pity vote from me, that shit ain’t happening. I’m not that guy. I’ve seen, done, and been through too much.” He had a serving spoon in his hand, and he laid it down before taking one step toward me. “Since we’re laying it all out right now, I’m going to tell you what I am scared of. You. We’ve not talked about your dad for a long time, and I shouldn’t be doing it this way. My intention was not to have the shock effect, but I’m worried about you. I think your dad will come at you at some point because of your past and the reasons you were in therapy, and I need to know you’re not going to fall apart because of it. He’s going to take everything he knows about you, all your triggers, and he’s going to press every single one of them. All at once. You’re going to feel like a fucking demolition ball has swung through your body, and it’s going to keep swinging until he thinks he’s torn you completely down. Now. Me? He’s going to throw shit at me, too, and maybe try to set me up. I’m ready for it. I have fail-safes in place, so I’m telling you, after this, I’ll be standing. I need to know that you’ll be standing, too. Nova will need us both.”

  I wanted to kiss him.

  No.

  I was weaving on my feet, but I grabbed the doorframe. My fingers sank in. I had Nova in my arms.

  I steadied myself, and I took a beat, just as he had.

  He was right. All of it.

  I closed my eyes, feeling everything in me swirling and spinning.

  He was right about everything.

  “What do I need to do?”

  His eyes fell to my lips, darkening. Then he folded his arms over his chest, and his eyes lifted back to mine. “You need allies from your past to rally around you.”

  My mouth dried again because I knew who he was talking about.

  “No,” I whispered, a clammy fear starting to crawl up my legs.

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t.”

  He grated out, “You have to.”

  I looked, but his eyes weren’t on me. They were on Nova.

  “You know who it’s really for. Neither of us has an option here.”

  Right.

  Right!

  Nova.

  I sighed. Are you sure you meant me, Valerie?

  “I’ll call my mother tonight.”

  He jerked his head in a nod. “Quincey?”

  I’d been about to take Nova back to her room. She was starting to squirm in my arms. “Yeah?”

  “I’d like to hear more about you, about anything, if you’re willing to share again?”

  A rush of pleasure and warmth pushed out the fear.

  I nodded. “I’d like that.”

  I meant that, and that surprised me. I didn’t share, and it was something I usually had to force myself to do, but with Nate, I wanted to share. I wanted him to know everything about me.

  That should’ve alarmed me.

  Nova whacked me across the face with one of her bottles. A distinct smell started to permeate the room as well, and I grinned.

  I was thinking I needed to be more alarmed about Nova’s gift for me instead.

  24

  Nate

  Four nights later

  “We should’ve brought Nova.”

  I threw Quincey a look because she’d been the one to suggest we use Emily for the night.

  “You said she’d be a distraction.”

  “Exactly.” Her lips were thinned. We were in my SUV, heading to Graham’s house for a family “reunion” dinner, and what I said was correct. Quincey had been torn whether Nova should come or not. She went back and forth until saying what I just responded to her with, which was correct. Nova would be a distraction. Everyone loved Nova, and the dinner talk we needed to have would not be kid-appropriate. Nova might not understand, but kids sensed everything.

  After her confession, Quincey relaxed around me.

  The night and immediate day after I pushed her about reaching out to her family, she’d been tense the whole time. She’d been wound up like a sober virgin at a sex club. There was an intense dancing session in the studio—aka the pool house—and when I say intense, it was intense. She didn’t know this, but most nights she went in there, Nova and I curled up in the back of the pool house to watch her.

  She was beautiful to watch.

  There were no other words to describe her movements.

  I did my homework, so I saw recordings of some of her previous performances. I knew she was talented, but watchi
ng her live and in person was almost a religious experience. There was a reason Nova never moved out of my lap or made a sound. We both knew that when Quincey danced, we were watching magic happen. She was special—special in a way that she didn’t seem like she was from this world kind of beautiful special.

  I could better articulate myself, but with her, sometimes the words weren’t there.

  That night, though, it was a five-hour dance session.

  Nova and I hadn’t lasted the whole time, but it was painful to pull ourselves away.

  It was on the third day when Quincey showed up in the kitchen, her phone in hand and a white stress line around her mouth. I could see she was biting the inside of her lip. Her hand was trembling as she shoved the phone to me. “Call them. Call him. I don’t care. Call someone.”

  I took her phone, frowning at it until I saw the contacts she had pulled up.

  Without giving her a second to back out, I pressed Graham’s name and hit speaker.

  The ringing filled the room, and he answered a beat later.

  Quincey looked ready to faint, so I started the conversation. Graham was quick to catch on, inviting us for dinner. At first, it was just him, his girlfriend, and the two of us with Nova.

  Then Calihan found out about it and demanded to be included.

  I knew this because I was included on the family text chain.

  Quincey never okayed it, so I did.

  Three hours later, the mom and stepfather were coming as well.

  Quincey never okayed it, so I did it again.

  She knocked on my door thirty seconds after I hit send and declared while hugging her phone against her chest, “Nova isn’t coming. Emily can babysit.”

  And that was that.

  Now that I was thinking about it, the dinner had been Graham. All Graham. Quincey just never said no, and throwing her a frown, I asked now, “Are you still wanting to do this? I can turn around.”

  She didn’t answer.

  So I took that as an answer.

  I slowed down and hit the turn signal.

  “What are you doing?” She jerked forward in her seat.