Lost (11 page)

“
Yeah. Sure. I want a boy, though
.”

Theresa smiled like it was Christmas, and Nate nudged my arm in their living room.

“Did he offend you?” Nate asked through his teeth.

I surveyed the room. Theresa’s eyes were bulging, Nate’s fists were clenched, and John had lowered the paper, eyeing me smugly. I’d zoned out; I had no idea how long I’d been wrapped up in Theresa’s memories. I wiped under my nose. No blood.

At least I’d managed to keep that under control.

“Are you going to answer my question or not? What are you?” John said. “An Indian? Black? A mutt?”

Nate jumped up from the sofa, and I caught the back of his shirt. “Baby, relax.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I reached for it with my other hand as Nate came back to his seat, boiling.

I opened the text from Sophia.

Get out of there. John might not live if you don’t.

Oh, God. Sophia was watching. Maybe she meant Nate was close to losing it. Or maybe she was offended enough to come out of her sweetness and hurt him herself.

“Theresa, you were saying?” Nate said, rushing us along. I decided to stay and gamble with John’s life, hoping to get more answers for my boyfriend.

“I … uh … adopted you, Nathan. I mean … we did,” she said. John huffed at her lie. I let my mind float into hers again, slower this time, more controlled.

By adopted she meant she’d bought him for six thousand dollars from a witch named Nicola. She couldn’t have kids and wanted to give John a son. Nathan was a year old when she brought him here.

“From where?” Nate asked.

“Close by.
This agency downtown.
It was a crazy time. Lots of people were dying. It was easy to adopt,” she said.

Lies. She’d met Nicola at a supermarket as she strolled down the baby aisle full of products she wished she needed. A week later, the witch brought
her a
baby as promised, wrapped in a fur blanket that she always suspected to be real and possibly from a bear. She was only told that the child was from Oregon and that the scars on his back were birthmarks. She didn’t care. She handed over six thousand dollars of John’s money, and named the baby Nathan Thomas Reece. She took the bus home and surprised John, seventeen years ago yesterday. He wasn’t amused. And like the penny pincher he was, he let Nathan stay because Theresa couldn’t find Nicola to get a refund. To him, Nate was his wife’s pet that he had no obligation to feed or walk.

I strained myself to the seat and prayed he wouldn’t speak his dog reference out loud. I’d let go of Nate’s shirt if he did.

“Do you two want anything to eat? We have leftover chicken. We can all sit down for a nice dinner,” Theresa said.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” John asked. She smiled and looked down at her hands. I wondered how many times he’d commented on her nonexistent weight problem. When the answer came to me, I wanted to get up and slap him.

She dealt with it all day, every day.

“He’s right, and the rest we’ll need for tomorrow. I can offer you a glass of water or something.”

“Don’t go through any trouble, Theresa,” Nate said, shaking his head. “Do you have a birth certificate or a social for me?”

“The agency never sent it. That’s why I homeschooled you. We never found one on you.”

More lies. She’d never looked for any IDs. She suspected he might be a wizard but never saw Nate do any magic. And when she didn’t, she’d thought she would be arrested for kidnapping someone’s human baby and kept Nate in the house.

“Are you ready?” Nate asked me, looking like he’d had enough. I nodded. “We’re going to get out of your way. Goodnight.”

Theresa walked us to the door. John didn’t look up from his newspaper. “Goodbye, Nathan,” she said.

“Take care of yourself,” he whispered.

“I will. Come visit any time, but um … call first. He goes out more these days. Or come when he’s at work. You know the times. I’d love to see you again.” Nate walked away without looking back. I waved at the sick woman and ran to the door Nate was holding open for me.

Two houses down, I took a deep breath and prepared to crush him with the truth. I’d hold him all night if he needed me to.

“She bought you from a witch. You’re from Oregon. At least that’s what she was told. You were one and you already had the scars. Yesterday … yesterday might not be your birthday. It’s when she brought you home to surprise John. She doesn’t know who your parents are. She doesn’t know you’re a shifter. She couldn’t have children and John wanted a son. He’s a horrible man, and she …”

“Has no life outside of him.”

He revved the engine, and the car raced down the quiet street. I buckled my seatbelt and he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Whatever. At least I know now.” I rubbed his hand. “I’m so glad I left. It smells like something died in there, and she’s been five pounds since I was ten. And I saw how you looked at her. Don’t let her fool
you,
she’s a piece of work too. She’s not a victim. Do
not
feel sorry for her.”

How could I not? She weighed about half of what I did when I left St. Catalina. And I was sick then. They’d have to find a different word for her.
One that captured the severity of her problem.

I let it go. It didn’t seem like the right time to bring up that Theresa truly cared for him – in her own, warped way.

My phone buzzed in my hand. The number wasn’t saved.

John Reece is a fool. Are you okay? –L. S
.

Lydia freaking Shaw was texting me. I smiled but twisted it away. I shouldn’t be smiling right now after all of that.

I’m totally fine
, I replied.

“Do you want to go to Oregon?” I asked him. “We can find out more about your life. I’ll help.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like it to be over. My parents are probably dead or, worse, they sold me in the first place.” My phone buzzed again. Lydia again. Nate looked over to my screen. “Who’s that?”

“Lydia Shaw.”

“Whoa. She’s really your friend, huh?”

“Guess so.”

Her text was about him, so it didn’t feel rude to read it. “She was watching. She wants to know if you want your IDs to say Nathan Reece or … some other name.”

He was quiet for a long moment, staring at the road, and slowed the car to a normal speed.

“Maybe if I hadn’t met you I would change it. But you say my name so much and I love to hear it. That’s who I am. I’ve never felt a part of that family, so nothing is different. I’m still Nathan Reece. Or Thomas when you’re feeling frisky.”

We laughed. “Frisky? Really?” I said.

I texted Lydia and told her he wanted to keep his name. She promised to have his records ready in a week.

Sophia said to tell you to have sweet dreams
, she replied.

I pretended that had really come from her as I replied with a smiley face. Nate sniffed me and turned his head back to the road. “Do you have a girl-crush on the famous assassin? You sure smell like it.”

“What? No.”

He chuckled. “I’m not judging you. I like my boss too. I wouldn’t take him on a date or anything, but I think he’s awesome.”

“Boy-crush?”

“Not ashamed of it.” We laughed like we hadn’t just sat with his fake parents, one with an obvious eating disorder and the other crazy and controlling. “I like driving you around,” he said, shutting off the engine in the garage. “It feels normal. Like what typical teenaged couples do.”

“Good. My new trainer wants me to be normal. You may have heard of her. Lydia Shaw?”

He laughed. “Namedropping, are we? Come on, Chris. You’re better than that. I don’t go around saying I hang out with Devin St. Jermaine, do I?”

I narrowed my eyes and stopped myself from cackling. “That’s because no one knows who that is.”

“That’s fair.” He lifted up and pulled his phone from his back pocket. He pressed one button and held the phone to his ear, maybe returning a missed call. “We’re back.” He sighed. “I know. I know. Sorry, we had to do something sort of important. Where are you? Oh. Okay. Did you do it? Thanks. Sure, I’ll tell her. Au revoir.
Oui
,
oui
.
Croissant.” I laughed. Nate knew French well. He just liked to string random words together to form awful French sentences for the fun of it.

“Why did you call Emma?” I asked.

“It’s a surprise. She said goodnight, by the way. She’s staying with her parents tonight. I can’t help but wonder if that has something to do with the fact that Paul is out with Annabelle. You wouldn’t know anything about that, right?”

I shook my head and glanced out of the window so I didn’t have to lie to his face. Lydia knew about the shoes, so Em didn’t have anything to hold over my head anymore. But I wanted to keep her secret anyway. She was my friend, and I didn’t want to betray her, even though she was being completely ridiculous about this Paul thing.

Nate jumped out of the car and ran with magical speed to my door. He held it open and bowed to me.

“If we can put all of the parental craziness behind us, I’d like to get on with our plans.”

“Plans?” I asked.

He locked the car and gave me the keys. Confused, I followed him out of the garage door, away from the house.

“I thought you were going to have a stressful day, so I planned something for you with Emma’s help. Even though you had a good time with Lydia and we sort of just sat in my own version of hell, I still want to go through with it.”

He led me to the gate to the backyard we never used. The pool was a far better hangout. We didn’t even have lawn furniture out here, just grass that was usually brown and dried from the L. A. sun.

He held his hand over my eyes, and I smiled. The gate whined, and he gently nudged me to walk forward.

“I was thinking about what to do for a person who had a mandatory meeting with a terrifying woman,” he said. “I came up with a few things, and Emma supplied the magic. Of course I couldn’t have predicted that you’d have the best day ever, so now it seems like overkill.”

He lowered his hand slowly, revealing the beautiful world he’d created back here. Green fog hovered over the grass and yellow balls of light, small like fireflies, zipped in and out of it. Most of them congregated in the middle of the yard, circling a blanket.

“Wow,” was all I could say.

He smiled and led me there. I laughed at the bowl of popcorn and the two cans of soda waiting for us.

“Like our first date,” he said. “That seemed to cheer you up. I thought it would work again.” He sat down and pulled me into his lap. I grabbed a handful of popcorn and fed him one. “You can tell me if this is completely cheesy.”

I chuckled and shook my head, a sweet lie.

He and Emma had made the backyard gorgeous and romantic, but I didn’t need all of this. Nate could calm me with only his smile. Instead of saying that and ruining the moment, I popped open the sodas and inhaled another handful of popcorn.

“Thanks, baby,” I said.

“It’s nothing. Em did most of the work.”

“No, not this. I’m talking about John and Theresa. Thanks for including me. I feel like I know you a little better now.”

He lifted me out of his lap and stretched out next to me. He pressed his face into the blanket, masking his features in the fog. I loved the shy parts of him. He was vulnerable and adorable and finally open.

“I’m sorry I don’t talk about them much,” he said. “I just like to pretend they don’t exist. It’s how I deal with the whole thing.”

“Someone wise once told me that the past didn’t matter. That it was just the past.” He peeked up at me, his gorgeous lips in a subtle smirk. I suddenly needed to be a little closer, touch him a little more.

I lay back on the blanket and scooted in next to him. He eased an arm across my stomach and nestled his head in the crook of my neck.

“That sounds strange coming from you,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because the past
does
matter to you now.
Your parents, their story.
You smell like you love them, but your scent darkens when you talk about them. You get really sad. I’m scared you’ll let that pull you back … where you were.”

“I won’t. Don’t worry. It’s just unfair that they lived this dream love story and no one will ever know. It’s like it never happened.”

He tightened his arm around me and tugged me closer. I didn’t think we had any space between us to close, especially since John and Theresa and his reluctance to talk about himself weren’t clogging the air anymore.

“We will know their love story happened because you’re here,” he said. “It’s what you come from, passion and sweet sacrifice. That’s exactly what you smell like. That’s the story of your past and it made you who you are.”

Fighting a stubborn tear, I asked, “And who are you?”

“A guy who is obsessed with the scent of passion and sweet sacrifice.”

I pecked his lips and shook my head. He wasn’t getting off that easy.