Eternally Yours (19 page)

The men gave each other a quick glance, like,
Do we talk to the kid or what?

“We’ve always wanted to open a coffee shop,” the other man said.

“Oh God, yes!” I said. “Yes, that would be perfect! Let’s go look at the place right now!” I grabbed my coat off the back of my chair and then saw their hesitation. “Um, this is my project. My… dad is making me do this to teach me responsibility. And stuff. But I’ve been dying for a coffee shop in this town. I’m sure it will be okay with my dad.”

“Coffee shop?” Josie, one of the drywallers, had been refilling her tray with drywall mud. “I’ve always wanted to bake things for a coffee shop. I make the best pound cake ever. And cookies. And coconut cake. And—”

“You guys need to exchange phone numbers,” I said. “This sounds great!”

All of my dreams were coming true!

I
hope you didn’t believe that last sentence. I’m of the “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, then wonder why life didn’t give you freaking sugar so you could drink the stuff” school of thought.

And despite my deep and sincere longing for a coffee shop in this cute-forsaken town, my current and most genuine dream was still basically: “I want to feel better.” Plus all the stuff about my heritage and whatnot, father’s heir, mother’s daughter,
blah blah blah
.

But I had to admit, things were coming together nicely, for once.

At dinner that night, Anne asked, “How are the shops, Nastasya?”

I was in the middle of an internal rant about quiche and how unjustified I found its existence, so I was glad to put down my fork for a moment and quit seething. “Well, you saw them yesterday, right?”

Many of my fellow REers had come by, over the last couple of weeks. Not Reyn. Not the Brothers Three. Not the anti-Nastasya league, which these days was really mostly Solis by himself.

“Yes,” Anne continued. “Did you decide about Luisa Grace?”

Luisa Grace was a bleached-blond local woman who wanted to rent one of the middle shops. I wasn’t sure she was on the up-and-up—she didn’t look that craft-conscious. But we would see. She’d said she was hoping to include other local artists also.

I took more bread to fill in the corners of my stomach that would be going quicheless. “I think it should be okay, but if her stuff doesn’t sell, she’ll be up a creek.”

“Who else are you renting space to?” Ottavio’s voice made me blink—he’d quit talking to me directly weeks ago. I was just happy that so far his surveillance hadn’t extended to the shops.

Part of me, I freely admit, almost said,
The devil, Hitler, Voldemort, and the inventor of acid-wash jeans.
I had to shove more bread in my mouth to stop myself.

When I could speak, I said, “Ray and Tim, the coffee-shop
guys. Possibly Luisa Grace. Miss Gertrude Sully, who wants to open a consignment shop. Have you seen her? I always think the next words out of her mouth will be,
I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille
.”

“That should be interesting,” said Rachel. “A consignment shop would be fun.”

I’d never heard Rachel use the word
fun
before.

“The other shop in the middle is still open,” I said. “I think a local girl, Dray Somebody, might rent one of the upstairs apartments. Another woman, Holly Mavins, is separating from her husband and renting an apartment. Two other girls, students at the tech school over in Wessonton, want the third. The fourth one is empty.”

One more piece of bread for the road, unless there was dessert. “Is there any dessert?” I asked, my hand poised over the bread basket.

Fifteen pairs of eyes were looking at me. As always it was an effort to not get lost in the golden-lion ones.

“What?” I said. Did I have butter on my nose? Had I spilled something on myself?

River smiled gently. “You’ve changed.”

My glance quickly went to Reyn’s face, hoping his expression would help me read this situation. He looked thoughtful but was giving nothing else away.

I sat back. “You told me to get a big project.”

“It’s a wonderful project, my dear,” said River. “Don’t
misunderstand me. You’re… blossoming, like a flower. I’m enjoying it.”

I looked at her solemnly, my cheeks starting to burn. There it was again: that feeling of anxiousness, of discomfort. “Oh, good,” I said casually, then got up. “That was a great dinner, thanks.” I carried my plate into the kitchen, put it by the sink, and then ran out into the night.

I’m very big on, you know, running out into the night. It usually turns out badly for me. And yet I do it. What an unusual pattern. I should probably look at that sometime.

At least this time I didn’t run far away to the fence by the road, where Innocencio had found me two months ago. This time I ran for the horse barn, because it was warm. Inside it was dimly lit and quiet. Molly, River’s German pointer and Dúfa’s mother, was still settled in one of the empty stalls with her puppies. Her six offspring were nuzzled up next to her in the straw—Dúfa, of course, stuck out like a potato in an apple barrel. Her white, angular form was such a contrast to the fat-bellied, snuggly puppies with soft, spotted gray fur and heads already liver-colored like Molly’s. From here I could see the odd maroon splotch on Dúfa’s side, as if someone had spilled wine on her. I had no idea what Reyn saw in her.

She might feel the same way about me. I’m not even fuzzy.

Next I slipped past the stall where the devil-chicken was, glancing over to see her wide-awake and staring at me with
complete malevolence. I flipped her off, then walked past the horses, which were
whuff
ing quietly, dozing, or munching on hay from their racks. At the end of the aisle was the steep ladder leading up to the hayloft, and I went up it, having to wait a minute at the top to give my eyes a chance to get used to the dark.

Soon I made my way across bales of itchy, dusty hay into a small alcove under the eaves. Far off I heard a rumble of halfhearted thunder, and a moment later the ceiling above me was ringing with raindrops.

It was very cozy.

I lay on my back, looking up at the eaves, hoping they were waterproof.

When would I quit having these panic attacks? When would I be able to deal with whatever emotion came down the pike? I kept thinking I was making so much progress, but then someone would say something or something would happen and I would flip out again, unable to stand being here, being me, being in my skin. Would that ever change?

A tall, dark form suddenly materialized near my feet, and I shrieked, only to see the dim light outlining raggedy gold hair that needed a trim.

“
Shh.
You’ll wake the whole barn,” Reyn said, sitting on a bale of hay next to me. I sat up, brushing hay off my sweatshirt.

“I didn’t hear you come up.”

His smile was visible even in the darkness. “Yep, I’ve still got it.”

I scowled. “Marauder stealthiness isn’t necessarily something to brag about.”

“I prefer to think of it as Boy Scout caution.”

He wasn’t a big joker, and I couldn’t help grinning.

“I assume you’re not in here to commune with the horses,” he said.

Sighing, I shook my head. “Don’t know why I’m here,” I admitted.

“You just wanted to run.”

I wrapped my arms around my knees and nodded, embarrassed. “Don’t know why.”

He slid off the bale of hay and sat on the floor facing me. “You’re trying to feel your feelings? Is that why the chicken looks so pissed?”

“Yes, and probably.” As dangerously compelling as he was when he was regular old taciturn Reyn, this slightly lighter, more approachable Reyn was devastating. As per usual, I wanted to climb onto his lap. But with an uncharacteristic self-awareness, I recognized that though the impulse was, God knew, legitimate—still, wanting to do it now was exactly like hungering for a margarita: something to distract me, make me feel different from whatever I was feeling.

Reyn nodded. “I hate sitting with my feelings. Really hate it. Never want to do it.”

“Me too!” Could I jump him now? Now that he was clearly the only person in the world who truly understood me?

“But I understand why one needs to do it,” he said slowly, twisting a piece of hay between long, strong fingers.

“Explain it to me again,” I said unenthusiastically.

He hesitated, thinking. “The whole time I was chieftain of my clan, my main emotion was… anger. Whatever the situation, my response was almost always anger. When I was angry, I knew what to do: conquer something. Subdue something. Break something. Finally, after a hundred years of that, I just… melted down and left, left my people forever. It was another two hundred years before I realized that anger is my best weapon to mask fear or uncertainty.” He gave a crooked grin. “Only two hundred years.”

“Quit showing off.”

“Even after I gave up being chieftain, I still… fought. In almost any war I could find. Because expending anger on a battlefield was such a release. And it helped me to not do it in regular life, to people who didn’t deserve it. Here, I’ve come to see that the only true negative emotion is fear.” His voice was quiet, almost masked by the sound of rain hitting the roof.

“Fear?” But Reyn never seemed afraid—only angry. Oh.

“Every negative or hurtful emotion comes from fear,” Reyn said. “Fear that you’ll get hurt, fear that you’ll lose something, fear that someone won’t love you the way you
love them. When I fear something, it’s unbearable. So I get angry instead.”

“Oh—like when you yelled at me for doing badly in class,” I said, a little string of Christmas lights going off in my head.

His face was grim. “I’m afraid that you’ll get hurt if you don’t get stronger, faster.” He already seemed angry, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

I was afraid of a lot of things—River giving up on me, me liking Reyn more than he liked me, Brynne not wanting to be friends with me. I was afraid of Incy and whatever he was into—and that the so-called master was real, and truly interested in me. I was my father’s only heir—what if I’m a complete screwup? What if that’s all he got, one living screwup to inherit everything he’d worked for, everything he and my mother had been?

But something else was going on. Slowly I tried to follow the thread of anxiety.

“Yesterday, at the shop, I found out my general contractor has been hiring more people than I knew, kind of putting as many people on the payroll as possible—including a boy who’s… simple, who’s doing all the sweeping. I wasn’t mad at Bill—he’s trying to create jobs for people, and no one’s sitting around on their ass and getting paid for it. But after the boy’s mom came to get him, she was so thankful to me, said the job meant so much to him, and I felt terrible. I wanted to run, didn’t want anything more to do with the shops, never wanted to see any of them again.”

Reyn’s hand reached out and took mine, and its strong warmth made me feel like I was connected to a… mountain or something.

“And then just now, everyone all—happy for me, I’m blooming, whatever—I never want to go through that. I don’t want anyone to say anything ever again. I’m doing the stupid project, and they should just shut up about it, you know?” My free hand clenched a bunch of straw.

A small, white, triangular head nudged around Reyn’s side, and I almost jumped.

“Jesus, did that dog climb the ladder?” That was just freakish.

“What are you doing, girl?” Reyn murmured, picking up Dúfa and setting her on his lap. She gave his chin a sleepy lick, sprawled, and zonked out immediately.

“The ladder is really steep,” I pointed out. “And the rungs are far apart.”

“She’s really something,” he said with amused pride.

“She’s really a freaking
monkey
.”

There was never anyone else who was as beautiful when he smiled, I thought, feeling a little dazed by the overwhelming force of longing.

“But back to you,” he said, stroking the small head. I couldn’t help feeling resentful of Dúfa—why did she get to sit on his lap and climb on him and lick him?

When I didn’t say anything, he looked at me. “Have you figured any of it out?”

I shook my head, waved my hand around the hayloft. “This was as far as I got.”

“Do you feel like… maybe you don’t deserve to have anyone think good things about you?”

I blinked, and my mouth opened with a witty retort, but nothing came out. He waited patiently. “Well, I mean… I kind of don’t,” I muttered, not looking at him. “I’m… so awful. I mean, I know that.”

“Nas… we’re
all
awful. That’s why we’re here.” There was wry amusement in his voice. “Remember when you were pissed at Charles and Jess and told them off because they were in no position to judge you?”

I nodded.

His voice was amazingly gentle. “You’re judging yourself so much more harshly than anyone else here. You know everyone here is or has been a walking disaster—even River. With the stuff she’s done, do you think she deserves to have anyone think well of her today?”

“I know what you’re getting at, Dr. Phil,” I said stiffly. “But all of River’s bad stuff was, like, a thousand years ago. A
thousand
. A thousand
years
. My stuff was last
fall
.”

“I’m not going to wait a thousand years for you to get over yourself,” he said. He took off his barn jacket and spread it on the hay, then scooped Dúfa off his lap and snuggled her up in it. She didn’t even wake up.

The man made a nest for a
puppy
. I’m sure this eliminates any doubt in your mind about what I was doing with him.

Reyn sat up on his heels and braced his hands on his thighs, his laser gaze focused on me. Please, please don’t suggest sword practice.

“Come here.” Very soft.

“What?” I bluffed.

He crawled toward me and pushed me down into the hay very slowly. With one arm he gathered me to him, so we were face-to-face on our sides. Some of my hair fell in my eyes, and he smoothed it away as if I were Dúfa.

“I’m not going to wait a thousand years,” he said again, and a little shiver fluttered in my chest. “And you may not wait a thousand years for me. You, me, everyone here, everyone in the world, immortals, regular people—everyone is a work in progress. Some of us have farther to go. Some of us will only go backward. You’re going forward. I’m going forward. And you can’t stop me or anybody else from… thinking good things about you.” His eyes roamed down my body with its shapeless sweatshirt and typically ratty jeans. Starting under my arm, he pressed my sweatshirt flat against me, learning my shape beneath it.