Three Wishes(75)
Author: Kristen Ashley

Some door would open to Nate’s heavily-guarded soul, allowing her to catch a glimpse and then it would shut before she got a good look inside. Just like when he’d run his lips across the scar on her belly.

Once, in the heat of the moment, his hand was between her legs making her ache with longing and he was kissing her in a way that caused her to stop breathing and then he’d shifted over her. In a smooth, swift movement, he’d entered her and she so loved to have him inside.

She’d put her hands to either side of his face, lost in the moment of being joined with him. She looked him in the eyes and said exactly what was in her heart.

“You’re so beautiful.”

His whole body stopped, went statue-still and he’d stared at her before saying something strange and heartbreaking.

“Only you see that, Lily.”

It was Lily’s turn to go statue-still but Nate didn’t allow her to stay that way for long. His mouth took hers in a fierce kiss and his hands coaxed her back to squirming underneath him.

After, when he’d tucked her back to his front and buried his face in her hair, she thought about what he’d said.

Lily couldn’t imagine Nate, so confident, so powerful, would think that only she, Lily, saw his beauty. It was plain for everyone to see and everyone looked, mainly women.

At the very least he had to know how Victor and Laura felt about him. And now Tash.

She wanted to talk to him about it, tried to find the words but three things stopped her.

Firstly, Nate himself. Even if she had found the words, he wouldn’t have answered. He wouldn’t open up to her, hadn’t done it before and wouldn’t do it now. Not that Lily had tried but she couldn’t bear the thought of the door being slammed in her face.

She had no idea why he had let her go all those years before. Even though he thought she left him, why he had not come after her looking for answers, for they were his due, no one just ups and leaves for no reason. It was simply not good form.

Lily still found the idea of her ever leaving him utterly ridiculous. But he thought she had and Lily had a strong feeling it had something to do with why he was so closed off, shut down, locked away.

Secondly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what was in his soul. After Victor’s dire words, Lily feared it, whatever-it-was. Even though she desperately wanted to know, she also just as desperately did not.

This brought her to the third reason, how she would react if she knew what was behind that guarded door to his heart. Worrying about it meant she cared about him and getting him to open it may mean her needing to open hers. And that she wasn’t sure she could do again even though, if she was honest with herself, she knew that it was happening already. It was, quite simply, Nate.

All of this made her want to shout at him, beg him to speak to her, trust her with whatever it was that was behind that closed door to his soul.

Because if he just told her, if he made the first step then she would know he trusted her. It would be like a gift. Almost like the gift of Tash.

It also made her want to kick him in the shin for being so bloody-minded.

Lily did not shout at him or kick him in the shin as much as she wanted to do both.

Instead, she did the next best thing.

She talked to his mother. She didn’t mean to, but it happened all the same. And it didn’t go very well at all.

The Roberts had decided to come on the weekends. This they decided without much input from Nate or Lily, it was simply just going to happen. This, Lily knew, was in order to see and get to know Tash. But also it was to see Nate. Since they’d adopted him, he’d been a regular fixture in their lives. Without their other two children, they were alone together.

Coming to the second weekend that Nate was in Somerset, he was strangely tense. He always seemed aware, on edge, attuned to everything around him. However that weekend it was magnified and all this seemed entirely centred on Lily.

Nate was now in the occasional habit of holding one of his hands at her hip, his fingers biting into the flesh there as if they wanted to fuse with her skin. But that weekend, anytime she was within touching distance, his hand went to her, his fingers pressing into her. Further, he seemed unable to let her out of his sight, levelling his dark gaze on her as if he wanted to pin her to the spot, as if he expected she’d go up in a puff of smoke at any minute.

“I tell you, Victor is driving me up the wall,” Laura complained, breaking Lily out of her reverie as they walked along the seafront to have coffees and cakes at The Witches Dozen.

Nate and Tash were strolling ahead of the pack, hand-in-hand. This sight gave Lily a sense of contentment which she told herself she felt for Tash.

Victor and Fazire were striding behind Nate and Tash.

There had been serious animosity between Victor and Fazire, even more than Fazire held against Nate but Fazire was beginning to lose his battle against Nate. It was difficult to continue to be hostile against someone who did not react, at all, whatsoever.

However that day, Fazire and Victor seemed to have reached a détente. A détente which was quickly eroding as Victor was trying to convince Fazire to turn his obsessive love of baseball to soccer.

Laura, Maxine and Lily were lagging behind, way behind, and Lily was keeping a close eye on Fazire who, she could tell, was about to blow.

Laura and Lily hadn’t needed words to put their relationship back on track. The Saturday before, when the Roberts came to visit, without a word Lily had put her arms around Laura and Laura immediately burst into sloppy tears. Lily joined her, they’d cried themselves spent in each other’s arms then they’d leaned back, took one look at the other’s face and burst out laughing.

That had been that.

Laura went on with her rant. “He’s supposed to be semi-retired but he’d go into the office every day. Now, with Nate not being there, he doesn’t go. Instead he stays home and asks questions. ‘Laura, where’s such-and-such?’ or ‘Laura, where’s so-and-so?’ And then, ‘Why in bloody hell do you keep it there?’ Even though it’s been there for twenty-five years and he’s never questioned it before.”

Maxine was laughing quietly and Lily was watching closely as Victor was comparing George Best to Ryne Sandberg and Fazire’s face was turning alarmingly purple.

“Then he moves it to where he thinks it’s better suited to be and then I can’t find it and have to ask him. I kid you not; I plotted his murder yesterday while eating a full bag of Malteasers. It’s the perfect murder and I’m pretty sure I could get away with it.”