
The
Son Also Rises
By Karen
Rating: MATURE
Disclaimer: Characters from the show belong to Katims and co. Alyssa and Nate
are mine
No
infringement intended...er, no offense to Hemingway on the title, either
Summary: This is the sequel to His
Father’s Son. Nate and Alyssa are moving to Boston to go to
college, but we all know that life is never that simple for a Roswellian ![]()
Author's Note: Banner by the very talented babylisou
*************************************
Part One
Happiness
was fleeting.
Saying
goodbye to Alyssa Guerin was the hardest thing Nate Spencer had ever done.
They’d been inseparable the whole week that he’d been in
In fact,
Nate had mused at one point that he’d rather be back in Agent O’Donnell’s
torture room than to have to endure another farewell at the airport.
To him, it felt like someone had removed one of his testicles with a
rusty razorblade – without anesthesia. The
entire flight back to the east, all he could think about was her tears and the
pain inside of his heart. He’d
folded his arms over his thin body in a defensive gesture and stared
despondently out of the oval window of the aircraft for the entire trip,
refusing both food and drink when they were offered to him.
That
behavior continued once he was back at his parent’s home in western
But she
couldn’t understand that it was in
his best interest, because if he couldn’t be near Alyssa, if he couldn’t
hold her and love her, he was sure he would die.
It wasn’t depression or trauma this time that had turned Nate into a
zombie – he was simply lovesick.
Phone calls
to
The best he
could do was to try to imagine when he went to bed that he was nestled between
her breasts instead of on his feather pillow; sometimes, if he closed his eyes
and tried to convince himself with all of his might that he really was curled up
beside her with his head on her chest, he could get himself to fall asleep.
But usually the disappointment of waking up with nothing but a bag filled
with duck feathers was too much to bear.
Not that
every moment was doom and gloom. Amidst
the angst, there were brief periods of joy, things worth celebrating.
Maria’s CD debuted in June at number five on the charts.
Within the week, it had risen to number one, where it stayed for six
consecutive weeks despite the glut of new summer releases.
Even though her mother irked her endlessly, Nate could tell that Alyssa
was pleased that after such a long absence from the music scene, the public had
apparently been eager for Maria’s return.
One thing
that hadn’t returned was the seal of Antar – something for which Nate was
eternally grateful. The incident at
the hotel had been bizarre, to say the least.
When he’d pressed Alyssa for a decryption to her ominous “You’re
the one” comment, she’d had no explanation.
In fact, she’d seemed to be kind of dazed.
Nate wanted to brush it under the rug and forget that it had happened,
but he knew he couldn’t, for a number of reasons – the recurring dream of
Alyssa kissing the spot on his chest over where the seal liked to appear and the
feeling of being able to walk as a free people, the fact that upon seeing the
seal she had called him her “king”, and the fact that once she’d touched
it she’d collapsed and the seal had disappeared only minutes after having
shown up on Nate’s skin again.
Surely those
things were too many and too strange to be ignored.
Nate spent
many hours trying to decipher them. He
told Alyssa of the dream, hoping to jar some memory of what she’d seen when
touching the seal, but she’d come up empty.
It was frustrating to say the least.
One person
who apparently wasn’t frustrated was young Jeremy Ramirez.
His mother, Isabel, had thought that banishing him to
So Nate
spent the summer helping his father deal with the tourist crowd, making himself
work like a mad man to take his mind off the fact that only half of his heart
was beating without Alyssa there with him. When
he wasn’t working, he was running or lifting weights, furious at himself for
being unable to function like a normal person.
The anger and the distractions were only temporary, however, because each
night he still climbed into bed alone, the coldness wrapping around him once
again.
As summer
waned and the start of classes loomed, Nate began packing his bags and avoiding
his mother’s gaze – she couldn’t bear to see him go, knowing that this was
it, that he was finally branching off on his own.
She accepted it, but it didn’t hurt any less.
Nate could see that hurt in her eyes and simply didn’t have the
strength to comfort her and himself at the same time.
He had never been a selfish man, but at this point in his life, he was
pretty sure his agony was greater than hers.
While he was
getting ready to pack up his truck and start on the long drive to
Her simple
comment about looking back and seeing what was good rather than looking forward
and seeing no end in sight to Max’s absence put a whole new spin on things for
Nate. He hoped someday he could be
as appreciative as Liz, that he wouldn’t be so devastated about a short
summer-long separation. But he also
knew that Liz had been doing this for twenty years – at one time, she’d
probably been just like him.
Nate arrived
in
While he
counted down the days, minutes and hours until Alyssa’s flight arrived, he set
about fixing up the loft above Isabel’s garage, rearranging furniture,
unpacking his belongings, hanging a few pictures on the wall.
Jeremy stopped in often, usually eating something, and crashed on the
couch for awhile. Jesse had run an
extra cable from the satellite dish to the loft so that Alyssa and Nate could
have television, but Jeremy seemed to be benefiting from it more than anyone
else. While Nate fixed up his new
home, the teen sprawled on the sofa and watched MTV mindlessly.
Not that
Nate minded. He liked the company.
He liked his cousin. For all
of his randy ways with women, Jeremy was actually a good kid.
He was respectful of others, was rarely in a bad mood and could pull a
prank with the best of them. Nate
knew that he’d stolen Jeremy’s love nest, that his safe place to bring his
conquests was now gone, but the boy didn’t seem to hold a grudge over it.
If asked to help move a heavy piece of furniture, he would.
If asked to turn off the TV and go back to his own room, he’d do that
too.
A few days
before Alyssa was to arrive, Nate finally had the loft to his liking and found
himself bored. With nothing to keep
his mind from counting the seconds until she arrived, he hopped in his truck and
drove across the city to where Liz and Max lived.
Once there, he found a tired Liz at the door, dark circles beneath her
eyes. But she still smiled as she
gave him a hug and invited him in.
“Emily’s
asleep,” she said in a hushed tone.
Nate nodded
in understanding as he made sure the screen door closed without banging into the
frame. It was mid-August in
“How’ve
you been?” Liz asked, trying to be chipper as she sat down in her rocker.
“Good,”
Nate lied. “Alyssa’s coming on
Thursday.” Inside, he kicked
himself – he’d only made it about thirty seconds without bringing her up.
Liz smiled
tiredly. “That’s good, Nate.
Bring her over when she comes? I
haven’t seen her since…” She
drifted off, thinking.
Nate knew
when she’d seen Alyssa last – it was right after he’d been rescued from
the clutches of Agent O’Donnell. “Last
fall,” he filled in for her. It
was obvious that Liz wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
“Right,”
she said, a slow smile coming to her face. “Anyway,
you’ll bring her over? I’ll make
dinner.”
Nate nodded,
but knew that Liz wouldn’t be cooking them anything – she looked like she
could barely hold herself upright, let alone cook for guests.
If they came over, they were bringing carryout.
Liz’s
eyelids dropped and she quickly forced them back open, guilt-stricken.
“Liz,”
Nate said gently. “I can leave if
you want to lie down.”
She shook
her head. “No, please stay.”
“You look
like you need a nap,” he said sympathetically.
“Why don’t I go, let you sleep and then come back?”
Liz sighed.
“Because Emily will be up again in an hour or so and I’ll have to
feed her. It’s easier if I just
stay awake than try to get back up again.”
Nate
shrugged. “So I’ll feed her
while you sleep.”
One corner
of Liz’s mouth lifted slightly. “Yeah?
That’s not going to be possible – unless you’ve developed the
ability to lactate.”
His brow
furrowed, processing the issue, then his cheeks turned red.
“Oh.” His eyes
involuntarily went to Liz’s breasts, which did seem a little larger than
normal, then he automatically kicked himself for being unable to not look.
“Do you have a bottle? Can’t
you just -?” He made squeezing
motions before his chest, turned redder and dropped his hands into his lap.
Maybe he should just end this conversation now…
Liz giggled
lightly. “Use a breast pump?
Is that what you mean?”
Nate nodded,
his ears flaming.
Her smile
faded away and he could tell she was seriously considering it.
He knew that Liz was a wonderful mother, but being on her own and
worrying about Max was obviously taking a toll on her well-being.
The offer of help and the time to sleep might just be too tempting.
“You
really wouldn’t mind?” she asked tentatively, her expression uncertain.
Nate
grinned. “No, I don’t mind. She’s
my baby sister after all, right?”
Liz nodded.
“Right.” Like every bone
in her body ached, she pushed herself up from the rocker, paused and then
started down the hall. “I’ll be
right back.”
For the
first time in ages, Nate felt light, anticipating taking care of his little
sister. He’d only seen pictures of
her off and on over the last three months when Liz emailed them to him.
He hadn’t been able to hold her since he’d done so at the hospital
after she’d been born. The thought
of being able to help Liz out, of taking care of this entirely dependent
creature, brought a smile to his face. It
was a good distraction, better than running or pumping iron.
After
awhile, Nate caught Liz out of the corner of his eye as she walked into the
kitchen. He heard the refrigerator
open and close, then she was at the end of the couch, her eyes bloodshot with
exhaustion.
“I put it
in the fridge,” she said. “Just
make sure it’s warm before you give it to her, but not too warm.
Test it on your wrist.”
He nodded.
Seemed simple enough.
“You’re
sure about this?” she said again, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Positive.
Go rest,” he encouraged.
Liz smiled
lightly, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, causing his blush to
return. “Thank you.
You’re a sweetheart, Nate.” Then
she disappeared up the stairs and the house was quiet.
Nate
listened carefully, trying to tell if he could hear Emily stirring yet.
She wasn’t, which was slightly disappointing.
He hoped that Liz didn’t sleep for a half hour or something and come
downstairs before he had the opportunity to play with his sister.
Of course, Nate had never taken care of a baby before.
He should be nervous about it, but it was just a baby.
It couldn’t be that hard.
Could it?
Part Two
When little
Emily Evans had been born early, underweight and underdeveloped, she’d been
unable to utter a peep, denying her parents that spark of comfort and
reassurance that came in the form of a newborn’s first cry.
Now,
however, she was had overcome her rough beginnings and had more than an ample
set of lungs inside of her small body. In
fact, she could raise the dead if she wanted to.
This is what
Nate was thinking as he looked down at her in his arms, her face as red as an
In
retrospect, he thought maybe his running into her room at the first sign of
movement and jerking her out of her warm bed hadn’t been the best of ideas.
But he’d been so eager to see her after so many months, to hold her
again, that he hadn’t even considered waiting until she’d called for someone
to tend to her. One coo and he’d
shot off the couch like someone had poked him in the ass.
“Shh,
baby,” he said, glancing toward the nursery door and hoping that Emily’s
cries weren’t going to awaken Liz, who was trying to get some much-needed
rest. “It’s okay, baby.”
His tone was desperate.
But Emily
continued to kick, crying until she made herself cough.
She kept turning her head toward Nate’s shirt, then she’d cry harder.
Eventually, he caught on that she was looking for a nice warm breast –
something he didn’t have. But at
least that was a clue – she must be hungry.
He knew how to fix that one – there was a bottle in the refrigerator!
Smiling
nervously, he gave her a pat on the bottom, trying to reassure her that food was
on the way, then realized that her diaper made a sick kind of thud when he
smacked it. He froze, his smile
dissolving rapidly. She was wet…or
worse.
Nate glanced
around the nursery, saw a high, flat table with some supplies beside it.
That must be where one changed a baby.
The thought of poop wasn’t appealing to him and a selfish little piece
of him suddenly wished that Emily’s cries would
wake her mother. But, no, he’d
signed on for this task – it was up to him to change that diaper, poopy or
not.
Swallowing
back his hesitance, he gently laid the angry Emily on top of the table and
started to unsnap her little one-piece underwear thingie.
Odd things – baby clothes. He
pulled the snaps at the crotch, then hoisted the garment up to her armpits; his
eyes settled on the diaper...God knew what might be lurking in there.
Though, she didn’t stink, so that had to be a good sign.
Still pissed with him, she kicked her legs, making it hard for him to
maneuver around her to undo the diaper. Exasperated,
he found a toy by the wipes and held it before her.
“Look,
Emily! Look at the teddy bear!
What a cute widdle teddy bear!”
She stopped
crying briefly, watching this goofy man wave the toy before her.
Nate bumped her on the nose with it and she blinked, unsure of him.
He did it again and made a goofy face – which immediately made her cry.
Sighing,
Nate quickly snatched for the tape strips of the diaper and ripped them to
either side, turning his head in case poop should fly out of it.
When nothing happened, he gingerly pulled down the front of the diaper
and breathed a sigh of relief. No
poop.
“You’re
a good girl, Emily,” he said, pulling the diaper from beneath her body.
“You’re such a good girl that I’m going to get you something to eat
once we’re done here.”
He paused,
looked down at the heavy diaper in his hand, glanced around the little pink
room. What was he supposed to do
with it? He spied a pail not far
away and assumed that’s where it went…but he couldn’t reach it.
Now he had a dilemma. Was
Emily big enough to roll off the table if he walked away and left her
unattended? That would be a little
hard to explain to her parents.
He resorted
to dropping the diaper on the floor.
Nate hated
the smell and feel of the diaper wipe – but it appeared that Emily hated it
worse. By now, she was crying so
hard he feared for her health. He
frowned, worried that he was damaging her in some way.
He hurriedly dropped the wipe on top of the diaper and reached for a
clean one. He stared at it, at the
little parade of ducks that marched across one side of it.
The question
was – which side had the ducks – front or back?
Nate looked
at the fallen diaper, tried to remember where the ducks had been.
His brow furrowed – he couldn’t remember.
He looked at Emily.
“Do the
ducks go in the front or back?” he asked her, grinning sheepishly.
She looked
at him like he was a moron.
He held up
the diaper, turned it this way and that. And
decided the ducks went in the back. Another
round of fighting her pumping legs and he managed to get the diaper strapped to
her body, albeit haphazardly. Re-snapping
the underwear proved to be more difficult, however – every time he thought he
had the snaps lined up, she’d kick and he’d lose his grip and have to start
over. Once her tiny foot made
contact with his face, stomping him cleanly in the nose.
The diaper
debacle finally over, Nate picked up his little sister and found that he was
wringing with sweat. Good God –
she was just a baby! Why was this so
difficult? Disappointed over his
ineptitude, he walked to the kitchen, bouncing her lightly while he retrieved
the bottle of milk from the refrigerator. Panic
suddenly gripped him – this was the only
bottle of milk he had. If he did
something asinine like drop it or overheat it or something, he was going to have
to wake Liz and he just didn’t want to do that.
Unsure of himself once again, he popped the bottle into the microwave and
heated it for a few seconds, tried it on his wrist, put it back for a few more
seconds. Emily hung on his shoulder,
complaining softer than she had been before, sucking on her fist.
“I’m
hurrying, baby,” he murmured, poking the numbers on the microwave.
“Just a few more seconds, I promise.”
Satisfied
with the temperature of the bottle, Nate took the baby and her dinner to the
living room and sat down in the rocking chair.
He tried to remember how Mrs. Parker had shown him how to cradle a baby
as he adjusted Emily in his lap. Taking
the bottle in his free hand, he brought it to her mouth, teased her bottom lip
with the nipple. She sucked it in
– then spit it back out and immediately began to cry.
Nate got it – she was used to Mommy feeding her and this was not Mommy.
This was some rubber thing he was trying to put in her mouth and she
didn’t like it. Worse yet, she
didn’t even know who he was.
Nate looked
at her in surprise. Was that it? Had
she forgotten her big brother Nate already, the one she’d clung to as a
lifeline when she’d been unceremoniously dumped into this world?
He curled the arm that was cradling her head and stroked her soft cheek
with his thumb. Closing his eyes, he
prayed for her to remember him.
It’s me. You
remember me, Emily Marie. Your big
brother Nate. I held you at the
hospital. I helped your Mommy know
what you needed.
Silence in
the room made Nate pop open his eyes quickly for fear something had happened to
his tiny charge. Looking down, he
saw that she had taken the bottle into her mouth and was watching him with big
brown eyes. His mouth dropped open
but he continued to stroke her cheek with his thumb as he started the gentle
motion of the rocker. It was almost
as though she’d heard him, that she understood now that he was safe.
She watched him unblinkingly as she pulled on the bottle, her eyes
seeming wiser than her years.
While she
nursed from the bottle, Nate felt a small wave of relief wash through him.
If nothing else, the last half hour had proven to him that he was in no
way, shape or form ready to be a parent. He
would be eternally grateful that Alyssa had gone on the pill, that they
wouldn’t have to worry about surprise parenthood.
Nate stopped
rocking the chair. He was nineteen.
The baby in his arms was three months old.
Max had been nineteen and Nate hadn’t been much older than three months
when Tess had returned to earth with him. For
the first time, Nate understood what a huge undertaking it was to take care of a
baby and could empathize with Max’s decision.
Even if there hadn’t been the whole alien complication to the
situation, maybe Max giving Nate up had been for the best.
No matter how much it had hurt.
Nate looked
down at Emily and found her eyelids drooping again, her little mouth working the
bottle in an unsteady rhythm. His
brow furrowed. Wasn’t he supposed
to burp her or something? Gently, he
tugged the bottle from her mouth and waited for her to protest.
When she didn’t, he turned her around and placed her face over his
shoulder, patted her back lightly. In
a few moments, she let out a belch that made his eyebrows jump sharply.
He laughed lightly – what a little lady this one was!
Then she fell limply against his shoulder, asleep.
They sat in
the chair for a long time, the house silent save for the gentle whoosh of the
rockers and the little baby moans coming from Emily.
Nate rubbed her back in slow circular motions while she slept, drooling
on his T-shirt. He felt a little tug
in his heart for this beautiful little girl, a life that would always be a part
of him.
Eventually,
Liz descended the stairs, her long hair mussed from her slumber.
Nate smiled at her as she plopped down on the couch, still dazed.
“Feel
better?” he asked.
She ran a
hand through her hair and nodded, squinted at the clock.
“What time is it? It’s
three already? Nate, why didn’t
you wake me?” She seemed horrified
that she’d slept for three hours.
He shrugged.
“No need to, really. And
you needed the sleep.”
Liz’s eyes
drifted to her baby, who was riding Nate’s shoulder peacefully.
“Did she give you any trouble?”
Nate shook
his head. “Nope.
She was an angel.”
Liz smiled.
“Want me to take her?”
He craned
his neck but could only see the back of Emily’s head.
“She’s okay. Unless you
want to take her.”
She shook
her head. “Not yet.
Hold on.” With that, she
got up and walked on her tiptoes down the hallway.
Nate heard her rummaging around, then she reappeared with a camera.
“Can I?”
He nodded in
response.
Liz grinned,
then took a couple of pictures, changing her angle in between.
“I’m going to send these to Max.”
Nate
grinned. “Where is he these
days?”
Liz turned
off the camera and sat back down on the couch.
“I don’t know.”
Nate’s
grin disappeared. She didn’t know
– or she didn’t trust him enough to tell him?
Liz seemed
to be able to read his mind. “I
really don’t know, Nate,” she sighed. “He
never tells me. He thinks that the
less I know, the safer I am.”
Nate
frowned. He could see the
frustration on her pretty face. The
Evanses were leading a less than idyllic life.
“How about when he calls you? Can’t
you tell from the area code?”
She shook
her head. “He uses his cell.
And he never calls at the same time of day, so that anyone who might be
listening in can’t tell what time zone he’s calling from.
Max has been doing this for twenty years, Nate.
He’s good at covering his tracks.”
She gave him a weary look and tucked her hair behind her ear.
Her eyes settled on Emily’s backside and her brow furrowed.
“Nate.”
“What?”
Standing,
Liz pulled at the back of Emily’s onesie, trying to see through the thin
fabric, then snorted a laugh.
“What?”
Nate repeated, somehow thinking she was laughing at him.
“The
ducks, Nate, go in the front.”
On his drive
back to his loft, Nate thought about the tough situation Liz was in.
He had a suspicion that being without Max, trying to raise a child in
what amounted to a one-parent home, had been a factor in her decision to remain
childless. Sure, she probably was
worried about his alien connections and the impact that could have on a baby,
but she also had to have been concerned with towing the load on her own.
It wasn’t
fair. Nothing these days was fair.
It wasn’t fair that Max had to be away and it wasn’t fair that Liz
had to struggle because of it. It
wasn’t fair that Emily would never really know her father, that they’d have
to get reacquainted every time he returned to town.
It wasn’t fair that he’d miss her birthdays, her dance recitals, her
first Christmas morning. It wasn’t
fair that Max had been born part alien.
Nate
frowned. Why was it that some people
seemed to receive a much harsher lot in life than others did?
Throughout his upbringing, he’d been blissfully unaware of his origins
and he’d had all of those things Emily never would.
That in itself wasn’t fair. The
world was a cruel, unjust place.
As he pulled
into his parking spot alongside the Ramirez’s garage, he came to a decision
– he’d never been a planner, but he was going to put together a schedule and
they were all going to take turns helping Liz.
That included him, Alyssa, and that horny Jeremy, who desperately needed
an occupation to take his mind off chasing skirts.
Nate would ask Isabel, too, though he knew she was busy with her store
and the twins. Nate would not ask
for the twins’ help, however – simply because they creeped him out a bit.
He wasn’t sure he wanted his sister exposed to that just yet.
Decision
made, Nate felt a little better as he climbed out of his truck.
In the loft, he found Jeremy slouched on the couch, eating a bag of
Cheetos. He knew he’d locked the
door, but with a whole bunch of hybrids running around, there really wasn’t
much point in it.
“Dude,”
Nate said, drawing the boy’s attention. “You’re
first.”
Jeremy
stopped mid-chew. “For what?” he
said around a mouthful of orange.
“Tomorrow,
you’re going over to help your Aunt Liz with the baby.”
Jeremy’s
dark eyes grew round and Nate could see he was about to protest.
“If you
don’t,” he said calmly. “I’m
cutting off the MTV.”
Jeremy’s
eyebrows lifted quickly as he swallowed. “I
don’t know how to take care of a baby.”
Nate
shrugged. “It’s not that hard.
But just remember one thing.”
Jeremy
looked sick. “What?”
“The ducks
go in the front. Everyone knows
that.”
Part Three
“I see
you’re taking care of my girls.” Max’s
voice on the other end of the line was affectionate, albeit tired.
Nate laughed
lightly. “Well, yeah, sort of.”
“No sort
of to it, from what I see in the pictures Liz emailed to me,” Max teased.
“That’s a pretty happy-looking baby there.
What did you do to her?”
“Nothing,”
Nate answered casually. “Just fed
her. And burped her.
Holy cow that kid can burp!”
Max laughed,
but there was something missing from the sound, making it ring hollow.
Nate’s
smile slid away. “Look, Max,
I’ll do whatever I can to help Liz out. Don’t
worry about that.”
Max sighed.
“But I do worry, Nate. Liz
is my wife. Emily is my daughter.
You’re my son. It’s my
responsibility to be there for the ones I love.
And right now I…just can’t be.”
For the
first time since Nate had met Max, he heard defeat in his tone.
Usually, Max was optimistic, willing to look at the bright side and count
his blessings. But not this day.
Today he was almost sullen.
“Max, is
everything okay?” Nate asked cautiously.
“Fine.”
It was an automatic answer, falsely chipper.
Nate’s
brow furrowed. “Are you sure?”
“Yep.
I’m sure. So how’s the
apartment? All moved in?”
Nate
didn’t miss the none-too-subtle switching of topics, but he had the feeling
that Max needed someone to cut him a break and decided not to press him on it.
“Apartment’s looking pretty good.
Isabel has been such a sweetheart, Max.”
There was a
more-sincere laugh on the other end of the line.
“She can be when she wants to be, Nate.
Is Alyssa there yet?”
“I pick
her up this afternoon.” Nate
couldn’t keep the smile out of his voice.
“Well,
I’ll be sure not to call for the next couple of days then.”
Nate could practically see that knowing smirk on his father’s face.
“There’s
no need for that, I mean…” His
cheeks immediately burned red.
Max laughed
lightly. “Yeah, I know what you
mean. Kid, I was your age once,
remember?”
Nate looked
at his shoe, kicked at the edge of the rug he’d placed before the couch.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Just one
question.”
“Yes,
we’re using birth control.”
There was a
pause on the other end of the line, like Nate had taken Max off guard.
“That’s good, Nate. But
that’s not what I was going to ask you.”
“Oh.”
“I just
wanted to know if Alyssa’s father is aware of the living arrangements.”
Nate bit his
lip. In truth, he didn’t know the
answer to that one. “Well, he
knows that I’m in
“But you
didn’t tell him you’d be in the exact same place in
“Alyssa
was supposed to tell him.”
Another
brief silence, then Max burst out laughing.
“Oh, my! Best of luck to
you, junior.”
“What does
that mean?”
“It means
that if Alyssa is really on a plane heading for
Nate
frowned. He didn’t like Max
questioning Alyssa’s actions. “I’m
sure she did.”
“Nuh
huh,” Max laughed. “I’ve known
Michael for a very long time, Nate – over thirty years.
If he knew, I’d know. And
he hasn’t said a peep. Just be
careful about how he finds out. You
really don’t want that to be a surprise.”
Nate
shrugged to himself. He wasn’t
worried about Michael Guerin – at least not while they were on opposite sides
of the country.
“I gotta
get running,” Max announced, the momentary mirth gone from his voice.
It made Nate’s stomach twist.
“Max, are
you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m
fine, Nate. Good luck with school,
if I don’t talk to you before then. And
thanks for looking in on my girls. I
really appreciate it.”
“Not a
problem.”
They said
goodbye, then Nate sat staring at the rug before the couch.
There was something amiss in Max’s general demeanor.
Maybe it was just the trauma of being separated from his baby for the
first time. Whatever it was, it made
Nate uncomfortable. He wished he
knew where Max was, but some questions – especially over a phone line – were
taboo.
A glance at
the clock revealed that Alyssa’s plane would be touching down in and hour and
a half. Nate jumped up from the
couch and began to tidy up the apartment – he didn’t want her to walk in on
a pig sty her first time there. Jeremy
had left an empty Doritos bag on the coffee table and there was a dirty pair of
Nate’s socks by the bathroom door. He
disposed of both items, then quickly smoothed out the bed, couldn’t keep the
grin from his lips. It was time he
and Alyssa Christened that bed properly.
In the
kitchen, he rinsed out his cereal bowl from breakfast and made sure the flowers
he’d bought and placed on the table had enough water.
With the house tidy, it was time to groom himself.
In the bathroom, he fixed his hair, straightened his clothes, then gave
himself a nervous grin in the mirror. It
was time.
So excited
was he that he nearly tripped down the stairs.
That would be great – he could imagine Alyssa standing patiently in an
airport waiting for a ride while a doctor in some hospital somewhere set his
broken leg. The rush of adrenaline
moved from fear to relief to flat out excitement.
She was so close now he could practically feel her.
Driving to
That
wasn’t going to be possible. As
Nate finally pulled his body out of his truck and broke into a run, Alyssa’s
plane should have already landed. He
was suddenly thankful that he’d spent their time apart running as much as he
had because sprinting through and airport took some effort.
He dodged people with ridiculous amounts of luggage, sidestepped a flight
crew debating where to have dinner, hurdled a red velvet rope at the ticket
counter. All the while, he checked
the monitors to see what gate she’d be at, if her flight had arrived.
It had.
Nate pounded
up the escalator, running on steps that were already moving.
He raced down the concourse as a throng of people passed him going the
other way – sure sign of a DC-10 spilling its load.
Disappointment surged through his veins as he looked at their happy
faces. He knew that he’d robbed
Alyssa of the same chance to be so happy – at this point she had to think
he’d stood her up.
But when he
finally spotted her, he saw that she didn’t look disappointed or even worried.
He saw her before she saw him and in those few seconds, he got to study
her without her knowing she was being observed.
She had on that white tank top she’d been wearing the first time
she’d kissed him and a short olive green skirt.
Her long hair hung loose around her shoulders, shining like spun gold as
she slowly looked around for him. Her
hands were clasped before her, clutching a tiny white summer purse.
Nate’s breath caught in his chest – not a good thing to have happen
considering the amount of running he’d been doing – and his heart gave one
hard thump before beating a little faster.
She was
really here.
As he
started to jog toward her, she turned her head in his direction, her eyes met
his without recognition, then a moment later she was running straight for him,
squealing like a school girl. Nate
broke into a wide grin and threw his arms out for her; she jumped into them,
their bodies colliding with an unexpected force.
“Oh my
God!” she screamed as she squeezed him tightly.
“I missed you so much!”
Nate laughed
and nodded, out of breath and sweaty. This
wasn’t how he wanted their meeting to be.
There was nothing romantic about sweating line a linebacker.
Not that
Alyssa seemed to care. She pressed
her lips tightly to his and he wanted to kiss her good and hard – until he
remembered Michael’s warning about respecting her in public.
So he pulled back gently, smiling at her so that she wouldn’t feel
rejected, and wrapped his arm around her waist.
“Let’s
get your bags and get out of here,” he said. So they could go home and he
could welcome her to
She chatted
all of the way to the baggage claim, talking about her journey and the lunatic
newspaper writer who had sat beside her. Of
course, the unspoken irony there was that that reporter had a world changing
story sitting right beside him and had never known it.
That fact didn’t seem to have bothered Alyssa, while Nate wondered if
he’d have been as calm and collected in the same situation.
They got
stuck in traffic again, but neither of them cared.
Nate had his arm around her shoulder and was stroking her skin with his
thumb; he remembered oh so well how soft her beautiful skin was.
Every now and then Alyssa would lay a kiss against his cheek or his ear,
which was only increasing a steady buzz of excitement in his veins.
If she kept it up, he wasn’t sure they’d make it to the loft.
“Aunt
Isabel wants us to have dinner with them tonight,” he told her, trying to
ignore the slight tension he was feeling in his jeans.
“Oh,
great!” Alyssa squealed. “I
haven’t seen the boys in so long!”
Nate thought
of the freaky twins and mused that he had only seen them twice since he’d been
in
At the
Ramirez estate, Nate pulled the truck to a stop beside the garage, then hopped
out and pulled her bags from the back. As
she got out of the vehicle, her mini skirt showed just a hint of white lace
beneath and he found he had only one thing on his mind.
Screw dinner. Screw the bags.
Nothing mattered at this point. Alyssa
looked over her shoulder, innocent and worldly all at once and he dropped the
bags to the gravel.
Rounding the
truck, he took her by the arm, stepped into the loft’s stairwell then grabbed
her around the waist, kissing her mercilessly.
She let out a startled squeak, then fell into him, her tanned arms
wrapping around his neck. Undeniable
need rose quickly within him and he knew they’d never make it up the stairs
and to the bed. Gently, he pushed
her back onto the steps, reached beneath her skirt and pulled down her panties.
Alyssa’s
dark eyes were round as she watched him. Her
hand trembling, she lifted it toward the door and it swung shut, the tumblers in
the lock clicking into place. Then
she reached for his zipper, jerked it down and reached in to release him from
his pants. He groaned, then pulled
both her shirt and bra aside to expose her breast.
She let out a ragged gasp as he took her roughly into his mouth.
A few
seconds later, they were joined, enjoying their first quickie.
Nate noticed that every time he thrust, the top of her head banged into
the facing of one of the steps. He
curved his fingers over her hair, letting the back of his hand take the abuse
instead. They were both breathing
hard, the months of pent-up need bubbling to the surface.
“Oh –
God – Nate,” Alyssa breathed, her staccato words punctuating each of his
movements. “I - missed - you - so
- much.”
“Me
too,” he gasped, straining to maintain control.
“I can’t wait.”
She shook
her head. “Me neither.”
Within a few
seconds, they both came, Alyssa crying out, Nate simply shuddering a sigh.
He collapsed on top of her, smiling stupidly in the afterglow.
After a few long moments of rest, he lifted his head and grinned at her,
kissed her tenderly. His eyes
drifted to her perfect breast, which now had teeth marks around the nipple.
Guilt ripped through him.
“Oh,
God,” he said remorsefully, touching the marks with his fingertips.
“I hurt you. I’m so
sorry, Alyssa.” He met her eyes,
his full of pain.
But she was
smiling. “I liked it.”
His eyebrows
shot up.
“I liked
the way it felt,” she said, touching his face.
“It didn’t hurt.” She
kissed him tenderly, then slowly pushed him up.
“How about showing me where I live now?”
Part Four
After
retrieving Alyssa’s bags from the driveway, Nate found her panties lying in at
the bottom of the stairs. Grinning
bashfully, he picked them up and gave her a smirk as she waited for him about
halfway up. As he met her, he put
his arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick kiss on the side of the head.
“I love
you,” he said against her ear, causing her to giggle against him.
Together,
they climbed the steps, both of them lost in what had just occurred, overwhelmed
by the fact that they were now finally together.
The future had so many possibilities for them, there was nothing they
couldn’t do. As long as they were
by each other’s side.
At the top
of the steps, they both pulled up short. Sitting
on the couch with a shit-eating grin on his face was young Jeremy Ramirez.
A warm sensation crawled across Nate’s skin.
Surely Jeremy hadn’t heard them…had he?
Nate glanced at Alyssa, her blond hair mussed, her expression one of
someone just caught shoplifting. Of
course he’d heard them – who wouldn’t have heard them banging away on a
wooden staircase.
Not to
mention the fact that Nate was holding a pair of very feminine underwear in his
hand. Clearing his throat, he
quickly shoved them into the pocket of his jeans.
“What are
you doing here?” he asked Jeremy, trying not to bark at the kid.
After all, he’d been coming and going as he pleased since Nate had
moved in – how was he to know that was now unacceptable?
Jeremy
smirked, the tables turned a full one hundred and eight degrees since Nate and
his mother had found him up here with Mandy so many months ago.
“Getting a free show, apparently.”
Alyssa
gasped in indignation. “You watched
us?!”
Jeremy
laughed, victorious. “No, but I
sure heard a lot.”
Nate was
embarrassed since it was out of his character to be immodest about his
sexuality. Alyssa, however, looked
ready to pull Jeremy’s head from his shoulders.
Nate dropped her bags and walked over to the couch, took the boy by the
arm and pulled him to his feet.
“Okay, I
think the free pass has run out,” he said without malice, ushering his cousin
to the top of the steps. “I’d
like it if you’d warn me before you come over.”
Jeremy
laughed and wrenched himself free. “Okay,
okay. Not a problem, man.
Just remember what you told me.”
“What’s
that?”
“Dude, you
gotta be more careful than that.” Jeremy
cocked his head playfully.
Nate
reddened. He had said that.
There was no end in sight of the amount of comeuppance that was coming
his way. “Good bye, Jeremy.”
“Oh,
wait!” the boy said as he stopped at the top of the steps.
“I did come over for a reason.”
“What?”
“Mom
wanted me to tell you than dinner would be ready in an hour.”
Nate nodded.
“Okay, thanks.” He
watched as Jeremy descended the stairs and closed the door behind him.
Then he turned to Alyssa, shoved his hands in his pockets and felt the
soft fabric of her panties. “Sorry
about that.”
Some of the
redness had left her face and neck, but she still looked peeved.
“He can’t just come and go as he pleases, Nate.”
He nodded.
“I know. He understands.”
She almost
looked like she was going to cry, so he crossed the floor and took her by the
arms.
“What’s
wrong, love?”
She shrugged
and looked away from him. “I just
want to be with you so much,” she confessed.
“When I agreed to move in here, I didn’t think about that.
I didn’t think about Aunt Isabel’s mutant kids being underfoot all of
the time.”
Nate laughed
lightly. He’d gotten to know
Jeremy pretty well over the summer and wouldn’t necessarily classify him as a
mutant. Horndog, yes.
Mutant, no. The jury was
still out on the twins, however…
“He’s
not so bad,” he assured her.
“You
haven’t known him all of your life,” she pouted.
She was
right – he hadn’t. She had a
pre-existing opinion of him and he did not.
Maybe the Jeremy he knew was not the same Jeremy she’d formed an
opinion of over all of those years.
“It will
be fine,” he said, rubbing her arms. Then he gestured around them.
“Look. This is where you
live now.”
Alyssa’s
dark eyes scanned the loft and he could see her dark mood lighten a bit.
“I know
it’s not much,” he said. “I
know it’s only one big room, but I kind of like it.
There’s a kitchen over there. And
the bathroom is back behind that wall. That’s
the bed, of course.”
She looked
into his eyes and they were both smiling. Their
bed. Their first bed.
“We have
an hour,” he said, lifting her hand and placing a kiss on the back of it.
“What do you want to do? Do
you want to relax from your flight or…”
Alyssa put
her arms around him and kissed him lightly on the lips.
“Or.”
Jason and
Justin were still freaky.
Nate had
spent most of his month in
Isabel was
wearing a path between the kitchen and the dining room, carrying serving trays
of food – enough to feed a small army. Jesse
was once again in the wine cellar picking out the perfect vintage, having found
people to share wine with him again.
“Aunt
Isabel, let me help,” Alyssa said on one of her aunt’s passes.
“I got
it,” Isabel replied, Covergirl smile firmly in place.
Nate got the impression that this was a big deal for her, to be able to
cater to those she loved.
“Really,
it’s no bother,” Alyssa fretted.
“You’re
my guest,” Isabel said as she retreated to the kitchen again.
Then she called over her shoulder. “At
least for tonight.”
Nate glanced
at Alyssa lovingly, memories of their not-so-distant encounter still in his
head. They’d almost been late for
this dinner because they’d taken their time loving one another, just kissing
and touching and finally giving in to their desires.
There had barely been time for a quick shower.
He glanced
across the table and found Frick and Frack staring back at him, then looked at
Jeremy, who was smirking. It
appeared there was no comfortable place to look other than at Alyssa.
Which was fine with him. Though
the empty chair beside Jeremy was puzzling.
“What
grade are you guys in now?” Alyssa asked the twins.
In unison,
they turned to look at her and both of them said, “Ninth” in perfect stereo.
Then they turned back to Nate in flawless synchronization and continued
to stare at him.
Alyssa
looked at him apologetically. Mutants.
“I have
the perfect wine,” Jesse announced proudly as he stopped at the end of the
table, wiping the dust from the bottle he held in his hand.
He was grinning, obviously happy with himself.
“Alyssa, you’ll have wine?”
Alyssa was
still only seventeen. She was
underage. But then again, so was
Nate.
“I’ve
never had wine,” she admitted with a sheepish grin.
Jesse only
smiled back. “Then you’ll have
your first glass with us tonight.” He
retreated to the kitchen to get a cork screw and nearly flattened Isabel as she
came through with a cauldron full of something.
Nate’s
eyes grew round. When were the
hungry masses going to show up?
As soon as
he had the thought, the doorbell rang, not a cheap bell bought at Home Depot but
a rich, hardy chime that belonged only in a house of this grandeur.
Isabel grinned.
“Excellent,”
she said as she left the room wiping her hands on a dish towel she’d had over
her shoulder.
Nate glanced
at the staring duo, then at the smirking cousin, and finally back to his pretty
girlfriend. Alyssa smiled softly,
demure and coquettish all in the same package.
She was a paradox on just about every level, he was discovering.
Brash and yet easily embarrassed. Loud
and yet polite. Tough as nails and
yet sensitive. Experienced and yet
still naïve. He loved that about
her, that so many conflicting qualities could coexist peacefully within her.
“Look who
I found,” Isabel announced from the doorway.
The group
turned in her direction and found Liz Evans there, looking a little more rested
than the last time Nate had seen her, a baby carrier in one hand.
Nate and Jeremy both broke into a grin and Alyssa immediately jumped to
her feet to greet her Aunt and the baby she’d yet to see in person.
The twins simply stared impassively.
“Aunt
Liz!” Alyssa cried, throwing her arms around the woman so violently that she
almost hit the floor.
“Hi,
honey,” Liz laughed, the baby carrier swinging in her hand.
Alyssa
pulled back and looked down into the carrier.
Her face broke into a mask of wonder as she beheld Emily, who was
sleeping silently. “Oh, Aunt
Liz…” she breathed. “She’s
just beautiful.”
Nate rose
and walked over to them, put a hand on the small of Alyssa’s back as she
looked down at the baby. Leaning in,
he kissed Liz on the cheek.
“Hi,
Liz,” he said, smiling gently at her.
“Hi,
Nate,” she replied, returning his affection.
There seemed to be a tender spot for him in her eyes, something Nate had
never expected to see there.
He turned to
Alyssa and found her eyes a little misty as she looked at the baby without
touching her. He could tell she was
just itching to pull that kid out of the carrier and hold her, but dinner was
ready and Emily was tired and Alyssa would just have to wait.
The group
took their seats, Liz placing Emily’s carrier on the floor beside her chair
where she could watch her. Under the
table, Nate took Alyssa’s hand and squeezed it.
Somehow he knew that someday, they were going to have a child of their
own. He didn’t know when, he
didn’t think it would be soon, but somehow he knew it as well as he knew the
sun would rise over Boston Harbor the next morning.
Jesse poured
glasses of wine for those who were legal and some who weren’t, then raised his
glass in a toast.
“To
family,” he said.
Around the
table, glasses raised and a collective echo of “To family” resounded before
they each took a sip.
Conversation
over dinner was light, with talk of the start of school – both high school and
college – and of Alyssa’s trip across the country that morning.
Liz spoke of motherhood and the fact that she was taking a sabbatical -
there would be no beginning of the school year this term for Professor Evans.
That fact made Nate a little sad, then he tried to tell himself that
maybe Liz thought this was best, maybe she knew that Emily needed at least one
constant parent in her life at this young age.
After
dessert, Isabel’s boys scattered and Jesse, somewhat tipsy, volunteered to do
all of the clean up for his wife. Nate
smile at his offer – he got the impression that Councilor Ramirez worshipped
the ground his Antarian wife walked on. But
at least he did so without a sense of being whipped.
Isabel, Liz,
Alyssa and Nate retired to the living room, where little Emily finally stirred,
blinking sleep from her dark eyes and laughing at her mother as soon as she was
awake. Two minutes later, Alyssa had
the baby in her lap and Nate knew that Liz was going to need a crowbar to pry
the child away when it was time to leave.
“How’s
my brother?” Isabel asked, sitting back on the couch.
Nate
pretended like he was playing with Emily, but really he was listening for
Liz’s response, which came slowly.
“Okay,”
she finally said, her tone that of someone who has settled on a “safe” word.
Nate chanced
a glance at Isabel and caught her wary expression.
He couldn’t see Liz’s face as she was turned away from him, but he
didn’t like what he saw on his aunt’s face.
Coupling that with Max’s unusual demeanor that morning, Nate got the
sinking feeling something was definitely amiss.
“She’s
got Aunt Liz’s eyes,” Alyssa said, distracting Nate from the conversation.
“She
does,” he agreed, taking Emily’s little hand in his.
“But Uncle
Max’s long eyelashes,” she mused.
Nate
blinked. “Alyssa, do you think all
things considered, it’s appropriate for you to still be calling him uncle?”
She looked
at him in surprise, then looked a little sheepish and giggled.
“What do you want me to call him? I’ve
called him that all of my life.”
Inside, Nate
knew what she should call him – Dad, in the father-in-law sense.
But it was too soon to bring that up.
So he resorted to grinning at her. Alyssa
leaned in and kissed him chastely on the lips.
“I want
one of these someday,” she said so only he could hear.
He grinned a
little wider. He knew in his heart
that she would get her wish.
“I want
one with my eyes and your eyelashes.” She
touched his face, her thumb brushing over his lashes, which he’d also
inherited from Max.
Bizarre,
that – both of Max’s children had received his eyelashes and their
mother’s eyes. Nate snorted a
laugh at the thought.
“What?”
Alyssa asked.
He shook his
head. “Nothing.
I want a baby someday, too.” He
continued to play with Emily while trying to catch the conversation on the other
side of the room.
He was
certain he’d be a father one day. He
just hoped that fate would deal him a better hand and he wouldn’t be absent
from his children’s lives like Max was.
Part Five
“I dreamed
this.”
Nate blinked
slowly, trying to get his bearings and decipher the words that had drifted into
his brain. Sunlight was just barely
beginning to peak through the curtains above their bed.
Alyssa was lying against him, her cheek over one side of his chest, her
long fingers curled around the other.
“Hmm?”
he mumbled, closing his eyes and drawing in a deep breath.
Morning was such a difficult time for him, full of confusion and a deep
desire to retreat into sleep.
“This,
us,” she said against his skin, her soft breath wafting across his body as she
spoke. “I dreamed we’d be
together. From the moment I first
kissed you, I knew. Someday this was
going to happen. And now it has.”
He could feel her smile against him.
Sleep chased
into the corners of his mind, Nate squinted at the ceiling as his brow furrowed.
Alyssa’s words made it seem more like she had foreseen their union
rather than hoped for it. Could she
see the future?
“What else
have you seen?” he asked, tightening his arm around her.
He looked down at the top of her head when she didn’t respond
immediately.
“I don’t
want to tell you,” she confessed softly.
That old
familiar twisting returned to Nate’s stomach.
“Why not?” he asked carefully.
“Because
I’m afraid it will make you sad.” Her
tone had slipped from elation to somber in a heartbeat.
Nate
smoothed her back with his flat palm. “No
secrets between us, remember?” he reminded her gently.
“You can tell me things, even if you think they will hurt me.”
She lifted
her head, her hair adorably mussed from her slumber, her eyes apologetic.
“You will be king, Nate.”
He worked
his mouth. “Someday.”
She watched
him for a long moment, then nodded. “Someday.”
She laid her head down on his chest again, her fingers sliding over his
pectoral. “You’re beefier than
the last time I saw you,” she said with a giggle, ungracefully changing the
subject.
Nate looked
down as she slid her fingers down his abdomen, which was just starting to show
the first signs of a visible six pack.
“You’re
going to be as hot as Uncle Max someday,” she laughed.
Nate
frowned, not sure he liked his girlfriend comparing him to his father, whom she
addressed as “uncle.” Oy, what a
mess.
But he
hadn’t forgotten her words, nor the silence that had followed his agreement
that someday he’d be king.
He had seen it in her eyes, something telling him that someday wasn’t
just some arbitrary future date. Maybe
someday was closer than he thought. And
Nate didn’t want to think about that.
Alyssa
seemed to realize that as she turned her head and kissed his nipple, immediately
shoving any last remnants of sleep and thoughts of ascending a throne from his
body. For a woman, she sure seemed
obsessed with that particular part of his anatomy.
Nate had known guys who were breast obsessed – hell, he was one of them
– but to find such a fascination in a girl was odd to him.
Not that he minded.
“It’s
our first morning together,” she said, sliding to the side and pulling her
with him, so that they were facing one another.
Nate nodded
dumbly, the fact that she’d left one leg tossed over his hip not lost on him.
“I think
we should celebrate,” she said softly, leaning in to kiss him, hooking her
foot behind his knee to draw him closer to her.
Nate groaned
deep in his throat. Alyssa had been
in town less than twenty four hours and this was the fourth time they were going
to make love. At this rate, she was
going to kill him and someone else was going to have to take that throne.
In the next
few weeks, Nate showed Alyssa around
Alyssa
applied at a coffee house near the Ramirez estate, figuring that pouring coffee
had to be easier than hoisting large trays at the CrashDown – and that the
residents of
The group
started their rotation of helping Liz out, regardless of her protests.
Nate understood that she wanted so desperately to be an independent
person, to do everything on her own, but it was simply draining her.
What good would she be to her daughter like that?
Sometimes, he would stop over before classes or Alyssa would stop over in
the middle of the day or Jeremy would run over to the Evans home after he got
home from school. Isabel even took a
turn, bundling up baby Emily and taking her to the dress shop, giving Liz and
entirely free day to do whatever she needed.
They didn’t visit her every day because they didn’t want to take over
completely and by the end of the second week, she was starting to get used to
it.
Nate phoned
home to
Michael
Guerin had yet to find out his baby girl was shacking up.
About three
weeks into school, when things were just starting to settle down and life was
falling into a comfortable rhythm, Nate began to feel like his skin was
crawling. Not physically, but
mentally. Every so often the hairs
on his neck would stand up for no reason. A
feeling of dread would pass through his gut, then disappear as fast as it came.
He said nothing to Alyssa of the strange occurrences as he didn’t want
to spoil her happy mood.
And happy
she was. Living together proved to
be much different than lusting over one another long distance.
In truth, Nate had steeled himself for the worst – it was common for
people to move in together and find out they hated one another.
He was grateful to find that wasn’t the case with him and Alyssa.
Living
together proved to Nate how little they really knew about one another.
Every day he learned something knew.
She hated mayonnaise. She
loved ‘80’s rock, much to her mother’s chagrin.
Like him, she was often an insomniac, huddled up on the couch, blearily
watching TV with the sound off trying not to disturb him – not an easy thing
in a one-room loft. But for all of
the things they didn’t know, new revelations never told him that what they
were doing was wrong. Not once did
he find out something about her and find that whatever it was would break them
apart.
Because he
knew, in his heart, that this was the best thing that ever happened to him.
Without her, he would stop breathing.
To his amazement, she’d spoken almost those exact words to him one
night. He’d been doing his
homework at the coffee table and she’d been at the other end staring at him
the whole time. When he’d glanced
her way with a smile, she’d simply said, “It’s like I was never really
alive before I met you. It’s like
I can’t breathe without you.”
Their love
was that intense. All the time.
Not that they were serious all the time. But
under all of the fun and laughter, they were simply inseparable.
Losing Annie had hurt. Losing
Alyssa would devastate him.
One evening
as Nate was finishing his shift at the bookstore, he realized that he was going
home to an empty apartment – Alyssa was taking a night class and Jeremy was
doing his duty at Liz’s house. Nate’s
subconscious was aching again, that little tugging at his senses that he
didn’t quite understand, a feeling of unrest.
Impending doom? Whatever it
was, he didn’t feel like sitting alone on his couch and entertaining his
paranoia. Maybe it was time he paid
a little “rent”, to thank Isabel in some way.
On his drive
home, he stopped at a Chinese carryout that he and Alyssa had become fond of and
ordered enough food for himself, Jesse, Isabel and the creepy twins.
He shuddered to think about spending time with them, but they were his
cousins and they needed to eat, too. One
of these days he had the feeling he was just going to explode on them, demanding
to know what the fuck their problem was. Eerie
little bastards.
Nate paid
the store owner and took two large paper bags of food to his truck.
It was late September but the air was still balmy.
The Red Sox were headed for the playoffs again and all of
By the time
he got home, the sun had started to dip over the horizon, the onset of winter
not far away. He pushed his truck
into park and turned it off, left the bags of food on the seat while he went
upstairs to check messages on the answering machine.
Acting like two people who had something to hide, he and Alyssa had never
recorded a message for the machine, so any caller simply got the beep and that
was it. It was childish, but it was
easier than suffering the wrath of Guerin at hearing both their names and voices
on the recording. Alyssa wanted to
tell her father the truth about them – just in a more gentle way than that.
Nate pushed
the message button and waited while the tape rewound.
The first three calls were hang ups.
His brow furrowed. That was
bizarre. The next call was from
Alyssa.
“Hi,
sweetie,” she said, her voice hushed and Nate imagined her huddling over a
phone in a crowded hallway at school. He
grinned. “I love you, pooh
bear,” she cooed, making him laugh. “When
I get home, I’m going to give you what pooh bears love.
Lots and lots of honey.”
With that,
she hung up, leaving Nate wide-eyed and open-jawed.
There was no end in sight to her sexual appetite.
Couple that with the boob fetish and she was a rare female indeed.
Nate wondered if it was a hybrid quality, if other female hybrids were so
insatiable…
There were
five more dropped calls on the machine. Nate
looked at the device in confusion as it rewound and reset itself.
Eight? Eight hang ups?
That was a few too many to be someone with a wrong number – unless the
person was ADD and had an obsessive
compulsive disorder. He reached over
and pushed the caller button on the caller ID box.
A payphone – Alyssa’s call – and eight undetermined.
The hairs on the back of Nate’s neck stood up again.
Shaking away
his anxiety and remembering he had food to deliver, he descended the steps and
walked across the drive to the big house. He
found the door ajar, which was unusual. Glancing
over his shoulder, he saw Isabel’s little sports car in the garage and knew
that she must be home. He pushed
open the door, then shut it behind himself.
“Aunt
Isabel?” he called from the foyer. When
he heard no response, worry started flowing through his veins.
Something wasn’t right here.
Nate moved
from room to room, peeking in to see if anyone was around.
At this point, he would even be happy to see one – or both – of the
mutant twins.
“Aunt
Isabel?” he called again. Nothing.
He quickened
his pace. No twins.
No Jesse. But he found Isabel
in the kitchen.
She was
leaning over the skin, the posture of someone about to vomit.
Her golden hair had fallen in a curtain over her shoulder, so he
couldn’t see her face. Inside of
his chest, his heart started to thump a little more noticeably; the bags in his
hands suddenly weighed a thousand pounds apiece.
“Aunt
Isabel?” he said softly, his throat suddenly dry.
Isabel
looked up, like she hadn’t heard him calling her the previous two times.
Her pretty face was twisted and wet, her nose red from her tears.
Quickly, she brushed her fingers under her eyes.
“Oh,
Nate,” she said, swallowing hard. “I
didn’t hear you come in.”
Nate slowly
set the bags on the counter. “Are
you okay?” His palms had gone
sweaty. Obviously she was not okay.
Isabel met
his gaze for a long moment, then bit both of her lips.
She seemed to be squirming, like she needed to say something and just
couldn’t. Nate crossed over to her
and put his hands on her upper arms, trying to comfort her.
“What
happened?” he asked softly. Was it
Jesse? The freaky sons?
Someone hurt? Dead?
Her dark
eyes darted away and she blew out a sigh. “I
don’t know how to tell you this, Nate, but I know someone has to.”
Nate’s
heart jerked and pounded so hard he felt like he might black out.
It wasn’t anything to do with the twins or Jesse – it was something
to do with him.
“God,
I’ve told him for years not to go alone, but he would never listen to me,”
Isabel rambled. “Take protection,
get a body guard. But he wouldn’t
do it.”
Nate wanted
to push her out of the way in case he needed to throw up in the sink.
He also wanted to slap her out of her rambling.
Instead, he rubbed her arms. “What
happened, Aunt Isabel?” How was it
that his words could come out so calmly when his whole body was starting to
shake?
Isabel met
his gaze, dark eyes on blue ones. A
tear glimmered in her eyes, but she didn’t fall to pieces again.
She was a strong woman, an ass-kicker of FBI men – when she had bad
news to deliver, she would do it in a mature, pulled-together way.
Once her words were delivered, however, she would fall into tears, not
wanting to believe it herself. She
drew in a deep breath and gave Nate news he had never wanted to hear.
“I’m so
sorry, Nate. Max is missing.”
Part Six
Missing.
Nate sat at
the edge of the couch in his loft, elbows on knees, hands clasped together, eyes
fixed on the floor. He felt oddly
numb inside, like he couldn’t possibly have heard his aunt correctly.
The more he rolled the word over in his head, the less he comprehended
it. It was a word that had been part
of his vocabulary for as long as he could remember, now he couldn’t fathom
what it meant.
Missing.
He’d lost
socks before. He understood missing
in terms of footwear. He’d lost
his baby teeth. He certainly
understood the meaning of that, considering the number of times he’d shot
water out of the hole in the front of his mouth.
But missing didn’t seem like it should apply to a person.
How do you misplace a person?
Nate tried
to imagine where Max might be. Max
didn’t see himself as missing. Max
knew exactly where he was. It was
only to the outside world that he’d been misplaced.
So, maybe missing was a relative term.
It didn’t
matter. Nate knew in the end that
Max wasn’t where he was supposed to be and that was not a good thing.
Nate swallowed and worked his hands together.
Suddenly all of the creepy, crawling feelings he’d been experiencing
made sense. Maybe on some level
he’d managed to experience some of what Max was feeling – but that was
hardly a comforting thought, considering Nate had been having the willies for
several days now.
How long ago
had Max actually “disappeared”? When
was the last time anyone had spoken to him?
Better yet – how did anyone even know he was missing?
Nate had tried to ask those questions of Isabel, but she’d been a
little distracted and hadn’t given him very satisfactory answers.
Jesse had returned from his office not long after Nate’s arrival and
Nate had felt like a fifth wheel, retreating to the deafening silence of his
loft.
Alyssa.
Nate felt a pang inside. She
probably didn’t know of the recent events – if she did, Nate knew that
she’d have come home as fast as she could.
Glancing at the clock, he saw that her classes weren’t over for another
two hours. He imagined her sitting
in lab, blissfully unaware that her favorite uncle was “missing.”
God, she was going to be crushed…
Liz.
Nate closed his eyes as though he could feel her pain inside of his body.
What must she be going through right now?
Had she gone through this before? Well,
at least Jeremy was there with her.
Nate popped
his eyes open. Jeremy had the grace
of a pelican on walking sticks when it came to emotional matters.
Suddenly Nate felt the urge, the need, to be with Liz.
Without thinking about it twice, he grabbed a light jacket and raced down
the steps to his truck. He hopped
behind the wheel and headed for Max and Liz’s home, sort of relieved to have
something to do with himself – sitting alone in that loft was driving him mad.
Of course, he needed to be home when Alyssa got there – he wouldn’t
let her come home to an empty apartment with the cloud of doom that was hanging
over
The sky was
turning dark as Nate got off on Liz’s exit.
For one brief moment, he felt a flash of hope – maybe Max had just lost
his cell phone. Maybe it was that
simple. After all, he was paranoid
of using regular phones or pay phones or anything that could be traced.
Nate grinned.
Then he
frowned. Max wasn’t afraid of
using the internet. If he’d lost
his cell, he certainly would have emailed someone and said so.
Nate’s hope plummeted to his ankles, the void filled with a sense of
dread. It hadn’t been so long ago
that Nate had been “missing”, left to either starve to death or die from his
torturous treatment at the hands of the FBI.
Unwanted images of Max in the white room, an archaic video tape played
over and over by Agent O’Donnell for Nate’s enjoyment, crowded into Nate’s
brain. He shuddered, his blood
suddenly running cold. Oh, God –
please let Max not be somewhere like that.
Nate’s
headlights shined in a wide arc across the front of the house as he pulled into
the driveway at the Evans’ home. Jeremy’s
Jeep was parked on the street, looking lost and out of place since Nate was used
to seeing it in one of the many garage bays at the Ramirez estate.
He turned off the truck and hopped out, his feet full of lead as he moved
for the door.
Jeremy met
him there, his dark eyes wide and very childlike.
It wasn’t until that moment that Nate fully realized how young Jeremy
really was. Did the kid even need to
shave yet? He seemed but a babe,
thrust into a world that was much bigger than he.
“Hey,”
Nate said, lifting his chin in his cousin’s direction.
“Is she here?”
Jeremy
nodded and stepped aside to let Nate in. Liz
was in the rocker, stoically rocking her baby to sleep.
Nate could see the traces of tears in her pretty eyes, but she seemed to
have an aura of acceptance about her, like she had known this day would come
eventually.
“Liz,”
Nate said softly and she lifted her head to look at him.
“You okay?”
She nodded,
then buried her nose into Emily’s wispy hair.
Nate sank slowly to the couch, close enough to touch her if he needed to.
“Um,”
Jeremy said, still at the door and shifting his weight from one foot to the
other. “Can I go?”
Nate looked
up and nodded. “Be careful,” he
called as the anxious teen bounded out of the door.
The last thing they needed was for Jeremy to become splatter on I-95
because he was too wound up to be driving. Nate
watched him pull away, then he put a hand on Liz’s arm.
“I’m
okay, Nate,” she reassured, her voice strong, not choked like he’d expected.
Then she stopped rocking and looked at him in surprise.
“Are you okay?”
Was he?
Nate searched his soul and found a large wad of worry there, of anxiety.
He’d known Max Evans for less than a year – why was he so upset about
his disappearance? Since Max had
come into his life, Nate had been tortured by the FBI – albeit of his own
doing, had developed glowing birthmarks, had found the need to lie to the ones
he loved and had been on the receiving end of some pretty disturbing nightmares.
Then again,
since Nate had met Max, he’d fallen in love with the girl he’d intended to
spend the rest of his life with, he’d met people he truly cared about, and
he’d gained a baby sister. All of
those things were enough to outweigh the bad.
Nate was very fond of Max, this person who was neither a father figure
nor a big brother but somewhere in the middle.
Nate shook
his head. No, he wasn’t okay.
And it was okay to admit it.
Liz worked
her mouth and gently started the rocker again.
She patted Emily’s little back with her hand as she soothed her to
sleep. Nate looked at the baby, who
was fighting a losing battle with her eyelids and wondered if she could sense
the discord around her.
“Max is
smart,” Liz finally said, her eyes fixed on the dark television screen.
“He’s been doing this for a long time.
He knows how to take care of himself.”
Nate
understood that, so what had changed to have this fate befall him?
“Liz?”
She met his
gaze, hers damp but strong at the same time.
“How do
you know he’s missing?”
“Max has a
series of checkpoints,” she explained softly.
“He needs to check in at certain intervals, with a rotating, random
list of people. If he misses one
checkpoint, he gets two more chances. If
he misses three…”
Liz’s
words drifted off and Nate felt like someone had reached down his throat,
grabbed his stomach and twisted it into a ball.
Max had missed three checkpoints. At
certain intervals. Nate wondered
what the intervals were – hours, days, weeks? – but he didn’t want to
upset Liz by asking her. It was
sufficient to know that Max had missed three of them.
“When was
the last time you talked to him?” Liz asked, her gaze now fixed on the floor.
Nate reached
back in his memory, trying to recall the last time Max had phoned.
Nate had been so busy, with school and a new job and Alyssa, that he’d
sort of failed to notice Max’s absence. Then
again, Max had told him he wasn’t going to call so that Nate and Alyssa could
settle in together.
“A
month,” Nate told Liz apologetically. “Right
before Alyssa came to
But Liz
didn’t seem to judge him as she continued to rock and think over the
situation.
“How about
you?” Nate asked.
“Two weeks
ago,” Liz said quietly. She drew
in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I
was his first checkpoint this time. And
his last.”
Nate felt
another pang in his gut. He could
only imagine Liz’s worry when Max had missed the first contact time, then her
all out agony when he missed the third one.
Poor Liz.
“What do
we do?” Nate asked quietly, feeling more lost than he ever had – even more
so than when he himself had been ‘missing.’
“I mean, has this ever happened before?”
Liz shook
her head, a bittersweet smile coming to her lips.
“No. Max is too responsible
to miss a check in time.”
Which only
made this situation seem all that much more serious.
Nate started to feel nauseous.
“We
wait,” Liz finally answered.
Wait?
Hadn’t they waited through three points of contact already?
Wait for what?
“We wait
for Michael to come here, and then we decide what to do.
As a group. That’s the way
it’s always been.”
Nate
blanched. Michael was coming to
Liz lifted a
half smile in his direction, as if she had read his mind.
“He’s already on a plane headed this way, Nate.”
Well, if
that wasn’t the capper to Nate’s day…
“Let me
put her down,” Nate offered, reaching for Emily and deftly changing the
subject.
Liz agreed
to the help and Nate slid his arms under Emily’s little body, carefully
twisting her around so that she was cradled against his shoulder.
She whimpered softly and he stroked her back as he walked down the
darkened hallway to her nursery.
After Nate
put her in her crib, he stood in the dark and rubbed her back, soothing her to
sleep. He probably didn’t need to
stand there as long as he did, but he had a lot on his mind and somehow caring
for Emily was making him relax a bit. He
didn’t like the idea that Papa Guerin was coming to town, already fired up
because Max was missing and not knowing that his baby girl was living in a
one-room loft with her boyfriend. Bad
things were in store there.
But Nate
couldn’t concentrate only on his impending ass-kicking.
His mind kept drifting back to that image of Max in the FBI’s torture
room, huddled in a corner, soaking wet and shivering.
Alone, his spirit nearly broken. If
that’s where Max was, then Nate didn’t want to wait for Michael to arrive
– selfish reasons aside. He wanted
to act now, before Max met his end.
Nate was
relatively sure that Max wasn’t dead. In
the dark, he pulled aside the collar of his shirt and found his chest wasn’t
glowing. Of course, there hadn’t
been much rhyme or reason to the seal’s appearance, but Nate had to think that
if Max had met his demise, the seal would have come parading out to draw
attention to the new king.
Nate
shivered. He didn’t want to be a
king. He was a passive, non-violent
person and Alyssa had been right – thoughts of him ascending a throne made him
sad.
Under
Nate’s hand, Emily twitched, a baby muscle spasm and continued to snore
lightly.
If only you could tell me where he was,
Nate thought wistfully. Maybe Max
had whispered that secret to his baby daughter on his way out the door.
“Don’t worry, Daddy will only be in blank
for a few days.” Nate snorted.
If only it could be that easy…
Then he
cocked his head to the side. Maybe
it was that easy.
He and Emily were connected on some level – maybe she did know a secret
or two. Closing his eyes, hope
floating once again, he concentrated on…he wasn’t really sure what to
concentrate on, so he just thought of images of Max and of Emily and tried to
see if he could get anything in return.
He got
nothing and hope plummeted. Nate
didn’t really know how to connect anyway.
Pushing away
his disappointment for Liz’s sake, Nate left Emily’s room and prepared to
say goodbye. He needed to go home
and brace himself for Michael’s arrival and Alyssa’s discovery that her
uncle was missing.
And Nate
wasn’t sure which was going to be worse.