Marianna
I scrub my swollen, aching eyes with a groan as Mom clatters loudly in the kitchen a few feet away. It’s barely 9:00 in the morning, but Leona Abbot has never slept in a day in her life and isn’t going to start just because I’m nursing a hangover.
I don’t even remember getting home last night. I don’t really remember… anything.
“Tell me again, from the beginning,” she says in what sounds like a near shout based on the way her voice ricochets through my throbbing brain.
“There’s not much else to say.” I groan, but the sharp smell of freshly brewed coffee yanks me back to my senses, and I open my eyes to Skye hovering in front of me, extending my favorite mug. “Thanks, baby.”
“Skye, tell your mother to give me some details about her big night out with the QUEEN!”
I groan again, but Skye giggles and rocks on her heels, highly entertained by my predicament and her grammy’s insistence to prolong my suffering.
“I made sure the queen didn’t leak through her expensive gown, and in turn, she got me roaring drunk,” I murmur around a sip of coffee. The caffeine leaches into my veins, thawing out some of the numbness. “I honestly don’t remember the last… half of the night.”
Skye, who has no idea what I’m talking about, continues to hover, not used to seeing me shriveled on the couch looking like death itself.
“Skye, sweetie, give these to your mother,” Mom calls out from the kitchen, and within seconds Skye returns with two headache drafts clutched in her palm, and my journey to healing is well underway.
By the second cup of coffee, and after a mountain of bacon and eggs, I feel much better, but my head is still foggy when I step out onto the porch, gripping a third cup of coffee, to watch Skye inspect the ancient stone of the border wall around our front garden.
It’s a cool, damp morning, which is… bliss. I wouldn’t be able to handle the sun otherwise, not today, when my brain is leaking through my ears.
I don’t remember a Goddess damned thing that happened after I returned to the ballroom with Maeve. Worse, I don’t remember the conversation I had with Maeve in that little sitting room.
Dread fills my body, cutting through the last ribbons of hangover. I rarely drink. I wasn’t part of the party scene as a teenager, and having a baby really limited my opportunities to do this in college.
The healing drafts start to fade, and my headache begins again with a promise of lingering all day, if not for the next few days.
“Gods, what did you do?” I grumble to myself, blinking into the gray haze of Wisteria Way.
Mom comes out onto the porch steps and sits beside me with a sigh, glancing in my direction. Her blue eyes scan my face, and I frown at her. “What?”
“I’m proud of you.”
“For what?”
“Letting loose.”
I roll my eyes back to Skye. “It was entirely unintentional.”
“You deserved it, Anna. You’ve never been to a real party before–”
“It was a ball held in honor of an engagement for people I don’t know, and I got drunk and have no idea whether or not I made a fool of myself in front of the royal family–”
A shadow passes our neighbor’s gate. Skye straightens, standing on her toes to peer over the wall as…
Oh, great. Just… just great.
Mom rises, clutching the railing with one hand while she waves with the other.
Blake, dressed in slacks, a gray button-down shirt, smiles back at her, and… he’s carrying my violin case.
I know what I look like. Hell. Hell frozen over, thawed out, and slapped into the microwave to further crisp while the insides become molten lava.
He pauses in front of our gate, his eyes on Skye as she peers up at him. I’m holding my breath, and beside me, my mother is, too.
Blake reaches into his pocket, withdrawing his wallet, and Skye is… holding out her hand. For coins. More coins, of course.
She beams at him before scurrying away like a little mouse with its hoard, disappearing into the backyard where she’s been keeping a little pile of smooth, shiny rocks we found at the lake side yesterday–her treasure pile. The rest of the rocks she carried home are likely the cause of the incessantly painful rumbling coming from the washing machine.
Blake remains at the gate, his cheeks dusted a light pink in gray, overcast light. He meets Mom’s gaze with an unsure, tight-lipped smile.
If I had the wherewithal to hold my breath, I would.
I take a sip of my coffee instead.
“Marianna left her violin at the castle,” he says over a soft gust of chilly wind. My skin peppers with gooseflesh, and it’s not from the cold. I didn’t tell my mom I ran into Blake at the concert, or at the temple, and I sure as hell didn’t mention he’d met Skye.
“Did you walk all the way here?” Mom asks, stepping toward the gate. “It’s freezing!”
“It’s not that long of a walk at all,” Blake says, but his eyes remain on mine, scanning my face like he’s trying to gauge how I feel about his intrusion into my private life.
“Come in, come in,” Mom rushes out, opening the gate with a squeak that seems to echo against the clouds. The noise rips through my still faintly pounding head. “I just made another pot of coffee for Marianna.”
“I’m sure you did,” he says under his breath, his eyes meeting mine as he casually follows my mom into the house.
I stare after them, unsure of what I can do at this point. Mom’s reaction to seeing Blake again after seven years isn’t what I’d thought it’d be. Honestly, I hadn’t given it much thought at all.
But Mom knows Blake. She has for a long time. They were both in the room when Skye came into the world.
Blake returns to the porch with a cup of coffee and sits beside me, grasping the steaming mug between his hands. I turn to the sound of Skye and my mom walking out from the backyard, my mom carrying her shopping basket and Skye skipping head with her coins jingling in her pockets.
“Bye!” Skye calls out.
“Bye, I guess,” I say, narrowing my eyes at Mom as she shrugs, giving me a look, a little wiggle of her brows. I scowl, but she turns to follow Skye through the gate.
“So–”
“What was that about?”
“What?”
“Just–showing up here, my mom pouring you some coffee–”
“She offered–”
“She doesn’t know you’ve met Skye–”
“I didn’t realize you hadn’t told her,” he says before taking a light, exploratory sip of coffee. “When I brought you home a few hours ago, she was already awake, and we spoke for a few minutes.”
“What?” My spine straightens as I stare at him.
“Your mom still wakes up at five like clockwork. I should have remembered,” he says, taking a deeper sip from his mug. Then, he sighs. His eyes are on the gate, on the lilac bushes not yet in bloom on either side. “I think she was more surprised about seeing me with you slung over my shoulder than she was to find out I’d seen Skye.”
“I was that drunk?”
“Yes,” he says, meeting my eyes. He… doesn’t look that well-off either. Dark circles line his hooded gaze, and his eyes are slightly bloodshot. “You were absolutely housed, Anna.”
“I don’t remember a Goddess damned thing,” I grind out as my body flushes with embarrassment.
“I doubt anyone does. You weren’t the only one, trust me. In fact, I bet no one made it out of that ballroom unscathed.” He looks back at the gate. “There was a mishap with the punch bowl, I think. You had two glasses, and that was… enough.”
“Was I drugged?” I gasp, but he chuckles lightly, shaking his head.
“No. Maeve is likely the culprit. She’s not drinking right now for obvious reasons and ordered the punch a little stronger than she realized. I found her mate asleep in a stairwell on my way here, like he couldn’t even make it back to their suite.”
“No wonder I feel like hell. I remember my first glass. It was amazing. I didn’t even realize it had alcohol in it.”
“Which is probably why you feel like death right now,” he replies with a nod.
“Did you drink it?”
“Unfortunately. You and I shared what would have been your third glass, and my fourth. I think sharing it is the reason we’re still alive.”
“Did we… did we do anything else?” My heart quakes, my blood pressure rising.
Blake searches my eyes and shakes his head. “No. I wouldn’t have touched you when we were both so intoxicated.”
“I know,” I cut in as my cheeks flare with a blush I can’t contain. “I’m sorry. I just–”
“You had fun,” he assures me. “We all did, I think, based on what I remember.”
Now we’re both staring aimlessly at the wrought-iron gate, at the trembling leaves on the lilac bushes and the creeping wisteria vines the neighborhood is named after.
Another brisk breeze ripples through the yard, and I shiver, clutching my coffee mug, which has now reached critical levels.
“You should go inside and get some rest while they’re gone and it’s quiet.”
I glance at his nearly empty coffee cup. “Do you want another cup of coffee?”
He doesn’t look at me, but I can see the hint of hesitation flashing behind his eyes. Blake rises and follows me into the house regardless, picking up the blanket I’ve been wrapped in all morning so it doesn’t drag on the floor behind me. While I pour two fresh cups, he lingers in the living room, scanning the family pictures on the mantel. I reach his side, and he accepts the fresh mug, but his eyes remain locked on a picture of me and Skye when she was probably around two.
“She looks like you,” he says.
“I know. The cheekbones are apparently a dominant gene.”
He smiles to himself–something light but reserved.
“Do you want to know her, Blake?” I ask, and the sun peeks through the clouds, streaming through the curtains to highlight his face. I see the years written clearly on his skin. Seven. Seven years apart, seven years of silence. It’s a gaping sea between us.
“It’s not up to me. She’s your daughter.”
“She’s yours as much as she is mine. It feels unfair, given the circumstances. I… I want you to know her.”
His eyes meet mine through the sunlit haze. “Are you sure? You know what I am.”
“She’s the same thing, Blake. I think I… I can’t help her anymore, not with this. Not with her visions, her budding powers. I’m just a wolf. She’s so much more than that and will grow more powerful as the years pass. You warned me this could happen, but I didn’t listen back then.”
“You had every right to be wary of me,” he says low in his throat, a growl that reverberates under my skin. “You still do.”
Silence settles between us, impenetrable. I’m not sure how to do this. Blake changed my life in so many different ways. Sometimes, on darker days, I wonder what my life would have been like if we’d never met. Would I have gone to Wellington? Would I have a different life than I do now?
But I wouldn’t have Skye. She’s… everything to me.
The worst part is that he can see that, can’t he? The what ifs, the tendrils of whatever lifelines he can decipher?
“I took your life away from you,” he says so quietly I almost miss it. “I made you a mother and made it impossible for you to follow the dreams you so carefully laid out.”
“You gave me everything,” I tell him, my voice just above a whisper. “Skye is the best thing to ever happen to me, and I need your help now. I really do.”
He holds my gaze, his face etched with… sorrow. He drops his mask of indifference just long enough for me to see it.
“Do you want to know her? Do you want her to know you?”
Do you want to know me again?
I don’t say those last words out loud. I can’t. Seven years of pining, of immense regret, tangle through me as the front door opens, and Skye bounces in to show Blake the gumballs she bought at the store with his coins.
“Are you staying for lunch, Blake?” Mom asks, but Blake already knows that means he already has a plate at the table.
I meet his eyes and hold his gaze.