Green Tea 25, Watermelon 27, Papaya 6
Author: Casey
Story: Nothing is Ever Easy universe, Post-NIEE
Challenges: Green Tea 25 (countdown), Watermelon 27 (here’s what happened) & Papaya 6 (don’t look down)
Toppings & Extras: Caramel (post Pirates!)
Word Count: 2,844
Rating: PG-13 (warnings for talk of child rape and abuse)
Summary: Nate comes to find Sage.
Notes: Nate has featured in a few of my pieces, including here which is the incident referred to throughout this between them. New flavor!
Dean was at the kitchen table doing some paperwork when someone knocked on the door. He eyed it curiously. People didn’t usually knock. The vast majority of visitors at their small house were the usual crowd and so just waltzed in. He’d heard the horse in the yard and just assumed it was Colin or Paul or any number of people. Adding to that the rain that had been pounding the house all day and he had no clue who it might be.
The knock came again, tentatively this time, and Dean realized he was just staring dumbly at the door. He hopped up and opened it, pasting on his best ‘get rid of the traveling salesman quickly’ smile. It disappeared almost instantly as he stared at the young man on the other side. “What do you want?” he asked roughly, even as heart surged - maybe, just maybe…
“Hi, Dean,” Nathan Miller said with a ghost of his usual happy-go-lucky smile Dean remembered well as he dripped in the doorway, hair plastered to his head. “Is Sage here?”
Dean folded his arms, not about to let him get by to his cousin easily, even though he knew the fact that Nate was even here was a good sign. “It’s been almost three months.”
Nate had the grace to look ashamed. “I know. I just couldn’t get away until now,” he said. “The whole city’s been on extra guard and Corinne has had us working a million hours a day. She’s finally satisfied no one is going to go after Ian or Elizabeth.” It was true that Nate looked absolutely exhausted - the circles under his eyes were a deep black and he seemed to have aged years since they’d gotten off the Cerulean Anteater scant months earlier. The at least two day ride north probably hadn’t helped. Another good sign. “Is Sage here?” he asked again, hopefully. “Mr. Lockholme told me she was when I got to Oakbridge. Did I miss her?” Make that three days ride with at least a day in the rain.
As if on cue, his cousin made an appearance. “Dean, do you know where I put that - oh!” She stopped dead, halfway through the kitchen, eyes widening in surprise and Dean was fairly certain he read happiness in them too. The tone of her voice didn’t sound like it, though. “Nathan,” she said coldly.
He scuffed his foot like a small child. “Hi, Sage. Can we…can we talk?”
She folded her arms defensively. “Not sure what you think we have to talk about.” Dean gave her a Look. She ignored him.
“I just rode three days on very little sleep and in the rain to find you. The least you could do is have the decency to hear me out,” he said, attempting heat but really just sounding tired.
For what seemed like one very long moment, the pair just stared at each other across the kitchen. Then Sage nodded. “The living room is through there. I’ll go grab you a towel. Dean, if you could let your dad know he’s here.”
“I’ll also take care of your horse,” he said, stepping aside to let Nate enter now.
He did so, squishing with each step. Sage rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you ever heard of a raincoat, idiot?”
“I thought you were in Oakbridge. I got there plenty before the rain.”
Dean was fairly certain he saw a bit of a smile on his cousin’s face before she turned to go find a towel.
**
Sage had been determined to hate him, or at least shove him far from her mind now that they were home, but here he was on their doorstep, dripping wet, exhausted and disgustingly apologetic. Having him here brought back that same rush of unfamiliar emotions. She let out a breath, snagged a towel from the upstairs and headed back down to find him standing awkwardly in front of the empty fireplace, dripping pathetically onto the marble flooring. “Here,” she said, “take it and then have a seat.”
“But I’m…” He took it, though, and gratefully started drying his face.
“I can’t have you standing here while I try and light a fire.”
He peeked out around the towel in a far too adorable way. “Oh. Uh, okay.” Nathan, Nate, Natie? - she really wasn’t sure any more - stepped away and gingerly sat on the couch. She crouched in front of the fireplace and got to work starting a fire, content to let the silence linger as she tried to get her racing thoughts in line. She was unreasonably happy to see him, even if things had been left kind of rocky.
He had apologized when she approached him the last day, three days after her meltdown. Had done his best to explain while accepting responsibility and she’d appreciated that, but the separation had had to occur and she never thought…Finally, the fire crackled to life and she was forced to turn to face him. His hair stuck up in every direction, but he looked drier and his lips weren’t quite so blue. Sage stepped over to him and patted his hair down much the way she’d do for Dean without even thinking about it until the surprise registered on his face.
She strove to ignore it and sat down next to him on the couch, facing the fire. “So why are you here?” she asked, watching him out of the corner of her eye.
Nate shrugged, watching her full on. “I just…had to. I don’t like how we left things and I really don’t like that it’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s mine,” Sage said, frowning. “I thought I’d explained that.” I’m the broken one, not you.
He turned fully to face her, towel still wrapped around his shoulders. “That’s bullshit. There’s nothing wrong with you, Sage.”
She let out a laugh, rubbing her face with the palms of her hands. “You have no idea what’s wrong with me, Nate.” Yes, definitely Nate right now.
He very, very gently caught her wrist. “Dean had warned me. You had warned me in your own way and I didn’t listen. That makes it my fault, not yours.”
She looked down at his hand and then up at his face. “Nate, I…why the hell are we even talking about this like it matters?” she exploded, suddenly furious at herself, at him, at everything. “You live on a ship a million miles away. I have a job that keeps me running. There’s…this…” She threw up her hands, still not sure what she even wanted. “It’s stupid. This is stupid. You rode all this way here for what? To apologize? Nate, that’s plain idio-” A finger on her lips stopped her mid-word.
“I came here, because I miss you,” he said and when she just stared at him, he continued, “I thought…I wondered at first if it was just the situation. High stress, lots of pressure, thrown together, all that. That’s why I didn’t say anything when you left, but it hasn’t stopped for me. I find myself doing something and then calling myself an idiot, but in your voice. I wonder what you’d do or think or how you’d react to all the stupid things Corinne’s had us doing the last two months. I’ve wanted to know what you were doing at any given time.” He met her gaze, eyes dead serious. “Mostly, I wanted to know if it was possible.”
“I can’t leave KIN and everyone here, Nate,” she said, because it was the first thing that popped into her head and because she couldn’t put into words what she thought, although she agreed - his voice had been bugging her ever since they’d left.
“You don’t have to. I told Corinne to go ahead and sail without me. They should’ve left yesterday.”
Sage stared at him, flabbergasted.
He kept going, like he couldn’t stand silence. “I figured if you don’t feel the same way I do, I’d go work for John for a while. Relearn the other family trade. Drive Dalton nuts. You know, the typic-”
She didn’t bother with a finger, slapping an entire hand over his mouth. “Shut up, Nate, and listen, because I’ll only ever tell you this once. When I’m done, you can decide whether you want to stay or go and I won’t hold it against you, understand?” He blinked, but nodded so she removed her hand. “My mother was a brief fling for my father and when she got pregnant and told him, he ran. She never recovered. When I was really little, we got along okay, but as I got older, I started to look more and more like Vladimir. She couldn’t separate me from him and, by the time I was four, the abuse was a regular thing. She ran an orphanage and I became the grunt, where even the orphans knew they could pick on me without repercussions. As I got older, it got worse. My mother moved from straight beatings to beatings and food deprivation if I did something to really piss her off. Her boyfriends, a never ending revolving door of scumbags, also learned that hitting me was both fun and acceptable.” Sage took a deep breath. She had never told someone this bluntly before and it wasn’t easy. But Nate deserved to know if he had quit something he loved to track her down. She looked down, though, unable to stare him in the eye and say what needed to be said. “There was one boyfriend in particular who went beyond just hitting to touching. At the time, I only knew it felt wrong, but I didn’t know why…until one day just after my thirteenth birthday.” She heard his intake of breath and looked up at him long enough to shoot him a sharply quelling look. “I said no speaking.”
He bit back whatever he was going to say and nodded.
She didn’t keep his gaze long enough to see what was in it. Sage had to get this out first and then she’d see. “He’d been with my mother late the night before but that didn’t stop him from raping me.” She reached up and touched one of her shoulders. “I still have faint scars on my shoulders from him. He told me when he was done that it was only the beginning and that, someday, I would get to the point where I’d beg him for it.” She paused for a moment, trying to shake the memories, shuddering. “I locked him in the room and went to tell my mother that what had happened and that I was done. We had a family friend, Angela, who had some idea of what my life was like and she’d been trying to convince me for years to leave. I did then. I walked out of there with next to nothing and stayed with Angela for two weeks. My mother, to her credit, never tried to make me come back, but just dropped off a nice pile of money for me. Back pay, she said, for the work I’d done for her for years. After the two weeks, I went north to one of the remnants of the Three. I hoped that they might have use for someone who could cook and clean and be helpful. I swore to myself that the first sign of anything involving touching, I’d be gone. I never expected or dreamed or hoped that I might find my father, but, at that point, he had feelers out in all the remnant camps and when news came of a girl claiming to be his daughter, looking just like the family, he had them bring me to him. I spent two years with my father until I helped him kidnap Renie, Connor and Dean. His second-in-command, Tourn, was a lot like the boyfriend and enjoyed forcing me to allow him to molest me in return for things I needed. My father kept him and all the other men from going further, though, and I thought it was a small price to pay for having a father who cared about me in his own way. I didn’t realize at the time that it would have longer lasting effects than the beatings. It didn’t leave marks so I assumed…” She let out a breath, rubbing her face and this time Nate didn’t stop her, sitting silently beside her. “Anyway, I ended up killing Tourn because he tried to molest Renie and when I made him stop, he turned on me with, I have no doubt, the intent to rape me. We, they, were losing at that point and he wasn’t worried about my father. Vladimir committed suicide shortly after when Sorin and I faced him down.”
Nate shifted and she momentarily remembered he didn’t know about Sorin.
“After that, my history is fairly public. Within six months, I started with KIN and have been here ever since. What we didn’t tell you down in Gilan is that Dean and I are cousins, well, half-cousins, but still. His father is Sorin, who is still alive, and probably currently in his office off the kitchen.” Then she smiled faintly. “I’m done.”
“Oh. Well. You two did look related so that makes sense,” Nate said after a second’s pause.
She snuck a glance at him. “That’s all you have to say?”
He reached out and gently lifted her chin up more so they were eye to eye. “Just that I meant what I said earlier. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Nate, I just got done telling you…”
“I understand that,” he said, “and you had a damn rotten deal growing up, but that just means your reactions are right for who you are. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being nervous, jumpy, afraid, whatever you want to say or however you are, considering. Sage, I can deal with that,” he said seriously, holding her gaze. “I want to deal with that.”
“I don’t know if I can ever…I don’t know how okay I’ll ever get, Nate, I don’t want to trap you into the who-knows-what sort of relationship this will be.”
“It doesn’t need to scar you for life, but if it does, that’s okay too. I…I figured something like that had happened, considering your reaction, and Dean’s, to what I did and I talked to myself about it and it doesn’t matter. I still want to try.”
She searched his face. “I don’t always want help or to be coddled, but some days and some moments will just be bad.”
“I didn’t fully tell you the truth about the day my parents died. I came home while the house was still burning and I knew they were in there and I had to just stand there while it burned. I get bad days.”
Sage carefully reached out and cupped his cheek with her hand, wanting to test how it felt, before jerking it back. “Gods’ Breath, Nate, your cheek is freezing.” She eyed him severely and tested his forehead with the back of her hand. “And your forehead is burning up. Just how long have you been riding in the rain, you idiot?”
“I got a little lost,” he said sheepishly. “I left Oakbridge at dawn.”
She pointed him at the fire. “Go stand in front of that and don’t move.”
He meekly did as ordered and she could now see he was shivering, although he still tried to hide it. She slipped out of the room and poked her head into the office, where both Sorin and Dean were. “Sorin? I think Nate’s caught a cold and I want to make sure it’s nothing worse, would you look at him?”
“Certainly,” her uncle said, standing. “Will he be staying for a while?”
Her cheeks reddened despite her best efforts. “I think so. Do you mind? We could go up to Oakbridge…”
“Of course not,” Sorin said as he stood and headed for the door. “You know you’re always welcome here with or without Nathan. Dean, you know Nate’s size, go see if you can find him some dry clothes between you, me and Russ.”
“Sure thing,” Dean said, hopping up and racing out of the room.
“Well?” Sorin asked as he stepped into the kitchen.
“I told him everything. Not in detail, but I told him.”
“And he wants to stay?” She nodded and he smiled. “Good, he sounded like a winner when you and Dean told me about him.” Then they stepped into the living room and Sorin moved over to offer his hand to Nate. Sage watched Nate straighten despite the shivers and take Sorin’s hand, greeting him respectfully, obviously identifying him as the ‘adult I need to impress.’ His hair had somehow gotten mussed again and he looked miserable, but Sage’s heart swelled at the sight of him anyway, even as she cautioned herself that he still might run. For the moment, however, she was just going to be happy he was there.
Story: Nothing is Ever Easy universe, Post-NIEE
Challenges: Green Tea 25 (countdown), Watermelon 27 (here’s what happened) & Papaya 6 (don’t look down)
Toppings & Extras: Caramel (post Pirates!)
Word Count: 2,844
Rating: PG-13 (warnings for talk of child rape and abuse)
Summary: Nate comes to find Sage.
Notes: Nate has featured in a few of my pieces, including here which is the incident referred to throughout this between them. New flavor!
Dean was at the kitchen table doing some paperwork when someone knocked on the door. He eyed it curiously. People didn’t usually knock. The vast majority of visitors at their small house were the usual crowd and so just waltzed in. He’d heard the horse in the yard and just assumed it was Colin or Paul or any number of people. Adding to that the rain that had been pounding the house all day and he had no clue who it might be.
The knock came again, tentatively this time, and Dean realized he was just staring dumbly at the door. He hopped up and opened it, pasting on his best ‘get rid of the traveling salesman quickly’ smile. It disappeared almost instantly as he stared at the young man on the other side. “What do you want?” he asked roughly, even as heart surged - maybe, just maybe…
“Hi, Dean,” Nathan Miller said with a ghost of his usual happy-go-lucky smile Dean remembered well as he dripped in the doorway, hair plastered to his head. “Is Sage here?”
Dean folded his arms, not about to let him get by to his cousin easily, even though he knew the fact that Nate was even here was a good sign. “It’s been almost three months.”
Nate had the grace to look ashamed. “I know. I just couldn’t get away until now,” he said. “The whole city’s been on extra guard and Corinne has had us working a million hours a day. She’s finally satisfied no one is going to go after Ian or Elizabeth.” It was true that Nate looked absolutely exhausted - the circles under his eyes were a deep black and he seemed to have aged years since they’d gotten off the Cerulean Anteater scant months earlier. The at least two day ride north probably hadn’t helped. Another good sign. “Is Sage here?” he asked again, hopefully. “Mr. Lockholme told me she was when I got to Oakbridge. Did I miss her?” Make that three days ride with at least a day in the rain.
As if on cue, his cousin made an appearance. “Dean, do you know where I put that - oh!” She stopped dead, halfway through the kitchen, eyes widening in surprise and Dean was fairly certain he read happiness in them too. The tone of her voice didn’t sound like it, though. “Nathan,” she said coldly.
He scuffed his foot like a small child. “Hi, Sage. Can we…can we talk?”
She folded her arms defensively. “Not sure what you think we have to talk about.” Dean gave her a Look. She ignored him.
“I just rode three days on very little sleep and in the rain to find you. The least you could do is have the decency to hear me out,” he said, attempting heat but really just sounding tired.
For what seemed like one very long moment, the pair just stared at each other across the kitchen. Then Sage nodded. “The living room is through there. I’ll go grab you a towel. Dean, if you could let your dad know he’s here.”
“I’ll also take care of your horse,” he said, stepping aside to let Nate enter now.
He did so, squishing with each step. Sage rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you ever heard of a raincoat, idiot?”
“I thought you were in Oakbridge. I got there plenty before the rain.”
Dean was fairly certain he saw a bit of a smile on his cousin’s face before she turned to go find a towel.
**
Sage had been determined to hate him, or at least shove him far from her mind now that they were home, but here he was on their doorstep, dripping wet, exhausted and disgustingly apologetic. Having him here brought back that same rush of unfamiliar emotions. She let out a breath, snagged a towel from the upstairs and headed back down to find him standing awkwardly in front of the empty fireplace, dripping pathetically onto the marble flooring. “Here,” she said, “take it and then have a seat.”
“But I’m…” He took it, though, and gratefully started drying his face.
“I can’t have you standing here while I try and light a fire.”
He peeked out around the towel in a far too adorable way. “Oh. Uh, okay.” Nathan, Nate, Natie? - she really wasn’t sure any more - stepped away and gingerly sat on the couch. She crouched in front of the fireplace and got to work starting a fire, content to let the silence linger as she tried to get her racing thoughts in line. She was unreasonably happy to see him, even if things had been left kind of rocky.
He had apologized when she approached him the last day, three days after her meltdown. Had done his best to explain while accepting responsibility and she’d appreciated that, but the separation had had to occur and she never thought…Finally, the fire crackled to life and she was forced to turn to face him. His hair stuck up in every direction, but he looked drier and his lips weren’t quite so blue. Sage stepped over to him and patted his hair down much the way she’d do for Dean without even thinking about it until the surprise registered on his face.
She strove to ignore it and sat down next to him on the couch, facing the fire. “So why are you here?” she asked, watching him out of the corner of her eye.
Nate shrugged, watching her full on. “I just…had to. I don’t like how we left things and I really don’t like that it’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s mine,” Sage said, frowning. “I thought I’d explained that.” I’m the broken one, not you.
He turned fully to face her, towel still wrapped around his shoulders. “That’s bullshit. There’s nothing wrong with you, Sage.”
She let out a laugh, rubbing her face with the palms of her hands. “You have no idea what’s wrong with me, Nate.” Yes, definitely Nate right now.
He very, very gently caught her wrist. “Dean had warned me. You had warned me in your own way and I didn’t listen. That makes it my fault, not yours.”
She looked down at his hand and then up at his face. “Nate, I…why the hell are we even talking about this like it matters?” she exploded, suddenly furious at herself, at him, at everything. “You live on a ship a million miles away. I have a job that keeps me running. There’s…this…” She threw up her hands, still not sure what she even wanted. “It’s stupid. This is stupid. You rode all this way here for what? To apologize? Nate, that’s plain idio-” A finger on her lips stopped her mid-word.
“I came here, because I miss you,” he said and when she just stared at him, he continued, “I thought…I wondered at first if it was just the situation. High stress, lots of pressure, thrown together, all that. That’s why I didn’t say anything when you left, but it hasn’t stopped for me. I find myself doing something and then calling myself an idiot, but in your voice. I wonder what you’d do or think or how you’d react to all the stupid things Corinne’s had us doing the last two months. I’ve wanted to know what you were doing at any given time.” He met her gaze, eyes dead serious. “Mostly, I wanted to know if it was possible.”
“I can’t leave KIN and everyone here, Nate,” she said, because it was the first thing that popped into her head and because she couldn’t put into words what she thought, although she agreed - his voice had been bugging her ever since they’d left.
“You don’t have to. I told Corinne to go ahead and sail without me. They should’ve left yesterday.”
Sage stared at him, flabbergasted.
He kept going, like he couldn’t stand silence. “I figured if you don’t feel the same way I do, I’d go work for John for a while. Relearn the other family trade. Drive Dalton nuts. You know, the typic-”
She didn’t bother with a finger, slapping an entire hand over his mouth. “Shut up, Nate, and listen, because I’ll only ever tell you this once. When I’m done, you can decide whether you want to stay or go and I won’t hold it against you, understand?” He blinked, but nodded so she removed her hand. “My mother was a brief fling for my father and when she got pregnant and told him, he ran. She never recovered. When I was really little, we got along okay, but as I got older, I started to look more and more like Vladimir. She couldn’t separate me from him and, by the time I was four, the abuse was a regular thing. She ran an orphanage and I became the grunt, where even the orphans knew they could pick on me without repercussions. As I got older, it got worse. My mother moved from straight beatings to beatings and food deprivation if I did something to really piss her off. Her boyfriends, a never ending revolving door of scumbags, also learned that hitting me was both fun and acceptable.” Sage took a deep breath. She had never told someone this bluntly before and it wasn’t easy. But Nate deserved to know if he had quit something he loved to track her down. She looked down, though, unable to stare him in the eye and say what needed to be said. “There was one boyfriend in particular who went beyond just hitting to touching. At the time, I only knew it felt wrong, but I didn’t know why…until one day just after my thirteenth birthday.” She heard his intake of breath and looked up at him long enough to shoot him a sharply quelling look. “I said no speaking.”
He bit back whatever he was going to say and nodded.
She didn’t keep his gaze long enough to see what was in it. Sage had to get this out first and then she’d see. “He’d been with my mother late the night before but that didn’t stop him from raping me.” She reached up and touched one of her shoulders. “I still have faint scars on my shoulders from him. He told me when he was done that it was only the beginning and that, someday, I would get to the point where I’d beg him for it.” She paused for a moment, trying to shake the memories, shuddering. “I locked him in the room and went to tell my mother that what had happened and that I was done. We had a family friend, Angela, who had some idea of what my life was like and she’d been trying to convince me for years to leave. I did then. I walked out of there with next to nothing and stayed with Angela for two weeks. My mother, to her credit, never tried to make me come back, but just dropped off a nice pile of money for me. Back pay, she said, for the work I’d done for her for years. After the two weeks, I went north to one of the remnants of the Three. I hoped that they might have use for someone who could cook and clean and be helpful. I swore to myself that the first sign of anything involving touching, I’d be gone. I never expected or dreamed or hoped that I might find my father, but, at that point, he had feelers out in all the remnant camps and when news came of a girl claiming to be his daughter, looking just like the family, he had them bring me to him. I spent two years with my father until I helped him kidnap Renie, Connor and Dean. His second-in-command, Tourn, was a lot like the boyfriend and enjoyed forcing me to allow him to molest me in return for things I needed. My father kept him and all the other men from going further, though, and I thought it was a small price to pay for having a father who cared about me in his own way. I didn’t realize at the time that it would have longer lasting effects than the beatings. It didn’t leave marks so I assumed…” She let out a breath, rubbing her face and this time Nate didn’t stop her, sitting silently beside her. “Anyway, I ended up killing Tourn because he tried to molest Renie and when I made him stop, he turned on me with, I have no doubt, the intent to rape me. We, they, were losing at that point and he wasn’t worried about my father. Vladimir committed suicide shortly after when Sorin and I faced him down.”
Nate shifted and she momentarily remembered he didn’t know about Sorin.
“After that, my history is fairly public. Within six months, I started with KIN and have been here ever since. What we didn’t tell you down in Gilan is that Dean and I are cousins, well, half-cousins, but still. His father is Sorin, who is still alive, and probably currently in his office off the kitchen.” Then she smiled faintly. “I’m done.”
“Oh. Well. You two did look related so that makes sense,” Nate said after a second’s pause.
She snuck a glance at him. “That’s all you have to say?”
He reached out and gently lifted her chin up more so they were eye to eye. “Just that I meant what I said earlier. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Nate, I just got done telling you…”
“I understand that,” he said, “and you had a damn rotten deal growing up, but that just means your reactions are right for who you are. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being nervous, jumpy, afraid, whatever you want to say or however you are, considering. Sage, I can deal with that,” he said seriously, holding her gaze. “I want to deal with that.”
“I don’t know if I can ever…I don’t know how okay I’ll ever get, Nate, I don’t want to trap you into the who-knows-what sort of relationship this will be.”
“It doesn’t need to scar you for life, but if it does, that’s okay too. I…I figured something like that had happened, considering your reaction, and Dean’s, to what I did and I talked to myself about it and it doesn’t matter. I still want to try.”
She searched his face. “I don’t always want help or to be coddled, but some days and some moments will just be bad.”
“I didn’t fully tell you the truth about the day my parents died. I came home while the house was still burning and I knew they were in there and I had to just stand there while it burned. I get bad days.”
Sage carefully reached out and cupped his cheek with her hand, wanting to test how it felt, before jerking it back. “Gods’ Breath, Nate, your cheek is freezing.” She eyed him severely and tested his forehead with the back of her hand. “And your forehead is burning up. Just how long have you been riding in the rain, you idiot?”
“I got a little lost,” he said sheepishly. “I left Oakbridge at dawn.”
She pointed him at the fire. “Go stand in front of that and don’t move.”
He meekly did as ordered and she could now see he was shivering, although he still tried to hide it. She slipped out of the room and poked her head into the office, where both Sorin and Dean were. “Sorin? I think Nate’s caught a cold and I want to make sure it’s nothing worse, would you look at him?”
“Certainly,” her uncle said, standing. “Will he be staying for a while?”
Her cheeks reddened despite her best efforts. “I think so. Do you mind? We could go up to Oakbridge…”
“Of course not,” Sorin said as he stood and headed for the door. “You know you’re always welcome here with or without Nathan. Dean, you know Nate’s size, go see if you can find him some dry clothes between you, me and Russ.”
“Sure thing,” Dean said, hopping up and racing out of the room.
“Well?” Sorin asked as he stepped into the kitchen.
“I told him everything. Not in detail, but I told him.”
“And he wants to stay?” She nodded and he smiled. “Good, he sounded like a winner when you and Dean told me about him.” Then they stepped into the living room and Sorin moved over to offer his hand to Nate. Sage watched Nate straighten despite the shivers and take Sorin’s hand, greeting him respectfully, obviously identifying him as the ‘adult I need to impress.’ His hair had somehow gotten mussed again and he looked miserable, but Sage’s heart swelled at the sight of him anyway, even as she cautioned herself that he still might run. For the moment, however, she was just going to be happy he was there.