Chương 11: The car in the garden

The following morning was warm and nice. It was like both of us were basking in the afterglow of what we had talked about last night, even though we didn't speak about it. We had breakfast together, and then, while we were doing the dishes, I saw Nadia hesitate for a moment.

"Hey," she said.

"Do you know how long it takes before they tow a parked car?"

"No idea," I said.

"I could ask the AI. Why?"

"I kinda left mine in the middle of the parking lot by the high schools." She grimaced.

"You know, before I came here and stalked you and then sort of moved in?"

"Ah," I said, a bit unsure.

"I see." She read my expression, but instead of replying with a joke to lighten the mood or pressing me about the living arrangement, her eyes turned almost pleading. She did live here. We had simply never called it anything.

"I lived in that car for eight years, Adrian. Everything I have, my whole life, is inside that tin can. I can't get it towed or broken into." It hit me. Again and again, little details about Nadia's past slipped past all my defenses. Of course, she had lived in a car. Where else could she have gone?

"I tried rooms when I could," she continued.

"Hostels. Apartments. But walls didn't stop the drain. I still did it because I wanted to feel like a fucking person, but as soon as the plants started to wilt, I left. Hopefully before any neighbors got sick or people started asking questions." She looked down at the dish in her hands.

"The car let me keep moving. It let me stay away from everyone." I dried my hands.

"There's space in the garden near my truck. Do you want a lift?"

"Can I… go by myself?" Her voice was small. She looked so vulnerable.

"It's something I want to do alone. Don't want my prince charming to see what it was like, you know. Plus, I'd like some time to think." I felt my breath catch. To think? About the stuff we had talked about last night? The thought that I might be losing her bubbled up and stuck to my mind like chewing gum under a shoe. Then I thought about the car, a life lived inside it with no house, no shower, no kitchen. Of course she wanted to go alone. And I'd be here to help when she came back with it.

I nodded, and she visibly relaxed.

"Thank you, Adrian." Her crooked smile returned, small but real.

"Besides, we could definitely use it once I've cleaned it up properly. Every princess needs a carriage, even if hers smells like old blankets." According to the navigator app on my phone, the trip there and back would take most of the day. Public transport hadn't been a thing in the countryside since pretty much the Onset, so she would have to walk for a few miles before she could catch a bus that should take her close to the parking lot.

The car, she swore, had been bought with cash without any name attached to it. The plates led nowhere useful. It would not lead them here, even if they saw it, and she wouldn't either, not with her changed looks. Looks that I had changed. With the nanite swarm I was still refusing to tell her about. I didn't know how to feel, or perhaps I knew all too well. Every fiber of me wanted to come clean and tell her everything.

"If she comes back," I muttered to myself after she left. Letting her go alone, not following her, trusting that she would be back by evening. I was trusting her a lot. I idly wondered what I would think if she didn't return. Whether I would feel betrayed, or whether I would have any right to, when nothing had ever been promised. If she asked to leave, I would let her. Fuck me, I would do it even if every part of me screamed that it was stupid. She kissed me on the way out.

A quick thing that lingered, tongues touching for a moment, our bodies pressed together. A gaze that refused to let go. Yeah. Who was I kidding? Still, what if whoever had sent her found her first? She had said she worked for them, past tense, but that didn't mean they had agreed to let her go. In my worry, I ended up skipping lunch. I couldn't eat, couldn't bring myself to cook. I lit the fire with mechanical motions, feeling the lack of her on the sofa next to me. Even Nero seemed agitated.

My eyes kept drifting toward the windows, but I refused to watch the road. If I started, I would stand there for the rest of the day, waiting for an unfamiliar car and searching for a perfect, gorgeous face and a smile that was still as elfin as it had been when her ears were pointed. Then she was back. My face broke into a massive smile when I saw her, and she smiled back. The sun had almost set, and the light from my porch didn't reach all the way to her car.

I rushed over, using my phone as a flashlight, thinking she was about to start unloading everything. Instead, she walked over and stopped in front of me, giving me big puppy eyes. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"I know I was only gone a few hours," she said.

"But fuck, Adrian. I missed you so much."

"You have no idea," I told her.

"I was so worried. I didn't even eat."

"What?" she asked, suddenly concerned.

"Why?"

"I thought you weren't coming back. My mind kept spinning through all the possible reasons. Maybe they found you. Maybe…" I swallowed.

"Maybe you just didn't want to return."

"Hey," she said, leaning in. I cupped her face and sealed my lips over hers.

"I'm glad you returned, Nadia. I missed you so much."

"Well, my prince, I skipped lunch as well. I guess we are both idiots. But I had some cash in the car, and I bought steak. No complaining!" She shushed me before I could open my mouth.

"My treat. Come on, let's cook it over the fire's embers. I saw the smoke. I know you lit the fire."

"I did." She smiled and led me inside. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and the steaks were delicious.

"See?" she said.

"I'm a good girl. I worry about my big, strong man not eating enough protein. And I want to spoil you a little. You have been spoiling me so much lately…" I ran my hand through her hair while we snuggled by the fire. Dragging her closer, I whispered in her ear, "Let me spoil you some more, Nadia. You are my good girl." She squealed a little at that, wiggling her butt and pressing herself even closer to me.

"Tell me I'm your good girl again. I want to hear it again. Please?" ◈◈◈ The next morning was cold and overcast, threatening rain. Nadia started ferrying her stuff from the car to her room. The car itself was old but carefully maintained. Clean windows, good tires, no rust clinging to it and making its paint bubble. Its back seat had been turned into a narrow bed, with flattened padding beneath a blanket and every inch around it used for storage. There were only a few boxes.

Clothes, cooking utensils, toiletries, spare parts, little things that told me of a whole life. Nadia watched me take it in, her arms folded around a box. She didn't want my help at first, but I managed to convince her after a while. Together, we carried everything up the stairs, naturally splitting the work so I brought the boxes as far as her room, and she sorted everything where she wanted it.

While I was unloading the heaviest one, my collar shifted and the strange gothic-winged house key slipped into view against my chest. Nadia's gaze paused on it. Then, wordlessly, she tucked it back beneath my shirt and patted my shoulder. I muttered a weak thanks and pretended nothing had happened.

"Here," she said after we were done. The envelope she placed on the table had spilled part of its contents. Small bills and a couple of bigger ones.

"This is all I have." My eyes narrowed.

"What are you trying to do, Nadia?"

"Listen," she said.

"We don't have to have that conversation yet. I know it makes you uncomfortable. But please, let me contribute. Call it household money. A shared fund, if you prefer. I won't take no for an answer." I looked at the cash again.

"Nadia, this is your money. I can't accept it."

"I'm not giving it to you. I told you, it's shared household money. It's not much, but it should help with groceries, fuel and… well, little else. I wish I could say we could repair the roof with that, but alas." We. She really was thinking of us as together, wasn't she? Why was I still resisting?

"Just take the money, you dummy, okay?"

"Alright," I said, finally relenting.

"Good. Gotta take the last stuff from the car. Be right back!" I watched her go. A few minutes later she returned with the last box, locked the car, and placed its key in the small bowl on the table near the entrance, doing it when she knew I was looking. I shook my head, but I was smiling. The car was her only getaway, and she had brought it here. Parked it in my garden. Left the key inside our house. Our house. She was placing a lot of trust in me. Trust that only deepened in the following weeks.

The car remained in the garden for the most part. Nadia used it to buy groceries a couple of times, but we quickly realized that my truck was better suited to navigating the degrading country roads. I gave her the keys when she insisted on being the one to go shopping while I kept working in the garden.

"And in return, when I'm back, you are letting me snuggle with you on the sofa before you shower," she said.

"You know, so I can soak up your body heat. Totally not your scent that makes my head spin. Got it, handsome man?" She left me so speechless that she simply stuck out her tongue and went. It wasn't until she was disappearing down the hill that I was finally able to move again, feeling like I had fallen victim to my own time-stop. As the days passed, Nadia and I grew closer and closer. Every night, she insisted I go to bed "properly relaxed," as she put it.

Which meant she made out with me for a good hour before treating me to one of her wonderful handjobs. Her technique was getting better and better, and she learned how to milk every last drop I had to give her. I'll admit, I did go to bed satisfied and relaxed, and usually fell asleep in moments with a big smile on my face. Even though we were growing closer, I could tell that there were still things keeping us from truly connecting. My secrets were one. Hers were another.

How our secrets fit together was yet another. I caught her studying her reflection in the big mirror behind the sofa, near the cellar door. Once, I saw tears gathering in her eyes before she noticed me looking and turned away. I didn't ask what she wanted her reflection to become, with how intensely she was staring at it. I wasn't sure she knew yet. It was Monday. A particularly bad storm rolled over the hill and forced us to ferry buckets for the whole afternoon and well into the night.

"We need to deal with the roof," Nadia said.

"We can't keep dragging buckets up and down the stairs, and I think the leaks are getting bigger. It might even rot the beams."

"Nadia…" I said slowly. I didn't want to lash out. The storm had simply arrived at the worst possible moment, with the nanite swarm inside me churning away at her power and filling me with strange sensations, and with and all the things I still hadn't told her making me feel like I was underwater.

"I know. Money." She raised both hands before I could say it.

"But I might have an idea. I did some research. Why don't we call a contractor and get a quote? We need to know how bad it is before we decide we can't afford it."

"And after we find out we can't afford it?" Nadia hesitated, then met my gaze.

"There are legal bounties," she said.

"Monsters, wanted Supes, things like that. Quick jobs for people with useful powers." Her crooked smile returned.

"And you, my prince, have a very useful power."