Chương 9: Growth

You fixed me, Adrian. I was making breakfast when I saw Nadia coming down the stairs, still wearing the nightgown that made her look like an old woman from an even older movie. She caught me looking, and a blush climbed her cheeks as she tucked a stray strand of chestnut hair behind her ear. She paused for a moment, as if unsure, then she took a breath and skipped into the kitchen.

"Good morning!" she said chipperly.

"More gruel? Is this how you treat a lady?" I glared at her, and we laughed. It was true, though. Cheap cereal wasn't the best way to start the day, no matter what the ads said. I swore I'd fix it as well as my budget allowed. She solemnly informed me that adding a second kind of cereal to the cupboard would not count.

"Not what I had planned, don't worry. However, since we are at it, why don't you tell me what you like? You know, just to make sure I buy the right stuff."

"Silly," she said, before her mask cracked a little bit.

"You don't have to do that for me. I was just joking."

"As if! Come on, tell!" After that, we slipped into an easy routine. All the fears that had kept me awake late into the previous night, like obsessing over what the kiss might have meant, or whether morning would make it awkward, and the worst one of all: whether one of us would pretend it had never happened. Well, they all sort of evaporated without either of us having to say a word.

As she helped me with the dishes—me on washing duty, her on drying—I noticed her touch linger on my fingers each time I passed her a dripping plate. Then she'd notice the puddle we were making on the floor and giggle while pretending it was entirely my fault. We worked on random things around the house, stealing glances at each other and doing nothing more, blushing and playing hide-and-seek with our mutual attraction. That night, we kissed again on the sofa in front of the big fire.

Nero attempted to nestle between us as if that were his rightful place in the world. Nadia moved him onto her lap without breaking the kiss, which made him complain once, before he decided this was acceptable and went to sleep.

"I used to hate winters," Nadia said afterward, nuzzling into my neck.

"Cold. Dark. Everything dead. Very on-brand for me." The joke came easily, but the look she gave the fire betrayed her inner feelings. Then she glanced at me, vulnerable and shy beneath the crooked smile.

"This is nice, though. Maybe I won't have a reason to hate this one so much." Or the next, I thought, but did not say. A man could hope. The following morning was more cereal, despite the earlier promises. But I was distracted by a headline I saw on my phone: some research was claiming that Supes from the first Onset wave looked younger than their ages suggested. I found myself staring at Nadia, for obvious reasons, and couldn't help but agree. Did powers make people immortal? Or something, at least.

"Like something you see?" she said exaggeratedly.

"Yes, you," I decided to flirt back. It was the first time, and she noticed. The ice was thawing. Or, as I was sure she was probably thinking, the dense boy was realizing that the girl liked him. Armed with this new wisdom, I couldn't help but notice that she was getting more comfortable around me. It was just a shy kiss on the back of my hand at first. The next day, she pretended to wipe crumbs from my face, only to lean in and give me a peck on the cheek.

By then, her hand had begun to find my shoulder or the small of my back whenever she passed me, casual touches that were also enough not to really be casual, yet plausibly deniable. On the third day, I finally worked up the courage to take the next step. Just a small, tiny thing. I caught her hand as she was setting the table, making her mumble in surprise. I met her gaze, and she met mine, melting into me when she realized I was pulling her closer.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. It was supposed to be one of her playful little kisses, just initiated by me. An experiment. To see if there was more behind all the teasing. It became a furious make-out session after barely a second. The half-set table was forgotten as we kissed, eager and clumsy, our hands pushing the boundaries of where they were allowed to roam. Her tongue slipped into my mouth.

She tilted her head when I trailed kisses down her jaw and along her neck, then made a small sound against my ear that burned away whatever remained of my good intentions. Then she faltered and looked away, suddenly shy. I kissed her cheek and held her for a while, saying nothing. It didn't take long before the crooked smile returned, a bit more brittle, but steady.

By evening, it had faded away into her usual banter and after that, neither of us managed to keep our lips away from the other for more than a few minutes at a time. We stopped sitting opposite each other at the table. Instead, we pressed together along the slightly longer side so we could hold hands between bites. Once, she took my free hand and placed it on her thigh beneath the hem of her skirt, watching my face while I tried very hard to pretend I wasn't getting a hard-on while eating lunch. She laughed.

All the while, the nanite swarm churned away at her power. After she told me her story, nothing about it was murky anymore. I could feel the life at its core, clean and whole, then the inversion wrapped around it, making that life flow the wrong way, and finally the damaged place where an off-switch should have been. I understood what was wrong with it. I even understood that the wrongness appeared separate from everything worth saving. And, of course, her mutation. Connected, but severable. Shit.

I could probably fix everything, couldn't I? Not yet, the swarm wasn't ready, but perhaps soon? And how soon did I want soon to be, exactly? Outside our little house, the cold finally arrived in earnest. The weather had never behaved properly since the Onset, and now there was frost on the windows. We lit the fire earlier each afternoon, fed it generously from the shrinking pile of logs in the shed, and basked in its heat. The swarm churned, closer and closer to a choice I'd have to make.

I didn't want to think about it, and so I kept thinking about Nadia instead. And every time she looked at me as though I had already given her everything, the secret became a little harder to carry. I wasn't ready when she finally decided she had had enough. We were still mid-kiss, my hands cupping her face, when her expression shifted into a playful, hungry smirk. Her free hand wandered down my body, massaging my chest, then my stomach, before tugging at my pants until her fingers slipped beneath the waistband.

"You are already hard. Good," she whispered into my ear. She pulled away just far enough to work my pants down with hurried, needy movements. My cock sprang free, and her warm hand wrapped around it. She gave me one tentative stroke, then another, watching me so intently that the confidence drained from her face almost as quickly as it had appeared.

"You… do you like this?" she asked. The way she looked at me—fuck. The little pout at the corner of her lips, the uncertainty in her eyes. She had gone from confident and teasing to so fucking vulnerable, and all I wanted was to take that uncertainty away. I pulled her against me, kissing her head, covering her hand with mine.

"I love it. Your hand feels heavenly, Nadia." Her fingers shifted beneath mine, following the slow pace I set for her.

"I know my technique isn't all that good," she muttered.

"I haven't touched anyone in eight years." I stopped her hand and kissed her properly. She melted against me as I held her tight, her forehead resting against mine when we finally parted.

"You don't have to prove anything to me," I said.

"I'm not proving anything." Her smile returned, small and crooked at first, then widening as she glanced down between us.

"I want to. Besides, the little guy shouldn't miss all the action just because I'm rusty. I don't want you getting all blue-balled on me. I'm told it's not the best feeling." I laughed, and the last of the uncertainty left her face. Her hand began moving again, guided now by every hitch in my breath and twitch of my body. She watched me rather than herself, adjusting until my head was empty of all thoughts, just sensations and pleasure. I could do nothing but hold her and let the pressure build.

"Nadia," I groaned.

"I'm close." Her eyes lit up. She firmed her grip and sped up, biting her lip. I came all over her hand. Surprise flashed over her face before she giggled and tried, unsuccessfully, to contain the mess coating her fingers.

"You made a mess, mister," she said, bending down to kiss me before slipping away to clean herself up. She was gone for less than a minute, but my heart still skipped when she re-emerged from the kitchen, beaming as she darted back to her place on the sofa and nuzzled into me. I kissed her forehead. She tilted her face up, so I kissed her again.

"This is nice," I said.

"It really is," she murmured, pulling my arm tighter around her.