Nikolo #2
“You ‘right there, Nikolo?” Egbert scares the shit out of me. I jump a foot in the air, almost knocking over a display of phoenix feathers that Willan spent an hour arranging perfectly yesterday. Egbert’s booming laugh echoes through the shop, and I spin on my heel to glare at him, clutching at my surging heart.
“You scared the shit out of me!” I rasp. Egbert’s laughter doesn’t dim in the slightest. In fact, he has to wipe away tears. “I haven’t got nearly enough blood in me for my heart to be working this hard.”
“Well, why don’t we fix that? Come and have a cuppa with us before you go to bed, yeah?” Egbert’s over by the kitchen, but he tips his head and raises a hand towards the stairs.
“Us?” I keep rubbing at my chest. It fucking hurts—I wasn’t lying about the blood. At least the jump scare dislodged the uncomfortable emotion that’d been lodged there.
“Kroy’s upstairs at my place. I was just getting some polyflu tea. I was out upstairs.”
My eyebrow arches questioning at my clan uncle, and I turn slowly to the stairs and back again.
“Awful early for tea isn’t it?” I bite my lip to keep my smirk in check.
Egbert guffaws. “Nothing like that, you muppet. We’re old. Insomnia happens. Get your butt upstairs, Kroy’ll be happy to see you. C’mon.”
“Suuuuure.” I tease, winking at Egbert before he disappears back into the small kitchen to grab a bottle of blood.
He meets me at the stairs, probably hoping that I’ll let it go.
I don’t, bumping his shoulder with mine when he draws level with me.
“Totally innocent, 4 a.m. tea. In your pyjamas and robe.”
Egbert scoffs, shoving me up the first step, leaving a little sizzle from the magic he puts into the touch.
“Look who I found!” Egbert announces, swinging the door to his apartment on the fourth level wide open. He’s a little out of breath, so I let him fuss a second at the door and slip past, throwing my arms wide.
“Nikolo! Fancy seeing you here!” Kroy’s large body is reclined on the plush burgundy velvet couch in the centre of the living room.
From the entrance, it appears like Egbert’s apartment is an exact replica of Willan’s—except for two distinct differences. The first is that the apartment is flipped. Where Willan’s kitchen is on the left, and the bedrooms are on the left of the living room, in Egbert’s, it’s reversed.
And the second is the colour. While Willan’s apartment is drenched in black, Egbert’s is the same maximalist jewel-toned madness as the shop. Two tea cups rest on the dark wood coffee table.
Hooking my thumbs in the waistband of my skirt, I stroll to the couches.
“Funny. Was going to say the same thing to you.” I lean down to give Kroy a hug hello.
“Insolent little shit was going to imply we were fooling around, is what he was going to say.” Egbert grouches, shuffling past us to go make the tea.
Behind Egbert’s back Kroy gives him a long look, from the tip of his head to the socks on his feet and back up again.
Just like Egbert, Kroy is in a robe and pyjamas.
But where Egbert’s are a dark, inky blue, almost resembling an oqic over silky pyjama bottoms, Kroy’s robe is a glamorous hot pink concoction made with a stunning mixture of satin, chiffon, and trimmed in feathers.
There’s so much fabric I can’t even see what—if anything—he’s wearing underneath.
And it’s a far cry from the simple terrycloth thing I’ve seen him in before.
Finishing his inspection, Kroy raises his eyebrow at me and cocks his head, a coy smile on his lips. I’m not entirely sure what it means, and really, I’m not entirely sure I want to know.
I settle in one of the armchairs, and chat to Kroy about work and Flimsy Sheath while we wait for Egbert to return with their tea.
“So, what are you and Willan up to tonight?” Egbert asks, grunting as he squeezes into the small space Kroy’s left on the couch by his feet, ignoring the whole other armchair free beside me.
“I have no idea. Probably just hanging around here, getting in the way like usual.” I laugh, only a smidge serious.
Egbert frowns, mid-pour of the teapot, but doesn’t say anything. Kroy, however, waves a big hand, feathers and frothy layers fluttering.
“Pah! You kids should go out! Have fun!” He exclaims. “Youth is wasted on the young, I’m telling you. I swear, if I was younger and had a body like either of you I’d—”
He cuts off, aware of Egbert’s stare as he offers Kroy a tea cup.
“What exactly would you do?” Egbert infuses the same steady authority into his voice that Willan does when he’s in professor mode. Only Egbert’s had a few more years to perfect it. The effect is immediate, Kroy blushing violently, pressing his hand demurely to his chest.
“Why, I’d stay home, of course. Responsibly.” He simpers, all but fluttering his eyelashes. Egbert shoves the tea cup in at Kroy, who takes it far more daintily than his size would imply, and grunts.
“Yes. I’m sure that’s exactly what you’d do.” He rolls his eyes at me, scoffing.
I can’t even reply. I’m pretty sure my two uncle-type figures are… boning? Or, at least, want to bone.
I don’t know how I feel about that, so I take a long sip of my blood and try to stem my regret at coming up here. Though it’s kind of a fitting end to an emotionally weird night.
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you.” The change of topic by Egbert feels abrupt, but I’m grateful all the same.
“Why’s that?” I flick my eyes to Kroy but he just shrugs.
“I found an old loom down in the basement and thought you might be interested. It’s a bit big, so we’ll probably have to set you up somewhere here to work it, and I reckon one of the treddles might be broken, but with a little love it could be brought back to life.”
Oh.
“I—I don’t. I don’t know.” Genuinely dumbfounded, I look to Kroy, who’s giving me one of his ‘Boy, are you stupid?’ looks. Egbert waits patiently, taking the lid off the teapot and removing the steeping herbs.
“No pressure. I’ll clear a path—the bloody basement’s overloaded with crap.” He adds to Kroy, then turns back to me with a smile, making the ends of his moustache twitch. “You can get to it when you’re ready.”
I’ll clear a path. You can get to it when you’re ready. A loaded sentiment. Both of them.
I haven’t touched a loom since I left the mountain. Haven’t even thought about it. Returning to something that was so intrinsically tied to my existence as a mage without my magic made my heart ache.
Or at least it used to.
Was this just one more step in the path Egbert’s been clearing the whole time?
Fuck.
I meet his hooded eyes over the tea cup poised at his lips. He smiles, in that all-knowing way mages love to do. It’s a way of hedging their bets. Say a little about a lot, but keep it vague enough to be open to interpretation, so you can always claim to have known all along.
This time, I think he did.
“Uh—yeah. I guess. I’ll think about it?” It’s the right answer. The approval shouldn’t fill me with a tingling kind of warmth, but it does. He’s probably going to ask me to weave him something.
Kroy launches into a story about the shop and his customers and some new treasure that he’s found.
As much as I try to focus, I can’t stop thinking about the loom.
I can almost feel the weight of the shuttle in my hand already, a thousand patterns and projects to make.
My mind might still be thinking, but it seems my heart has already decided.
Before I know it, the first prickles of dawn make themselves known.
“I’m really sorry.” I stand up, stretching against the bone weary tiredness already overtaking me. “I better get going.”
“Right.” Egbert stands too, slapping his knees. Kroy waves me over for another hug goodbye, which I give him wholeheartedly, enjoying the extra squeeze he gives my shoulders.
“You’re never in the way, you know.” Egbert says seriously at the door, furrowing his brows. “There is always a place for you here. No matter what.”
“Thank you.” Sincere as the words are, they don’t feel enough. Egbert pulls me in for a quick, one-armed hug and shoves me out the door.
I stumble down the hall to Willan’s, emotionally and physically exhausted.
Inside the apartment, I make sure to remove my boots as quietly as I can, taking care to line them up perfectly next to Willan’s in the spot beside the door.
I get changed in the bathroom, so I don’t have to disturb him with the light.
Then I make my way to the bedroom, secure now with the vamp-rated shutters.
Willan had them installed in his apartment last week.
“We get less than half the day together.” He explained when I fought him over the cost. “I want to wake up next to each other when we can.”
Willan already has them down, like he was waiting for me.
The silky sheets are warm as I slide into what’s become my side of the bed, plugging my phone into the charger Willan found for me.
Despite my best efforts to be silent, I’ve woken him just enough.
Before I’m even fully in the bed, he rolls over, throwing his arm over me, and with an impressive show of strength, he hauls me against him.
Once my back is flush with his chest once again, my ass nestled in his groin, a sleepy kiss is pressed to my head.
My fang pierces my lip in my efforts to clamp down my smile.
I love you. I love Willan. I love him. All the different ways to say the words trip through my mind.
Wrapped in his warmth, I close my eyes, and wait for the dawn to come.
Soft lips trail hungry kisses up my torso, drawing me back to consciousness.
The bed dips and shifts with the weight of a body moving and I realise I’m pinned—warm, naked legs straddling my thighs.
As I slowly become aware, the mouth becomes hungrier, more determined, sucking a line of kisses along the path of my ribs.
It’s heading towards the mermaid inked up my right side.