Thea
“Oh, I hated you,” she interjected, unwilling to let him think she had been pretending. “But that was before I let myself remember what it was like to be loved by you.”
Nathaniel’s hands slid from her shoulders to her waist, and he gently spun her around. “Can we start over? No hate, no avoidance, just you and me in the café that you built in my building, and all the memories of our past.”
“Only the good ones,” he said with a chuckle. “We don’t need sad ones.”
“You want to lock the door?” he teased.
Thea narrowed her eyes at him.
“Did you know that you are even more beautiful now than the day I first met you?” Nat asked. “And I thought you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen that day.”
“Are you trying to distract me?” she asked.
“Would I do that?” he asked, his fingers trailing down her neck.
Thea sighed. “Yes, you absolutely would.”
“Thea,” he said quietly as he began leaning in and she closed her eyes.
The door swung open, and the bell rang, and Thea’s eyes burst open. Who was coming in after hours?
“Hello,” Dietrich’s voice called. “There’s someone here to see you.”
“Hello, dearie,” Eugenia’s voice called. “I have news for you.”
Thea pushed down on Nathaniel’s shoulders, sinking to the floor herself. If they didn’t come around the corner, they wouldn’t find them. As much as she would hate for Dietrich to find her sitting on the floor with Nathaniel, she would rather him not find her at all.
Nathaniel widened his eyes at her. “But—”
She shook her head and put a finger to her lips.
“Hello?” Eugenia said again.
“It’s funny that she didn’t lock the door.”
Eugenia let out a loud sigh. “I suppose we can lock it for her. Maybe she’s upstairs, or maybe she had to go see Nathaniel at the orphanage.”
“We can go look for her there,” Dietrich said, as the door opened again, and the two voices disappeared as it shut.
Thea let out a breath and looked up at Nat, his eyes gleaming.
“Do you remember hiding in the pantry?” he asked her, reaching over to snag her hand with his. “When your father would come down to check on the bakery, and we were still awake, long past when we should’ve been asleep?”
Thea giggled in a way she hadn’t in ten years.
“I do remember that,” she said softly. “Those were good times.”
“I don’t suppose you have a pantry here?” he asked.
Thea simply looked at him. He knew full well that this kitchen didn’t have a pantry like the bakery in Riyel.
“Maybe we should build one,” he mused. “I wouldn’t mind enjoying more of those moments with you.”
“Yes, I wouldn’t mind it, either,” Thea admitted, “but that does feel a bit impractical.”
“Practical isn’t important,” he said, shaking his head. “You and I have never been practical.”
“I’ve always been practical,” Thea said hotly. How dare he imply she wasn’t?
“I didn’t say you’ve never acted practically,” he said. “You and I—the two of us together—have never been practical, but we made it work anyway.”
“Says the man who randomly turns into a cat,” Thea pointed out.
Nathaniel sobered at the reminder. “I know that’s something you weren’t prepared for,” he said. “To be honest, I wasn’t, either. But I’m hoping you’ll be able to look past that until we figure out how to stop it.”
“I should’ve asked Guinevere when she was here,” Thea said. “I heard rumors that Beatrice had some issues in the beginning of her marriage, and looking back now, it seems as if they might not have been the most conventional issues.”
“You mean magic.”
Thea sighed. “Yes, I mean magic. I don’t know anything else to call it, even though magic isn’t supposed to be real. But anyway, Beatrice had hinted that Guinevere had been helpful with some things…and I think maybe she knows more than she’s letting on.”
“I think any help you can get us would be a good idea,” he said, his thumb beginning to rub slow circles on her palm. “Now, do we need to go back to closing, or can we return to the topic at hand before we were so rudely interrupted, as always?”
“Interrupted?” Thea asked, her lips curving up into a smile. “And what do you mean? We’ve never been interrupted in our life.”
“If you don’t count ten years of being interrupted, then I won’t, either,” Nat said with a sly grin as he leaned forward and placed his hand on her cheek.
“You never did have much trouble picking up where you left off,” Thea said, leaning forward.
As their lips met for the first time in ten years, all she could think was: finally.