Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
They had said that the details didn't matter out loud at least half a dozen times already. Sam thought he'd probably told himself that a hundred times in the past couple of hours, and he meant it.
But God he was curious, and so, obviously, was Lola. He couldn't tell her everything about his narrow escape all those decades ago, not until they were somewhere private, and he'd prefer that to be his old family estate, rather than…well, anywhere else. Even his fox agreed, with a quiet sigh. Virtue might be a sanctuary town, but even here, shifters didn't just reveal themselves in public. So he'd just barely touched on his own survival, and for the moment, Lola had accepted that.
And for the moment, she fell silent, holding his hand across the table and studying their entwined fingers instead of speaking. Sam waited; he was in no hurry. Not after this long. If nothing else, he'd learned patience in all the years they'd been apart.
After a few minutes the young man from behind the counter brought their treats, and Lola broke her silence with a laugh as he slid her cherry chocolate bomb soda to a stop in front of her. It was in an old-fashioned soda glass, chocolate ice cream with chocolate-covered cherries and cherry ice cream swirled through it, and fizzing cherry soda bubbling up to lift the whipped cream and maraschino cherry over the lip of the glass. A long spoon and a longer straw were buried in the drink, and Sam could smell the actual cherry syrup that had been mixed into the soda water to make a real, honest-to-god cherry soda.
He looked at his own vanilla milkshake, also in a tall glass. "I may have made a mistake."
"Shoulda gone with at least a malt, dude," the soda jerk said with a sad shake of his head. "Although that should be a pretty good milkshake."
Sam had to try it, at that point, and his eyebrows rose even as the roof of his mouth froze. "That's excellent, actually. I'm not sure I've ever had a better vanilla milkshake."
The kid leaned in a little. "Vanilla paste."
"Er, what?"
"Quarter teaspoon of vanilla paste, mixed into the ice cream, plus a teaspoon of real vanilla extract. And high-quality vanilla ice cream, obviously."
"Obviously," Sam said, amused. "It's very good. Thank you."
By then Lola had taken a sip of her soda, and let loose a delighted little giggle. "This is fabulous. The syrup's perfect." She tried the ice cream and groaned happily. "I should have ordered two."
The soda jerk looked thrilled. "If you still think so when you finish that one I'll make you another on the house."
"I'm already sure I can't eat two, but I may hold you to that anyway." Lola smiled at the young man, who left the table beaming with pride, and then turned her smile on Sam. "Well, this was a wonderful idea. Do you want to try mine?"
"I think I can't resist." They traded tastes, Sam's eyebrows lifting again as he tried Lola's soda. "I don't even like cherry all that much and that's terrific."
"I do like vanilla and that's amazing." Lola took another sip of her soda, then used her spoon to plunge the ice cream deeper into the soda. "The funeral was awful, Sam. Not just in the obvious ways. Your parents…"
Sam sighed. "I'd like to tell you they became less awful after I returned from the dead, but they really didn't. They were thrilled I was alive, obviously, but…I'm afraid they were equally thrilled you weren't in Virtue anymore. They really thought I'd move on."
His fox murmured, Never, and Sam nearly agreed with it out loud.
"Did you know…" Lola pressed her lips together, looking up at him. "In between graduation and you signing up for service, they tried buying me off. They offered me fifty thousand dollars to leave town and never contact you again."
"Jesus Christ." Sam sat back, heart contracting painfully. "No. No, I didn't know that. What…you didn't take it." That much was obvious. He could all but see his parents offering the money: his father's thin face pinched with disdain; his mother's cool eyes calculating, expecting to succeed. Neither of them had ever counted on him rejecting their money and choosing military service over being dependent on them; there was even less chance they could imagine Charlotte Nelson, a girl with no money to her name at all, standing on principle.
The corner of her mouth turned up and she stirred her soda, looking very like the teenager he'd left behind so long ago. "I told them they were cheap bastards and to come back with a dollar figure that meant something."
Sam choked on a laugh. "Fifty grand was a lot of money back then, Lola!"
"It still is." She gave him another thin smile. "They counter-offered at two-fifty."
"Holy shit. They offered you a quarter of a million dollars to leave me?"
"They did." Lola dropped her gaze to her soda again, then met his eyes. "And upped it to half a million when I said no."
"Good God. You must have been tempted."
"You know, I was more…disgusted with them, I think, than tempted. I mean, I certainly had some moments later where I thought, if I was going to end up without you anyway, it sure would have been a lot easier to do it with half a million dollars than without, but…they were so smug, Sam. They were so sure I would choose money over you."
"Because they would have," Sam said quietly. "Both of them. Either of them. If anyone had offered them that kind of money to walk away from their relationship, they'd have taken the money and run."
They were only married, his fox said with a sniff. Not fated mates.
Sam nodded agreement. His parents had regarded the stories of shifters and fated mates as old wives' tales; their marriage had been commercial, if anything. He thought they'd been fond of one another, but he was certain they were both far fonder of financial success. They'd seen his relationship with Lola as puppy love, and they'd simply refused to believe him when he'd come to them starry-eyed and happy just after his high school graduation, to say that fate had struck and he was going to propose to Lola.
They hadn't even believed it was possible . The idea that his bond with Lola was as deep and meaningful as Sam claimed sounded ludicrous to them, literally unbelievable. He had to assume that meant their own bond, despite twenty years of marriage, was simply not that profound. It was the only time in his life he'd felt sorry for his parents.
Whatever sympathy he'd had for them back then evaporated now. Slowly, helplessly, he said, "I'm so sorry that you ended up without me and without any money. You deserved so much more, Lola."
"Don't get me wrong." She gave him a crooked smile. "I didn't intend to leave you for any amount of money, but the fact that they offered made me even more determined to stick it out. I was nothing if not stubborn."
"One of the many things I loved about you." Sam took a deep breath and stirred his own milkshake. "What happened at the funeral?"
"Oh, God. The whole town got to watch your mother scream how this was all my fault at me. If I hadn't 'seduced you with my wicked ways' you wouldn't have signed up, and you'd be alive and well and engaged to someone suitable and...it went on for a while. No one told you about it?"
"People mentioned the funeral was difficult." Sam heard the thread of anger in his own voice and worked to modulate it: his anger was at his long-dead parents, and the last thing he wanted was Lola worrying he was mad at her . "But no. No one told me that. I didn't leave the house much after I came home. I'd lost you. There didn't seem to be any point. So probably my own hermiting worked against me there. I'm so sorry, Lola. I never would have allowed them to treat you that way."
"I know. It's part of why they hated me. Even when we were sixteen, it was so obvious you were going to choose me over them, that you would have my back, not theirs... God, they hated that. But when the funeral was over, I just couldn't stay. I couldn't stay with their poison in my ears, and the truth is, they had money and influence here, Sam. I wasn't going to be able to hold a job, not if they didn't want me to. I wasn't going to be able to go anywhere or do anything without people whispering about how sad it was, or…" She hesitated, shook her head, and finally said, "I had to leave. I knew I had to leave. So I did, before it got any harder."
"You are the bravest person I've ever known."
Lola laughed. "I don't know about that. But thank you."
"I mean it. That must have been terrifying. And infuriating." Sam made a face. "Knowing you could have had half a million dollars to make it easier."
"I couldn't have, though. I could live with who I was, this way. That way? No." Lola shook her head again, then made a face, too. "Which still didn't stop me from thinking, yeah, it would have been so much easier with the money, but I don't feel like that was inconsistent. Money always makes things easier. The only people who don't think so are rich."
"Where did you go?"
"Chicago. I thought it would be easier to disappear into a big city, although—" Lola broke off abruptly, color rising to her cheeks as she frowned into her soda. "Some things would probably have been better if I'd gone somewhere smaller. I was hospitalized for a while and I…I lost control of some things, then. Things I could never fix. The system was too big, too…unfriendly to people like me."
There's something she's not telling us, Sam's fox said, and he nodded internally.
I know. But she doesn't have to tell us everything. Obviously it's still hard for her to talk about, and I'm not going to push her. Aloud, he said, "Just tell me you're okay? Healthy? That you were okay?" He offered his hand again, palm up, and she carefully fitted hers against his.
"I was, after a while. I am, mostly. I mean, I'm healthy. I worked for a while. Nothing exciting, waitressing, mostly. And I got married," Lola said almost gently. "Peter Brown. He was a good man. We moved out of Chicago and had Jennifer, Charlee's mother. He died when Charlee was little, and I thought, that was enough. I'd had you, the love of my life, and a kind husband, and that was enough. Everything else that I might have wanted had been lost so long ago. I let it go, as best I could. Until the day Charlee called and told me you were alive."
"I'm…sorry for your loss," Sam said after a moment, feeling strange about it.
To his relief, Lola chuckled and squeezed his hand. "I understand. I am too, of course." Her gaze went distant, and her smile soft. "Peter really was a sweetheart. I was happy with him, and desperately sad when he died. It wasn't like losing you had been, but how could it be? I was so young then, and everything was a new experience. When Peter died…well, I'd been through something like that before, hadn't I. It was terrible, but it was something I knew I could live through. And frankly it would have been terribly awkward to find out you were still alive while he was," she said ruefully. "I simply don't know what I would have done."
"I wouldn't have expected you to change anything about your life at all."
Lola's gaze softened further. "I know. And that wouldn't have made it any easier. But it's not what happened, so at least I don't have to figure it out. Maybe this is the only timing that ever would have worked, given how things were."
"It's enough," Sam replied, simply. "But God," he added, remembering what she'd said earlier. "No wonder you didn't want to come to the house, if my mother lit into you like that. Would it help if I had an exorcism done?"
Surprise flashed across Lola's face, followed by a burst of laughter loud enough to make the soda jerk kid glance their way and smile. "No," she said, amused, and then, even more amused, "Maybe!" She went back to her ice cream soda, taking sips between laughter. "No, I—oh, do you know what would help, maybe? Tell me about your foster kids. At least something. Tell me how they cleared all the bad air out of the house, or something."
"Well, if you've ever changed a diaper, you know they didn't clear all the bad air out…"
Lola gave a delicate shudder. "There are some things about parenthood I don't miss. Really, though. How did you get into fostering? I don't mean to be sexist or old-fashioned about it, but I'd think a single man would have a hard time becoming a foster parent?"
"A single rich man with a staff of five has less trouble clearing the paperwork than you might think," Sam said dryly, "but I was also able to take in kids with certain special needs, and that helped."
"Really? Special needs?"
"Yes, but not the kind you're thinking. I'd really like to explain it to you, but it would help a lot if we went back to the house. Or at least somewhere private."
"All right. Between the dirty diaper exorcisms and the ice cream soda, I feel more fortified than I expected. Let's do it." Lola smiled at him, and Sam felt hope bloom in his heart.