Chapter 8 #3
“Um, milk and light sugar. Thanks.” I accepted the cup of tea he offered and smiled faintly at him.
This was a touch too surreal. Last week I was hiding in a dodgy hotel room wondering what to do with my life.
This week I had a purpose. Direction. And the possibility of new friends who had simply … accepted me. Welcomed me.
At least Mercury wasn’t in retrograde. Because this new moon was mooning hard.
I closed my eyes.
Duh. This wasn’t just a new moon. Uranus was transiting my first house. Of course this was all happening at once. I’d known it would all happen at once. I’d done my chart for the year, hadn’t I? I knew big changes were coming.
But that was the thing about knowing and preparing, wasn’t it? I’d known something big was coming. The problem was, I hadn’t done anything to prepare for it. Instead, I’d kept myself too busy, buried my head in the sand, and when everything had boiled over, I didn’t have a backup plan in place.
As I was about to mentally berate myself, yet again, for feeling like a constant failure, a funny thing happened. Something tugged in my chest, and I reached up to rub my solar plexus, remembering how Sophie had done the same earlier that day.
“Reach for your power. You’ll feel it.”
Light bloomed softly inside me, gentle and soothing, a soft wash of water on a pink sand beach as the sun set in the distance.
Maybe I hadn’t needed a backup plan because I was exactly where I needed to be.
It was such a startling thought that I plopped down into a chair and took a bracing sip of tea as an entirely new perspective entered the game.
“You have the most expressive face.”
I glanced up in surprise to see Torin watching me from where he layered the lasagna in a casserole dish on the counter.
“I’m sorry. Just woolgathering. It’s been a day.”
“Tell me about it?”
“First, tell me why you no longer care what Loren Brae thinks. What did you mean?”
Torin reached in the fridge and pulled out a Guinness. Popping it open, he upended the can into a pint glass and let it sit like that until it emptied, and then took the can out and brought his glass to the table. Letting the beer settle, he sat and steepled his fingers on the table in front of me.
I gasped at the long cut on his finger.
“Torin! You’re hurt. Och, let me put something on that.” I stood up and reached for his hand, turning so I could see the cut on his palm. It was red and angry, and looked like something was buried in the skin. “Is this a sliver? Shouldn’t you be wearing gloves?”
“Och, it’s nothing, lass.” Torin tried to tug his hand back, but I pursed my lips and kept his hand in mine, studying the wound. “Be right back.”
Dropping his hand, I went and grabbed my first aid kit that I always kept well stocked.
Being a classic Pisces, I frequently hurt myself due to constant distraction, and I’d learned to patch myself up through the years.
Returning to the main room, I took Torin’s hand and cleaned the wound and then held his palm closer to my face.
“I think there’s something in here.”
“It’s a sliver.”
“It needs to come out.”
“Och, it will work itself out eventually.”
“But why wait? Doesn’t it hurt?”
“It’s annoying, but it’s fine.”
I tilted my head to look at Torin. Was he really just happy to live with discomfort? His face was so close I could kiss him again, and my pulse kicked up.
“Will you let me take this out?”
“If you promise to tell me about what happened today that has you so stressed out.”
And I realized that I did want to tell him about my day. Just as much as I wanted to ease his suffering with a massive sliver in his hand. Was he really just going to walk around in pain? Why hadn’t he been wearing his gloves?
“Aye, I’ll tell you. But first, tell me why you don’t care what Loren Brae thinks anymore.
” This was the third time we’d circled around to this conversation, and I dug in the first aid kit for the needles I kept there.
Taking one out and wiping it with alcohol, I picked his hand back up and made quick work of pulling the sliver forward enough to switch out the needle for tweezers.
I tugged, twice, and then I had the small chunk out.
Holding it up to his face, I glared at him.
“You were going to let that sit in your hand?”
“I would have taken it out eventually.” Torin shrugged and took a sip of his Guinness.
“And to answer your question, I realized that I don’t care what Loren Brae thinks about me and Avery because I know the truth.
And anybody who knows me, or cares about me, will know the truth as well.
Nothing else matters, not really. You ken? ”
I still held Torin’s hand in mine, but my eyes were glued to his. He was so steady. So certain of who he was and what he cared about.
“How can you do that? Just brush aside what people think?” It seemed like I’d been ruled by what other people thought for most of my life.
“It doesn’t much make a difference. Does it? Not really.” Torin curled his hand so his fingers held mine. “Not when I’m out with the trees all day. Did you know they talk to each other?”
“The trees?” I asked, faintly, my eyes fixated on his.
“Aye, the trees. They work together. As a community. If you look up into a canopy? You can see the lines of where they make room for each other. So everybody can get some light. And I was thinking about that, today, when I was worried about the gossip coming back and people thinking I was a cheater. I just realized it doesn’t matter.
My community? My people? They talk to me.
They make room for me. They let me have light. ”
Holy shite, but this man was taking my breath away. My heart trembled at his words. I had no idea Torin could be so thoughtful, but he meant every word of it. He had to. He was under a truth spell.
“And me?” I asked, softly. “Am I a part of your trees?”
“You’re newly planted.” Torin turned my hand and placed a kiss in the center of my palm. My skin tingled, his lips seeming to sear an imprint into my hand, and then the oven timer dinged. I jerked and he released my hand and stood.
“Let me just slide the lasagna in the oven and then you can tell me about your day.”