“My parents are at work,” he announced as we passed through an iron gate, its sharp spires the first to feel the light rain drops falling from the grey clouds circling above. “My brothers are at school. James and Luca are home, though. And Marianne. She’s our nanny.” His cheeks reddened. “Notmy nanny.Luca’s nanny.”
The gate opened with a mechanical grunt, granting access to a long, curved driveaway with freshly manicured green lawns on either side. A garage door opened to reveal white marble floor and polished black furniture, garden tools and boxes lining the shelves.
“How old is Luca?” I asked curiously.
“Three,” he answered, parking the car to the right of the garage, leaving space for another three cars, if necessary. “He’s the youngest.”
“Wow. That is one hell of an age gap. How old are you?”
“Twenty,” he chuckled. “But there’s only a three year gap between Luca and Rio.”
“I can’t imagine having that many brothers,” I said as we climbed out of the car.
“You just have the one, right?”
“Yeah. Auden.”
“How old is he?”
“Fifteen.”
“Oh nice, so like…four years between you?”
I nodded.
“James and I are two years apart. I don’t even remember life before him.”
“It must have been fun, though,” I said, following him inside through the back door, shoes discarded at the entrance. “Growing up with all those brothers to play with, I mean.”
“Yeah, of course. I love my brothers. But the fights werecrazy.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he grinned, “James once tried to drown me.”
I blinked in alarm. “What?”
Nathaniel laughed at the memory. “Yeah, yeah, we were…what, nine and eleven? We’d been fighting over a pool toy. I dove down to grab it and James stood on my back. Back then, we were nearly the same size, so it wasn’t easy to get him off me.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“It was at the time,” he chuckled. “You never fought like that with Auden?”
I shook my head.
“Oh, well, you’re probably a better big brother than me, then,” he mused.
He led me down a long hall, a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling and photo frames decorating the cream-coloured walls. My eyes fell upon a photo of Nathaniel, no older than fourteen, sitting at a piano with a proud gleam in his eye and a dimpled smile.
“That was taken after I won a music composition contest,” Nathaniel said, elbow brushing mine as he stood beside me.
“You look very pleased,” I observed.
“I was.”
“Do you still play?”
“Not as often as I would like to. Med school takes up most of my time.”
