I played with his fingers as I spoke, “She feels guilty about the way things happened between you two and has held onto the same pain you have for centuries. I think you owe it to one another to express yourselves and let some of this pain out, so you can both move on…”
“Both move on? She went and got knocked up by Erasmus, so it seems she’s moved on just fine without me!” he bitterly snarled.
I cringed under his comment. “It may feel that way, but she wants you to do the same.”
“To hookup with Erasmus?” he joked.
I whacked his arm as he snorted little giggles. “You know what I mean, dumbass!”
He rolled his lips loudly as he pondered what I said. I continued to pull on his hand and manipulate it in mine, trying to settle him through my touch. His cold fingers were clammy with anxiety, and I knew better than to rush his decision. He finally picked his head up. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of talk.”
“You’ve had two thousand years to be ready,” May pointed out.
He pouted miserably under May’s words. “I… I don’t even know what I would say to her?”
“How about a hi, how are you, how’s life to start?” Odysseus sat in the bag beside me. “You can start as friends, ya know. She’s still the same person you knew, after all. People don’t change overnight, and it certainly seems that she retained much of her previous personality, give or take being a bit more gentle with her training.”
Stark exhaled through his nose before nodding once. “Fine, yeah, ok, I’ll talk to her… but I want you to be in the room when I do, Nick. I don’t think I have the strength to do it on my own.”
I tsked and squished his cheeks together. “Don’t worry my Starky-warky, I’ll be right there beside you!”
“Eww,” Stark laughed out.
“Alice?” I called sweetly into the air. Alice popped up immediately, still covered in flour, but wearing a big smile. “Can you please tell Seraphine’s Shadows that we’re ready for her?”
“On the double, little man!”
“I am not little!” I whined, though the rest of the room laughed at my frustration.
Chapter thirty
You Think I’m Weak, But You’re Wrong
Nicodemus
Stark settled on wanting to do this at his house, so Odysseus and I followed him down the sidewalk to his home. Stark walked with his hands deep in his pockets and a cigarette between his lips, something he smoked rarely, but especially when he was stressed. Nowadays, I felt like he smoked all the time, but with everything going on, who could blame him? It’s not like the cigarettes were going to kill him or anything.
Odysseus held my own hand tightly as we walked, his own sweaty with worry about the upcoming conversation. I tried to even my energy out so he would pick up that I was confident, but internally I was screaming. I had never advocated during any kind of big conversation like this before, let alone between an unhappily married set of ancient Gods, so what did the opinion of my twenty-one-year-old ass mean to them?
Stark unlocked the front door and invited us inside. “Sorry about the mess. I wasn’t really expecting company.”
“It’s a lot cleaner than usual,” I teased, and received a ruffle of the hair for my comment. Admittedly, Stark was unlike normal Life Elementals. Most of them were like Mom or Odysseus: neat freaks to the max. Stark was a scatterbrain and preferred to live in a not-so-perfect setting to take a break from his over-performing Realm. His house had little furniture as he, again, never liked to be in it, so he didn’t feel the need to dress it up. A television hung over a big stone fireplace, and he had a dark grey couch and glass coffee table, but beyond that, the room was empty.
Stark lit a few candles he had on a console table in the hall and brought them into the living room to perfume it a bit. He tossed a throw blanket back into place and tidied up a bit more before falling into the couch and kicking his legs up on the long section. “Invite your pregnant ex-wife into your home… great idea, Stark,” he muttered to himself.
I flopped down beside him and sat against his side, nestling into it so he was forced to wrap an arm around me, which he did with a gentle grin. “Stop being a grumpy pants. You’re doing this to close a big chapter in your life.”
He spoke in a frayed, distant tone, “I suppose so. Thank you for being here with me. You seem to be the only person nowadays who can calm my anxiety.”
I frowned and hugged his waist tighter. “Don’t mention it.”
A set of knocks echoed on the door, soft and polite. Odysseus took it upon himself to answer, and when he opened the door to Seraphine, he fronted a casual smile. “Hey, Seraphine. Hope you don’t mind, but Stark asked if Nick could be part of the conversation, and Nick kind of dragged me into it, too.”
“Oh, I don’t mind at all.” Seraphine stepped inside after asking her Shadows to give her some privacy. Her gorgeous grey eyes soaked in the quaint home around us before falling on the man beside me, who refused to meet her gaze. He stubbornly staredat the television, the arm he had around me tightening as he suppressed his anger. “This is a lovely home, Stark.”
“Thanks,” he blandly retorted, still not looking at her.
“A lot cleaner than your offices of the past,” she tried to tease.
