A bit of familiar skepticism crept into her demeanor as she followed me to my locker. A moment later, she blinked as she caught the bundle of white pearlescent fabric I tossed to her.
“Put it on.”
“What?” She looked like she was about to faint.
“Put it on,” I repeated. “Thanks to that damn serum, I’m even shorter now than I was before. That suit doesn’t fit me anymore. You had to have noticed I have a different suit now, didn’t you?”
“Well, yeah.” She glanced at the carbon-gray suit I had spread out onto the bench before I began stripping naked. “I actually think the gray-on-blue looks really cool.”
I fingered the cobalt lines that had been worked into the suit to mirror the magenta lines that had been in my last suit. “I have to admit, pink is just never going to be my color.”
“It looks good on you, though,” she said, spying the pink bikini I had stripped down to. Meanwhile, she finally seemed over her shock enough to begin undressing herself.
“Yeah.” I sighed, unknotting my bikini top and pulling it off.
A few minutes later, we both left the locker rooms dressed in our suits, our helmets held under our arms. I couldn’t help but smile at Nicole’s giddiness as she kept looking down at herself in the Gravita suit. It fit her perfectly.
I stopped as we came to the center of the hanger. I took a second to pull my helmet down over my head and seal it onto the neck of my suit. She, meanwhile, did the same.
“Not that I’m complaining or anything.” Her voice came in clear over the radio in my helmet as she watched me. “Because this is legitimately one of the coolest moments of my life, but what are we doing here?”
“Going for a test flight.”
“What?”
“Well, you have to test that suit out somehow, don’t you?”
“Test it out?”
I nodded. “If you like it, you can keep it.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
“Chicago is really something at night.” I sighed. “Word to the wise, though: it’s pretty cold out there, so we’re going to have to go supersonic to stay warm. Is that okay?”
“I think I’ll survive.”
“Nicole?” I tilted my head to the side, even as I snapped a field around the two of us that made us float, weightless, a few inches off the ground. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were crying.”
“Please don’t tell anyone. Promise?”
“I promise,” I whispered.
Kicking herself forward, she grabbed me around the waist and gave me a hug. “I love you, daddy.”
20
JAKE WAS SUBDUED WHEN I explained everything that had happened at the party the next day. When I got to the part about Ethan being a mind smith and his attempts to coerce Nicole into sex though, he began to tremble with rage.
“They already have sworn statements from four other girls.” I put my hand on his arm as he stood up. “All with the same story. And Kiara said they’re expecting to hear from two more before the day’s out. So, at the very least, he’s facing six confirmed cases of rape, and one attempted rape. And to add to it, he turned eighteen a few months ago, meaning they’ll try him as an adult. He’s probably facing forty years in jail, minimum.”
“I just...” He crumpled back down onto the bed next to me, cupping his head in his hands. “If you hadn’t been there... what would have happened to Nicole?”
“I know.” I screwed my face up to try and keep the tears from my eyes. It didn’t work.
With the children out of school for two weeks for winter break, we had decided months before to visit Jake’s parents in Los Angeles. Of course, we had made that decision before the body swap, but with Jake’s brother and sister and their families planning on being in Southern California for the week as well, it would be almost unthinkable for us not to go for Christmas and New Year’s. Still, I was secretly dreading facing his parents. We still hadn’t told them about the swap. And, from my discussions with Jake, it seemed he didn’t know how to break the news to them any more than I did.
So, it was with some reluctance that I followed the rest of my family off the jet at LAX. By the time I made it out of the gate, I found our children had already run over to hug their grandparents, who looked to be waiting for us under a bank of monitors in the terminal.
I smiled uncertainly at Jake’s mom as she spotted me.
“You told your parents about the serum, didn’t you?” I whispered to Jake, noting the shock on his mother’s face at seeing me.
“Crap in a bucket.”
I rushed over to give both of Jake’s parents a hug and to offer something of an explanation for the fact that their daughter had appeared to lose twenty-four years of age since the last time they had seen her. As they both knew Jake had been an arbiter, they took the revelation well in stride, all things considered. In fact, Jake’s dad, Cecil, seemed relieved at the news.
“I guess this means that you know about our daughter, then?” He patted Jake on the shoulder.
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it, Grandpa.” Nicole grinned and put her arm around her grandmother.
The car ride back to their house, despite my initial trepidation, turned out to be a lot of fun. For once, I wasn’t on the receiving end of Cecil’s endless ribbing, and I had to admit, I took a vindictive pleasure in watching Jake’s attempts to shrug off the constant jabs at his expense.
“So,” Jake’s mother, Julia, called to us over her shoulder as we all clambered out of their SUV and headed into the house. “Lyra’s family is flying in tomorrow, and Caleb and his wife should be getting in on Christmas Eve in the morning, so we get you guys all to ourselves for today.”
“Awesome,” Jake rubbed his hands together. “That means we can get Out-N-About for dinner, tonight, right?"
“I thought you hated Out-N-About, Jake.” Cecil laughed as he closed the door behind him with a burly suitcase in hand.
“Oh.” Jake blinked, looking deflated.
“I would love that, though.” I lied and gave Cecil as genuine a smile as I could muster.
“It is something of a tradition,” he agreed, and my stomach churned uncomfortably.
To be fair, it wasn’t the thought of Out-N-About that made me nauseous. Well, not completely. Morning sickness was not being nice to me, and it wasn’t helped by our flight in, which had been rough. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through fast food without giving anything away, but one look at the smile on Jake’s face told me my lie had been worth it.
“Well, that’s not for hours.” Julia waved her hands dismissively. “I was thinking, until then, how would you guys like to go for a swim? I made sure to heat the pool and hot tub this morning.”
“Awesome. I’m going to go change!” Alan grabbed his duffel bag from the pile of luggage in the entryway and ran off in the direction of the bathroom.
“Me too.” Sam laughed and grabbed her bag as well.
I frowned and tried unsuccessfully to avoid Nicole’s eye. “I guess I don’t really have a swimsuit, since, well...” I gestured at myself for emphasis.
“Come on, mom.” Nicole gripped my wrist and pulled me away from Jake and his parents. “You’re not getting out of it that easily. I brought an extra you can borrow. Besides,” she muttered as we fell out of earshot of Cecil and Julia. “I didn’t want to say anything yesterday, but you really were a bit too big in the chest for Sam’s suit.”
I grimaced as I glanced back at Jake, who looked extremely uncomfortable at finding himself alone with his parents.
An hour later, I found myself doing a few laps with Sam and Alan while Nicole, Jake, and his parents rested in the hot tub. Since everyone there knew I was prime, and the yard had an abundance of privacy, I decided to have a little fun by reducing the gravity in and around the pool to a fraction of its normal level.
“You guys are making me tired.” Nicole sounded annoyed as she watched Sam perform an impressive f
our-foot dolphin leap out of the water. “Why don’t you just come relax in the hot tub with us?”
“Why don’t you come swim with us?” I taunted, floating on my back a few feet above the surface of the water with a bubble of water enveloping me. I kicked my legs lazily through the air before I released the gravity around me and dropped into the pool with a wide splash. “When else are you going to be able to swim in almost no gravity?”
“Fine.” Nicole stood up and pulled her sunglasses off, a smile breaking across her face.
I laughed as she jumped down from the hot tub into the deep end of the pool, her fall dampened by the field of lessened gravity she encountered half-way through her leap.
“Amber.” Julia frowned and turned to me from watching Alan do a six-foot backflip into the pool. “It’s fine to let the children play, but we’ve barely had the chance to catch up. Come up here.”
“Oh...” I faltered, glancing at Jake.
“Hey!” Nicole flailed her arms, three feet out of the water, as the gravity around the pool momentarily returned to normal and she crashed back into the pool on her stomach. Sputtering, she twisted around to glare at me. “What gives, mom?”
“Sorry!” I pushed the field of weakened gravity up again with a flicker of concentration.
“Amber?” Julia called from behind me. “Did you hear me? Why don’t you come join the rest of us in the hot tub?”
“I...” My mind couldn’t seem to catch hold of a good enough lie that would defuse the situation without inviting more questions, my eyes still focused on Nicole. For her part, she frowned as she studied me.
“You didn’t want to go in the hot tub yesterday either...” She tilted her head to the side, and I saw her eyes dart to Julia as she furrowed her brow.
I whirled around and pushed myself to the side of the pool to climb out. “Sorry about that.” I glanced toward Julia to see she was eyeing me critically. “I just wanted to check on Nicole.”
“That’s fine, dear.” She gave me a smile. “How have you been?”
“Things have been busy,” I answered truthfully. “But, then, what else is new?”
“Sam?” Cecil called over to her, causing her to pause from the dive she was about to attempt and look over at him. “Could you get me a beer?”
“I could go for one too.” The smile on Jake’s lips faltered as Cecil turned and looked at him.
“Sure thing.” Sam walked over and cracked the cooler open, then looked at Julia and me. “Would you guys like anything?”
“Well,” Julia shrugged as she got out of the hot tub. “I actually think I’d prefer a glass of wine, if it’s all the same. Would you care for any?”
“Oh.” I paused as I realized everyone was watching me. Nicole was hanging off the edge of the pool, her head resting in her crossed arms. “You know, I’m actually good with just water.”
“If she isn’t gonna have any, can I have some?” Nicole looked hopeful as she met Julia’s gaze.
“Not on my watch.” Jake’s eyes flashed, and Nicole flinched.
“Now, wait a second, Jake.” Cecil put his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Nicole’s a week away from turning eighteen, and there’s no one else here. I don’t think it would be a bad idea to let her try a little, just for the sake of curiosity. Besides, if she doesn’t try it now, where she’s in a safe and controlled environment, would you rather she first try alcohol at some frat house freshman year in college?”
“Well,” Jake’s words dripped with venom. “I certainly wouldn’t want any of my children to have their first alcohol at some crazy party.”
“I’m taking that for a yes, then?” Julia paused at the patio door to the house and looked between Jake and me. Nicole, who looked cowed by his comment, smiled weakly at her father.
“I guess so.” He looked deflated as he sank back down into the hot tub with a sigh.
“Okay.” Julia flashed him a smile. “Nicole, could you come help me?”
“Sure.” It didn’t look like Nicole needed to be persuaded further to duck away from her father.
I massaged my temple as I sank into the lawn chair by the pool.
Jake cracked open his can of beer, then looked over at Cecil. “Have you been working on anything exciting recently at the lab?”
“You do know I work at a Techie firm, right?” He looked confused.
“Of course.”
“You just never seemed too keen on prime tech before.”
“I guess finding out your wife is a prime can lead to a change of heart.” Jake smiled as Cecil watched him.
“Now that you mention it...” He frowned and squinted toward me for a second before continuing. “We’ve been working on a new prototype. The techie who designed it is calling it a brain-band. Lets two people wearing matching bands live in each other’s bodies for a while.”
“What’s that?” I straightened up. My gaze flickered to Jake as he choked on a mouthful of beer.
“Easy!” Cecil laughed and slapped him on the back. “We’re thinking of marketing it for couple’s therapy, you know?”
“There could be a pretty kinky demand for something like that too,” Alan called over. He smiled deviously even as Sam pushed his head under the water.
“Well, maybe.” He shrugged, then seemed to smile a little at the thought.
“Alright.” Julia came back into the yard with two wine glasses in hand. “I know you said you didn’t want any, Amber, but Nicole and I decided you have no choice.”
Without time to think, I accepted the wine glass she thrust into my hand and glanced at Nicole, who had her eyes trained on a bird singing in a nearby tree. As she felt my eyes on her, she took a swig of wine, then winced a second later at the taste.
The little brat knew. I glared at her before looking back at Julia.
“What’s wrong?” Julia took a moment to sip from her own glass.
“I... I have a headache.” I rubbed my forehead with one hand and set the glass down on the table next to my chair.
“Okay.” Julia squared her hand on her hip, then glanced at Nicole, who still refused to look at either of us. “What’s up?”
“What do you mean?” I stammered.
“If you had a headache, you wouldn’t be able to use your powers so effortlessly.” Julia waved her hand toward the pool to prove her point, where Sam was busy launching herself off the bottom of the pool to soar ten feet out of the water.
“Oh. Right.”
For a long while, she just studied me. Finally, she couldn’t seem to keep herself from speaking. She leaned forward and nearly whispered, “Your daughter thinks you’re pregnant.”
“She’s a smart kid.” I smiled as I met Nicole’s gaze, who finally looked down at me long enough to blink once.
“Wait.” Julia set her own wine glass on the table next to mine and grabbed my arms. “You are?” In response, I just smiled again and nodded.
Of every reaction I could have anticipated, I hadn’t counted on Julia grabbing me, pulling me up into a rib-cracking hug, and jumping up and down, squealing all the while. And yet, I found myself with my arms pinned to my side a second later as she held me and jumped up and down. She wasn’t my actual mother, but she didn’t know that. And, while I did start to feel somewhat nauseous from the combination of sudden motion and the gestational hormones saturating my system, I was also filled with an unexpected swelling of emotion at her embrace. For just a second, I closed my eyes and could almost, almost, imagine this was what it would have been like to tell my mother she was going to be a grandmother.
Alan and Sam took the news better than I could have hoped. It was nearly impossible to overstate the strangeness of the situation, and I couldn’t help but wince as they came over to give me a hug, but they seemed excited at the news all the same. I didn’t expect the same reaction from Nicole. She had been old enough to remember the last time.
“You okay?” I came into the guest room where Sam and Nicole would be sleeping to find Nicole s
itting on the edge of the bed and hugging her knees into her chest. She had excused herself from the rest of us just a few minutes before to go back into the house, and given everything that had happened to her over the past twenty-four hours, I had decided to check on her.
“I’m fine.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and kept her eyes trained on a spot on the ground as I sat down on the bed next to her.
“It’s okay to be scared.”
“Do you remember Matthew?”
Pain stabbed into my chest at the look she gave me. I nodded as tears filled my eyes, my throat suddenly too jagged for words.
“I remember holding him for the first time when you and mom brought him home from the hospital.” She smiled and reached over to run a hand through my hair. “He had this same shade of red.”
“I remember.” My voice cracked as I spoke, but I didn’t care. “Not a day’s gone by that I haven’t thought about him.”
“He was in so much pain.” She grimaced, fresh tears spilling out of her eyes. “It seemed like all he would ever do was cry. His heart just couldn’t take the stress. I know you got up in the middle of the night to try and comfort him—I heard you singing to him through the wall. You got up every night to be with him. When his heart wouldn’t stop racing, and he couldn’t stop crying. I heard you singing and pacing around the nursery... Heard you praying. Praying so many times... pleading to God that he would get better.
“Why’d he have to die?”
“I... I don’t know.” My voice was beyond a whisper as I met her gaze. “That last morning... when I went into the nursery to check on him and I saw his little frame in that crib. Not moving? Nothing has ever—ever—come close to what I went through in that final moment, when I realized I would never see... that I would never be able to hold my baby in my arms and see him smile up at me again.
“He just... he was in so much pain. He wouldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. I wanted to hold onto him forever, but that was because I was being selfish. I wanted to hold onto him even if it meant hurting him. He just wasn’t meant for this world.”
Prime Identity Page 25
