Ardent Strangers

by Samantha Kately

  Then I panic. The second I glance over Nathaniel’s shoulder I spy Aaron in the distance. He’s seated at the end of the bar, an empty seat beside him. I can only pray that his back has been turned the past minute or so.

  “He’s here,” I whisper.

  “Aaron?”

  I nod, guilt-ridden.

  Nathaniel closes his eyes for a second, then follows my line of sight. “Do you want me to talk to him?”

  “No, I should be the one to do it.” Although, letting Nathaniel break Aaron’s heart for me would be so much easier.

  He nods. The speed in which he strides away puts me on edge. He’s halfway to the lounge area when he pulls out his phone and reads the screen. “No, no, no…”

  “Nathaniel, what is it?” I call over the music.

  He waves a dismissive hand. “An annoyance.” He sits back in one of the lounge chairs, legs crossed casually, and becomes engrossed in his phone.

  Something is definitely wrong.

  I walk out of the shadows and stop short of the bar. Aaron is only steps away. He flicks a few peanuts lightly across the counter, while I take the stool beside him. “Aaron?”

  He sighs and looks across at me. “It’s not me.”

  “What?” Surely, he’s not saying what I think he’s saying? I’d wanted to break it to him nicely, not like this.

  “You’ve chosen Nate.”

  I nod, ignoring the beeping that hovers in the background. “I’m sorry.”

  “No.” He swings his chair, facing me. “It was my fault. I made too many mistakes, pushing you away, testing you, sleeping with Johanna after I insisted on the date to the park with Nathaniel.”

  “Yeah, that last one didn’t help.” And it’s true. I will never forget it.

  He grunts sharply. “That was the beginning of the end, wasn’t it?”

  “Um… Pretty much.”

  He nods. The silence turns painful. I swivel towards the stage as the band starts a traditional Irish tune.’ My gaze shifts to my friends at the lounge area. Nathaniel is gone.

  “What about Ardent Strangers?” Aaron asks. “Are you in or out?”

  “In.” I sniff back a tear. “If you’ll still…” have me.

  “Alright.” He drums the counter. “What about your boxes? They’re already packed and ready to move into my house. We’ve already given notice to your landlord…”

  Oh. I’d forgotten all about that. “I can find somewhere else.”

  He gives me a dark look. “Or you could stay with me like we’d planned. You need as much protection as you can, considering everything…” His smile tightens. “Or you might prefer to stay with Nathaniel…”

  This is awkward. “A little presumptive on that last part, but I’ll think about your offer.”

  He inhales deeply, as if it takes everything within him to look at me. “I’ll need the list back.”

  “Oh. Sure. The list.” I open my bag, barely managing to retrieve my purse, but as I extract his list my vision blurs with tears. I pass the list into his waiting hand.

  Jaw grinding, he begins to unfold the paper.

  Agh! Nathaniel’s amendment!

  “Stop!” I hiss. “Don’t open that!”

  Aaron gives me a surly look. “Why?”

  “Um… I kind of told Nathaniel that I saw his list. He wanted to see it. He might have written something on it, too.”

  “Nathaniel made an amendment?”

  I wince. “Yes?”

  Much to my chagrin, Aaron unfolds the paper, purposely keeping the blank side of the page in my direction as he reads.

  “That conniving little…” he grunts.

  I gasp as he aligns the first third of the paper over the counter’s edge and rips the page. I gasp again as he proceeds to rip it into another third. He folds the middle third and passes it back to me. I am dumbfounded, completely dumbfounded.

  “Keep that in your purse until Nate says otherwise.”

  I nod, wondering why he would care about keeping Nate’s amendment safe. Given that I’ve just betrayed Aaron, it would be easier for him to rip Nate’s list to shreds. Why he doesn’t, I have no idea.

  “Are you curious as to what I wrote?” he asks.

  I nod, but truthfully, I’m scared to read it. I fear that it’s going to hurt me almost as much as it hurts him. He selects one of the ripped thirds and folds the last inch of paper underneath. I take the list with trembling hands:

  Wish List for the Future, by Aaron Jack Randall, age 16.

  1. Be a singer/guitarist in an international rock band.

  2. Be in a band with Damien and Nate.

  3. Work for MI6

  4. Make corporeal in Special Boating Service by age 27.

  5. Marry dream girl, whoever she is. — Evangeline.

  I think my heart has stopped beating. I feel faint. Breathless. Like I’ve been kicked in the gut. Aaron wrote this less than a week after we met. All that time we’ve been waiting and he’s been planning to propose! Now he’s proposing for real.

  After he cheated on me.

  I look up from the list and find Aaron half smiling. It’s a wistful smile, hopeful.

  Oh no.

  I smile weakly.

  “Is that a yes?” he asks.

  Lost for words, I shake my head, but inside I’m questioning everything.

  “Then you should unfold the paper in your hand,” he says.

  I frown at the curious request, but do as suggested. I recognize Nathaniel’s writing from his card at the park, but this time his message is loud and clear:

  ‘Don’t marry him, angel. Please.’

  Nathaniel’s plea hits me right in the heart, even more so when Aaron says, “You realize Nate will probably never give you children.”

  That’s an extremely personal thing to reveal about somebody, and I’m offended that Aaron would say that.

  “I could give you that dream, Evangeline. Just say yes.”

  I clasp his arm. “I can’t. Sorry.”

  “You’d give up children for Nathaniel?”

  “Yes.”

  He nods in understanding. “Then you and Nate have my blessing.”

  “We do?”

  “You might think I’m giving up easily, but Nate is as good as my brother. I’ve never seen him this happy. If Damien was alive today he would never have believed that this was the same moody bastard we’ve known our entire lives. Nate just needed you, and how can I deny him that? And, truth be told, I knew you loved him more. I guess that’s why I’m letting you go.”

  “You are?”

  Have I always loved Nathaniel more? In the beginning it had been him, without a doubt. The contract stripped that hope away.

  The night I was with Aaron, I think I’d been torn between them. Aaron might have been winning. Then that fight happened at the studio, followed by Aaron cheating. Everything changed. Having the chance to know Nathaniel has reaffirmed everything I’d felt that night of the bridge. It feels right, as if I’ve known him days, months, years.

  “You might want to take this, Az,” Brewster says, slipping a phone into Aaron’s hand.

  Aaron sighs impatiently and takes the call. “Yep.” He grunts several more times to the person on the other end, disconnects, and passes Brewster the phone. They share a brief look, but mostly Aaron looks bored.

  Once Brewster has backed away a few feet, I whisper, “Aaron, are you okay?”

  He pushes the heels of his hands against the counter. “No, Eve. Not really.”

  I jump in my seat as two tinted glass balls drop out of the air and onto the counter, barely a thud between them. Their cellophane-like wings furl over the balls’ surfaces and the tiny red lights die inside. My mouth drops. Les Papillons. And not one, but two! How long have they been following us? Those drones could have filmed this entire conversation!

  And the beeping has stopped…

  I touch the angel wings at the base of my throat. Oh no. I should have realized what that beep was, and
it had been beeping when I was kissing Nathaniel!

  Aaron snatches up the two butterfly drones and grabs my handbag, slipping the prototypes inside before zipping them back up. He doesn’t seem surprised by their sudden appearance, and I’m guessing he had forewarning by way of that phone call.

  “Nathaniel called,” Aaron says. “Now that the drones have been deactivated I can tell you—”

  “What?” I breathe.

  “Somebody has been filming us the past few minutes. Most likely Laura.”

  A shiver passes through me. “Laura?”

  He takes hold of my arm. “We need to leave. Now.”

  Reprogramming

  The agents descend upon me at once. Brewster and Aaron pull me from the barstool and run me through the path that Hunt and Viv are clearing for us. I’m ushered into the first of two idling cars, where Nathaniel slams his laptop shut and draws me to him. I’m too stunned by the rush of things to realize why he’s leaning over me until I hear the click of my seatbelt as he straps me in. Aaron tumbles onto the seats opposite, followed by Viv who slams the door. The engine revs hard and Hamada takes off down the street.

  “Where’s Brewster and Hunt?” I say, panicking. “And what about my friends?”

  Nathaniel curls me into his side. “Brewster is escorting your friends home as we speak. As for the rest, Hunt will have it under control soon enough. It will be fine, I promise.”

  I’m not so sure about that.

  A quick pit-stop home to pack our overnight bags and Aaron and I are back in Nathaniel’s car, driving away from the city lights and towards his home in the hills.

  “Are you going to tell her, or should I?” Aaron says.

  Nathaniel peers down at me, and there’s no question that he’s nervous. “Eve, I wish I didn’t have to say this, but before I deactivated the drones you were being filmed by either Laura or whoever she sold the prototypes to.”

  That nauseous feeling I’d experienced after the hate mail returns. “Aaron mentioned that. But you took over their command, didn’t you?”

  He looks ill as he nods.

  Crap. “How much of our conversation did you see?”

  “Ah, that would be all of it.”

  Crap.

  “And Aaron, what the hell?” Nathaniel says. “You slept with Johanna after giving Eve an ultimatum to meet me at Haven Park?”

  Anger floods Aaron’s face. “What do you care? My mistakes only helped Eve’s decision to pick you a whole lot easier. I did you a favor.”

  Oh, good lord, this is horrible. And possibly true.

  “Yeah, well it was a shite thing to do,” says Nathaniel.

  Viv sends Aaron a dark look. “You did that?”

  Aaron grunts. “Eve knows I’m sorry.”

  I do. Kind of. He did write me a letter of apology, and flowers, but still…

  “Is that so?” Nathaniel says. “Well, now the whole world knows, too.” Aaron and I freeze with dread, but Nathaniel continues on, “That last conversation at the bar, it’s now streaming all over the internet, courtesy of whoever used those prototypes. I’ve still got my people trying to take it down.”

  “What?” I breathe. The whole world has seen Aaron’s proposal! And I’d rejected him. Poor Aaron. Poor me. And what must Nathaniel think now he’s watched it?

  Nathaniel clears his throat. “That’s not all. There was a third drone.” He picks up a prototype from his computer desk. “I was its target, and there’s still another three stolen prototypes unaccounted for, which means that we all need to watch our backs.”

  “Christ,” Aaron snarls. “Laura could have been using those drones for who knows how long. There could be reams of footage still to air on the web. She could make a whole bloody miniseries out of it.”

  Okay, this is scary.

  Nathaniel shakes his head. “Not possible. I’ve had an alert on my watch and phone all week, and tonight’s the first time Le Papillon has been triggered.” He turns to me. “You never heard any alarm coming from your necklace?”

  “Um…” Now I feel like a fool. “I might have. I heard beeping now and then, but it was pretty faint over the music. There was kind of a lot going on. I assumed it was coming from somewhere else. If only I’d—”

  “Eve, it’s fine. I think my watch had been vibrating some time before I noticed, too.” He whispers in my ear, “I was also somewhat distracted, if you remember?”

  I blush, recalling that moment with complete clarity—Nathaniel kissing me in the shadows…

  My phone chimes and I go to answer it, but Nathaniel snatches it out of my hand.

  “What the…?” I try to snatch it back. I’m shocked when he tosses it behind him.

  “Eve, please, I’m begging you, let me keep your phone for the moment, or at least until morning.”

  “Why…?”

  “Why? Because that wish list I amended,” he winces, “well, it’s now been viewed by millions of people.”

  What? The world knows what Nathaniel wrote before I do?

  “It can’t be that bad, can it?” I reach for my purse. “I could open it now… It’s right here.”

  “Not yet!” He takes my other hand, pleading with me any way he can.

  “Having regrets about your amendment, bro?” Aaron laughs.

  Nathaniel’s gaze narrows. “Are you?”

  “Nate!” I snap.

  Aaron grunts, then nods. “Fair call.”

  I look between them both. What is on that wish list?!

  “In the morning, I promise,” says Nate, squeezing my hand before letting go.

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” I say.

  Nathaniel laughs. “I bet you will.”

  “No offence, but you three are weird,” says Viv.

  Aaron grunts, while all I can do is laugh. Nathaniel has returned to his laptop, typing one-handed in a programming language I could never comprehend. His arm relaxes around my shoulder, probably unaware that its even there. He’s glued to that screen even as we arrive at his estate and its twisty driveway that ascends through the forest, Victorian lampposts lighting the way. I never gauge the grandeur of the house; there are only a few lights by the entrance and nothing more.

  The second we leave the car Nathaniel rushes me inside, Aaron hitching our bags over his shoulders, while I cling to my violin case. Viv shuts the front door behind us, scanning the entrance hall with its abstract paintings and collections of charcoal landscapes. She’s not looking at the art. I suspect she’s searching for more butterfly drones. The thought makes me glance around, too. What if one of the remaining prototypes has followed us home?

  I turn to Nathaniel, but he’s already a step ahead as he taps the remote for Le Papillon. Once he gives us the all clear, he snatches up my hand and leads me through the house and its expanse of glossy floorboards. I barely have time to appreciate the décor or its beams of polished oak bracing the ceiling and the entrances, or the smell of fresh timber that flows from room to room. I breathe it in—it has Nathaniel written all over it.

  In the living area, two walls of windows span the entire two floors, the shadowy outlines of the forest swaying behind the glass. A massive metal sculpture is suspended from the ceiling, shaped into a disc of twisted aluminum the size of a truck tyre. Jagged teeth surround its inner circumference, with two long copper coils in the middle. I stare at it a moment longer—it’s unusual, interesting—but I haven’t a clue what it’s supposed to be.

  The room is warm and spacious, and I immediately feel at home at the sight of the black grand piano sitting majestically in the corner window. In the corner opposite, soft rugs and sofas sit between an open fire-place, calling to me as Nathaniel leads me up the staircase. I glance back longingly, only to see Aaron and Viv halt all conversation. Whatever they were speaking of it wasn’t for me to hear.

  We step onto the first-floor landing. The doors to Nathaniel’s study are wide open and an ornate desk takes center stage, another fireplace flaming behind it.
I have to say it looks as inviting as the room down stairs. Nathaniel must think the same, because he ducks into the room and works quickly to unpack his laptop on a small table by his club chair.

  Maybe he’s not coming back. Maybe I should find my own room. Maybe I’ll wait a minute first.

  I cling to the balustrade and look to my left. Downlights shine over the light and dark timbers of the landing, which lead off to at least another ten doors. Surely, there has to be a guest room in here somewhere.

  With a sigh, I peer down to the living room below, contemplating one of those sofas by the fireplace. I’m exhausted. Then I see why. The metal sculpture might be suspended some distance away but now that it’s at eyelevel the coiled dials tell me it’s one in the morning.

  I’ve got rehearsals in the afternoon! I have to sing! I’m going to sound hideous.

  “This way, Eve,” Aaron says behind me.

  I follow him to the room closest to the study. Viv, who is already entering her room a few doors up, sends Aaron a strange look, then mouths something to him before walking inside. Aaron grunts softly before entering my room, and I curse that lip-reading thing they’ve got going on.

  “You’ll be alright here?” He places my bag on the floor and turns to leave.

  I stop him at the door. “Az, thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “Everything.” For still being here, even though I’ve changed us.

  I reach up and kiss him on the cheek. Part of me misses him.

  “Night, Eve.” His smile is only there a second before he closes the door.

  The sadness flows upon me like a ship stranded at the bottom of the sea. I throw my handbag onto the table, cursing as my purse slips out onto the floorboards. I’m about to put it away when the zip stares at me, daring me to peek inside. How easy it would be to pull out Nathaniel’s list and discover its secrets. It would only take seconds to read.

  Taking a deep breath, I open the zip and tug the aged paper from the purse. I run my fingers over the torn edges, then remember why they are ripped. I’d rejected Aaron. I don’t know how many times I keep reminding myself of that fact. Maybe because it could have been a sweet moment for us, life-altering, if I’d only said yes.