Chapter 29
On the day of the momentous meeting Kenzi was full of excitement with a hefty dose of apprehension thrown in. Not that she really expected Dyson to snack on her boy-friend or saw any reasons for the two men not to like each other, it was just a butterfly-ish churning in the pit of her stomach that made her double-check the time and the place and the guys' willingness to finally meet. She totally unnerved herself over choosing a suitable outfit and went to the length of composing a mental list of conversation points conducive to male bonding. With Dyson she went through a plea for lenience, interspersed with threats of shaving his beard off in his sleep if he mucked up the introductive meeting whereas with Nate she arranged it to meet a couple of minutes before and a block away from the small restaurant they were going to. Her hidden agenda was to brief him on her "uncle's" little peculiarities and topics to steer clear off, which she delivered in a deliberately opaque manner. Nate, on the other hand, was cheerful optimism incarnate. He laughed off Kenzi's stammering warnings and instructions and assured her that he was going to do hid utmost to pass the interview for the job of being her boy-friend.
The place chosen for the meeting was the most human venue Dyson had managed to come up with, smart enough to lend the occasion proper gravity and not nearly pompous enough to induce excessive standing on ceremony. When they arrived Dyson was already stationed at their table and occupied himself with a phone chat with Hale who was dying for a lowdown on Kenzi's sweetheart. "So far all I can tell you is the boy is a musician," the wolf recounted leaning leisurely back in his chair and sweeping the roomful of humans with an indifferent look, "not the most respectable of professions, if you ask me."
"Admit it, you can't help being prejudiced," Hale replied, "Nobody is good enough for your precious girl. I myself as sophisticated and exquisite as I am would think twice before taking a shot.."
"Two wise ideas within the space of a minute. She is precious and nobody is good enough, definitely not a player of a siren with a questionable track record in the ladies' department," the shifter grunted, "So, no taking any shots on Kenzi if you put any value on your nature-given physical implement of procreation."
"Anyway, at the times I started wooing girls travelling musicians were tattered, unwashed and held in low esteem," the wolf reminisced not without melancholy.
"When you say wooing you definitely sound your real age," Hale taunted, "At our times musicians are idolized, desired by young girls and incomparably better aid than a police detective." Dyson did his best to pretend that his partner's last barb failed miserably to dent him and remarked casually, "At least, he doesn't have a record on him, I even ran him with the drugs squad and questioned the neighbours – the guy's squeaky clean and …"
"And here he comes in the flesh," Dyson added spotting the young people at the entrance, "he looks innocuous enough. Ok, I'll get back to you."
"Sure, have fun playing the sententious uncle or play gooseberry," Hale chortled down the line, "while I am starting on a romantic escapade with a beautiful dryad."
"Right!" Dyson muttered to himself, "Hale is playing the field without overly worrying his pretty head whereas I am constantly caught up in an emotional imbroglio and now have to pretend I like Kenzi's suitor. Or worse really like him."
Kenzi sat down in a chair next to Dyson's while the men exchanged a handshake. With a slight amusement she observed Nate's face crinkle momentarily with pain as the wolf crushed his hand in his giving it an over-vigorous squeeze. "How very mature of you, wolfie, to start a prick-wagging contest," she whispered almost inaudibly knowing full well that the fae's super-sensitive ears would pick her words up. Then she made a strategic grab for the menu, which allowed her to occupy her slightly shaky hands with something while simultaneously hiding her blushing face and leaving the men to their own devices.
The maneuver made Dyson grin a who's-been-immature-here smile into his beard. Then the wolf leaned forward and putting his elbows on the table measured the younger man in front of him with a heavy stare. To his credit, Nate refused to be intimidated and counteracted the glare with a sincere smile. "Mr Dyson, I am so glad to meet you at last," he said cheerfully. "Kenzi have told me so much about you."
"I don't think so," Dyson countered evenly but the musician took it in his stride and smiled broadly, "True enough, sir, she hasn't, not much at least, she is not the talkative type. But that little that she did tell me about you was so full of love and respect." The wolf cast a sidelong glance at the menu-barricaded girl to see the tips of her ears exposed by an updo fast approaching the colour of beetroot.
"And the work you do for the society," Nate went on, "I sometimes can't help thinking that I wouldn't be brave enough to be doing something this dangerous and responsible."
"Flattery can get you a long way, kid," Dyson grunted though he had to admit the young man's eager-eyed enthusiasm over meeting his girl-friend's family was rather endearing. "But I suggest not talking about work."
"Right, neither about Dyson's nor about yours, Nate" Kenzi finally butted in, "Dy doesn't know the first thing about modern music, he is hopelessly old-fashioned."
Nate did a quick mental calculation pinning Dyson down for mid-thirties. "Well, they say the best music is the one played at your prom. I adore music of the early nineties. Duran Duran?"
Dyson looked at him blankly not quite catching up with his drift whereas Kenzi peeking from around the thoroughly studied menu was beginning to enjoy herself. "Oh, Dyson's prom," she drawled innocently, "What did they play, uncle?"
"I never graduated," Dyson opted for sticking as close to the truth as possible, "I went straight into the army."
"Wow! You must have seen some real action", Nate suddenly looked like a boy fascinated with his grandpa's military decorations.
"And I don't like talking about that either," the shifter replied snappishly and turned to Kenzi, "Have you finished committing the menu to memory?"
The girl put the piece of plastic down on the table with a sigh and a waitress immediately materialized seemingly out of nowhere to take their orders. Kenzi ordered the amount of food to tide a couple of averagely sized trolls over for a day or two. "When I am nervous I eat a lot," she explained and Dyson couldn't help a chuckle, "Not like you tend to eat any less when you are perfectly calm." Under Dyson's scrutiny Nate shied away from wine he was tempted to choose as a straightened and went for the specialty dish and the wolf himself took his steak raw not without a twinkle in his eye that Kenzi reciprocated by a giggle.
The meet-the-family dinner bounced from languishing silences to bursts of conversation when the trio managed to hit upon a topic they all deemed safe to broach but it wasn't after the desserts that the shifter went on the offensive.
"The aim of this meeting for me in the first place is not to get to know you, Nate, or test your ability to make small talk," he stated bluntly, "I wanted to see the guy my niece is involved with and hear from you about your further intentions."
"Intentions!, Kenzi snorted and whispered to Nate across the table, "I told you he's moth-balls old-fashioned."
"My intentions?" the young man repeated a bit taken aback by the twist in the conversation but nevertheless unwavering about what his heart was telling him. "I love your niece, sir, and she made me a happy man by agreeing to date me. I guess we'll have to take it from there and see how it goes. I mean we're still too young to get married, I have to get my footing job-wise first – music is not exactly a fast-track to easy money - but I can totally see her one day looking marvelous in white."
"Married?" Kenzi squeaked her appetite fading and her throat going dry. Never before had it occurred to her that her relationship with Nate could ever come to the M-word. Even the L-word was still wonky on her tongue. "Who talks about marriage? We are dating," her tone was panicky and her eyes scared.
"Well, sure, Kenz, but that's the way a relationship usually progresses," Nate answered cautiously, surprised by her reaction. "You are not just a girl-friend for me, and though we're not in any hurry one day, when I can afford it, I'd like to get you a ring and call you my fiancée."
Kenzi dropped her eyes unable to meet Nate's searching look, her thoughts were doing a crazy rumba in her conflicted mind. "Why can't I just be happy?" she told herself fidgeting with her fork, "A sweet cure bright guy has just confessed his love and practically mapped out or future together and I am barely tramping down the urge to take to my heels."
Dyson, equally surprised and oddly irritated by the musician's earnestness, smelled rather than saw the first salt of tears in the girl's huge eyes and he swiftly rose to his full height scraping Kenzi's chair back and taking her by the shoulders. "That was nice meeting you, Nate," he said in his deep voice not giving a damp about how inappropriate and out-of-the-blue that sounded, "But we need to go now. I've just remembered we promised to go visit Kenzi's grandpa tonight."
"Kenzi's got a grandpa?!" the young man was genuine surprised, "She has never told me of any relatives beside you."
"Well, you've never told her you had matrimonial plans on her," the wolf countered and maneuvered the stunned girl towards the exit, "Guess, you'll have something to discuss next time you meet, kids. See you around, Nate." Dyson settled the bill on his way out and followed Kenzi who was rapidly unraveling.
"You'd better give it a huge think, babe," he muttered into her ear enveloping the girl into one of their usual comfort hugs "the boy is the real deal, but your feelings to him might be not." Kenzi rose her paled face to him, their breaths mingling for a split second, "I am bomb-shelled, Dy, I just don't know, it's too fast for me…", she rambled. "Then say it to him, you'll have to talk anyway," the wolf gently advised before opening the door of the car for her. They got inside without turning to look back which caused them to miss the sight of Nate standing at the entrance and watching their interaction narrow-eyed and uncomprehending.
Once belted up in the passenger's seat Kenzi fished out a tissue to battle a coming sniffing bout and gave a lop-sided smile. "I was so afraid that one of you was gonna blurt something or you'd hate each other's guts. And ironically I mucked everything up all by myself."
"How many bombshells can a girl take without flinching?" Dyson smiled back, "Especially the girl whose social graces were brought up by an uncouth wolf."
"Speaking about bombshells, I have a Gramps?" Kenzi inquired.
"Don't tell Trick I used him as a retreat excuse," the wolf winked at her starting the engine.
For a while they were immersed in a sticky silence of the unsaid and the unadmitted, which was finally broken by Kenzi. In a very small voice she broke it down for herself as much as for the shifter, "I like Nate very much and he isn't actually rushing me into anything and his intentions are proper and decent and I should be happy to have such a boy-friend. But I guess what he said made me realize that one day I might find myself looking at an impossible choice. If I manage to get myself a family with him, with a human, I'll have to leave the fae behind."
Dyson's frown deepened as he replied weighing his every word up for adequacy, "You might, because you are a human and to go back to your kind will only be natural." Hearing the girl's soft gasp he hurried to add, "That is if you make that choice, if it makes you happy."
"It won't," Kenzi answered simply and there was no hesitation, no doubt in her even voice.
The wolf's heart gave an elated extra beat and he immediately hated himself for such a display of selfish attachment to the human girl. "Give it a rest for now," he grunted, "You are not pressed for on-the-spot decisions. There are might be other ways out if Nate's worth taking them. Allow yourself to be just an ordinary girl dating a nice guy. When the time comes, you'll figure it out."
Later that day Dyson called Hale with a twofold purpose of taking a sweet revenge by disrupting the fickle siren's date and updating him on the events. The siren, though seriously less than happy to be distracted from his dryad yet anxious to be in the loop, came up with a quick verdict, "She doesn't love him enough, at least not enough to leave you and the fae for his sake. She realized that that might be required of her if she let the relationship get into the heavy-commitment stage and panicked."
"I sometimes think that it might be good for her – to return to her world," Dyson started tentatively to be cut short by his partner, "That's bull and you know it. Once you go fae, there is no coming back. Everything she knows, everyone she knows and loves is fae. She is not a socially-adjusted human girl, in her own world she is a lonely outsider with a propensity to strike unconventional friendships."
"I believed Nate when he said he loved her. This boy has a heart, he can help her to re-adjust and find her place, the place I took from her by bringing her into my world" the wolf continued playing the devil's advocate and Hale knew him well enough to twig what his friend was after.
"Doesn't seem like her life would've turned out better without the fae. The girl has issues, she is over imaginative, risky and with a fine set of sticky fingers to boot. Ask her herself what was the best thing that has ever occurred to her and if she is not in a teasing mood, she'll say it's you," Hale gave a long-suffering say as if talking to a particularly obtuse child, "Stop brooding, Dyson, trust her to make her choices."
"Thanks, mate, guess, I just needed to hear it," the wolf replied with a sense of relief. "And sorry to have put you off your bed-room stride."
"My stride is victorious and not to be broken by a shaggy dog-smelling dude suffering from a severe lack of insight into a woman's soul," Hale announced loftily before hanging up.
Meanwhile Kenzi in her room was also doing a fair bit of soul-searching, which didn't culminate in any definitive conclusions. Nevertheless, the girl's restless nature compelled her to grab her cell and, though with a wavering hand and a general sense of acting cowardly and mean, she shot Nate a text. "I'm so sorry, Nate, you don't deserve it, I know, but I need time," she whispered looking at the display that read Message sent.
The test alert signal beeped and Nate stopped strumming his guitar and went to pick it up. The evening didn't turn out the way he had expected it to and the musician was feeling lonely and confused. But when he opened the incoming text threw another emotion into the mix. "Sorry, can't se while. Need to think," he read out in a disbelieving whisper. "What the hell, Kenz!" Nate cried out before smashing his cell against the wall.
