Page 49 of Up In Flames

“Already forgotten.” I pause and look back to where Mari sits with Nicholas on their front stoop. He’s drawing something with chalk, and she’s pretending to find it fascinating. It’s probably a fire truck. When I look back at Sampson, he wears a melted expression. “What?”

He shrugs. “Just thinking that Mari is a good mother to Nicholas. He’s a great kid. Interesting. Smart. I can’t believe his father left him. I’d never do that.”

The fierceness in his tone unravels me. I lean into his leg and look up at him. “You’re going to make an awesome father one day.”

I expect him to smile back, or maybe kiss me again. Instead, he slowly draws himself taller. Straighter. And frowns. “That’s the second time you’ve given me the same compliment in the space of a couple of days. Is there something I should know about?”

“Like the secret child I have stashed under the stairway?”

“Maybe.”

I quirk my head to look at him, but I can’t figure out what he’s getting at. “I don’t have a child.”

He stares at his feet, the branches on the tree, then over my head, before he nods and meets my gaze again. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I get the idea that you want to create a new family to replace the one you’ve lost… maybe one that finally puts you at the center?” His voice is very soft, but that doesn’t steal the sting from his suggestion.

“I loved my parents,” I object. “I was their center.”

“And they loved you, I’m sure. But?”

And there he goes, getting to the heart of what I don’t even know I’m thinking, but now that he’s said it, I feel it like a dark core in the middle of who I am. “But… yeah, okay, maybe I wasn’t exactly the center. I guess my family was a tad dysfunctional, what with my parents cheating on each other.”

“I won’t cheat on you.” His voice is very calm, very centered, very controlled.

And it does exactly what he means it to do. It stabilizes me. “Okay.”

“And I won’t be cheated on.”

I nod. It seems like we’re making promises to each other, here on the street, that should better be saved for five months of dating, but I feel relief at clearing the matter up so quickly.

“And social drinking is okay, but I can’t stay with you if you get drunk.” The words pour out of me. I don’t even know I’m going to say them until they’re in the air.

“I get that. Because your mother drank herself to death after your father died?”

“Yeah. Because of that,” I say softly, pushing aside the memories. It still hurts. I didn’t even realize how much until he just said the words. “You’re perceptive.”

“I’ve had some practice. Comes from being set apart from the community even while I’m in it. I’m always looking in, studying people. I’ve figured out what makes individuals tick.”

“Oh, Sammy.” Just like that, my heart breaks for him. Again. He’s so handsome, strong, capable, wise, and sweet that it’s easy to overlook how he must have always felt different. “Because you’re so tall?”

“That, but I’ve always felt… unusual. I guess now we know why, what with the Nephilim thing.” He looks into the distance rather than at me. His body tenses. “I don’t want to say this next part, but I think I have to. Now. Before you move in with me.”

I grab his arm. “Sampson Dean, if you’re going to tell me you’ve changed your mind…”

“No.” He feathers my hair from my face with his gigantic fingers. “I want you to live with me. I want a relationship with you, but when you mentioned me being a father… I don’t think that’s going to work for me, now that we know what I am?”

But there’s a question in his voice, as if he wants me to argue him out of his decision.

But there’s too much to unpack, and Mari and Nicholas are standing on their front porch now, staring at us, wondering why we’re not moving.

“Come on. We can talk about it later.”

Which must be the worst thing I can say to him, because he disengages, and after putting me into the passenger seat, he stalks over to the driver’s side of the pickup truck. Neither of us says a word as he starts the engine, sets it into drive, and begins rolling. I wave again to my neighbors, my heart heavy. The mood between us has changed.

Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.

“When I found out I might not be completely human, I knew what it would mean,” he says suddenly, turning the corner to head into the heart of town. “Any child I create will be Nephilim, too. Not human.”

“But more human than you, if that’s what you think is important. That’s how biology works,” I argue.