âI had better be first,â Mom said, feigning offense; but her eyebrows twitched in that very specific way that Nickel sensed, if it couldnât be dodged or distracted from, sheâd shift the conversation back to the burns from fidchell. She was still thinking about it. Sheâd obsess over it, even as she made a show of backing off, of giving him space. He knew his human mother loved him, but no one really trusted that Nick would actually take care of himself. He tried to follow the thread to the worst case scenario, planning his next move.
âWhere else would you be, Mom?â Nick said. He reached over and touched her wrist. She caught his fingers and squeezed, very lightly. Her plain white gold wedding band pressed against his knuckles. He resembled them both, in a superficial wayâtall, dark-haired, paleâbut Momâs hand looked very delicate, placed upon his. Nickel imagined one or both of his biological fey parents as the kind of broad-shouldered bruisers that might get sent out to make people nervous. Heâd be a lowkey disappointment to them too, probably.
âYou could meet me there.â Nick countered the next topic easily, turning back to Benji. Productivity was relative. From a certain angle, Nickel had no free time at all. âAnd we could go somewhere else afterward. I work weird bar hours. And I donât know, maybe youâll get lucky, meet Lorde.â
âWhoâs that?â Mom asked.
âA singer,â Nickel supplied. âSheâs famous.â
âOh.â Mom put special emphasis on that, trying to sound impressed while clueless.
He couldnât explain it, but Nickâs hand in his motherâs spread something warm and soothing through Benjiâs veins. It was... different than his experience watching Nick and their father interact. Much.Â
Oddly, though Benji had always been closest with Mother, Nickâs relationship with her never bothered him or made him uncomfortable the way his relationship with their father did. Or perhaps that part wasnât the odd bit. Perhaps the odd bit was how Benji often felt about Nick and James Dalton.Â
Yes, half the time they were fighting or narrowly avoiding fightingâbut growing up, Nick had always been the pride and joy of their fatherâs most grandiose wishes. And even when Nick had long since dropped the ball (and begun chucking it around like a football, careless and apathetic about their familyâs reputation and expectations) Benji had been unable to be visible to his father the way heâd hoped to be. The burden of holding up the family name had fallen to his shoulders, and heâd done well and continues to do well. And his father had supported him financially, and with the occasional, somewhat empty words of encouragement.Â
But Benji knew that there was a part of his father who would always be holding out hope that Nick would return to become the man James had always hoped him to be. That one day, Benji wouldnât have to be his only hope, because Nick would come to his senses and everything would go back to the way it should be.Â
Benji loved his father. And respected him. And their relationship was more or less decent. Neither outstandingly good, nor particularly bad. But he would never feel with him what Nick had, at one time, and vice versa.Â
So yes, seeing Nickâs touch go almost gentle, sentimental with their motherâperhaps it reminded Benji that Nick was more in tune with his integrity than he sometimes cared to admit. Reminded him that Nicholas Dalton was still a good man, for he loved his mother and would always be true to her.Â
It was one of the many, many reasons Benji liked these brunches.Â
Benji was pulled from his thoughts not so much when Nick redirected his attention to his brother, but when he said the words âsheâs a singerâ to their mother. Mother sounded intrigued in a sort of sweet and superficial way, but Benji would have suddenly stilled, were it possible for him to be even more still than he had been a moment ago, sitting there deep in thought.Â
As it stood, his muscles almost tightened, on the verge of springing to attention, and though he barely moved an inch, his chin lifted and his eyes cut up to Nick. Carved around the side of an immaculately cut jaw, peppered with shadow and a bare bit of scruff, until Nick had turned his gaze back to Benji, expectantly.Â
But perhaps not expecting Benjiâs reaction, specifically. âA singer?â His heart felt like butterflies under his ribcage. Something completely unknown was waving a tiny, nondescript red flag, and somewhere, something else totally indiscernible was falling into place.Â
Benji knew the name Lorde, of course. He wasnât particularly up with celebrity status, but neither did he live under a rock. Wellâmaybe a small one. But... a singer at the Rookery. Lorde. Larkspur. Had sheâcould she... ?
He felt fogged, confused, as the series of his instances of following a voice into the Rookery, and meeting Lark, rattled through his head like a freight train. âLorde? Does sheâdoes she frequent there or something?â
It occurred to him that it might look to Nick like Benji was uncharacteristically interested in meeting some celebrity, which he may either pick up on as an amusing guilty pleasure on Benjiâs behalf, or otherwise a cover for something less simple, but no more sophisticated. Or perhaps he wouldnât think twice on it at all. Either way, Benji was already preparing himself for the questions that might be coming back his way in a few minutes. Figuring out which truths to tell, which lies might make things simplest.Â
But did he have to lie? What was even giving him the compulsion to do so? It was nothing, in any case. Nothing had happened, whatsoever. So why did he feel oddly secretive about the whole thing? Like heâd been committing some kind of... taboo, unnatural thing, listening to this voice, letting it influence him, invade his thoughts. Move his feet in directions he hadnât intended on going, as if touched by dark magic, or something maybe less sinisterâbut either way, not something Benji had ever believed in.Â
