Destiny Revealed (3 page)

Monday morning, it was back to the reality of school.
The whole lunchroom was abuzz with chatter about how
awesome the prom was. “Next up, grad night,” Nat said
cheerfully.

“It’s still three weeks away,” I said.
“I know, but I’m so ready for it to be over.” She leaned
over and whispered in my ear, “We have
a lot
to talk about
after school.”
I raised my left eyebrow at her, “We do?”
“It’s not what you think, but still,” she grinned.
“Ditto that,” Dash agreed with Nat. “I’m ready to be
done!”
“Does anyone know what they’re planning?” I asked.
“Not sure, but I don’t think they’ll be able to outdo
prom,” Nat said.
“I don’t think there’s a specific theme,” Rene said. “I
heard from Lindsey Manning in my calculus class that
there’s going to be a bounce house.”
“Shut.Up,” Nat said. “I think they might top prom after
all.”
“I am so all over that,” Dash grinned. “So, Lindsey
huh? What happened to Yvette?”
“Lindsey is on the committee and a complete blabber
mouth. I’m not hooking up with her. I’m not sure where
this thing with Yvette will go.” No one asked any more
questions. I was beginning to think Rene was as bad as
Dash once had been with the ladies.
After art, Nat and I went to my place like usual. “So,
tell me!” I said excitedly as we got in my Mustang.
“Welll,” she dragged out the word.
“Just talk already!” I knew she was doing it on purpose.
“Okay, so it almost happened,” she grinned.
“As in ‘it’ it?” I was pretty shocked. She just nodded.
“Um, details please.”
“Well, he was dropping me off, and since my parents
are gone for the weekend, I asked if he wanted to come in.
Actually, more like I dragged him. I told him I needed to
change and for him to relax and take his jacket off.”
“Oh no. What did you change into?” I interrupted,
thinking the worst.
“I just had a tank and shorts on. Not like I was gonna
come out in my underwear. Sheesh. Anyway, I snuggled
into him on the couch. He had the TV on, but when he saw
me, he turned it off. I couldn’t believe it. He leaned over
and started kissing me. Like really kissing me. Like Nick
and Sofia kissing.” I grinned with her. “At some point, he
pushed me over and rolled on top of me.”
“Shut.Up. Jack?
Our
Jack?”
She nodded. “It got pretty intense. He actually lifted me
off the couch and took me to my bedroom.”
“Holy hell!” I shouted. “So, did you?”
“No,” she answered. “But we came really close. Like
really
close.”
“So, what happened?”
“Well, actually, I was the one who stopped it,” she
admitted.
“Wait,
you?
But I thought you’ve wanted to for like
ever.”
“Yeah, but when it came right down to it, I remembered
what you said. It’s like I heard your stupid voice in my
head telling me to wait. Jack was actually really sorry and
kinda seemed shocked with himself. You said it wouldn’t
be the same in the heat of the moment. So girl, you better
be right.”
“I’m right. Even Nick said last night that he was glad
we waited. That it meant more that way,” I said.
She laughed. “He is such a girl.” I busted up laughing
as I pulled into my regular parking spot and got out. “What
did I say?”
“I said the exact same thing to him last night. But I also
told him how much I love that about him. He’s romantic.”
“Anyway, that’s not really the biggest news yet,” Nat
said as I unlocked my apartment door.
“What? There’s more? Nothing can be bigger than
that.” We both plopped down on the yellow sofa.
Nat squealed, “He asked if I wanted to be bound to
him!”
“Shut-the-front-door,” I was completely shocked. It
didn’t sound like Jack at all. After all, Nat was the one who
had to ask him out to begin with and even initiate their first
kiss. “He did not.” My eyes were wide.
She nodded. “He did.”
“It wasn’t like right after you stopped him, was it?
Because if he just did it so you could do the deed, then
that’s just crappy.”
“No, he didn’t. Neither one of us wanted him to leave.
So after we got dressed—”
“Wait, what?! You never said anything about being
undressed!” I interrupted.
“Well, I just mean like in our underwear. But anywho,
let me finish. So, we went back out to the living room to
watch a movie. He seemed to be a little distant and I was
worried. About halfway through the movie, he turned to me
and said, ‘What would you think about being bound to me,
Nathalie?’ I was stunned. I said, ‘Are you asking because
you want to do it? Because if so, that was pretty lame.’ He
shook his head at himself and tried again. He asked if I
wanted to be bound to him after graduation,” she finished.
“And?” I asked. “You said yes, right?”
“Of course dummy. OMG, Sof. I never thought I would
see this day. Do you think my parents will think we’re too
young?” she worried.
“If so, you can call them hypocrites. All our parents
were young and like right out of high school when they
were bound. When you know, you just know,” I finished.
“So, do you have a day planned yet?”
“Not exactly. We figured a couple weeks after
graduation some time.”
“This is so awesome! Where are you going to do it?
Who’s invited?” I rambled.
“We were thinking my backyard. It’s big enough to
hold everyone. I thought we should include everyone from
our new group. It feels right, you know? And of course
your parents, but probably none of the others. We don’t
really know everyone else.”
“Jack is okay with Dash coming?” I joked.
“Yes, even Dash is invited,” she laughed.
“Well, that sounds great. Do you think you can hold out
that long after last night?” I asked.
“Yeah. It feels right this way. Oh, Sof, I’ve never been
so happy,” she said as she hugged me tightly. We made a
few plans after that, both of us too excited to do any
homework.
It was going to be slightly fancier than my bonding with
Nick. Our ceremony was rushed with just Mamma, Luca,
and Nat because we wanted to bring our families together
as soon as possible. Nat thought about some different
flowers for her hair and around the altar. That was another
thing we would have to figure out. Nick and I used the
natural rock altar out in the woods behind my house.
“Do you think we can get the altar from your mamma’s
store all the way to my backyard?” she asked as the front
door opened.
“Get what to your backyard?” Nick said from the
doorway.
“Why are you always catching the end of our
conversation?” Nat complained. There had been a time
when Ky was the one who walked up during our secret
conversations and I frowned at the memory.
“Sorry,” Nick said. “You’re always talking about
something interesting when I get home.”
“Do you want to tell him, Nat?” I asked.
“Okay, now you have to tell me,” Nick grinned as he
snuggled next to me on the couch.
“Jack and I are getting bound a couple weeks after
graduation,” Nat answered.
“No way, Nathalie. That’s great,” Nick smiled at her.
“Congrats. What brought this on? Is it because it’s what all
the cool kids are doing?”
She smiled at his joke, but didn’t want to go into detail,
so she just said, “He asked me last night at my house after
prom. I know we’re young and haven’t been dating that
long, but heck, you guys knew each other for five seconds
before you got hitched.”
“Hey, you won’t get any argument from me,” Nick said.
“Though, it was probably more like sixty seconds.” She
smiled.
“So, we were just talking about whether we could move
the altar from the store or not,” Nat said.
“Aren’t you going to use the one in the woods?” he
asked.
“No, we’re going to do it in my backyard.”
“To answer your question, I know a few pretty buff
werewolves that could probably help with the heavy
lifting,” I grinned at Nick.
Nick flexed and Nat laughed hard. “Well, I’m going to
go find Jack and leave you guys alone to do whatever it is
you do when I’m not here.”
“Usually homework or a movie, or sometimes the
pool,” I said. “But today, it will be reading more of
Mamma’s book.”
“Homework?” she snorted. “Yeah right. How’s the
book going anyway?” Nat asked from the doorway.
“Slow, but interesting. Well, give Jack my congrats,” I
said. She nodded and left. Nick kissed me hello, but I
turned away before it got too intense. I really wanted to
focus on the book to see if I could find out anything about
us.
“Is something wrong, Bella Mia?” Nick asked with a
frown.
“Of course not. I just want to dig through this book
some more. I have zero patience, and now that I have a
goal, I want to finish this. I have a feeling it’s going to take
a couple of weeks.” He smiled, kissed me on the forehead,
and pulled out his laptop to catch up on homework.
About an hour later, Nick got up off the sofa to make
dinner. I heard him banging around in the kitchen, but kept
my focus on the book. “You do know you’re the best
husband in the world, right?” I asked without looking up.
“Did you just call me your husband?” Nick stopped
what he was doing and looked over at me.
I smiled over at him. “Yep. I’m starting to get used to
the word, and I kinda like it.” I laid the book down on the
coffee table, putting a bookmark in the spot I was working
on before closing it. I walked over to him in the kitchen and
wrapped my arms around his waist as he threw some
ingredients into a pot on the stove.
“And why am I the best
husband
?” he emphasized the
word.
“Because you make dinner for me,” I answered.
“Anything for my Sofia,” he said as he turned around to
face me. He planted a soft kiss on my nose. “Now, stop
distracting the cook with your beauty, or I will carry you
off to the bedroom and the food will burn.”
I let go and sat on the counter across from him. “What
are you making anyway? It smells fabulous.”
“Spaghetti,” he answered. “Mamma’s sauce.”
“Mmm… she makes the best sauce. But if you tell my
mamma, I’ll kill you.”
He turned to look at me. “And I know you’re strong
enough to do that, so your secret is safe with me.” I
laughed. I sat and watched him as he continued to put
everything together.
We started a movie while the sauce simmered. I was
done looking at the book for the night. My eyes could only
handle so much small, elegant script in Italian. “So, how far
did you get?” Nick asked.
“Only like another five years. There seems to be a lot
more information as time moves on. It gets more detailed,”
I answered. “This is going to take forever.”
“My offer to help read still stands,” Nick reminded me.
I nodded. “I think the sauce is ready.”
We ate dinner in front of the TV and went to bed right
after the movie. My eyes were tired from all the reading
and I couldn’t keep them open any longer.

The end of the school year was flying by. I couldn’t
work on Nonna’s book very much because I had a ten page
research paper due by the end of the week and had
procrastinated too long. It was the final assignment of the
year for my European history class.

“What’s your topic anyway?” Nick asked one night. He
sat beside me watching TV as I typed away on my laptop.
“The witch hunts of early modern Europe,” I answered.
“Haha,” he laughed out loud.
I looked up at him. “What? I thought it would be easyish,” I shrugged.
“Don’t you think you have an unfair advantage?”
“No, it’s not like I was there or anything. I still have to
research it,” I answered.
“Okay, I guess you’re right. You should include the
story of how Adelina turned Henri over to the church,” he
joked.
I just rolled my eyes at him. “Yeah, that’d go over well.
My teacher would think I was crazy.”
“You don’t have to mention that she was a were and he
was an actual witch. But it might be cool to claim that they
were in your family line or something so you know their
personal story,” he said.
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” I mused. “It would add
something cool to the paper. Not so boring.”
“How much do you have left? Isn’t it due in a couple
days?”
“Yeah, Friday. It’s almost done. I still have like three
more pages, but I’ll get it done in time,” I assured him. I
decided to be done for the night. Between reading the
family book and research on my laptop, my eyes were
seriously drying out and I had to use eyedrops every night.
“Don’t you have any final stuff?” I asked.
“I didn’t take any AP classes, love. I don’t have a death
wish like you. I just have exams.”
“You suck,” I frowned. “And I don’t have a death wish.
I just wanted to get some college credits out of the way. By
the way, are you going to the university in the fall?” We
hadn’t talked about our future school plans yet. For over a
month we just lived every moment to its fullest. I was still
worried that at any moment, Nick would be taken away
from me. It was silly, but I couldn’t shake the feeling.
“Well, I hadn’t planned on it. Babbo wants me to come
work at the restaurant full-time, so I never really thought
about it. But… I guess you want to?”
“I think I do. I mean, I’ve been accepted. I was
planning on it, but…” I started.
“But, what? You should go. You’re too much of a
smarty pants not to,” he grinned.
“Does it sound extremely lame that I don’t want to
spend time away from you?” I asked.
“Oh, Sofia,” Nick said as he pulled me to him. He
wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head.
“I don’t like to be apart from you either. But I want you to
live the life you wanted before we found each other. Just
include me in your future plans.”
“Always,” I mumbled into his chest.
“But please don’t meet some hot college guy and run
away with him.”
I pulled back and looked at him like he was an idiot.
“Are you for reals right now? Because I’m the one who
proposed, remember?”
He laughed at me. “I love when you say ‘for reals’,” he
said as he kissed me softly on the mouth.
“Let’s go to bed. I really need to close my eyes,” I said.

I finished my paper the next night after school and
finally had enough time to look at Nonna’s book again. I
made it through another two years that night, but still came
up empty on information that might explain our connection.