Proven Heart

Forty-one: The Strangers

A week came by and still no news of William’s whereabouts. The wolves that Nathaniel hired weren’t able to finish at least fifty percent of the files, and hiring more wolves would have been a dangerous idea, too.

They needed to keep the situation on the down low unless they wanted a river of fake tips to come and flow down their way, extorting money and making things way harder.

Essentially, the word ‘zilch’ was the most common thing that echoed throughout the week. It also lead her to become visibly less peppy than usual and Nathaniel was adamant about making her feel better.

Despite everything, he still brought her to the date he promised her.

Deep in the heart of the town was an arcade in the basement of a laundromat where couples, mostly teens, congregated at weekends to spend some time together, the young men trying so hard to prove themselves to their young hearts by winning toys and prizes from every machine in the arcade.

And Nathaniel was no exception.

He, the only grown man in the arcade, was conquering the machines, easily winning at each and every one of them. He was hitting jackpot after jackpot.

In front of him was a claw machine. Behind him was Selena, holding two buckets of tickets worth around sixty-thousand game tickets he had won fair and square. She was easily in awe of how focused he was.

“Easy does it,” he whispers, focusing on the duck plushie held feebly by the claw. The claw slowly, painfully moved over the chute, jiggling at every minute movement until it finally dropped. “There!”

Nathaniel smiled gleefully as he exhaled, letting go of the tension on his shoulders.

“Never doubted you for a second, my love,” Selena spoke, grinning from ear to ear as Nathaniel bent down to retrieve his well-earned prize.

“There! An adorable duckie for my moon.” He chuckled.

“Thank you,” she said. “Now we have to name him, wolf.”

“Name him? And how exactly do you know that our duckie is a boy, Selena? It could be a girl?”

Selena grimaced.

“Because he’s wearing a blue tie, Nate.”

He huffed, narrowing his gaze on the duckie.

“That’s a tie? I thought that was a toy or something. Now that you mention it, he looks like a very distinguished gentleman, very dapper I should say.” He praised.

“I think you meant to say that Nathaniel Junior is a very refined gentlequack.”

Selena erupted into a fit of giggles, brandishing the duckie she proudly dubbed as her mate’s junior.

“Ah,” his lips mirrored the stretch of hers. “He’s our primo then, huh?”

“Primo?” Selena raised a brow.

He snorted.

“Yes, primo means prime. The first. Our first. The pup that we have. Although gentlequack is not something I like hearing, moon. Let’s name him Primo, please?”

Selena only replied with a gentle nod as she continued to grin. Never in her wildest dreams would she have this would happen. Though she knew Nathaniel was an expert in many things, being a master in many arcade games was not one of them.

And now she held the fruit of Nathaniel’s fruit of labor, a doll, a cute one, and they even already named him.

Looking at it now, it sounded so mundane, a life so simple and a heart so true. The way his glimmering eyes looked at her, looked at her as if she was the whole world, looked at her as if she needed to be worshiped and taken at the same time.