The Last of the Old Ones

Amber

Chapter Twenty: Amber

Later that night...

Just then a ringer went off on my phone, it signaled that it was midnight, and it was officially my birthday.

"Happy birthday Amber," Colin said, kissing my cheek. "Your officially 18!" He said, smiling, untangling from me as I stood up to turn off the alarm.

"Well, since it's officially my birthday, the first thing I want to do is go swimming." I told him.

"Ha-ha, swimming at midnight? Are you sure?" He asked me, raising an eyebrow.

"Absolutely, go get your swim trunks on and meet me in the hallway," I told him and headed to my wardrobe to pull out a bikini. Colin headed to his room, and I slid my bikini on, putting a black cover up dress over it to walked through the house to the pool. I headed to the hallway and only had to wait a minute or so for Colin to join me. I took his hand and walked to the office where Colin had shown me the secret staircase to the basement.

As soon as we reached the pool room, I flicked the switch to the warm white Christmas lights hung around the room and turned up the knobs that warmed up the tiles on the floor and the water in the pool. I pulled my black cover up, up over my head and heard Colin let out a little sigh. I immediately became self-conscious then relaxed again as I saw the smirk on his face.

"You look great," he said, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind me. I leaned my head back onto his shoulder. Thinking about how crazy all of this was. Just a few months ago I thought I was normal (well as normal as an outcast teenager ever feels), I had no idea I had a whole other life waiting for me but nothing until now had ever felt so right.

After a few minutes of standing like that, I lifted my head back up and turned around. "The pool should be warm by now, let's get in!" I walked to the edge of the pool, pulling Colin's hand. As soon as he stepped close to the edge, I gave him a little shove and plugged my nose as he pulled me in the water after him. It felt like we were falling into a giant hot tub, I swam over to the waterfall at the far end of the pool and ducked into the little manmade cave behind the falling water. It was so peaceful; I ran my fingers across the smooth black stone that covered the pool and cave around me. I was sat on the ledge of the cave and Colin swam up in front of me, he leaned against the ledge.

"Well, you're 18 now.... That means you get 18 birthday kisses!" He laughed and leaned up to kiss me while I leaned down to meet him. He kissed me sweetly, one at a time he counted out loud between each kiss. "... and 18. There, you're officially 18." Colin said with a cute smirk on his face. With that we dove back into the water and swam with each other around the pool.

"So incredibly cheesy." I laughed as I pushed down playfully on his shoulders from the ledge, as if I was grossed out by him.

After a few hours of swimming, we decided it was time to head back to the room, this time Colin led the way up the staircase saying he had a surprise for me in the office. Once we got to the office, he pulled the little key around his neck out again and opened the drawer with the picture of my parents in it and pulled out a black leather book and a little package wrapped in teal wrapping paper with a white bow on it. "You can open it when we get back to your room," he told me, locking the drawer back up and leading the way to my room.

Once we reached my room, I switched into dry underwear and a black silk robe and Colin slipped into dry boxers and threw some sweatpants over them. We lay down on my bed and I told him the presents could wait until the morning, I preferred to just enjoy his company for the night. We started just talking about anything and everything, our legs tangled together and his hands running through my hair. I asked him to tell me what it was like for him growing up. He told me all about his best friend growing up: James. James was a troublemaker from the sound of it and always got them into comically sticky situations. Colin chuckled as he told the story of the time they lived back out in the country and decided to have a bon fire one night, he said he'd never seen a fire so big as they had used bookcases (ones they had semi-broken earlier during a training duel) doused with fire starter liquid and lined with the leaves they were meant to rake from the yard and throw away. His voice became softer after that as he grew more tired, telling stories of James and his dad. He would lace in questions about my childhood too. We stayed that way for hours until we both drifted happily to sleep.

When we finally woke back up in the morning, we had missed breakfast, so we headed down to the kitchen and Colin cooked us up some eggs, bacon, hash browns and chopped up some fruit. We had our iodine drinks and we both felt great and well rested.

"So, what would you like to do today for your birthday?" Colin asked me.

"Hmm, maybe we could go ice skating at that little pond I showed you?" I asked him. He looked thoughtful.

"I think I have some skates, let me talk to my parents and see if that's safe after last month's alarm situation ..." Colin said, checking the time on his phone, "And I know they are having a birthday dinner for you so as long as we are back for dinner." He added.

After we finished eating, we headed up to the office where we found Colin's dad typing on the computer. "Hey Father," Colin stood back respectfully until his father motioned him to come closer.

His father looked up and smiled at me. "Happy birthday, Darling." He said, "What can I do for you two?" He asked.

"Amber was wondering if we could go ice skating for her birthday, we wouldn't go far but I wanted to make sure with you first that it's safe." Colin explained. His dad looked at us and nodded.

"That's not a problem, the force field was shut down from inside the building so there was just a malfunction, and the maintenance team is working on smoothing out all the bugs, keep in mind it is newer technology that has only been implemented at this house in the past six months so it's not going to be perfect right away. This is the first safe house that has implemented the technology without Amber's parents even though we have been researching for years." Joseph explained, which made me feel a lot better.

Colin finished collecting all the winter gear so we wouldn't get cold, and we headed out the door. It was nice outside, warm for this late in December. We sat in the same spot next to the pond as we did many times before. I watched as Colin carefully laced his battered skates while I laced mine. He was surprisingly good, was there anything this man couldn't do? I chuckled to myself.

Three hours and a thermos of hot chocolate later we headed back to the house and changed our clothes for dinner. I met Colin in the hallway, and we walked down to the dining room hand in hand. A feast waited there for us, breakfast for dinner. There were pancakes and waffles and orange juice, even bacon and fried corn meal mash, all sorts of breakfast foods. I was extremely excited; I knew Colin's parents knew a whole bunch about me from my foster parents, but this was above and beyond. I ate happily and sat awkwardly through everyone singing happy birthday as anyone would. I thanked everyone and a bunch of us sat at the table long after dinner playing card games and talking.

After a long night of games, I decided I was tired. "Hey guys, thanks for the great night but I'm going to head to sleep." I told everyone and headed upstairs; I had barely finished slipping into my pajamas when there was a knock on my door. I opened the door to find Colin standing outside.

"Hey, I was wondering if you would open your gift for me?" He asked curiously. I nodded and welcomed him into my room. I sat on my bed, and he handed me my gift off my dark oak desk. He sat next to me patiently as I opened the leather book. I sat quietly and read each article, then when I came to my parent's letters, I set the book down, I wasn't ready to read them just yet. Next, I gently unwrapped the little package to find tapes with handwriting matching those of my parents, they all had dates on them along with titles from the ones when I was still with them. I looked at Colin with tears in my eyes.

"I love it, thank you so much!" I hugged him tight, a few tears running down my cheek. Colin wiped them away and rubbed my back.

"I'm glad you like it. If you want, I can set up a tape player to watch the videos they made you." He said soothingly in my ear. He kissed my cheek sweetly. I set the gift on my nightstand, nodding, and leaned back on my bed, pulling Colin with me.

With our bodies tangled together we fell asleep peacefully. I woke up the next morning just as peacefully, Colin smiling at me. He brushed the stray hair out of my face and kissed me. "Good morning beautiful." He said in that adorable morning voice guys have; it was deep and raspy.

"Good morning handsome." I smiled back. I looked at our bodies tangled together, thinking how we had become one. I guess you lose all ability to fear moving too fast when you find out everything you ever knew was a lie and to finally find an ounce of truth. I thought about how the man next to me was everything I'd ever wanted and more, he made me feel complete. I laced my hand with his and held it to my chest. I had never been so content to just be next to someone and feel them breathe. I felt as though I could stay like this forever...