Catalyst (A Tethered Novel) Page 14

  “You’re really gonna take us for ice cream?” the little girl asked, her already large eyes widening a little more.

  “You bet.” Callie smiled. She put a hand on her hip. “Now go tell him.”

  The little girl trotted off as fast as she could through the water.

  “I babysit my neighbor’s kids three days a week during the summer. They’re great, but exhausting. Best birth control in the world.” She smirked and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “I can only imagine.”

  “So, what are your plans for tonight?”

  “Umm, I’m not really sure.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “Did Kace not invite you to the cliff?”

  “The cliff?” I shook my head. Was I supposed to know what that was?

  “Yeah, over there.” She pointed to something just over my shoulder, and I spun to see it. A large rocky ledge hung over the water. It jutted out from the surrounding forest. “There’s a party there tonight. I figured Kace would have told you about it last night.”

  “They were a little busy last night, from what I heard,” Adam’s irritating voice said from someplace behind me.

  He walked to Callie’s side and scooped her up for a kiss. There was a Styrofoam box, the kind used for leftovers from a restaurant, in his hand.

  “Stop, put me down.” She smiled and blushed through five shades of pink.

  “Maybe he planned on doing the same tonight,” I said, raising a brow at Adam. He wasn’t going to embarrass me. I knew his type. You had to play fire with fire.

  Adam grinned wickedly at me. “You might be right about that.”

  “Anyway, if Kace doesn’t keep you…to himself…you guys should come to the party. It’ll be fun,” Callie said.

  “Why are you guys having it up there?” I asked, glancing back to the ledge.

  Adam draped an arm over Callie’s shoulder, obviously not caring that she was soaking wet and now his shirt would be too. “The party the other night on the beach was more of a touristy thing. Us locals would rather party up there. The cops don’t really monitor that place as much during the summer due to all the tourist parties going on here.” He gestured to the beach.

  “Oh, that makes sense,” I said.

  “I need to get going; I just wanted to drop this off to you,” he told Callie, holding out the box. “It’s some lunch for you and the kids.”

  “Thank you, baby,” Callie said in a soft voice as she kissed him.

  I felt awkward just standing there, like a third wheel or a creepy peeping Tom. Glancing around until they were done, I took notice of the sunbathers. They were splayed out everywhere and all in different phases of their tans. You could pinpoint the tourists who’d just gotten here by either their pasty complexions or their hot-dog orange ones. The locals had been kissed by the sun naturally. I cast a small glance down at myself, wondering what I looked like in the lineup—a local or a tourist. My skin wasn’t pasty, but it wasn’t as sun kissed as Callie’s either. I was somewhere in the middle.

  “See you later,” Adam called to us as he jogged away.

  “Later,” I said with a little wave.

  “Sorry about that. He can be a little…intense. Especially now, you know, since you’ve come to town and all.”

  Her words caught me off guard. “What do you mean?”

  She looked at me, her blue eyes glittering in the bright sunlight. “I just mean with you being the catalyst and all. The one that balances us all out.” She paused and glanced out to where the kids were before she brought her eyes back to me. “We’d never felt anything like that before you.”

  Realization crept into my mind. She was talking about the strange warming sensation I felt whenever Kace and me touched. She and Adam must feel something too. “You never felt that before, seriously?”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s something completely new to us all. Our parents felt it, but we’ve never experienced it for ourselves…until you arrived.” Her eyes grew glassy at the mention of it, and I felt a swift pang center in my chest. I missed the feel of it too. This thought scared me. “He really likes you, you know,” Callie said randomly.

  A smile stretched into place on my face before I could stop it, and a giddy sensation spun through my stomach. “Really?”

  She nodded, her eyes glittering with excitement. “Oh yeah. You’re all he’s talked about since he met you.”

  “That’s nice to know,” I said, my heart thumping wildly at the thought of Kace talking about me to them.

  “So umm, how do you feel about all this? I mean, I know it’s probably a lot to take in all at once, but…” she trailed off.

  I hesitated in answering. “It really is, but, I don’t know, at the same time it feels exhilarating.”

  “I know what you mean.” She nodded. “And how about Kace, is that exhilarating too?” She smiled coyly.

  Her words took me by surprise. Callie didn’t seem like the type to discuss stuff of that nature. “Oh yeah.”

  “Callie, Brayden poked me in the eye!” Payton cried from just a few feet away.

  “I guess I’d better go play with them before they seriously hurt each other.” She sighed. “I hope you’ll come tonight. I’d really like to hang out.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, I’ll see if Kace wants to go.”

  Wow, were we like a couple now or what? I’d asked Vera her opinion on where she thought Kace and I stood. I guess she’d been right; we were treading a fine line and it was too soon to tell exactly what we were.

  I stood in front of the long mirror in my room, checking my reflection one last time before I headed downstairs to wait on Kace and pretend it hadn’t taken me nearly two hours to find something decent to wear. Vera had taken her suitcase full of party clothes with her when she’d left, which meant I was left with my regular day-to-day stuff I’d packed, plus a few bikinis.

  Given my limited selection, I’d say I looked pretty damn good. I’d opted to go with a short black skirt made of some stretchy fabric and a loose-fitting boatneck T-shirt, which was a turquoise color. Heels were out of the question since all I had was the one pair and when I’d tried them on just to see how they’d look when paired with this outfit, I’d looked like a hooker. I slipped on my comfortable, squishy sandals with the green gemstones along the straps instead. They looked bohemian and beachy to me. I grabbed some chunky bracelets of the same color as my sandals off my dresser to tone the outfit down some and headed downstairs, ruffling up my tousled waves I’d created with the help of a diffuser along the way.

  I headed to the kitchen to feed Binks his dinner and grab myself a little snack before Kace came. He’d called me as soon as he got off work at around eight to let me know he’d be by to pick me up at nine so we could go to the party Adam and Callie had been talking about earlier. I smiled as I thought of how he’d phrased it all. “Well, I had planned on keeping you to myself for the entire night so I could see if the jury’s minds could be swayed any…but I guess I could manage to share you for a few hours before.”

  Binks brushed against my bare legs, pulling me from my thoughts, as I reached into the pantry for a scoop of his dry food.

  “Hold on, buddy,” I said. I shooed him out of the way so I could get to the bowl.

  He hissed, I thought at me, but then something fairly large and red caught my attention from the corner of my eye. I jumped and spun around to see what it had been that had seemed to skitter along the floor to the side of me, but didn’t see anything. I stood there for a long moment with my hand covering my heart in an ill-fated attempt to slow it back down, glancing around the kitchen. Bending back down, I poured Binks his food after I was sure there was nothing there and realized the hair on his back was standing on end.

  Something had been in the room with us, and it was obvious that I hadn’t been the only one to see it, whatever it was.

  I leaned against the counter with my arms crossed over my chest, that prickly feeling of paranoia dancing across my skin
. I was ready for Kace to get here. A knock at the front door startled and relieved me at the same time. I rushed to answer it.

  When I pulled the door open, Kace stood in the doorway, his hands gripping the frame on either side. He was so close I could smell the cologne he was wearing—a spicy aroma that surrounded me in seconds and made me want nothing more than to snuggle up into his neck. I stared directly into his hauntingly icy blue eyes, and he flashed me a cocky little grin before leaning in and kissing me chastely on the lips.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” he said just barely above a whisper as he pulled away.

  “Hi,” I muttered, licking my lips and tasting his minty sweetness on my tongue.

  “Ready to head out, or are you wanting to be fashionably late?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Cuz I have an idea of what we could do to kill time in order to make that happen.”

  I smiled and shook my head. “No, I’m ready to head out.”

  And I was. I didn’t know if there had actually been something in my house, because I hadn’t seen it directly, but I didn’t want to take any chances. If it had been something Hoodoo-ish, then being around other people was the best place for me.

  Kace faked disappointment and stepped out of my way so I could exit. “All right then, let’s get going. We have all night for other things.”

  “Let me grab my keys,” I said as I started back toward the kitchen, leaving him standing just inside the entrance. As I scooped up my keys from the counter, Binks paused in eating and glanced at me. “See you in a little while, buddy,” I said to him softly.

  Kace stood leaning against the railing of the staircase when I came back. He was dressed in a pair of dark, blue jean cargo shorts that hung low on his hips, a pale yellow T-shirt that fit just right against the solid muscles of his chest, and a pair of brown thong sandals.

  “Do you care to walk?” he asked when I entered the room.

  I crinkled my nose. “Isn’t it far?” I remembered how far away the cliff had looked earlier when I’d been standing on the beach talking with Callie and Adam about the party. I had nothing against saving the planet by walking to places that were a short distance from where you were, but walking a few miles to a party seemed a little extreme.

  “It looks like it, but really it’s not. There’s a path we can take that cuts the distance in half,” he said. “I’m just not one for drinking and driving.”

  “Oh, so you plan on drinking heavily tonight, huh?” I teased.

  He shook his head, a boyish grin springing to his face. “No, not really. Remember, I’m more of a one and done just like you. But, I wouldn’t mind having at least three tonight…since I won’t be driving anywhere later.” He cocked an eyebrow at me.

  His meaning wasn’t lost on me. He planned on spending the night again. This didn’t seem like a bad idea, especially after whatever I’d seen, or not seen, in the kitchen—which I had no intentions of telling him about, just in case it had been my overactive imagination playing tricks on me. I told myself this, but didn’t believe it. Something had been there. Even Binks had noticed it.

  “Oh, okay.” I smiled, pushing all creepy-crazy thoughts from my mind.

  “You ready?” Kace asked with a grin.

  I nodded and we started out the door. Locking it behind us, I held the keys out to Kace. “Would you mind holding on to these for me? This outfit doesn’t have any pockets.”

  He took them from my hand, his fingertips brushing against my palm, sending sparks of warmth through me, as his eyes grazed the length of me. “Not a problem.”

  We cut a left at the end of my driveway and started toward the thick woodsy area that began about three houses down. The night air was cooler than I’d thought it would be, but not unbearable. Kace reached out and took my hand in his, threading his fingers through mine. I smiled at his touch and savored the way his skin felt against mine. The sensation of warmth that always sparked to life when we touched swam through my veins, putting me in a state of incessant bliss. It was just what I needed to help settle my mind.

  The sky was clear and the moon was nothing but a crescent against its blackness speckled by an endless supply of stars. I closed my eyes for a split second, listening to the far-off crashing of waves against each other and the rhythm of our sandals slapping against the concrete of the sidewalk. A breeze picked up, sending a strand of my wavy hair into my lip gloss. I peeled it away and tucked it back behind my ear.

  Once we finally reached the edge of the woods, I realized they weren’t really woods at all, but more like overgrown bushes with a few scraggly trees jutting out here and there. A narrow footpath had been trampled out from overuse. It zigzagged deep into the thicket of brush. Stepping over roots and thin limbs, I was glad that I’d decided against wearing heels for the night, because I surely would have broken my neck tromping in them through all of this.

  “Is it much farther?” I asked as soon as we had made it a few feet past the tree line. Little twigs kept finding their way into my sandals and stabbing at the sides of my feet.

  Kace shook his head. “No, not really. If you get tired, though, we can always take a detour.”

  “A detour? To where?”

  “My place.”

  “What, yours and Adam’s apartment is in the woods? Seems fitting, you two are a little like animals—him with his aggressive attitude and you with your…sex-crazed mind.” I couldn’t believe I’d just said that last part. It wasn’t really something I should complain about.

  He turned to look at me while we continued to walk. The slight sliver of a moon cast just enough light for me to see his head tilt to the side and an eyebrow rise. “How did you know I live with Adam?”

  “Oh, Callie told me today.”

  “You and Callie talked about me, did you?” He smirked.

  My stomach flipped at the sight. “Just girl stuff.”

  Kace flashed me that sexier than sin smile of his, the one that melted the bones in my body, and I laughed.

  “Seriously though, if we cut to the right some, we’d end up just outside my apartment complex.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Not a chance. I want to see what this cliff party is all about first.”

  “First, huh? Sounds promising,” he muttered. The rumble of his tone sent shivers through me.

  My cheeks flamed, but I didn’t respond. Music sounded in the distance, my cue that we were finally almost to the party. After just a few more feet of walking, I noticed a dancing glow of fire at the end of the narrow pathway. When we stepped through the overgrown brush and trees, and into the open area where the party was taking place, I realized it was more than just some bonfire party on the ledge of a cliff overlooking the ocean…it was like a club.

  Someone had swept off a large area in the center, creating a natural dance floor made of slate rocks. A bar crafted out of two tree trunks and another thin slab of wood for the top sat just off to the side. A guy with dark hair that splayed over his left eye stood behind it, pouring drinks for two bottle blondes dressed skimpier than Vera on a hooker-looking day. A tiny, sporty-looking car with its trunk wide open blocked the entrance to what looked like a dirt road that I assumed must lead to this place. Red and blue fiber-optic lights flashed around the massive speakers that filled it—this was where the music pulsated through the night from. A large bonfire had been created closer to the cliff, and I wondered if it was mainly for precautionary reasons. With the way some of these people were fumbling around, I could easily picture someone falling right off the cliff and disappearing into the choppy ocean waters below.

  “Well, what do you think?” Kace asked, his lips brushing against my ear so I could better hear him.

  I stood on my tippy-toes to reach his ear better. “I freaking love it!”

  “I knew you’d like it.” His eyes glittered in the glow of the fire, making them even icier in color. “Let’s get something to drink.”

  Kace led the way through the crowd of people toward the makeshift bar where all the drinks wer
e. He snagged two plastic red cups and a bottle of Bacardi Gold.

  I held out a hand to stop him before he poured anything. “Nu-uh, I don’t like that stuff. I’m more of a coconuty or fruity kinda girl when it comes to mixed drinks.”

  “All right.” He searched our selection and then reached for the Parrot Bay Coconut Rum. “How about this?”

  “Perfect,” I said with a smile.

  I watched as he sloshed a He-Man shot of it into the bottom of my cup and then poured it halfway full of Pepsi.

  “Dang, you’re just trying to get me smashed tonight, aren’t you?” I grinned as I accepted the cup from him.

  “Maybe just a little.” He winked as he picked the Bacardi Gold bottle back up.

  I turned and glanced around at the others enjoying the atmosphere of the place as I took a sip of my drink. This was so a Vera party. I’d have to call her tomorrow and tell her about this place. I didn’t know how a Hotfoot spell worked, but maybe I could talk her into coming back for a weekend and bring her here. I hoped so anyway.

  “Is it to your liking?” Kace asked, pointing to my potent drink as he spun back around to face the party too.

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  “You guys came!” a tinkling voice shouted over the music. Callie thrust her arms around my neck as she pulled me in for a hug. I could smell the alcohol on her breath. “I’m so glad you came!”

  I locked eyes with Adam as he walked up. He took a small sip of his drink and eyed me from over the rim of the cup.

  “Wow, she’s a little toasted, isn’t she?” I asked him.

  He grinned. “Yeah, she had a rough day with those kids I guess.”

  “Come dance with me!” Callie insisted as she pulled on my arm.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  I enjoyed dancing, but it was a two-drink minimum thing for me. Meaning, I had to at least have two drinks in me before I could loosen up enough to dance in front of others.

  “Come on. I don’t ever let myself get this smashed. Please dance with me; I’m celebrating you being here!” she pleaded.