She was actually happy.
I knew the moment I opened my mouth I was going to ruin that, like I always did. I thought about the fact that I knew none of this was her fault. And I thought about the fact that this whole time Dee had been careful around her and I hadn’t. In my attempts to keep Dee safe and Kat in the dark, I put Dee at risk and exposed what we were.
In reality, I was the problem.
And my attraction to Kat didn’t help the situation. Made it all the more dangerous.
Kat’s trace was going to fade soon, less than a week. After that, I needed to keep my space. For real this time. No more broken record shit.
No more shit.
Chapter 18
Days became shorter, and with each day that passed, the warm breeze swirling through the valley chilled. Leaves turned into bright shades of gold and red before sifting to the ground, announcing the arrival of autumn.
By mid-October, Kat’s trace had completely faded. It had done so four days after our trip to the used bookstore in town, and I’d done what I told myself I needed to do.
With the exception of seeing her in class and whenever Dee had her over at the house, I stayed away from her. Of course, I still annoyed the hell out of her when I had a chance. Because really, there were very few things that amused me as greatly as poking her with my pen in trig and watching her gray eyes turn stormy.
I was really beginning to wonder if the pen was subconsciously symbolic for something else. That “something else” didn’t amuse me. Oh no, it did something else.
I knew she was spending more time with the girls from our class. Therefore so was Dee, and while it irked me that my sister was becoming more and more involved with humans, there was nothing I could do to stop that.
The reality was, unless she eventually moved into one of the colonies, she would always be surrounded by humans. She would always grow close to one of them. Hell, if Adam and her didn’t work out, she could end up…falling for one.
Just thinking about that made me want to punch a hole through the ozone.
There was one other thing that made me want to do that.
Simon Cutters.
The over-touchy jackass was getting on my bad side, and I might have lost my cool just a tad bit when he started talking to Kat in trig class. His backpack took a trip to the floor, and being the good guy that I was, I tried to warn Kat about Simon. That conversation hadn’t ended well.
Kat had accused me of being jealous. Me? Of Simon? Was she insane? There was no way I was jealous of any human. Whatever. If she wanted to help the guy most likely voted to knock someone up on prom night study, then it was her planned parenthood. Not mine.
Up until Dee had informed me between classes, with a downright devilish gleam to her eyes, that Simon had asked Kat to homecoming and she had accepted. Fire coated the inside of my mouth as my sister bounced away, so pleased one would think she was just awarded a lifetime supply of rocky road. Why would she be happy about that? Everyone knew how Simon was and no one, not even Kat, could be that naive.
There were more important things I could focus on, like if there was a new episode of Ghost Investigators this week or not, but when I spotted Kat walking all the way to the back of the parking lot after school, near the football field and track, I couldn’t let it go. “Kat!”
She turned around, squinting as a gust of chilled air blew the long strands of dark hair across her face. I approached her slowly, realizing that this was the first time in…in weeks that we were actually somewhat alone.
The strap on her bag was twisted, cutting into her shoulder. I reached out and fixed it, straightening the strap. “You know how to pick a parking spot.”
A moment passed before she responded. “I know.”
We walked to her car, and while she placed her bag in the backseat of her Camry, I waited with my hands in my pockets and tried to come up with a nice, non-jerk way of saying she needed to change her mind when it came to Simon. The “are you insane?” argument didn’t seem like it would be very helpful, but that was what my brain kept cycling back to.
Closing the door, she faced me. “Is everything okay? It’s not…?”
“No.” I shoved my fingers through my hair. “Nothing…uh, cosmic-related.”
“Good.” She leaned against the car, her hands clasped together. Her keys dangled from her fingers. “You scared me there for a second.”
When I twisted toward her, it left only a few inches between us. “I hear you’re going with Simon Cutters to the dance.”
Kat brushed a strand of hair out of her face. The wind tossed it right back. “News travels fast.”
“Yeah, it does around here.” I snagged the piece of hair this time and tucked it back behind her ear. My knuckles brushed against her cheek, and what felt like electricity danced from her skin to mine. “I thought you didn’t like him.”