Soul Searcher Book 1

Cassie served so many drinks in a span of two hours that her hands were starting to hurt. As the crowd starts to die down because the main acts were getting ready to go on, she glances to the end of the bar smiling widely as she watches Rim saunter up to it. Just as she is about to ask to take a break, Jason comes up to her side and catches her looking over at Rim. “Who’s the strange dude at the end of the bar there?”

“He’s not strange. He’s very nice and a friend of mine. I’m going to take a cigarette break. I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes, okay.” Jason eyes Rim jealously consuming him for a moment before turning his eyes to Cassie. He nods and then walks away, heading toward his office. Walking to the end of the bar, Cassie motions for Rim to walk through and follow her out the back door of the bar where employees came and went.

“Why do I get the feeling your boss doesn’t like me very much? The way he was glaring at me, let’s just say if looks could kill, I’d be dead.” Rim shakes his head astounded because he had never dealt with humans and their emotions before and especially with him directly involved as the cause for the emotions.

“Eh, don’t worry about Jason, he’s harmless. Just a little jealous because I am hanging out with you. He’s never seen me hanging out with guys before. Normally at work I’m hanging out with Ginny or Khloe on my breaks. This is the first time I’ve had a friend of the male variety come and visit with me at work. He’ll get over it though.” They step outside and Cassie grabs two red milk crates for them to sit on after which she pulls out a pack of cigarettes and lights one up. “One day, I swear I’m going to quit. I don’t know why I do it.” She exhales slowly before looking sideways looking at Rim’s side profile. Scanning her eyes over his face she sighs in appreciation of his chiseled jaw line and the muscle that ticked as he clenches his jaw while he mauls over whatever answer he was thinking about offering her.

“When you’re ready you will be able to do it. But you have to be ready. Don’t do it for anyone else.” He looks at her adoringly. “I will admit though, you look damn sexy smoking it, like what I would think a dragon would look like in human form.”

“Yeah, okay.” Cassie arches an eyebrow, “you are a bizarre being, don’t get me wrong, you’re a hot one but definitely bizarre.” She laughs as he looks at her in mock shock. “Damn, why does the time seem to fly by when I’m with you?” Sighing loudly, she stands up from the crate and then offers her hand to Rim to help pull him up. Yanking a little too hard had him off balance and colliding into her.

Looking into her eyes, Rim says, “maybe I should start calling you beast. You about pulled my arm from out of its socket.” He gives her a lopsided grin as he gazes at her.

“Yeah, apparently, I don’t know my own strength, or... I could have done it on purpose,” she adds coyly before leaning into him and giving him a kiss.

Breaking the kiss with a growl, Rim says in a low voice, “you shouldn’t start things when you know you don’t have enough time to finish them.” Cassie gives a growl of her own before slipping her hand into his and walking back through the door into the bar area once more. “I’ll find you when the show is over with. Will you still be behind the bar?” She nods that she will be and then is ushered away from him by one of the other bartenders.

***

That girl is going to be the death of me, I swear, this thought rolls around in my head as I force myself to walk away from her so that she can focus on her job. Sighing, I walk down towards where the stage is and where the majority of the crowd are milling about, waiting for the band to start their first song. Tonight’s lineup isn’t really my cup of tea, the bands that have played so far are a little too radio friendly for my liking, but they are tolerable enough to endure until Cassie is done for the night.

Standing more towards the edge of the crowd, I suddenly get the feeling that someone is watching me. Glancing round the dimly lit room, I find my eyes landing on Cassie’s best friend and I stare at her as I try to remember what Cassie said her name was. Ginny! That’s her name. She’s standing by a small group of people who are chatting with her, but I can say it’s a safe bet that she doesn’t hear a word of what they are saying because her focus is on me and with her arms crossed over her chest, she glares at me intently.

To my shock and dismay, she, ignoring her friends suddenly marches over to me and doesn’t stop moving until she is standing directly in front of me. I find humor in the situation because she is a very tiny being in comparison to my 6’0 height. I would be amazed if she hit the five-foot mark. I literally tower over her. Because of this fact I have to look down to be able to see her properly and she practically has to tip her head all the way back to be able to look at me. “I have a bone to pick with you!” Ginny has to shout her words for me to hear her over the band playing.

I’m baffled by her statement because I haven’t done anything to her for her to be mad at me. “Uh, okay...”

“Cassie and I have had maybe two serious fights in our friendship in two years, but then you come along causing the most serious one to occur between us! She has gone three days without talking to me and I don’t like it!”

“I’m not sure how your fight with Cassie is my fault but have you tried talking to her since? Maybe instead of waiting for her to apologize about whatever is going on, you could do it first. That’s just my own opinion.” As I say this to her, she scrunches up her nose and rolls her eyes as though I have just suggested the most ridiculous idea.

Instead of saying anything in response, Ginny simply turns on her heel and walks away from me, leaving me stunned even further. I will never understand the human mindset. Shaking my head, I turn my attention back towards the stage, attempting to push the bizarre conversation from my thoughts.

Seriously, I have never been so bored trying to watch live music before. However, I just cannot get into this poppy music these bands are spewing forth to the audience that’s loving every minute of their performance. It’s my own living hell, and yes, I know it sounds dramatic but to have to endure something you do not enjoy, well, tell me that isn’t a personal type of hell?

The best phrase of the night was when the singer said that “this is our last song,” I’m pretty sure I screamed louder than the teeny-boppers and young twenty something aged girls when they announced this. Just as the lights go dark, I feel a tap on my right shoulder. Truly I’m not sure who I was expecting to see as I spin around poised in a fighter’s stance, but it definitely wasn’t Cassie’s smiling face. She bursts out in a fit of laughter and then begins to tease me. “Whoa, calm down there Bruce Lee!” She says trying to keep the smile from consuming her face.

“Hey, what you doing? Are you done working for the night?” I look at her puzzled because the last band is still on stage.

“Yeah, I convinced Jason to let me finish early but I had to promise him I’d come down during the day tomorrow and clean up throughout the day.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal, but I look around and grimace at the thought.

“Well, if you play your cards right, I could be sweet talked in to helping you... maybe.” I give her a cheesy grin and then suggest we go somewhere else, anywhere else where I won’t be tortured further by such retched music.

“Oh, you know what I’m in the mood for?” She looks at me as though I should know. I shake my head perplexed. “Ice cream! You want to go down to the ice cream parlor with me and get a cone?” She’s going to be shocked when I tell her I’ve never had ice cream before, but I nod my head yes. Anything to get me away from this noise. Taking my hand in hers, she leads me through the crowd towards the backstage area. I’m hesitant to follow because generally people aren’t allowed back there. “Come on, don’t be chicken. As long as you’re with me you’re fine. I’m allowed to go wherever I please because I work here goofy. I mouth an okay and let her pull me through the throngs of groupies and friends of the bands before she flings the back door open, and we tumble out into an alley that’s kept blocked off for bands to park.

After a few feet we come up to a sidewalk opposite of the main street that leads to all the bars, restaurants and the like. Still holding my hand, Cassie begins to swing it absentmindedly as we continue walking and I begin to wonder what has her so lost in thought. “Hey, you alright? You look like you’re a million miles away.” Instead of answering me though, she shakes her head and gives me a weird dorky sort of grin, causing me to have nearly the same type of grin spread across my lips. Laughing, I purposely bump against her arm causing her to stumble slightly sideways before pulling her next to me, tucking her into my side so that I’m able to wrap my arm around her waist. As I do this, she wraps both her arms around my waist too, giving me a half hug before turning her head up to me smiling again.

Cassie had been caught off guard by Rim questioning as to if she were alright. She hadn’t realized she had looked so obviously lost in thought. When he had asked her, she had been having an internal battle with her intuition. She was questioning herself on how she knew tonight would be the night she ended up ‘staying’ with him, with Rim. It wasn’t something she was planning to do. Yet something in the back of her mind was telling her it was going to happen and then he asked if she was okay and she knew she couldn’t give him an answer, the worst part was, when she turned to look at him, the dumbest, dorky grin took hold of her body. She could feel the smile from the top of her head all the way into her toes!

As she gazed at him, she saw her smile though insanely dumb, was contagious and had him smiling at her the same way. Being silly he bumped her and then pulled her close and she absolutely loved the way he tucked her into his side so that he could wrap an arm around her waist. Impulsively she wrapped both of her arms around him and smiled. “The ice cream shop is just around that corner.” Cassie lifted her right hand and pointed with her index finger to where the shop was, and Rim nodded. Entwining her fingers with his, she walked a little faster so they could grab the door as someone exited it.

Making their way up to the counter so they could order, Cassie glanced at Rim, “what’s your favorite kind of cone?” She watched as he looked over the menu and then smiled as it dawned on her. “Oh. My. Gosh! Don’t tell me you’ve never had ice cream either! You poor thing. What kind of crazy childhood did you have?” Her eyes grew wide as he clenched his jaw and a crease formed in the corner of his eyebrow and the beginning of his nose.

“My parents didn’t allow me to eat any type of sweets. So, pretty much anything with sugar in it, I can guarantee you I haven’t had the pleasure of trying it. But I’m an adult now and will try just about anything you think tastes good,” Rim said with a teasing smile.

“That’s wild,” Cassie said in awe. “I can’t fathom the idea of never having had sweets.” Just then it was their turn to order and Rim let her pick out whatever she thought he might like. After being handed a massive waffle cone, Rim looked at Cassie with concern before she nodded her head encouraging him to give the green colored ice cream a try.

“Holy, wow! This is amazing. What’s it called?” Rim asked excitedly as he licked at the frozen goodness.

Cassie giggled. “I know, right! This kind is called mint chocolate chip and it’s my absolute favorite flavor. My friends tease me and say it tastes like toothpaste, but I love it!” The ice cream shop was a little crowded but they managed to find themselves a small booth to sit in so they could eat their ice cream in the air-conditioned room and not have to worry about being outside where it might melt and make a hot mess. “So did you enjoy the show tonight,” she asked in between licks of her ice cream.

Rim shrugged, “not really my type of music. It was a little too ‘poppy’ for my liking, but it was nice to not be cooped up in my rental for the night.” He bit into the cone and nearly moaned at how good it tasted. “Truly, wow, this is amazing.” Rim smiled at Cassie before he remembered the weird encounter he had had with Ginny. “Oh, hey. Did you see Ginny was at the show tonight?”

Cassie sucked in a breath, shocked by this claim and then began to choke as ice cream hit the back of her throat the wrong way. In between coughing she began to laugh which made everything worse because she genuinely couldn’t get enough air to breathe. “Um, are you okay Cass? Do you want me to get you water,” Rim asked his hand frozen mid-air as he was just about to take another bite of his cone. Cassie shook her head no and attempted to respond before giving up and raising her hand in the air to stop him from going anywhere.

With a couple of more coughs, she was able to get some deep breaths in before smiling sheepishly at Rim. “Uh, yeah, sorry about that. You just caught me off guard when you said Ginny was at the show. I didn’t see her at all tonight. She must have made sure to steer clear of the bar so I wouldn’t see her.”

“I wouldn’t have known she was there either except I could feel someone watching me, staring at me and when I looked around, I saw her standing with a small group of people, but she was ignoring them and instead giving me a death glare. The craziest part is, she came over and yelled at me. Said I was the reason you and she were fighting.”

“Wow, that’s crazy. I can’t believe she had the nerve to do that.” Cassie made a face somewhere in between shock and dismay that she would do such a thing.

“I asked if maybe instead of waiting for you to talk to her she could talk to you first. I don’t think she liked that because right after I said it, she turned and walked away from me.” Cassie just stared stunned.