Where We Left Off (Phoenix Falls Series Book 1)

Kit getting detention has really messed with our end of term plans, but I’m going to make it work for us anyway. She hasn’t told me why she got detention – only that some incident happened outside of class – but she’s been exiled from lessons for the rest of the day and, even worse, she’s been disqualified from racing in the track competition at the annual pre-Christmas sports evening tonight. I wasn’t going to race, even though I’m Kit’s running partner on every other occasion, but I was going to be up in the stands praying for her to win, and then jumping up and down with her when she destroyed the egos of everyone who shunned her from the athletics team.

She has to stay back for an extra hour after school, so I go to the library to wait it out for her, and then I promised her a girly evening, even though that means bringing her to Mitch’s house for the first time and that makes me feel really nervous.

Seeing as it’s the end of term I don’t have any assignments left to do, so I decide to freak myself out further by flicking through the college brochures for my chosen schools instead. The thought of starting work long-term in my mom’s chosen field for me makes me feel nauseous – it will be like school all over again, and what if I hate the people? That’s the crux of it: as someone who is not a people person anyway, the thought of working with people who I don’t love for the rest of my life makes me… I sigh just thinking about it. It gives me very dark thoughts.

Kit finds me in the library after she’s released from her imprisonment and she gives me a sad hug from behind as I put the catalogues back in the wall holders. I go to put my hand over hers but it feels weirdly hard so I look down at it and instantly scream. I spin around and see that I was being hugged by the life-size skeleton that we used as a decoration at the Halloween dance, only now it’s wearing Kit’s track tank and a floppy Santa hat.

“They were going to recycle it,” Kit explains as she rests her chin on the skeleton’s clavicle.

I try to bring my breathing back to normal and I nod as we exit the library. Even though that thing just gave me palpitations I say, “You did the right thing.”

As we walk across the grounds outside I shield Kit’s eyes so that she doesn’t have to see the mascot, the cheer squad, and the banners being set up for the sports evening tonight, but I can tell that she’s already in better spirits because she’s shielding the skeleton’s “eyes” too.

To make up for the absence of a sporting victory we’re going to have a night full of sugary Christmassy distractions. In all honesty, I think that I might need the distractions more than Kit. Kit is so normal (okay, skeleton-kidnapping aside, she’s sort of normal) that it makes me mad at myself for having such temperamental hormonal fluctuations.

When we get to Mitch’s house I feel really anxious because Kit being here and seeing this as my new home makes it more real. She scopes it out as we ascend the porch with pursed lips.

“So does he live here then?” she asks.

I know who she’s talking about. I shake my head. “No, but he works with his dad, so he is around quite a lot.”

She squeezes her arms around her body and nods, and we drop the subject as we enter the house. I walk into the kitchen where we take off our bags and coats, wash our hands, and then I get milk out of the fridge so that I can warm it up for hot chocolates on the stove.

“Sugar cookies or brownies?” I ask, retrieving chocolate bars and the sugar icing box that I recently stashed in Mitch’s boring protein-powder cupboard last week. I hold them up for Kit to decide.

Kit is emitting little pink hearts when she sees the sugar icing box. “Sugar cookies, please,” she answers, and I think that she’s fully over missing the track event now.

I grab the butter, sugar, flour, and eggs, and I set them on the table before pulling out the mixing bowl from one of the lower cabinets.

“This house is nice,” she comments as she eyes up the kitchen, her aura still aglow with sugar cookie anticipation.

I twist my mouth to the side as I pour in the flour. “I know,” I mutter quietly, and then I smash the blade of my knife into the shell of the egg, cracking it open.

She flicks her eyes back to me. Kit doesn’t know exactly what happened all those years ago, but her female instincts inform her that it doesn’t merit an apology. “You’ll be out of here in less than a year,” she says. I think she said it to console me, but my stomach tightens and I scrunch up my face even more.

Luckily, I have an egg to beat, so I start whisking it extra, extra hard.

I can sense her awaiting some sort of response from me, so after I pour in a little vanilla extract I begin. “I like Mitch and I like his stupid house, and being here makes me even like his stupid son. I’m so mad at myself because I’m a strong feminist, and yet whenever I see him my body is like no you’re not. This is why it’s so bad that I’m here – it’s like Lost. You put a bunch of people on an island together and in two days they’re falling in love. Only here, I already had feelings in the past so now they’re rekindling with a vengeance, and he… he’s acting…” I search for the most appropriate word, and the best that I come up with is, “Perfect. He’s acting perfect. He’s sixteen again and he’s trying to give me the princess treatment, but I know that it must be an act, because how can someone perfect also be capable of doing something so terrible?”

In the time it has taken for me to finish my rant Kit has managed to eat seven pieces of chocolate from one of the bars that I left on the table, although she still manages to look attentive and thoughtful.

“Hmm,” she says finally.

Okay, I take back the “attentive and thoughtful”.

“That’s a lot to take in,” she continues. She sets the bar down and folds the re-sealable tab, running her finger across it until it looks like it was never opened in the first place. “I think we’re very hard on ourselves, as girls,” she says slowly, as if she’s choosing every word very carefully. I slow my mixing until I fully stop. “I think maybe you should allow yourself the right to be selfish, and maybe you should make some decisions that serve your needs right now, based on the circumstance that you’ve been forced into. Like I said,” she reiterates, “you’ll be at college soon, and the life your mom is making here doesn’t have to be yours. But if you experiment as you please right now… I think it will be good to give yourself some options. You’ll be able to literally run away from everything if you want to next Fall. Maybe you just need to-” And then she leans across the table, scooping sugar cookie mix onto her pinkie, and sticks it in her mouth. She swallows it down and gives me a small smile. “Indulge,” she finishes.

I blink at her like I’ve just had a lesson in the ways of the Jedi. Kit Kenobi. Who would have thought.

And then we’re both snapped out of our trance by the sound of a motorcycle revving up the driveway.

She gives me a look and I know exactly what it says.

It says time to indulge.

*

Tate remained in the garage until Kit went home. I set the tray in the oven, we watched a holiday movie, and then, under the glow of a couple black pillar candles, we “decorated” the cookies. For some reason all of Kit’s cookies have smiley faces with little vampire fangs. Even the Christmas trees.

Once Kit is gone I put on a little music like I used to at my mom’s house and start washing the bowls and utensils I’d been soaking. I’m not going to lie, it is not pretty music. It’s an aggressive cover song by Three Days Grace, but I’ve got it on so quietly that you can’t tell at first.

I hear him enter the room but I don’t turn around. I’m very focused on scrubbing every millimetre of sugar cookie batter off the mixing spoon, even when I feel him settle against the counter behind me, eyes burning into the back of my head. My stupid, traitorous head.

“Do you want some help with that?” he asks quietly.

Darn it. We haven’t been completely mute these past two weeks but I have been mainly keeping up the pretence of silent-treatmenting him. It’s times like now where that comes to bite me in the butt.

He breathes a laugh and comes to stand right behind my back. I swear he secretes heat like an animal. He rests his left hand next to my torso beside the sink, so I deliberately get extra splashy with my rinsing.

“I wanted to tell you,” he says, and my veins instantly tighten with nerves. What the hell do you want to tell me, Tate? “Your mom is going away this next week, but she doesn’t know about it because it’s a Christmas gift from my dad. They’re going to stay at a cabin at Pine Hills. I didn’t know if he would have told you yet but I wanted to let you know because…”

He trails off and I feel the shift as he rubs at his neck or his shoulders with his right hand. It drops back so that it’s next to my waist again and my stomach flutters at the proximity.

“It means that you’ll have the house to yourself,” he finishes.

This time when I slosh the water out of the sink it’s not deliberate. It makes a huge wet patch on the front of my school trousers, causing me to jump backwards because the water is burning hot, and I smack right into the planes of Tate’s chest. He steadies me, and then I reposition myself so that I’m facing him.

He’s giving me a wary smile, like he’s nervous about how I’m going to respond. He should be.

“And?” I practically shout the word. I really need to calm to fuck down. Regardless of what happened between us I need to start being more level-headed about everything. I can’t change the past but I can change how I respond to it. “What are you implying?” I ask, cocking an eyebrow. “A bit presumptuous, don’t you think?”

He drops his eyes to the floor between us and he shakes his head, his breathing unsteady. He mutters something that sounds a lot like “not presumptuous, I’ve been praying” but I don’t think he was saying it for my ears. He keeps his head tilted down but he lifts his eyes to mine, and they’re burning with the unspoken things that he’s obviously dying to say. “My dad told me not to come over whilst they’re gone,” he explains, his voice deep and controlled. “And I won’t.” He pauses momentarily as his eyes search mine. Then he finishes, “Unless you want me to.”

I’m angry with him for suggesting it, but I’m angrier with myself for wanting it. Hell, I was the one who suggested it in the first place. Even though part of me wants to kick him out of the door and tell him to stay away from me until I leave for college, another side of me wants to get him to lock that door and forbid him from leaving until our parents return from their vacation.

Tate’s behaviour right now doesn’t align with the person I grew to hate – instead, it’s completely in sync with the boy I was falling in love with. Can people change? Can they have moments that are so perverse and bad, but it’s just a moment of insanity that they never slip back into? I have never believed that people change. Their behaviours only alter if there’s something in it for them, which takes me back to the original thought that triggered my sadistic sex agenda: Tate wants my body, and my ability to provide or deprive it will be the screw in his neck.

But is that the case? Maybe I completely misunderstood everything. I hate second-guessing myself because it feels like I’m betraying my intuition, but not every thought that passes my mind is going to be right or true. Maybe Tate’s motives weren’t what they seemed at the time – and maybe, like Kit suggested, I can allow myself to indulge in his goodness whilst it’s being offered up to me.

I scroll my eyes down the tan skin of his neck, over his tensed pectorals and stomach, and all the way down his denim-clad thighs until I’m looking at his huge black biker boots. If this was three years ago…

Just as I’m about to open my mouth Tate shifts slightly and lifts me out of my appraisal.

“Are those candles bleeding?” he asks, his eyebrows pinched together in… I’m going to say concern.

I look over at the black pillar candles which are flickering next to the draining board. I’d forgotten that I had lit my vampire’s tears candles. Red wax is oozing over the tapered tip in a frightening, provocative way.

I move my eyes back to Tate with a nonchalant expression on my face. “No,” I say.

He breathes out a laugh and drops his eyes again, the toe of his boot now rubbing back and forth in the gap between us. “You’re so weird,” he murmurs, and then he straightens up and locks me in with his penetrating stare. “Do you want me to be here?” he finally asks, straight to the point.

I can see in my peripheral vision that his hands are gripped tightly around the leather of his belt and as I look up into his eyes my tummy does a sparkly flip.

I swallow a little and make my expression resolute. It’s no more than a whisper but I choke it out before I can stop myself.

“Yes,” I say.

Tate instantly closes the gap between us but, just as he does, the lights from Mitch’s work truck flash up the driveway. Tate turns his head, groaning in frustration, and then he zones back in on me. He places his hands on my cheeks and I try not to shiver as his warmth seeps into me. I can feel it pooling in my belly and he’s nowhere even near there.

Yet.

He dips his head to my throat and presses his mouth against me hard, quickly sucking at the soft skin before grazing it with his teeth. The sensation drips down my body like the molten wax on my candles and my stomach starts lapping with heat.

“As soon as they’re gone, I’m yours,” he murmurs quietly, the words warm and hushed against my neck. I shiver as he runs the tip of his tongue over the skin that he just claimed and his words press into my body with as much pressure as his hands.

I’m yours.

He really said that.

I. Am. Yours.

Before Mitch is out of the truck Tate pulls away and leaves the kitchen without a second glance.

I fall back against the sink and think about what the hell I just started.