Chapter
Two
The next afternoon Kait made her way down the hall,
she figured that it was about time that she met the other girls on her
floor. The door across the hall was open
so she might as well start there.
“Hello?” Kait knocked on the door
and poked her head in, then stopped dead in her tracks.
“Well, hello there!”
It was one of the girls from the party last night! She had been one of the most adamant about
asking questions.
“I was just kinda popping my
head around the floor meeting my neighbors.
I didn’t know you where a student here.”
Kait explained.
“Aww, that’s all right, come
on in,” The girl waved her in; Kait remembered that her name was Stacie O’Riley. “There was
no way you could have known I went here.
We were so busy trying to find out about the girl who had snatched up
Jonathan Davis that none of us really said anything about ourselves.” Stacie had a sunny personality that radiated
warmth. Kait found that she kind of
liked her and sat down to start talking.
“Well a group of us were going to get together and go
out for ice-cream this evening, want to join?”
Kait invited.
“I’d love to.”
Stacie smiled.
“We’re just kind of meeting at my room across the hall
around 9.” Kait got up to leave.
“All right I’ll see you
then.”
*******
Jonathan rummaged around in the refrigerator for
something to eat. Kait’s
parents were over, just like almost every Friday night. Their parents had been best friends since
college; he couldn’t remember a time when the Parker family hadn’t been around.
He heard the outside kitchen door open, but didn’t pay
attention, it was probably just one of his brothers making their way home after
an after school practice for one of their many sports.
“Hey Jono! What ya makin’?” Michael said from the door.
“Hey Michael, come on in. What’s up?”
Jonathan turned and set down his plate of cold pizza and got another
plate for his friend.
“Nothing much. Ya ready to move in tomorrow?” Michael sat down and took the plate of pizza
that Jonathan offered.
“Yep, you should see my room, there’s nothing left of
it except boxes. You?”
“I haven’t done anything yet,” Michael shrugged as if
it was no bit deal. Just like him,
Jonathan thought, one of the biggest changes in his life and Michael was acting
as if it was just any other vacation he had gone on, packing the night
before.
“Where you at the party last night, I didn’t see
you?” Jonathan asked.
Michael eyed him curiously. “You probably didn’t see me because you were
to busy with that girl, what was her name again?”
“Her name is Kait,” Jonathan tried to act as if it
were nothing.
“So how do you know her?” Michael prodded.
“Around,” Jonathan really didn’t want to talk about
this, especially with both of their parents just in the other room.
“Oh, hi Michael, how are you?” Jonathan’s mother asked as she came into the
room from the living room.
“I’m doin’
fine, Mrs. Gurgin.”
“How many times have I told you, call me Calista? So what
brings you here the night before you move in?
Trying to get Jonathan to help you pack?” Calista Gurgin laughed, she preferred when her son’s friends called
her by her first name, it made her feel less old.
“Well, that is one of the reasons, but I also wanted
to try to get some information about the hot
dish that Jonathan took to the party last night.” Michael teased.
Jonathan went ridged, no this couldn’t be happening.
Knowing Michael, he was just about to blow the whole thing.
“Oh? Who did
you take Jonathan?” By the reddening of
his face she knew he didn’t want to talk about it.
“He took some girl named Kait. Know anything about her?” Michael answered for him.
“Kait? As in Kait Parker?” Calista asked a little stunned. She never knew of Jonathan taking Kait to any
party that his friends were having.
“Parker? Is that her
last name? I couldn’t even get that much
from Jonathan. From the word at the
party they have only been going for a little while but it you already know her,
then they must have been going together a lot longer.”
“You and Kait?” Calista asked slightly confused. “Since when?”
“Well,” Jonathan scratched his head looking down; he
had the look of someone who had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar,
but not in the way that his mother and friend were reading into it. He was just trying to come up with a
plausible story to cover him with. “We
were trying to keep things low key,” he gave Michael a dirty look. “Just in case it didn’t work out.”
“Oh,” Michael and Calista
said at the same time, Michael somewhat sheepishly, his mother with a great
deal on interest.
“Michael, if you want that help packing, how about we
leave now,” Jonathan said leading Michael to the door. “Before you say anything
else.” He added under his
breath. He silently swore as he saw his
mother head off into the living room, ready to tell Kait’s
parents what she had just found out.
*******
Kait grabbed her purse and was just heading out the
door when her phone rang. “Hold on a
minute.” Kait said digging into her
purse for her phone. “Hello?”
“Kait we have a problem.” Kait’s heart sank
that was not what she wanted to hear.
“Girls I’m going to be a minute,” Kait called out the
door; she heard a prim sigh from her roommate Gretta,
who was from
“My mom knows, and probably your parents too.”
Kait sank down onto her bed with a dejected sigh,
“Jonathan…” She didn’t know what she was going to say, but she could feel a
headache forming, absently she rubbed the bridge of her nose in hopes of
getting rid of the headache.
“Who’s Jonathan?”
Kait heard Gretta ask Stacie.
Before Kait could intervene Stacie had an answer, “Her
boyfriend.”
“Oh? She hasn’t
mentioned him.”
“They are a new couple…” Kait tried to focus back on
what Jonathan was saying; there was no use in trying to salvage that situation.
“One of my friends dropped by and started asking
questions about you in front of my mom, I tried to stop him.” Jonathan tried to explain.
“How about we meet for coffee and try to figure out
what to do next?” Then Kait realized
that she had already made plans with Gretta and
Stacie and it wouldn’t give her roommate a good impression if she skipped out
to meet up with her “boyfriend”. “Better
yet, how about you meet us for ice cream?”
She suggested brightly when Gretta looked at
her hurt.
“Us?” Jonathan asked
confused.
“My roommate, Gretta, and
Stacie, she was at the party last night.”
Kait hinted.
“And she’s already told your roommate about us
right?” Jonathan asked realization
dawning on him.
“Yep.” Kait gave the
other two girls a smile so they wouldn’t know she was upset.
“Okay, where do you want to meet?” Jonathan asked giving in.
“Where are we going for ice cream?” Kait asked Stacie.
“I know of this great place,” Stacie said brightly.
“Okay, can you give Jonathan directions?” Stacie nodded. “Here’s Stacie, she’ll tell you where to meet
us.” Kait said into the receiver.
While Stacie gave him directions Gretta
turned to Kait. “How come you didn’t
tell me about him?” She asked indicating
the phone.
“It’s kind of new and I didn’t want to talk about it
much, just in case it didn’t go anywhere.”
“Oh, okay. I
can understand that. So do you have a
picture of him?” Gretta
asked expectantly.
“Yeah, hold on a minute.” Kait reached into her purse and pulled out a
group of pictures, sorted through them and pulled out the most recent one she
had of him, his senior picture. “Here.”
“Oh, he’s cute.”
*******
The girls grabbed seats at
the counter of the little ice cream parlor and told the waitress that they were
still waiting for someone. Kait forgot
all about her problems and began to get aquatinted with the two other
girls. They knew very little about each
other and this seemed to be the perfect time to solve that problem.
She was so into the conversation that she didn’t hear
the door open. “Um…is this seat taken?”
Kait looked up into the dark chocolate brown eyes of
the blond stranger standing next to her at the open seat. She had to admit, he was quite good looking
and looked to be maybe 25, his blond hair was slightly tousled, and he was
smiling broadly at her. Is he really just asking about the seat or
is he making a pass at me?
“Yes that seat
is taken,” came another voice from the direction of
the door. Kait turned to look and caught
her breath. Jonathan stood just inside
the door, holding his helmet under his arm.
His blue eyes weren’t looking at her but were locked on the man next to
her and he strode quickly across the floor to where they were seated. Kait noticed that he wasn’t dressed in his
usual GQ style but in plain blue jeans, a white shirt, and a black leather
jacket. Somewhere in the back of her
mind she registered that it must be new because she had never seen it before.
The blond man looked Jonathan up and down; he wasn’t
much taller than Jonathan, then looked at Kait. She nodded in agreement with Jonathan; he
shrugged and then left.
“Who was that?”
Jonathan asked sitting down next to her.
“I don’t know.”
Kait said with a shrug. “Jonathan,
this is my roommate Gretta, and you remember
Stacie. Gretta
this is Jonathan.”
Gretta leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Much better in
person.” Kait gave a laugh and signaled
for the waitress so they could order.
They enjoyed their ice cream and talking for half an
hour. “We really should get going
back.” Gretta
said standing up reluctantly.
“You girls head back, I need to talk to Jonathan. Can you give me a ride back to the
dorm?” Kait asked looking at Jonathan.
“No problem. It
was nice meeting you two.” Jonathan
nodded to Gretta and Stacie and got up.
Kait followed, “I’ll see you two when I get back
tonight.” Kait hugged the girls and
headed out the door with Jonathan.
Raising her eyebrows Gretta
looked at Stacie, “Where did she meet him?”
*******
“So now what do we do?” Kait asked as
they walked along the docks.
“We could just tell everyone that we broke up.” Jonathan said hopefully.
Kait’s heart sank; is
he really that opposed to dating me?
Well for my first boyfriend he sure broke up with me fast. I wonder what I do to turn guys off of me
like this. “No, that would be too
easy. People would know something was
up, especially our parents. How long was
your shortest relationship?” Kait asked
getting an idea.
“About two months, why?”
“Well in order for our parents not to be suspicious,
we just keep this up for a little longer than that. I really don’t want them to think that our relationship was the shortest
ever.” Kait said a little defensively.
“You want to keep this up for two months?” Jonathan asked
surprised. Two months really isn’t that long and spending some more time with Kait
really isn’t all that unappealing.
“Once a week for two months isn’t
going to kill you. Or would you rather just tell Luke that you
made it all up to keep him from setting you up with his sister?” Kait didn’t mean to sound so upset, but he
made it sound as if she had asked him to cut off his right arm.
“Hey don’t get mad, I didn’t mean it like that. I just don’t want to get in your way or
anything.” Jonathan said rather
sheepishly.
“Get in my way?”
Now she just had to hear his explanation for that comment.
“Well if word spread that quickly about us, it would
kind of make it a little difficult for you to date anyone wouldn’t it?”
“Don’t you mean difficult for you to date anyone
else?” Kait accused good-naturedly.
“No, not really,” Jonathan sighed. “After Wendy I just really haven’t wanted to
get involved with anyone else.”
Jonathan’s voice was unusually soft.
“She really hurt you didn’t she?” Kait asked.
She put her hand on his arm.
Jonathan looked down at her hand on his arm and
wondered when she had become so insightful and sweet. “I think we hurt each other.” He gave another dejected sigh to clear his mind
of those unhappy thoughts. “So you think
two months will be enough to pull this off?”
“I think it will do fine.” Kait smiled.
That kind of explains his mood all
summer.
Jonathan looked down at her hand that was still
resting lightly on her lower arm. “Well
we might as well make this believable.”
Kait raised an eyebrow in question.
Jonathan took her and in his, at first Kait had no idea what he was
doing, then it hit her! My ring, how sweet of him to remember.
Jonathan slipped her Irish wedding band off of the
ring finger on her right hand and placed it on the ring finger on her left
hand. Kait had to laugh. “What?”
Jonathan asked, his somber face creasing with doubt.
“If you intend on me wearing my ring like that, you’re
going to have to get down on one knee.”
Kait joked.
“What?” Jonathan
was totally confused, what did she mean by that?
“Wrong hand, that means you’re asking me to marry
you. It stays on my right hand, but
right side up. Just reverse it from the
way it was.” Kait took it from his hand
and attempted to put it on correctly herself, but Jonathan stopped her by
laying his hand on top of hers. All of a
sudden the temperature on the wharf seemed to have gone up ten degrees. Jonathan guided her hand with his until the
ring was fitted snugly over the ring finger of her right hand and facing the right way.
*******
Kait let herself into her room and turned on the
light. Hmm…no one’s here. Gretta must still be out with Stacie. Relived that she was finally alone, a huge
smile spread across her face. I have got to tell Maria!