“We would still expect you to help with a portion of the rent and utilities, though. It wouldn’t be like you’re a guest. We’d be roommates,” Dustin continued.
“Of course, if you think that’s going to be uncomfortable, we can try to get you connected with another family in town that would be willing to let you board with them,” Darren finished.
Katey didn’t have to give any thought to this.
“No, no, I’d rather stay with you all than a bunch of strangers.”
“Alright, it’s settled then,” Darren said as he wiped his hands on a napkin. “We’re going to be going home tonight to make sure everything is in order for you. Logan will check you out of here in the morning and take you home to grab everything you need.”
Dustin turned to Logan. “I’ll take your bike and you can drive my truck so you can tow more of her stuff.” They exchanged vehicle keys from across the room.
“And don’t worry about bringing too much. We have plenty of room,” Darren assured with a smile.
Just then, Ben reentered the room carrying a plate full of fries in one hand and a coke can in the other. She supposed he must have found a soda machine that had cokes now. Darren and Dustin had wolfed down their plates of food and were gathering up their papers in preparation to leave.
“Let’s head out, Ben. Katey’s coming to live with us and we have to clean up the bachelor pad,” Dustin said as they began walking to the door.
Ben handed Katey her plate and soda and looked to the other two in bafflement. “But, I’ve hardly had a moment’s peace to eat!” he exclaimed.
“You can eat on the way home, come on,” Darren insisted, holding the door open.
Ben grabbed his plate and followed them out. Just before the door closed, Katey heard Ben groan about getting sick when he eats in a vehicle. She couldn’t help but giggle a bit as she ate some of her fries.
After a few moment, she looked over to Logan, who was watching her with a strange, almost fascinated look in his eyes.
“What?” she asked with her mouth full.
“You really want to live with us?” he asked.
“Sure, why not? It’s better than living out on the streets,” Katey replied. “And besides, if it was really dangerous for me to live in a house full of loups-garous, Darren wouldn’t have offered.” She watched him for a moment as he looked away, deep in thought. “You know, I think you make yourself seem more dangerous than you really are sometimes.”
Logan eyes shot up to her and his eyebrows pinched together in annoyance. “Are you saying I’m lying?”
Katey took a drink of her soda. “No, I’m just saying you’re exaggerating a bit.”
They locked gazes for a tense moment and Katey could feel the wave of irritation flowing from him. He inhaled deeply and turned away without a word. She didn’t know whether that gestured proved her right or that he just didn’t have the desire to argue.
They finished their meals in silence before Logan went to clean up the table where the teachers had left their empty food plates. Then he tossed her the television remote and brought over an empty chair to her bedside.
“What are you going to do?” she asked as he slouched and let his head lean against the back of the chair. He shrugged.
“I don’t know. Maybe sleep, maybe watch whatever you’re going to watch then while your sleeping, change the channel,” he said humorously and gave her a witty half smile. Katey spiritedly stuck out her tongue at him and laughed. He let his eyes droop close as she began scanning the channels.
Katey left it on the history channel and her gaze fell back on Logan, peacefully sleeping. He had his head tilted a little over towards her, his arms crossed over his chest. She knew he was fast sleep from the gentle rumble of his snoring that she could hear only faintly over the television.
She knew that he wasn’t physically hurt, but there was something different in the way he looked at her. He didn’t come out of the incident unscathed. There must have been something more than happened that night out on the highway that no one was telling her. Or more specifically, that Logan wasn’t telling her. Did he wolf-out? Did the truck driver die as well? Had Mary imparted her last words to him before she died? Or was the scene so devastating that Logan was still reeling from the memory of it?
Or did it have something to do with her?
Katey smiled and then stared through the dark window and the streetlights beyond it. She could see her reflection and sighed. There were bandages wrapped around her forehead that she hadn’t noticed before and a small jagged cut along her jaw line, probably from a piece of broken glass. She looked down at her arms, but they were unharmed since she had been wearing long sleeves on Thursday.
There was no logical reason why she should be living right now. Even if the car hadn’t exploded and the Logan wasn’t there to pull her out, the semi-truck hit her side of the car. She should have been the one to die, not Mary.
Anyone else in her situation would have been grateful, and Katey was, but more than anything, she wondered if there was a reason behind it. She was not a deeply religious or spiritual person, but she heard stories about angels protecting the innocent. Did an angel save her from certain death that night? Or was the explanation within her?
She sustained no internal damage, no broken bones or severed limps. Yes, she was cut up a bit and the nurse said she got a minor concussion, but Katey never thought of herself as indestructible until now. Did she save herself somehow?
None of it made sense and Katey’s head throbbed when she thought on it more. As before, she relinquished her over analytical thoughts to the universe and let herself nod off to sleep, a heart filled with gratitude to whatever it was that saved her from death, and a mind fraught with confusion as to why.
***
The next morning Katey opened her eyes and saw Logan stretching his arms high over his head, having just awoken as well. The edge of his shirt pulled up a little and Katey could see the bottom creases of his abs. She watched with silent interest, and then tore her eyes away to the side as a doctor in a white coat came in with a clipboard.
The doctor had tan skin and bushy eyebrows, but otherwise a kind face. He smiled to Katey. “Good morning, Miss McCoy. How are you feeling?”
Katey sat up straight in bed and noticed that she didn’t hurt near as badly as she had the day before. “Fine,” she mumbled, still a little groggy from sleeping.
Logan stood up beside her as if guarding her from the doctor, watching him closely.
“That’s good to hear. We’ll be letting you go today and we just need to check out a few things. Let’s see about those cuts on your head.”
The doctor moved forward and began gingerly unwrapping the gauze bandages from around Katey’s forehead.
“Looks like it’s all healing up pretty quickly. You don’t need any stitches,” the doctor told her with a note of astonishment in his voice.
“That’s a relief,” Katey sighed. It may have been vanity talking, but she didn’t want anything else to make her more unattractive than she already was.
The doctor applied some pressure to Katey’s forehead with a cold clammy hand. “Does this hurt?” the doctor asked.
“No.”
The doctor tucked his hand behind her head and applied more pressure. “Does this?”
“Nope.”
The doctor smiled and scribbled onto his clipboard. “Good. I’m still amazed how you came out of that crash practically untouched.”
Katey shrugged. “Just lucky I guess.”
“Well, luck or no luck, it’s a miracle to me. I’ll lead Logan to the desk where he can check you out. In the meantime you can get dressed.”
Logan gave Katey her set of clothes that were stored under the bed. She noticed that the shirt was a little torn up from the accident.
As the doctor walked to the door of the room, a thought suddenly hit Katey and she hid her face in her hands with a groan.
“What is it?” Logan asked.
�
��I don’t have any insurance. How am I going to pay for all this?” she asked in a panic, looking up to Logan.
He laughed and shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. Darren already covered you.”
Katey was dumbfounded and groaned even more. “I feel like I’ve been such an inconvenience to you guys. You don’t have to pay for everything of mine.”
Logan only smiled. “If Darren wants to pay for everything, let him. We have the money. I’ll be right back.”
When the doctor had led Logan towards the nurses’ station, he said, “So, Darren told me that you and Miss McCoy are engaged. That’s a lucky coincidence. If you’d been just friends we wouldn’t be able to let you check her out.”
Logan flushed at Darren’s clever lie.
Katey managed to dress herself in minimal discomfort. When she pulled her shirt on and saw where the holes and cuts in the material were, she realized she could push her finger through the fabric to touch her skin, yet there were no evidence of scratches or bruise sunderneath. Luckily, the holes were in no obscene places, otherwise she might have wanted to wear a jacket over it.
Half an hour later, Logan came into the room with an odd smile spread across his face. She was all ready to go and he escorted her down the hall and out of the building. When Katey checked the clock on the wall, it was about half past three o’clock in the afternoon.
All along the way, there were nurses and doctors randomly giving their congratulations to the two of them. Katey figured they were saying that because she was being released from the hospital, but she couldn’t help but hear an occasional chortle from Logan.
He walked me out to the hospital parking lot and Katey couldn’t contain her curiosity. “Why were they congratulating us?” she asked.
Logan laughed and waved her question aside. “I’ll tell you later,” was all he said. She couldn’t see what was so funny, but dropped the subject.
Logan and Katey hopped in Dustin’s red pickup truck and drove across town.
The truck was nowhere close to neat and tidy. Papers were scattered all over the dashboard and the floorboard. Katey was afraid to dirty them with her shoes so she curled her feet beneath her on the torn black leather seats.
The back was the same way, only holding more junk like take out bags, car tools and cardboard boxes containing God only knows what. The only clean part about the car was the outside. The presets on the radio that were available to them were pop, country and hard rock, so Logan and Katey went back and forth good-naturedly battling over the buttons on the radio, exchanging furtive glances and laughs.
When they arrived at the house, it looked the exact same way as Katey had left it last night. She didn’t expect anything new, but she thought that perhaps the house would evoke a different kind of emotion now that she knew it would be sold at auction. But, she felt nothing but a desire to get her things out before they were taken from her.
Mary didn’t lock up before they left so they were able to just walk right in. Logan, instead of courteously taking a seat on the couch like he always did, followed Katey into her cluttered bedroom.
He was shocked at the mess that awaited them. Clothes and old school papers littered the floor along with junk that Katey carelessly didn’t put back in its place like blankets or boxes or books. She had an unbelievable amount of stuff and an unreasonably small room to cram it all in.
There was, however, an intricate system of steps to take for crossing the room. Logan patiently stood by the door, which might have been the only place where there was nothing to step on.
“You live like this?” Logan asked finally, looking around her room in amazement.
“Yes, don’t you? I figured most teenagers my age had cluttered rooms like this,” Katey asked.
“Well, I’m not a teenager, ya know,” Logan affirmed.
Katey turned back to look at him as she gracefully stepped through the room. “Oh, I forgot.”
“I actually clean up after myself,” he replied, trying to figure out how to take the first step into the room to follow Katey as she pulled out her big travel suit case and began throwing all her clothes into it.
“I do, just not often.”
“I would assume the last time was in the Stone Age?” Logan remarked, finding a spot far from where he stood, almost performing a split if he didn’t focus all his weight into this little spot at the edge of a shoebox surrounded by math papers.
“Ha ha, very funny,” she glowered at him for a second. “What do I need to bring?” she asked and continued packing her clothes from her closet, which were mostly casual shirts, jeans and jackets.
“Our guest bedroom has furniture. I’d just take what you think you absolutely need for now and the guys can come back later and get everything else you forget,” Logan explained as he leapt towards her computer chair that was stuck in between the desk and her bed.
Katey searched around the room for anything else she might want. “How big is the bed?” I asked.
“King size, I think,” Logan replied as he began flipping through a comic book Katey had thrown on the floor of the room weeks ago.
“I’m going to get spoiled in such a big bed all to myself.” As soon as Katey said it, she realized how suggestive it sounded. She didn’t intend for it to sound that way, but Logan didn’t seem to notice the remark as he continued to sit in her chair and thumb through the pages rather quickly.
Katey zipped up the huge blue suitcase and tried to slide it off the bed, but it was much too heavy for her. Logan jumped up at seeing her struggle, vaulted over the bed to where she stood and landed on a few more books in the process. He swiftly grabbed the suitcase from her. She felt her face flush as their hands touched briefly.
Logan deftly lifted it onto his shoulder and began to lug it out into the living room, making his own foot holes in the floor but shuffling papers out of his way.
Katey pulled out another duffle bag and maneuvered around to her bookcase that held all her DVDs, CDs and her books. She picked out only her favorites that she had been meaning to read for a while and only the DVDs and CDs she couldn’t live without. Logan came back in after putting her suitcase, school bag and the duffle bag Katey had packed the night before into the bed of Dustin’s truck.
She struggled to lift the duffle bag of media material and almost fell forward as she was passing it over to him.
“Don’t strain yourself,” he jested. “We don’t need you in the hospital again,” Logan reached out to steady her by her shoulders, and then left again to put that bag in the truck. Katey smiled at how he was able to lift those bags like they were as light as feather pillows.
Once again, Katey pulled out another backpack and packed her essentials like bathroom supplies and just little things she wanted to take with her. Katey then packed up her laptop from her desk and slid it into its carrying case along with the mouse and power cord.
Logan walked back into the house and leaned against the doorframe of the bedroom, watching Katey busily flutter around the room as she stuffed item after item into her bag. He couldn’t help but smile wistfully.
“How many pieces of luggage could you possibly have?”
“A lot, apparently.”
Katey’s eyes then fell upon something very important that she almost forgot. It was a small husky puppy toy with white and silver fur and blue plastic eyes sitting at the head of her bed. It was old and delicate. She tenderly picked it up and stroked her fingers over the soft fur. Her eyes went a little misty.
Logan could see the swirl of emotion in her eyes.
“You can carry him with you instead of packing him away. I won’t make fun of you.”
Katey looked up at Logan, who had this alert, but sympathetic look about him as he came to her side. She gave him a weak smile and hugged it to her stomach.
“It’s the only thing I’ve had since I was little. I think my birth parents gave it to me or it was in my bassinet when I was taken to the orphanage or something. I sleep with it every ni
ght… I named him Captain Jack.”
He chuckled as he gently took the stuffed animal from her hands and turned it over as if to examine it. He smiled approvingly and handed it back to her so that he could shrug her backpack onto his shoulder.
He turned to walk out of the bedroom again as Katey leaned across her bed. She was about to take her calendar from the wall when she noticed a big circle around today’s date. She gasped and checked the date twice.
“What’s wrong?” Logan asked, turning around at the threshold.
“There’s this dance thing at the studio and I promised I would go to a month ago to help out. Lily and her boyfriend are expecting me. What time is it?” Katey said as she quickly ripped the calendar off the wall and stuffed it into another bag on the floor along with a pair of flip-flops and her dancing shoes.
“About four-thirty,” he replied after checking his phone. Katey slung the two bags over her shoulders, carried her stuffed dog in one hand and a pair of boots in the other and began to rush out of her bedroom, pushing her way past Logan in a panic.
“It starts in an hour! They would be expecting me there at least thirty minutes early. We need to get headed there soon!” Katey hopped up and down anxiously near the front door like an impatient child.
Logan looked less than enthused.
“We? Now? We have to get you settled in. The guys are expecting us over there and I don’t want to get in trouble with Darren again. He’s had it up to here with me,” Logan gestured towards his neck for emphases. “And besides, you just came out of the hospital, you shouldn’t be on your feet that much.” Logan tried to talk his way out of it, but Katey wasn’t about to back down on her promise to a friend.
“I feel fine, but if you don’t want to go, you can just drop me off at the studio and pick me up when it’s over. Then while I’m at the studio you can get settled in for me.” Katey could see the reaction in Logan’s eyes. He seemed angered by her attitude, but it was an anger of realization that he couldn’t leave her now.
“No, I’ll take you there and I’m going to keep an eye on you. Just let me tell Darren what we’re up to so he doesn’t throw a fit,” he said, as he snatched the bags away from Katey and rushed out the front door. Katey grinned when she realized she had won this battle, locking the door behind them and followed Logan hastily out to the truck.
The Enigma (The Loup-Garou Series Book 1) Page 25