She was touched by his delayed concern. Perhaps they were almost out of the woods. What had changed, she couldn’t tell, but she was glad for it. Having the old Logan back would make this transition so much easier.
Katey looked around her room once more, then to her bags on the floor. She didn’t feel like trying to rearrange everything tonight so she pulled out her bathroom supplies and pajamas. She was going to try and wake up as early as possible in the morning to beat all the guys to the bathroom so she set her bathroom amenities by the door. She saw that her bedroom door was equipped with a lock. Out of impulse, she used it, but a second later she laughed at herself for thinking that a simple lock was going to keep a loup-garou out of her bedroom.
She changed into her pajamas and crawled under the warm sheets after turning off the light. The pillows were stuffed with downy feathers and the comforter was so soft that she felt like she was sleeping in a cloud.
She smiled and curled up tightly under the covers, wondering how long it would take for her to feel at home with all of her teachers just as shout down the hall away. But there was no remorse in her decision to live with them. Even though they were inhuman monsters, the living breathing stuff of fairytales, Katey felt safe knowing they were close by. Especially Logan. She wondered if they could hear her whispers, her breathing, her heartbeat. Or would they tune it out? Would Logan be listening? Would he even care anymore?
The only thing that would make this happy ending a little better would be if Logan were there with her now, snuggling under the duvet with her. Katey wondered what he wore to sleep. Did he sleep in the nude or in pajamas? Did he sleep with a light on or with one foot peeking out of the covers?
Now that she was in the same house with him, it wasn’t enough. She wanted to be in the same room, in his arms. Anything short of that was insufficient to quench her lonely soul.
Her new love for him was like a tiny light inside her heart, giving her warmth on this cold winter night and caused her mind to race with questions and desires that she couldn’t control. It gave her hope and joy, but her chest ached for his presence and the tenderness he had showed her before.
Thinking of how he shrugged her off so coldly in the car on the way over made her joy want to turn sour, like a rotting apple left out too long in the harsh sun. But Katey pushed back the tears and reminded herself that there would be many more days to make amends for whatever happened at the dance studio. If it were her fault, she had to apologize. And if it was something the matter with him, she wanted to be there and help if she could. Things would get better.
Katey was just about to fall asleep when she heard two voices in the hallway. She lay completely still and listened carefully to their conversation.
In the hallway, Logan had summoned Dustin out of bed to talk. He had to talk to somebody about what happened at the dance studio. He knew that Dustin had more experience in this sort of thing. Logan told him the whole story, every detail before waiting for his advice.
“I don’t see why you’re so worked up about this Logan,” Dustin said through a deep yawn. He was dressed in only a pair of baggy flannel pants that hung low on his hips. “She probably didn’t notice. If she noticed, she would have said something or asked about it.”
“But, she did ask about it on the way home,” Logan replied, leaning against the wall, wishing he could have bashed his head through the drywall to erase the embarrassing memory of that evening.
Dustin sighed. “You couldn’t have waited until the morning for this conversation?” He grumbled.
“You said I could come to you anytime. Does that not include sleeping hours?”
Dustin rubbed his face. “I am so not in the mood for teenage angst right now… What exactly did she ask?”
“She asked if we were going to talk about what happened at the studio.”
“She might have not been talking about that.” Dustin let his head rest against his door frame and closed his eyes sleepily.
Logan rubbed the back of his neck, overly agitated about the situation. “I still feel bad that I let my guard down… I can’t believe she turned me on like that.”
Dustin opened his eyes only so he could roll them. “Logan, chill out! If it happens again, think about something else.”
“That’s a little hard, Dustin. She was just so…beautiful tonight. You should have seen her. She was wearing a long skirt and she was just…so stunning. I never knew anyone could look so attractive.” His voice trailed off dreamily and his irises clouded over with red once more.
Dustin grinned and raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re doing it again,” he muttered, slightly amused.
Logan growled at himself and rubbed at his eyes with his palms. “You see what I mean! She drives me so crazy! I feel like I’m losing my sanity here!”
Dustin grabbed at his wrist and pulled his hands away from his face so Logan was forced to look at him. “Hey, calm down. The others are still asleep and you definitely don’t want to wake up Katey. Just go to sleep, chill out and in the morning, you’ll feel better, okay?”
Logan sighed and Dustin let his hands drop from his grasp as the boy nodded. “But what if this happens again? If it happens more often, she’s going to get persistent about finding out what’s going on.”
“And we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Maybe try not getting so close to her. And don’t think about her so much, especially in that way… Man, you take after me more than I thought.”
Logan leaned his back against the wall and his gaze floated to the ceiling. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone though. I like it and that’s what scares me.”
A corner of Dustin’s mouth quirked up at the boy and nodded with understanding.
“Just get some sleep and things will seem clearer in the morning,” he said, patting Logan heavily on the shoulder and turning back into his bedroom.
Logan took a glance down the hall to Katey’s room, sighed and then headed towards his own. He sincerely hoped that Dustin was right. He couldn’t afford to lose any more sleep, and he certainly didn’t want to lose Katey over something so trivial.
Katey sat up a little in her bed as she heard the bedroom doors close in the hall.
Logan got… turned on?… Because of me?… Was he insane? What could he have been thinking about? Is Logan falling for me? Does he like me? Does he love me? I wouldn’t mind being loved, but it just seems impossible to love someone like me, especially someone as handsome as him. It makes no sense. Nothing makes sense anymore.
Katey forced herself to lie back down, but she had to bite back the childish grin that she could barely contain. The thought of Logan liking her was enough to fill her with wild giddiness. It proved difficult to fall asleep that night, but she eventually did drift into dreamland somewhere in the early morning hours.
Chapter 22
The next morning, intense light beamed through her window and flooded Katey’s bedroom. She rolled over to face the door and snuggled inside her blankets even deeper, cherishing the warmth.
Her eyes slowly opened and she squinted around the blue room. It looked different during the day than at night some how. More homey and inviting. Perhaps it was because this house wasn’t cramped in on all sides by other homes to block the natural light from streaming in the way it did here. Katey never imagined that country living would be so advantageous.
She craned her head around to look at her radio clock on the nightstand. It was almost noon and she missed her chance to be the first one to use the bathroom in the morning. On the bright side, there wouldn’t be an arms race for hot water now. The others must have gotten done with whatever morning routine entailed hours ago.
Katey sat up and wrapped as much of the comforter around her body as she could. The air in her room seemed a little colder than what was natural and she wondered if the house even had modern heating. Thinking on it for a moment, she guessed it probably didn’t. Why would a loup-garou care about getting too cold?
She peer
ed over the side of the bed and spotted a folded up piece of parchment paper, addressed to her, poking out from underneath her door. Her eyes lit up as she recognized Logan’s perfect handwriting.
She hastily stumbled out of bed to snatch at the note, ignored the biting cold of the hardwood floors against her bare feet, sat down and read it eagerly, still wrapped up in her comforter.
Katey,
The guys and I have gone out for lunch. We will be back shortly.
Logan
Katey read it over and over again, stretching her imagination to hear those short couple of sentences spoken with tenderness. She wanted to believe that Logan didn’t mean such curt words to be read across as cold and impassionate. She wanted to believe that a good night’s sleep put them to right again.
Katey slipped on her glasses and ran her fingers through her oily hair with a repulsed sneer. A shower was long overdue. She set the note up on the nightstand and gathered her bathroom supplies as well as a change of clean clothes from her suitcase and cautiously walked out into the corridor.
It was empty and a little dark with the only light coming from her open doorway and a window at each end of the hall. She ran her fingertips along the smooth painted wall until she came to the bathroom and reveled in the fact that she had the entire mansion to herself. She began to affectionately call it that, even though she knew it wasn’t much bigger than other houses in the world. But, in her mind, it was her mansion and she was the lady of it.
The bathroom was very neat, clean and spacious. It’d have to be to accommodate four bachelors. Hanging next to the shower was also a row of towels. One blue, one green, one brown and one a sort of dark ochre yellow. She didn’t have to think hard about which towel belong to whom.
She also noticed that the toothbrushes on the double vanity sink were color coded in the same fashion. The rest of the counter was littered with razors; nail clippers and other hygienic products that one would expect to see in a man’s bathroom.
With the utmost respect for each piece, Katey cleared off a little section of the counter and arranged out her other supplies, trying her best not to take up too much space.
Katey avoided her reflection in the mirror about the sink as she stripped for her shower. There was plenty of hot water and steam filled the bathroom as she washed and scrubbed.
After wrapping herself in a towel, she skedaddled back to her room to begin the tedious chore of unpacking, all the while her mind drifting off to recount the last few moments of consciousness the night before.
Katey wanted to squeal when she remembered how Logan was driving himself crazy over the fact that she managed to turn him on somehow. Whether that was good or not, she was excited that it was possible for her to affect someone of the opposite gender in such a way. She did speculate if it would become a problem. Logan was a loup-garou after all and if he was that concerned over it, perhaps it affected him differently in some adverse way that she wasn’t aware of.
Once she had unpacked pretty much everything, Katey glanced to her school bag that lay on the floor near the desk. Then the sudden realization hit her that she had school the next day and it would be the first days for semester exams.
She inwardly groaned and dried her hair as much as she could, got dressed and began to study.
To stay comfortable, she wore a pair of her faded jeans and a simple black t-shirt.
As she studied, the awareness hit her that she was living with all of her teachers that taught her major subjects besides English. Any student would think she had it made. If she had no morals whatsoever she could just sneak out in the middle of the night and grab the answers to the test. Thankfully she was more honorable than that.
But the longer she stared at the geography vocabulary, the less immoral it seemed. And with the guys out of the house for a little while, now would have been the perfect time.
Just as she began to wonder where Dustin’s school bad was, she heard a vehicle drive up in front of the house. She turned off her rock music, stood up and leaned over the desk to peek out the window.
Outside was Dustin’s red pickup truck with Dustin and Darren climbing out of the front cab while Logan and Ben were hopping out of the bed of the truck.
Darren was carrying a McDonalds take-out bag with him as they all walked up to the front door laughing and joking around like the old friends that they were. She marveled once again how human they seemed.
Logan turned his eyes up to her window, startling her with how direct his gaze was, like he was purposely looking for her. She gasped and sat back, letting the curtain fall back closed over the windowpane. By the way his gaze met hers, she knew he had seen her.
Katey sat perfectly still and listened as the guys walked through the house, talking to one another. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but she could certainly make out whose voices were speaking at which time. She didn’t hear Ben’s voice and very little of Dustin’s. Mostly it was Darren and Logan who were discussing something. She would have given anything to know what they were talking about.
All the noise stopped and Katey turned her attention back to her geography textbook. A few moments later, a loud knock at her door startled her.
Katey almost fell out of her chair from the jolt she was given and would have slid out if she hadn’t have grabbed the edge of the desk.
“Yes?” she called out to the door.
“It’s Darren. May I come in?” his voice asked from behind the door.
“It’s your house,” she quipped cheerfully, hoping that he wouldn’t take the comment as her having an attitude with him. She turned in her chair to see him slowly open the door. He stepped inside with a smile and held up the McDonalds bag to her.
“I brought you food.”
Katey smiled and nodded. “I see that. Thank you.”
Darren closed the door behind him and walked around the bed towards her. Katey felt a little odd about having the door closed with them alone in the room, but tried not to show her discomfort.
“Getting settled in well enough?”
Katey shrugged and looked away. “I guess so.”
Darren sat down on the edge of her bed and pulled out a large carton of fries from the take out back to hand to her. Katey grinned and accepted it willingly, popping a few in her mouth. She didn’t realize how hungry she was until the aroma of the delectable snack hit her nose.
Her teacher glanced to the open textbooks on her desk. “Have you been studying all afternoon?”
“I just got started a little while ago. I probably woke up just after you guys left for lunch,” Katey replied with her mouth half full.
“I’m glad you’re taking an initiative in your grades.” Darren leaned back onto his hands and let his gaze fall towards the window. “You know, you are very mature for your age. Anyone who has been through what you’ve experienced in just the last week alone would be enough to drive them mad. What with the accident and us and all…” He paused and watched her scarf down the fries. “Are you planning on going to your foster mom’s funeral?” he asked.
Katey swallowed and shook her head. “Not really. There’s too much going on for me to bother going.”
Darren wasn’t pleased with that answer, but he wasn’t going to push the subject. He knew pushing would only make things more uncomfortable. He wasn’t her father after all. He sighed at the thought and looked back out the window.
“Logan feels responsible for what happened. He may not show it, but that’s just how he is sometimes.”
Katey’s eyes shot up to him. “It’s not his fault and I told him that. It was all her own fault. If Logan wasn’t there, something else would have happened just as bad and maybe I wouldn’t be sitting her today.”
Darren brushed off her passionate response. “I suppose we’ll never know.” He turned to meet her eyes. “I hope living here won’t bother you too much with us being what we are.”
“You mean loups-garous or being my teachers?”
Darren l
aughed at that. He had to admit that on many levels, this arrangement was a little awkward, but he didn’t think about that when offering his home to her. “Both,” he replied.
“Not really… I mean,” Katey pondered on the right answer for a moment, “it’ll be awkward at first, but I’ll get used to it.”
“What about the fact that you are the only girl in a house full of bachelors?”
Katey paused in thought for a moment, and then shook her head. “You know, I didn’t even think about that so much as the other two things. But, it’ll prove interesting having to share a bathroom.”
“We’ll try to make it as easy for you as possible. We have a bad habit of barging into a room without knocking, but I’ll make sure the others know not to do that anymore. Forgive us if we happen to do or say things that offend you.”
“While we’re on the subject, since I’m rooming with all of you now, can I just call you by your first names? I already know them, but should I still call you by your last names?”
Darren chuckled. “As long as we’re in private, I don’t see the problem. But don’t call me by my given name in the middle of class. It may raise some eyebrows.”
Katey nodded and stared out the window at the bright day outside while she continued to munch on her fries.
Darren inhaled deeply and watched her, half intrigued and half curious as to what made her so special. He wouldn’t deny that she was, but he wished he knew what made her that way. He couldn’t help but regard in the back of his mind that she seemed so familiar to him, not just in her looks but in her spirit and he couldn’t place his finger on just what it was.
“I wasn’t going to bring this up, but while I’m here, I wanted to ask how you’re doing on that decision.”
Katey looked back to him in mid-chew. “You mean about changing?”
Darren nodded and Katey cast her gaze down to her lap nervously. She honestly hadn’t given it too much thought over the last couple of days, at least not since the accident.
The Enigma (The Loup-Garou Series Book 1) Page 28