Until Next Time (The Shooting Stars Series)

by Michelle Maness

  Adam, his stomach twisting painfully, watched Kaitlyn cry; he hated to see her hurting. As much as he hated her pain, however, he was relieved that she had finally seen what he and everyone else had known; Derrick had slowly been obliterating all the things that made her unique. Adam stood and extended a hand.

  “Come on.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked as she grabbed her purse and took his hand.

  “We’re going to go find Kaitlyn,” he informed her.

  “To find Kaitlyn?” she frowned at him.

  “That’s right,” he nodded.

  Adam led her to her apartment and took her keys from her before unlocking the door. He then went to her room and opened her closet. He started removing all of the new clothing and tossing it on the bed.

  “What are you doing?” Katherine demanded as she watched him.

  Once he had removed all of the new things he scooted her clothing back down and selected a green top and searched her dresser until he found a pair of jeans. He added her underclothing and shoved her toward the bathroom.

  “Go shower and let me know when you’re dressed.”

  “Adam, what is this…”

  “Go or I will strip you and shower you myself. I want to see your curls, Kaitlyn.”

  “Fine,” she turned and shut herself in the bathroom.

  Adam paced around the apartment while he waited; he wished Derrick were standing before him right now, he would deck the man.

  “Okay, I’m dressed,” Katherine announced a short time later.

  “Good,” Adam led her back into the bathroom and searched through her shelves until he finally found what he was looking for shoved to the back. He squeezed frizz control gel into his palms and started scrunching it into her hair. He had watched her do it many times while he had been hanging out in her dorm room.

  “How do you know how to do that?” she demanded.

  “I used to watch you do it,” he smiled at her.

  He unplugged the flatiron from the wall and tossed it onto her bed with all the clothing he had already piled there and plugged in her hair dryer. Katherine patiently let him dry her hair and then watched as he shoved all of her new makeup aside in one of her drawers to dig into the back. He handed her an eyelash curler and she obediently curled her lashes and then applied the dark brown mascara and eyeliner he handed her. He next handed her a lip gloss and stood back while she applied it.

  “That’s all?” she asked. “My freckles are showing.”

  “Exactly and it’s more than you need,” he informed her.

  Katherine met his intense gaze and felt a shiver run down her spine. The way he was looking at her suggested that he meant exactly what he had said. Adam moved to stand behind Kaitlyn.

  “Do you know that woman?” he asked her as he reached and pulled a curl straight before letting it bounce back into place.

  “I think I remember her,” Katherine smiled at him in the mirror.

  “Good, now let’s get you some shoes and go.”

  “Go? Adam, it’s almost midnight.”

  “We’re adults,” he shrugged.

  “Okay,” she grabbed socks, tennis shoes, and a jacket before seating herself on the couch to pull on her socks and shoes. She spotted her engagement ring as she was tying her shoes and as soon as she finished, she stood and removed the ring from her finger to lay it in a small dish on top of her entertainment center. She was going to have to call Derrick tomorrow and have a very serious discussion with him.

  “Ready?” Adam asked.

  “Ready for what?” she asked with a smile.

  Adam helped her into her jacket and locked the door behind them as he led her out into the hall. Once they were seated in his Durango he turned to her.

  “What would you like to do, Kaitlyn? You want to see a movie? You want to go midnight bowling? You want to go dancing? What do you want to do? We can do anything. We’ll drive to Gatlinburg if you like.”

  “Gatlinburg? Adam, are you crazy?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know,” she laughed.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “I am actually,” she admitted.

  “Choose a place, any place in the city that is open and I will take you to eat,” he offered.

  She smiled and chose one of her favorites. As he drove across town, he noted the way she kept bothering her bare ring finger and stopped at an open store. He found a simple gold ring with a couple of blue gemstones and bought it for her.

  “Wear this and your hand won’t feel so naked,” he offered.

  “Thanks,” she gave him a smile.

  A few minutes later they were seated with menus open in front of them.

  “I love their fajitas but they are way more than I can eat,” Katherine frowned at her menu. “And they have amazing flan.”

  “So let’s split their fajitas, but let’s start with desert and end with an appetizer,” he recommended.

  “Why?” she laughed.

  “Because we can.”

  “Okay,” she had a wide smile on her face. They settled on a desert and an appetizer before the waitress appeared to take their order.

  “You order,” Adam nodded at her.

  “We’ll have an order of cheese sticks, we’re going to split the fajitas, and the apple crumb, but we would like to start with desert and end with the appetizer,” Katherine related.

  The waitress smiled and nodded, “we can do that.”

  “Thanks,” Katherine smiled.

  “You look familiar,” she noted of Adam.

  “He gets that a lot,” Katherine laughed.

  “Yeah,” she shook her head and moved off.

  “You’re good at distractions,” he noted.

  “I don’t want you mobbed,” she shrugged.

  “Thanks.”

  “I should be in the bed right now,” she admitted.

  “Says who?” Adam countered.

  “Common sense,” she smiled.

  “Every once in a while you have to ignore common sense.”

  “Apparently,” she yawned but she was smiling. “Thanks, Adam; I’m having fun.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They ate their reverse meal in good spirits. Katherine couldn’t help laughing; it all felt so silly and so good. Adam paid for their meal, signed an autograph on the napkin to leave for their waitress, and offered Kaitlyn a hand.

  “Thanks for coming by,” the waitress smiled as she scooped up her tip.

  Katherine watched her eyes widened and shhhed her; the waitress smiled and nodded. Katherine was laughing as they emerged outside into a light drizzle. She turned her face up to welcome it. She felt so light, so….free.

  “Anything else you want to do?” Adam asked her.

  Katherine started to say no; then smiled.

  “Wal Mart; I love going to Wal Mart in the middle of the night,” she admitted.

  “Wal Mart it is.”

  A few minutes later they were roaming the aisles and dodging the employees who were stocking shelves. Katherine grabbed a couple of items she needed as they went but they spent most their time browsing and making jokes about some of the products. By the time they started the drive back to their apartments, Katherine was blinking sleepily.

  “That was fun,” she admitted.

  “Good.”

  “And I think I found, Kaitlyn,” she shared.

  “That’s even better,” Adam smiled.

  “I don’t know how I let it happen, Adam.”

  “It didn’t happen all at once or you would have noticed,” he assured her.

  “Right,” she nodded.

  Katherine fell quiet and when they arrived at the apartments, Adam looked over to find her asleep. He went around and opened the door.

  “Come on, Kaitlyn,” he helped her from the seat.

  She yawned, shook her head, and stumbled.

  “Sorry,” she said as she bumped into him.

 
“You’re fine,” he escorted her to her door and steadied her. “Kaitlyn, if I didn’t know better I would swear you had been drinking.”

  “I’m just that tired,” she noted as he unlocked her door.

  He helped her inside and watched her flip her bedroom light on.

  “You buried my bed,” she noted.

  “I’ll help you unbury it,” he offered and grabbed an arm full of clothes.

  “Why did you toss all my new stuff out of my closet?” she asked as she grabbed an arm full and looked around for something to do with it.

  “Because most of it isn’t you at all,” he piled clothes onto her dresser. Katherine followed his lead; it could all be gone through tomorrow. Adam was right; most of it wasn’t her.

  “There you go; your bed is clear. Good night, Kaitlyn.”

  “Good night,” she followed him to the door, and locked it behind him. That done, she fed her cat, hurried through her night time routine and climbed into her bed; she was asleep as soon as her head hit her pillow.

  ***

  Katherine very pointedly chose a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, applied little make-up, and left her hair to curl. She was through pandering to Derrick; was through with Derrick. She’d been forced to wait a long, agonizing week to talk with him after business had once again taken him from town. Katherine fingered the ring she had in her pocket and blew out a deep steadying breath. She was angry and that wasn’t how she wanted to address the situation. She heard his knock on her door and moved to answer it.

  “Hello, Derrick,” she greeted him calmly, she was going to remain calm; she wasn’t going to express her anger at being manipulated for months.

  “Katherine, what are you wearing? We can’t go to dinner with you dressed like that,” Derrick frowned at her.

  Katherine felt her anger kindle all over again. “I don’t want my hair straight, I don’t want it strawberry blonde, I don’t want my make-up hiding my freckles and I don’t want my clothes just so. I don’t want to feel like I am always checking myself to make sure I measure up!” she couldn’t keep the heat from her voice.

  “Katherine what is this? No one has told you that you don’t measure up and my and my mom’s interest in your wardrobe and hair was a professional one,” Derrick frowned at her. He felt off balance and he didn’t like it. What had gotten into Katherine?

  “I am not a freaking fashion plate; I am not an arm decoration and sure as hell am not your damn secretary to sit at home while you jet off all over the globe. Why was I willing to be treated like that?” Katherine was pacing now and struggling to bring her anger in check.

  “Katherine clearly you have pre-wedding jitters, let’s discuss this and you will feel better.”

  “Because you’re older and wiser and know better than me?” she turned on him; he stepped back and frowned.

  “Those things do apply,” he noted.

  “Maturity and wisdom have little to do with age, Derrick. I forgot that for a moment.”

  “Katherine, why are you angry at me?” Derrick demanded.

  “I don’t know if I am angrier at you or at myself. I let you change me, Derrick when I liked who I was.”

  “What’s going on, Katherine?” Derrick frowned at her. Where had all of this come from? She had always been slow to change and at times resistant but she always came around. “Where is all of this coming from?”

  “I can’t marry you, Derrick. When we met I was so impressed with your perfect manners and your polish but I can’t live up to the standard you set and I’ve been miserable trying to do so,” she informed him.

  “Katherine, sweetheart, it was never my intention to make you feel inferior, I’m sorry you felt that way. Talk to me, sweetie, we’ll work this out,” he took her arm and tried leading her to the couch. He was starting to panic now. He had never been dumped in his life and he didn’t intend to break that record now. He and Katherine were going to work this out.

  “I don’t want to work it out,” she pulled her arm free. “I want my freedom; I want to be free to be myself and not feel that I’m letting anyone down by doing so.”

  “This is about the other night, isn’t it? I’m sorry, Katherine, I had no right to touch you and kiss you that way. I don’t blame you for being upset. I was wrong.” He should have known better than to press her; he had let jealousy rule his actions. He had come to realize that during his trip.

  “Derrick, it’s not that I felt guilty or that I felt as if we shouldn’t; it’s that I didn’t want to. You’re a nice looking man, Derrick and I had assumed that when we married the passion would be there. The other night it simply wasn’t there. When I started asking myself why that was I realized I didn’t even know myself any more, Derrick. I was looking at a stranger in the mirror and asking myself how I had gotten there.”

  “Katherine, listen to me, you have pre-wedding jitters, sweetheart, and I am willing to bet a guilty conscious is at the root of the other night. Naturally after one misstep that ended in heartache you don’t want to repeat that mistake,” Derrick cajoled her.

  Katherine threw back her head and laughed. The man still didn’t get it. “I don’t have a single regret about the night I spent with Adam.”

  Derrick felt his anger rise. “So this is all about Adam?”

  “No! I was correcting a misconception you seem to have. It wasn’t a case of guilty conscious that kept me from sleeping with you, Derrick. It was a lack of desire. I am not trying to hurt you; I really am not. I just need you to understand that it wasn’t going to work. Derrick, you weren’t looking for a spouse in me; you were looking for a business partner!”

  “Yes, Katherine, I thought we would be great together as business partners but I also thought we would make great life partners!”

  Why? I want a house full of kids, I want the sleepless nights and runny noses and chubby little arms around my neck and to hear myself called Mommy. You seem to want an heir but are otherwise disinterested. I love slow Sunday afternoon drives and old houses. You prefer to get where you’re going as fast as you can and are into new and modern….Derrick we are like oil and water!”

  “You could have told me all of this a little sooner,” Derrick snapped. He felt like he was being chastised for the way he felt and he resented it.

  “I tried!” she yelled. “You rebuked me for it and assured you me that your way was superior. What I can’t figure out is why it took me so long to get tired of it.”

  “No, this is about Adam, Katherine. From the moment he arrived you couldn’t seem to get enough of being with him; to the place you were willing to paint me as the bad guy for being concerned that my fiancée was running off to be with another man. Even better you couldn’t see fit to tell me your past with the man.”

  “Why were you so ready to sleep with me the other night, Derrick? Did you really want me that bad or were you just threatened that Adam had been with me and you hadn’t?” she demanded.

  “Yeah I was threatened by it because you insist on seeing him constantly.”

  “We would have never worked, Derrick; look at us,” she shook her head.

  “We never fought before Adam came into the picture,” he insisted.

  “You know why, Derrick? Because in an effort to be good enough for you I stuffed my own preferences away and let you have your way. Having someone ask my preferences again reminded me that I used to have those and at one time was good at making them known.”

  Derrick stared at her in disbelief. Was this the woman he had been engaged to? She stood with her hair in a riot of curls where she had kept pulling them back and releasing them as they argued, her green eyes were lit with fire and her mouth was set in a firm line that said she wouldn’t be moved. He didn’t know the woman standing before him; she was a stranger.

  “Here,” she reached into her pocket and extended his ring to him.

  Derrick took it and stared down at it in disbelief. Katherine was dumping him. He tucked it into his pocket and nodded.

  “I
guess this is goodbye then,” he told her.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you, Derrick.”

  “Right.” Derrick moved to the door and left without another word.

  Katherine sighed and sank onto her couch; she was glad to have that over with. It was a relief to be free of her fiancé so she didn’t understand the tears that sprang to her eyes. She grabbed her keys and locked her door as she left. She rode the elevator up, knocked on Adam’s door, and waited.

  “Hi,” his smile was filled with understanding.

  “Hi,” she entered and sank onto the couch.

  “How did it go?”

  “It was a heated argument but he finally took his ring and left. The thing is I am relieved so why am I crying?” she demanded.

  “Because Derrick might not have been the one but you gave up a dream tonight.”

  “Right, a dream of a miserable future,” she said darkly.

  Adam smiled at her.

  “No, that was a realization. You dreamt of a happy future with a loving husband and kids. I was starting to worry that you weren’t going to see through him, Kaitlyn,” Adam admitted.

  “Honestly, Adam, had you not come along when you did I’m not sure I would have. I began to contrast my time with Derrick to my time with you and I realized I wasn’t myself with him. You’ve always let me be myself and I thank you for that.”

  “I like you just the way you are, Kaitlyn.”

  “Thank you, Adam. I feel a bit like I’ve just come through a rough storm and got battered in the process,” she shared.

  “In a way you did. It will take you a while to adjust.”

  “Adam, I don’t have a plan.”

  “Scary isn’t it?” he asked with an understanding smile. “I am both looking forward to and dreading my confrontation with Damien next month,” he admitted. “At least once I know what to expect I can try making plans.”

  “You’ve been in limbo a while; I imagine you will be glad to get some closure. I’m certainly going to miss you when you go to California.”