Catching You

by Jessie Evans

  They were her family, so in a weird way she guessed her nerves made perfect sense. It was like she was bringing John home to meet the folks, except she had seven dads for him to please, instead of one.

  But so far, John didn’t seem nervous.

  “John O’Grady,” he said, flashing that heartbreaker smile as he pumped one hand after another, using a firm, yet respectful, grip.

  So far, so good, Kitty thought. The guys looked pleased.

  Kitty hung back, watching the men make small talk, unable to resist a lingering look John’s way. He wasn’t hot the way Nick was hot, or good looking in the traditional sense, but John was a charmer. With his auburn curls, bright blue eyes, and perpetually flushed cheeks, he looked like a much-younger, much sexier Santa Claus.

  Much, much sexier, inspiring some naughty fantasies that involved crawling up into his lap and telling him exactly what she wanted for Christmas.

  His smile, easy-going attitude, and spot on sense of humor had drawn her in, but it was his kiss that had convinced her to come apologize this afternoon. John O’Grady’s kiss was like nothing she had experienced before—passionate, but gentle, intense, but with a sense of humor that made her think he’d be amazing in bed.

  Sex was really kind of a silly thing when you thought about it, and Kitty had done her fair share of giggling in the sack. Unfortunately, once their pants came off, most men took themselves way too seriously. But Kitty had a feeling John would be different. She smiled, thinking about the puking clown pajamas he’d been wearing earlier. A guy who appreciated the humor of a hung-over clown would surely appreciate the occasional hilarity of sex.

  “So who’s driving, Kitty Cat?” Dale asked, his voice as gravelly as the pebbled parking lot beneath their feet.

  “I am,” Kitty said, hooking an arm through John’s. “I’m not sure John is ready for Clyde just yet.”

  “I’m totally not ready,” John said. “This is our first drive. I want to take things slow with Clyde, establish trust before we take the next step in our relationship.”

  “Good idea,” Little Mike said, chuckling. “Clyde can be a sumuvabitch.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Kitty whispered out of the corner of her mouth when John’s forehead bunched. Little Mike’s country drawl was so thick deciphering his comments was almost like learning to speak another language.

  “Got it,” John whispered back, grinning.

  “Clyde is a gentleman, that’s all,” Kitty said to the group at large. “He’s loyal to the lady he came with.”

  The men laughed. Soon, the conversation turned to the past, back to the seventies, when the microbrewery had been a diner where they had all hung out. As they reminisced, Howie handed out the cruising order sheet. It was Kitty’s turn in back, and for once she was glad to be at the rear. She would be super nervous if she thought one of her dad’s old friends was watching her flirt with John as they drove.

  Heck, she’d be nervous if anyone was watching her flirt. She’d almost had a heart attack last night at the bar when the jock in the Bronco’s jersey had hit on her in front of his friends while John was in the bathroom.

  She still couldn’t believe she’d left with the meathead to get a drink somewhere else. It wasn’t like her, at all. But she’d been so freaked by her first kiss with John that she hadn’t been thinking straight.

  All she could think about was how much she’d enjoyed the kiss, how she’d felt connected to John in a way she’d never felt before and most importantly—how much it would hurt when John crept out of her apartment in the dead of the night like all the other guys she’d brought home.

  Maybe you’ve just been bringing home the wrong guys.

  “Maybe so,” Kitty mumbled as she and John headed back to Clyde to prepare to take their place in the line of shined up old beauties.

  “What’d you say?” John asked.

  Kitty smiled. “Nothing. Just glad you and the boys hit it off.”

  “Yeah. So far, so good,” John said, echoing Kitty’s earlier thought. He glanced around the parking lot, making sure no one was close enough to hear before adding beneath his breath, “but I can tell any one of them would happily cut my privates off if I messed with their Kitty Cat.”

  She winced. “It’s a terrible nickname. Not of my choosing.”

  “It doesn’t fit you,” John agreed. “But it’s nice. They’re cool old guys. Thanks for letting me meet them.”

  “You’re welcome,” Kitty said, pleased John seemed to understand that meeting her surrogate family was a privilege, as well as a test. “And they wouldn’t cut off your privates. They’d just terrify you by making you think they were going to cut them off, then let you go with a warning.”

  John chuckled. “Then I’ll definitely be on my best behavior.”

  “Speaking of best behavior,” Kitty said, sliding into the driver’s seat while John hopped in on the other side. “I wanted to tell you again how sorry I am about last night. That really wasn’t like me. I feel terrible about it.”

  “Don’t feel terrible,” John said. “It’s over. You apologized and I accepted. As far as I’m concerned, it’s like it never happened.”

  Kitty watched him from the corner of her eyes as she gave Clyde’s gas pedal a preliminary pump. “You can really do that?”

  “I can really do that,” John said. “When I want to. And with you, I want to. Just don’t make me feel like sulking in my clown-puke pajamas again, and we’re all good.” He paused then added in a more thoughtful tone, “Seriously, even if this doesn’t work, as long as you’re honest with me, we’re cool. Our best friends are together; I want us to be cool with each other, no matter what happens.”

  Kitty turned to face him as she waited for the other drivers to pull out ahead of her. “I feel the same way. And from here on out, I don’t want to play games unless they require a controller and a PlayStation.”

  “Assassin’s Creed,” John said, excitement flashing in his eyes. “Tell me you play.”

  “Of course! I love it,” Kitty said. “But Heavy Rain is my current addiction.”

  “I was hooked on that at the beginning of the summer,” John said with a geeky enthusiasm that made Kitty grin. “I had to take a time out because it was seriously cutting into my adult cartoon time.”

  Kitty arched an eyebrow. “Well, maybe I can lure you back to the dark side later tonight. I’d love to play with someone who can appreciate the cinematic awesomeness that is Heavy Rain.”

  John hummed appreciatively beneath his breath. “Has anyone ever told you how sexy you are when you talk gaming?” he asked, leaning across the seat and stealing a kiss.

  As soon as his lips met hers—warm and soft, but not too soft, and as sensual as a bath by candlelight followed by a full body rub down—Kitty forgot what she was doing. She forgot the sequence of actions needed to get Clyde up and running, forgot that she hadn’t shifted into drive, forgot everything except the way John’s kiss made her feel so dangerously safe. His kiss was a bear hug on a rollercoaster, a hand to grip while the elevator dropped, filling her up with giddy desire and a warm, cared-for feeling that turned her insides to melted caramel.

  “Hey, K?” John said, breath coming faster against her lips as he pulled away.

  “Yes, J?” Kitty asked, trying to keep her flustered state from showing in her voice and failing.

  “I think you’d better go, or we’re never going to catch up with the rest of them.”

  Kitty jumped in her seat and turned to glance at the road, shocked to see the tail end of Dale’s 1954 Buick Skylark already half a mile down the old highway.

  “Shit,” Kitty said, hurrying to get Clyde started while John laughed.

  “Glad to know I’m not the only one who finds our kisses distracting,” he said in a husky tone that made Kitty’s bare arms tingle.

  She blew air through her pursed lips. “They’re more than distracting. They’re…”

  “Awesome,” John finished in such a completely ha
ppy tone that Kitty could only smile and agree.

  He was right. Their kisses were awesome. John was awesome.

  As Kitty caught up with the rest of the club, rolling down the windows to let the last of the summer breeze blow into the car, she secretly hoped the rest of the day would play out just as perfectly as their kisses.

  Chapter Three

  John had never been the type to enjoy the journey—at least not when the journey involved a long car ride. He liked to get where he was going as quickly as possible and chose air travel any time he could afford it.

  A two-hour motorcycle cruise he could get behind —there was something sexy about the wind buffeting you all over, the rumble of a chopper between your legs, and the grit of bugs in your teeth—but cars…not so much. If someone had told him at the start of the afternoon that he would be bummed by how quickly the two hour drive seemed to pass, he would have snorted Coke out his nose and called them a liar.

  But at four o’clock he hadn’t known how often Kitty would make him laugh, or the way the afternoon sun would catch the red streaks in her hair and warm her golden skin, making her look like an old-time movie star. He didn’t know that when they reached cruising speed she’d let him hold her hand, or that it would be so unbearably sexy to watch her self-assured mastery of the finicky Clyde.

  He didn’t know that at approximately five-thirty-three p.m. something would click inside him and he would realize that he’d found her, that girl, that forever kind of girl, the one he had secretly feared only existed in really badass video games and comic books.

  By the time they pulled back into Stumpgrinder’s Brewhouse at six o’clock, all John wanted was more time alone with Kitty. Her grandpa posse seemed like a cool group of dudes, but John didn’t want to share her, not now, not when he had just realized how truly special she was and how much more special they could be together.

  “So?” Kitty said as she pulled Clyde back into the now-crowded parking lot.

  It was full of classic cars, Harleys, and a few mini-vans with cheesy, stick-people-family bumper stickers on the back, proving that Stumpgrinder’s really did attract all kinds.

  “What did you think of your first cruise?” she asked.

  “I loved the shit out of it,” John said, grinning so hard his face hurt when Kitty threw back her head and laughed.

  “I love your laugh,” he said. “It makes me want to purr like a cat.”

  “I hate cats,” Kitty said, wrinkling her nose as she rolled up her window.

  “That’s ironic.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said in a dry voice.

  “Well, I love cats,” John said, cheerfully disagreeing. “I’m getting one as soon as I can convince Nick that he’s not really allergic to them.”

  Kitty snorted. “I don’t think that’s something you can reason people out of, John.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.” John winked and flashed his most persuasive grin. “I’ll bring you around to loving cats, too. Soon you will crave their soft, furry, motor-powered loving as much as I do.”

  “It could happen,” Kitty said with an easy shrug. “I don’t really have anything against cats. I’ve just never been thrilled to be named after one, you know?”

  She glanced his way and her eyes caught the setting sun filtering through the window, emphasizing the starbursts of darker blue at their center. John fought for a deeper breath as things in his chest went warm and tight. She really did look like a movie star.

  “You’re amazingly pretty,” he said in a soft voice. “Just so you know.”

  “Thanks.” Her shy grin indicated she wasn’t used to getting compliments. Why, he couldn’t imagine—she was a natural beauty, as gorgeous in jeans and a t-shirt as she was all done up—but it must be the case because he could tell his compliment flustered her. Which, of course, only made him want to make her blush again.

  “I’m also pretty sure I could get addicted to your kisses,” he said, leaning across the car. “You kiss like a house on fire.”

  “Whatever that means,” she said, lids drifting to half-mast as his mouth closed in on hers.

  He was seconds away from showing her exactly what it meant when someone knocked hard on the passenger’s window, making them jerk apart with twin sounds of surprise.

  “Come on, Kitty Cat,” Big Mike boomed from outside the car. “The first round’s on me. We’re getting the big picnic table out back with the view of the river.”

  “Okay, just a sec,” Kitty called, snatching her purse from the backseat. “We’ll just have one,” she whispered to John as she reached for her door.

  “We can have as many as you like,” John said. “As long as you stay sober enough to drive Clyde back to my place. I’m not sure I’m ready to handle him just yet.”

  Kitty shook her head. “One’s enough. I’d rather be alone, you know?”

  John’s nervous system sent out a zing that made his entire body feel pleasantly electric. “I know. I totally know.”

  “Good.” She darted forward, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek before stepping out the door.

  John paused, grinning stupidly to himself as he marveled that Kitty’s kisses could be as sweet as they were sexy.

  She was something else, this girl. Something he didn’t intend to let slip away.

  ***

  Forty-five minutes later they had finished their micro-brew—hefeweizen for John and an amber lager for Kitty—and were on the road, headed back to Summerville as the sun set, turning the fields on either side of the car into sepia-tinted scenery so pretty John couldn’t keep from sighing in appreciation.

  “Sundays are the best days,” Kitty said with a contented sigh of her own. “It is so beautiful here.”

  “It is,” John agreed. “Makes it hard to believe I was so dead set against moving back to Summerville.”

  Kitty shot him a curious look before turning her attention back to the road. “Why were you against it? Have something against small towns?”

  John shrugged. “Not really, I just… I don’t know. Nick and I were always tight in high school, but I wasn’t as successful as he was socially. He pulled off the weird, outsider thing and still came off as a guy girls wanted to be with. Me…not so much. I had one, serious girlfriend, and it was a very angsty relationship. Pretty much soured me on long term stuff for a long time. I think I was worried that if I came home, I’d turn back into that shy, awkward, stuck-in-a-miserable-relationship kid I used to be.”

  “You don’t seem shy or awkward,” Kitty said, pausing for a moment before adding, “and from what I can gather, it seems like you’ve had no trouble connecting with the women of Summerville.”

  John arched an eyebrow. “Been checking up on me?”

  “A girl can’t help hearing gossip in a town this size,” Kitty said. “You know how it is. I mean, the only reason I don’t already know all your secrets is because you went to a different high school.”

  John sighed again, a more melancholy sound this time. “Yeah. That’s another part of Summerville I could do without. Sometimes it’s nice to maintain a little mystery, you know?”

  “Well, the girl I heard talking about you though you were plenty mysterious,” Kitty said. “And pretty interesting. She seemed sad that you hadn’t called her again.”

  John shrugged, wishing Kitty hadn’t overheard one of his former hook-ups talking about him. “I guess the same tricks work anywhere,” he said.

  “Oh yeah?” she asked, a cautious note creeping into her voice. “What kind of tricks?”

  “Nothing that’s not on the level,” John said, hurrying to reassure her that he wasn’t one of those guys who enjoyed toying with girls’ emotions for entertainment. “It’s not really a trick, I guess. More of a philosophy.”

  She hummed, a dubious sound that made it clear more clarification was required.

  “Okay, so I know this will sound kind of lame, but…” John hesitated, wondering if he should share his theories
on picking up the opposite sex with a girl he was presently on a date with.

  But for some reason it felt right to be honest with Kitty, even about this.

  “It’s like this,” he continued, “Once you decide that anyone would be lucky to go home with you—like really decide it—it’s amazing the difference it makes in your sex appeal. You don’t have to be the hottest thing going, you just have to act like you are and people will believe it. It’s all a head game.”

  “A head game where you’re the winner. Meanwhile the girls spend the next month obsessively checking their cell phones, wondering why you haven’t called.”

  John shook his head, hating the chilly note in her voice. He wished he hadn’t started this conversation. “No, it’s not like that. I always tell the girls up front that I’m not looking for a relationship, even a casual one.”

  “Which only makes them want you even more,” Kitty said. “Do you know nothing about girls, John?”

  He shrugged. “Even if that’s true, it’s still not my fault. I’m totally honest from the beginning. I’m not trying to hurt anyone. I just haven’t felt ready to have a girlfriend.”

  “You didn’t give me the relationship warning,” Kitty said, sneaking a look at him from the corner of her eyes.

  “No, I didn’t,” John said slowly. “I was planning on it, but after about ten minutes of talking to you, I didn’t want to. I hope that’s okay.”

  Kitty made a considering sound. “Maybe. I’m still not sure how I feel about this head game thing.”

  John sighed. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. All I was trying to say is that sex appeal is all between the ears.”

  Kitty drove in silence as the fields flew past and the outskirts of Summerville came into view and John wondered if he had ruined things by putting his big, stupid foot in his mouth.

  “You’re probably right,” she finally said, easing the tension in John’s chest.

  “It would certainly explain some things,” she continued with a shrug. “Melody always said she couldn’t understand why I wasn’t covered up in men.”