Chapter 4
Caleb
What the hell am I doing here?
The cold from outside is slowly creeping inside my car. It sends goosebumps up my arms and down my spine as I sit in Nic’s driveway, staring at her house as if it might eat me alive.
I’m still torn. A part of me wants to go inside. The part that knows everyone else in Wayward Hollow is spending today with their families and doesn’t want to be the odd one out.
Yet another voice in my head keeps screaming, ‘You’re fine alone.’
I guess this gathering is one of the few occasions where I wouldn’t be the odd one out, considering Nic cut ties with her family before moving to Wayward Hollow. From what I’ve heard Kieran mention in the café, he’s not exactly fond of his family either.
And Lauren?
Lauren is a mystery. I can’t remember her mentioning her parents before.
A miracle, considering she runs on caffeine and talks about any and everything at the speed of light.
The fact that she’s not very successful at building her bookshelves.
Her work in Amanda’s antique store. The newest hobby she picked to try.
I know everything in painstaking detail.
For once, Henry’s functional family is making him the outsider. Ironic.
A tap on the window makes me flinch, my heart beating against my rib cage as if it’s trying to escape. Think of the devil and he’ll knock on your car window.
Henry’s grin is so wide it’s competing with the Cheshire Cat as he motions for me to get out of my car. One deep breath. Two. Then, I unbuckle myself and open the door.
“Glad you could make it,” he greets me as soon as my feet touch the ground. Jensen weasels around my legs, tail wagging happily, and I lean down to say ‘hi’.
At once he stops and peers somewhere behind us, ears up and alert. Alas, it’s not a serial killer, only Kieran jogging towards us from a particularly dark patch of forest.
“Yeah,” I answer him gruffly and cross my arms in front of my chest. “Don’t expect me to stay long, though.”
“Of course, of course,” Henry assures me, sounding amused, and clasps my shoulder. “What a convenient excuse it is to have to get up at the asscrack of dawn to open your café.”
“I know.” I can’t quite fight the smirk pulling at my lips.
“Hey! It’s good to see you guys!” Kieran shouts and waves at us excitedly. He sprints the last few feet to catch up with us, while balancing a cake pan of some kind in his hands.
“Hold this.” He thrusts the cake pan at Henry, then leans down to greet Jensen. “There’s the handsomest boy of Wayward Hollow,” he coos and gives him a kiss on the brown fur on his forehead. Meanwhile, Jensen does his best to slobber all over Kieran’s face.
“Okay, okay.” Kieran laughs and gently pushes him off. “More kisses later, I’m starving.” He gets up from the ground with a groan and pats the dirt off his jeans-clad knees. “Please tell me I’m not the only one who’s been fasting to prepare for this?”
His eyes flick between Henry and me, but only one of us nods in agreement. I had a leftover muffin this morning, still not entirely sold on coming here.
The two of them chatter about their empty stomachs all the way to Nic’s front door, Jensen trotting along and joining the conversation with his signature ‘Awoowo.’
I still have half a mind to get back in my car and drive back home. My hands are clammy, and there’s a pit in my stomach - not because I’m hungry. This is becoming too real.
People leave. Why would they be an exception?
Kieran pushes Nic’s doorbell. Now there’s no take-backsies. My upbringing might not have been straight out of a parenting handbook. However, I do know it would be extremely rude for Nic to open the door to me turning around in my tracks and running off. That’s just common sense.
“Hurry, Nic!” Kieran says dramatically and gently pounds his fist against her door, though not loud enough for her to hear it through the door. “I’m about to die of starvation.”
There’s bustling inside, and we see shadows moving through the frosted glass panels next to her door.
“One moment!” A muffled voice shouts, followed by what I think is a string of quieter curses. Finally, the door opens to reveal a disheveled Nic, breathing heavily and cradling a small orange cat to her chest that’s trying her hardest to wiggle out of her hold.
“Welcome, welcome.” She motions for us to get inside.
“Is something burning?” Kieran asks, and immediately I perk up. He’s right. It smells rather… crispy in here.
Without a word, I shove past him and Nic to make my way to what I assume to be her kitchen, shrugging off my jacket and already pulling up my sleeves.
“Please don’t burn. Please don’t burn.” I hear Lauren’s voice in a kind of singsong tone and follow it, all my hesitation from before suddenly forgotten.
I round the corner, find myself in the kitchen and there she is.
Her long blonde hair is loosely thrown together into a messy ponytail, strands of it falling out of the elastic, a stark contrast to her dark red sweatshirt.
She’s tearing one of the pots from the stove, quickly putting it onto the marble kitchen counter and stirring it frantically. A smaller one that I think contains gravy of some sort is blubbering so much it splashes onto the freed-up hot plate with a sharp sizzle and the scent of burning stock.
“Everything okay?” I ask, nudging her aside to wipe up the spilled gravy on the hot stove with a wet rag and lightning-quick moves to prevent it from burning onto the appliance.
“It’s Chaos,” she complains, exhaling a deep sigh. “I swear she turned up the heat on all the cooktops. That damned ghost cat…” Her eyes suddenly widen, and she looks around the kitchen nervously, while I’m trying to make sense of the words coming out of her mouth.
“Nope, nope. I say this with love and respect, Chaos, but you can be a little, yet surely adorable, pain in the butt. Please don’t haunt me.”
Right. The infamous ghost cat. My eyebrow wanders up my forehead, but when she sees my expression, she shakes her head solemnly.
“Trust me, I didn’t want to believe it myself, but…” She points over at a glass that’s seemingly moving over the counter by itself, with the speed of a snail. “I’ve been proven wrong too many times.”
Before it reaches the edge of the kitchen island, she grabs the glass and puts it back in the center.
“Please,” I chuckle. “That is making you think it’s a ghost cat? It’s probably just not level.” Her frenzied and slightly panicked expression is adorable, though.
“Do you think that isn’t the first thing I checked?” She rolls her eyes. “But by all means, the bubble level is over there. See for yourself. I’m sure it will show a different outcome if you test it.”
The way she’s grinning at me, the dare hanging heavy between us in the air - I want to reach for the level, because this seems like a chance to push her buttons for once.
I’m a breath away from taking her up on it, but suddenly Kieran storms into the kitchen.
Lauren gently tries to push me away from the stove, her palm on my chest.
“I got it.”
Fuck. I hope she doesn’t realize how hard my heart is thundering in my ribcage.
I take a step back and run my palm over my face, trying to calm down.
“Everything was fine,” she whines and walks to the other side of the kitchen island. Her eyes burn into the back of my neck as I pull one almost overboiling pot from its cooktop. “I swear I can cook.”
Henry and Nic stroll into the kitchen too, both giggling and with red cheeks. The stupid grins remain on their faces as Kieran and Lauren squabble over the mashed potatoes.
Huh. So far this isn’t as bad as I imagined. Then again, the evening is still young.
“Nic? I don’t want to alarm you, but I think your ghost kitty brought you some new friends,” Kieran says, staring through the ceiling-high window behind him.
I freeze, holding my fork with the first bite of turkey and mashed potatoes halfway to my mouth as everyone else around the table jumps up and runs to Nic’s window front.
Come on. They made me sit and take part in one of those stupid things-we’re-thankful-for declarations, only to now delay digging into the food even further? Didn’t Kieran say he was starving? My stomach certainly announces that the muffin I had for breakfast wasn’t enough.
“Let me see,” Henry mumbles and immediately springs into action, like the animal-loving vet he is.
Damn it.
I can’t be the only one digging into the food while everyone huddles around the new furry arrivals. But everything smells mouth-watering.
Lauren pulls Nic’s back door open and hunches down.
“Oh, hello there,” she coos in a high-pitched voice. I get up with an annoyed sigh and make my way over to their huddle, right as she hands Henry the new animals one by one. First a small orange cat. Then, a completely white one. Finally, a golden retriever puppy.
He takes each of them, but after a quick once-over, he sets them down in a cardboard box that Nic conjured up.
“Come on, if the vet among us deems them non-emergencies, I think we should have food first,” Kieran proposes. “Brains don’t work well on empty stomachs.”
“I think that’s the first smart thing I’ve heard you say today,” I mumble, earning a playful punch to my upper arm from him. I can’t even be mad though, because thank God, someone else has appropriate priorities.
Finally, everyone’s back at the table and I can dig in. My stomach is already grumbling, and if I have to sit in front of this feast any longer without getting to eat, I might start drooling. Like Jensen when you make him wait for a treat.
“Do you want to keep any of them?” Lauren asks Nic, heaving a big spoon of mashed potato onto her plate.