Fireflies: A Katie Bell Mystery (book 1) (8 page)

BOOK: Fireflies: A Katie Bell Mystery (book 1)
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13
8:41 PM Saturday, September 29th

K
atie looked
at herself in the mirror and nodded in approval. Skinny jean's and her new red school sweater. It was casual, but she liked it, if she was going to the party with “arrogant boy,” she at least was going to look the part of someone who didn't give a crap.

Tiffany entered the dorm having just showered still wearing only her towel and took one look at Katie and shook her head.

"No, honey, I'm sorry but you are not wearing that there."

"What do you mean? It’s cute."

"Uh-huh. Do you have a picture of this guy?"

"No. I’ve just seen him when I’ve been at the track.”

"I believe you. Let's find him on Facebook."

Katie hesitated. "Maybe later."

Tiffany laughed. "Oh, you're nervous, then that outfit is definitely not right."

"So what do you suggest?"

The blonde grinned. "I've got a few ideas."

A
n hour
and four outfit changes later, Katie arrived at the house. She had invited Tiffany, but she had passed. She was going to hang out with her stoner friends, but looked forward to hearing how it all went.

Katie arrived at a little after ten and the house was completely hopping. The house was huge and old. Everything in the interior was a nice deep dark red wood (Katie suspected quite a bit of cherry,) and as she wandered through the living room, she bumped into a half a dozen partygoers she vaguely recognized. Katie made her way into the kitchen. There was a keg with a couple of the frat boys happily offering everyone drinks and she excepted, taking a cup of the beer and sipping it.

On the few times she had sampled beer in the past it had never been Katie's favorite and tonight nothing had changed. She drank it because that was what people were drinking and blending in was important.

A blonde that walked like she was the very definition of ditzy approached Katie as she wandered around and pointed at her blood red skirt. (It was Tiffany's, who said it would look better on Katie. Katie didn't want to admit it, but her perky roommate was right, even though it ran the risk of making her look like a 1980’s British hooker).

"I absolutely adore that on you. So cute. Nice top too," ditzy said, pointing at Katie's low-cut teal shirt.

"Thanks. Nice hair.”

The Ditz's hair was well done, probably a good hour and half of work at a salon that very afternoon.

Katie picked the only thing that she could compliment at first glance. Ditzy was wearing Dukes of Hazard low cut jean shorts, cheap Wet Seal flip flops with tacky rhinestones on them, and somewhat ugly brown button up shirt that was unbuttoned to show her lacy red bra.

"So who are you here with?” she asked Katie, her voice a bubble that wouldn’t pop.

"Oh, no one in particular, it was just a general invite."

"Okay, well I'll give a general piece of advice. I'd stay away from the football players if you were thinking of you know, hooking up. The coach is making them all take a week off from you know, enjoying the fields before the big game next week. Especially after their loss last night. Most of the brothers in the house are also already taken anyway. Even if they look like they aren't the girls that were expecting to hang out with aren't going to be too happy with someone messing with their men, especially when they aren’t supposed to.”

“I thought you just said they are supposed to take the week off?”

Ditzy sighed. “Well, you’re cute and you know, boys will be boys.”

Katie put up her hand.

"Girl, relax. I'm just here for the booze."

The ditz smiled and nodded her head. "Well, in that case, girl, party on, however I gotta show you something."

She grabbed Katie by the hand and dragged her out of the kitchen into what appeared to be the dinning room, which had been converted into the game room with a full pool table and a couch in front of a sixty-two-inch flat screen. A couple of people were playing Wii sports and laughing to themselves. There was also a cabinet to the side with what appeared to basically be a full bar, bottles of every liquor you could think of and a silver bucket with what Katie assumed was ice. On the shelf above were various glasses and above that through reflective glass she could see the top shelf stuff, mostly scotches at least twelve years plus what appeared to still be under lock and key.

The ditz made her way over to the mini bar and poured two shots from a bottle of Stoli.

"To my Russian ancestors. At least I think they were Russian, but Mom always was a pathological liar."

It may have been that Katie was impressed that ditzy even had the word “pathological” in her vocabulary, or it may have been that she actually used it in correct context in a sentence, but either way a free drink was a free drink. Besides, it wasn’t like she was going to not except the gesture of hospitality from someone who if nothing else could be a guide.

Katie took the shot and clinked it against the Ditz's glass.

"Cheers," she said.

The Ditz frowned, clearly deep in thought. "What are we cheering to?"

For some reason Katie was expecting the question so the answer rolled off her tongue without as much as a thought before she said it. "To pathological liars."

"Cheers!"

They clinked shots again and downed the liquor.

B
y the time
Katie ran into the Greek god she was sufficiently hammered. She also literally ran into him, because the living room was packed with people dancing to an actual DJ who was mixing on a fold out table with a laptop and digital turn table.

The DJ was scruffy with a dark, ten-o’clock-shadow and a Net's cap turned backwards, his ears pierced with curved horns that looked like fake Ebony. His lip was pierced too, and he wore baggy jeans and a baggy black T-shirt that would have looked very fashionable if it was still 2002.

He was mixing an Adele song with Little Wayne and the crowd was
feeling it
. Katie was too and was dancing away when she bumped into the cute boy from her psychology class, the one with brown hair and matching gorgeous eyes. He was busy dancing with a very pretty Japanese exchange student.

Katie had turned around to apologize, but as she did she kept moving forward and ran headfirst into the Greek god. She looked up at him and opened her mouth, and he looked down at her and winked.

Katie turned and starting dancing with the nearest guy she saw that she felt was vaguely attractive, who looked possibly thirty with a thick beard and was built like a gladiator. Katie felt eyes on her, a dangerous looking Latino man in the corner who also looked like he was pushing thirty and who was wearing all black, and a couple of frat boys. Normally she didn’t like having the attention of others, but the booze was helping Katie not care.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ditz who was dancing with another girl shake her head from side to side, so she made her way through the dancing throng to her and started to dance with her and the other girl, who were both happy to make it a ménage-a-trios.

The song ended and the next started and Katie continued to dance with the girls.

L
ater
, it was all beginning to blur together, like someone flicking through TV channels.

Katie was outside, smoking a cigarette with a half a dozen other people, (though some of them weren't smoking cigarettes) and was talking to a girl who could best be described as an Amazon Princess. She was tall with natural red hair and pale skin, wearing a single piece over one shoulder blue dress, who had apparently just come after singing at a wedding.

"Who get's married in late September?" Katie asked.

"They are apparently obsessed with the changing of fall, it was almost Russian themed with all the ice sculptures, but then all the place settings had an orange glow. Frankly it felt a little bipolar in terms of themes, but they didn't ask me to coordinate the wedding, they were paying me to sing and have a free dinner. The catering was phenomenal," the taller girl replied, taking a drag on her Clove.

Katie had originally moved over to the taller women because while she couldn't stand smoking them she adored the smell of Cloves.

"Anyone have an extra smoke?” a familiar voice asked from behind Katie.

She turned to find that the Greek god had joined the party.

Katie tilted her head to the side as though she was considered the question but then reached into her mini purse (Tiffany had convinced her to leave her messenger bag at home,) and pulled out her half empty pack of American Spirit's.

"Here you go," she said, handing him a cigarette.

"Why, thank you," he said, smiling at her.

Fuck.
His teeth were perfect and white, and it was almost as if his eyes sparkled in the reflective light of the pool behind them.

"Here," said the Amazon, offering him a lighter. He flicked it and the end of the white stick flared with fire before withdrawing to a cozy ember of orange.

Amazon looked at Katie, then at the Greek god.

She smoothly moved away from them, with the grace of well, a princess.

Katie barely noticed her leave, but that had more to do with how drunk she was than the fact that her attention was laser-locked on him.

"Where have you been?" she asked after a moment of silence as both of them just puffed away.

The Greek god flicked the end of his cigarette and shrugged. “You ran off.“

“You didn’t want it to be that easy, did you?”

Then he smiled again, sheepish this time, like a kid getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Are you really going to make it that hard?“ he asked, still smiling at her with those perfect white teeth of his.

K
atie wasn’t entirely
sure how she had gotten there, but one moment she was at the party, and the next they were back at his place, in his room. They were on his bed, although still wearing their clothes.

She vaguely recalled still wearing the skirt, but her shirt was off yet what was remarkable was how he seemed to be everywhere she liked at once. The word “natural” came to mind and even though moments were bleeding together, the general feeling of it all was quite good.

A
fter
, (and it was a while later because it had not been particularly rushed, even though there had been an urgency when he had first jumped on her on the bed, though more from her than him really) they both lay next to each other for a moment, and Katie realized how relaxed she was.

She slipped out of bed and looked around the dark room. Lucky for her, her skirt was easy to find on the floor. Katie slipped it on and went through the automated motions of putting her bra and top back on as well.

The Greek god had not moved, and was still very much naked.

She inspected his body and her suspicious had been wrong. Katie had vastly underestimated just how good of shape he was in. His muscle tone not just of someone who worked out, but someone who conditioned himself to be in excellent shape, perhaps even to the point of it being a bit of a mini religion.

She blushed in spite of herself, suddenly feeling happy all over again, partly because of how he had already made her feel (only once, but that was fine), but also that the whole experience had brought her slightly out of her drunken stupor. She was still drunk, but the room wasn't spinning anymore, which was good. (Sweating a lot will do that to you).

"Thank you," she said without thinking and then covered her mouth with her hand. She didn't mean to sound like some silly schoolgirl with a crush on an older cuter boy, (though she realized through the drunken haze with some self-depreciating amusement that was, in fact, exactly what she was).

He looked at her with one eye closed and smiled, a very self-satisfied smile. Many people (certainly anyone who didn't like him) would have called it the epitome of smug. “You’re welcome,” he said and started to get up. "I guess I'll see you Monday."

She nodded. "Yeah. Right."

14
11:32AM Sunday, Sept 30th

K
atie woke
the next morning with her head pounding. It wasn’t just her head though, her whole body felt like she had been thoroughly thrashed.

Katie groaned as she tried to sit up but found herself wanting to do nothing more than to lie there and suffer. Which she seemed to be doing a pretty good job of. The sun slashed through the window and hit her face like a low dose of acid and Katie winced and rolled over, away from the window.

She did not know how long she lay there, but to Katie it felt like hours before the noise of the dorm room door opening caused her to roll back towards the door.

Tiffany entered, holding two coffee cups. She was for once dressed relatively low key, a pair of very light skinny jeans and a black long-sleeved V-neck shirt, and her hair was back in a single bow.

Tiffany smiled at Katie and set one of the sixteen-ounce cups down on her desk.

"How you feeling, darling?”

"Shoot me."

"I've been there before. How about some tea instead?"

Katie looked at the cup and groaned. "I would throw that up so fast you wouldn't even believe it."

"I doubt it, it's peppermint tea. When I've been so bad that I couldn't even keep water down I can still drink that. The beauty of peppermint tea is it's got this lovely little enzyme in it that settles the stomach. I swear, you'll thank me later."

With great effort and an even greater degree of will, Katie propped herself up on her arms and picked up the cup. She took a single sip and winced. The liquid was hotter than she had expected but still she managed to swallow, the liquid warming her insides with a similar kind of fire to the way the tequila had earlier in the week.

She took another sip and set the cup down, rolling onto her back.

"Seriously, I've been drunk before, but this is like somebody buried me alive, dug me up and then beat me with a baseball bat till all my bones shattered, then dragged me behind a car back here.”

"Is that what it's like?" There was amusement in Tiffany’s voice, and Katie resented her for it.

"Pretty much."

Tiffany took a seat on her bed and sipped at her low-fat chai.

"
S
o
, how was your night?"

Katie opened one eye and swerved it towards her beautiful friend. "Other than poisoning myself half to death, it was…" she closed her eyes, images of the Greek god flooding through her mind. "It had its moments."

She opened her other eye.

"You should probably wash this skirt before wearing it."

“You’ve beaten me to it.”

“I didn’t know it was a competition.”

Tiffany grinned. “It’s not. I thought you smelled like sex.”

Katie sniffed and shrugged. "All I can smell is booze."

"That too."

She took another drink of the tea and closed her eyes again. It appeared as though Tiffany was correct, she was starting to feel a little better.

"Thank you for the tea."

"Of course."

Katie was silent for a moment. Tiffany sipped her tea then got up and went to her computer.

"It's all a little blurry, but he was good. I'd give you more details later, but I think I might go back to sleep."

Later she woke up to find Tiffany writing on her computer with headphones on, humming to herself. Katie felt significantly better and got up, yawning and stretching as she sat up.

Tiffany didn't notice and kept typing and humming. The lights were off in the room and the only light came from the glow of Tiffany's Macbook Air's screen, and it took her a second for her eyes to adjust to the light.

When they did she saw her cup of tea. Katie grabbed it and drained the cup. The cold peppermint was delicious and the cool liquid soothed her parched throat.

Tiffany must have heard the commotion behind her because she took off her headphones and turned around.

"Look who's awake, sleepyhead."

"Morning," Katie said setting down the empty cup.

"You feeling okay?"

"Better." There was a pause. "Actually kinda hungry."

"Oh good, I am too. The cafeteria is closed I think cause it's after nine, but we could still go down the street."

"I'm hungry for breakfast. There's an IHOP by the south freeway entrance. You game?"

Tiffany smiled. "Of course."

BOOK: Fireflies: A Katie Bell Mystery (book 1)
2.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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