Simmer (28 page)

A moment later Kira blinked, pushing old
memories to the side to look back at the table where Emma was
setting out the silverware and her mother was arranging a vase
filled with fresh flowers. She stepped forward to help.

“Luke, you didn’t!” Kira’s mother gasped and
put a hand to her mouth to cover her laughter. Kira stopped walking
and turned just in time to see Luke finish tying an apron around
his waist—the apron no one in her family ever used, the one her
mother bought her father as a joke years ago, the one that had a
life-sized photograph of Michelangelo’s
David
… in the
nude.

“Luke,” Kira whined with a grimace, but the
semblance of a smirk tugged at her lips.

“Just trying to get this party started,” Luke
grinned. He reached for the raw steaks and started dropping them on
the grill.

Kira shook her head at him, but couldn’t
shake the small curve of her smile.

She looked around for Tristan, noticing he
wasn’t grill-side with the other men, and spotted him at the far
side of the yard with Chloe. The two of them sat in the middle of a
ring of Barbie toys and Tristan was pretending to listen intently
to whatever Chloe was trying to explain about her dolls. He looked
up, as if sensing Kira’s gaze, and flashed her a dimple-filled grin
followed by a roll of his eyes.

“Should we go save him?” Kira’s mother
whispered in her ear, but Kira shrugged.

“Let him suffer,” she laughed and out of the
corner of her eye, she saw Tristan shake his head at her. He
definitely overheard. Good, Kira thought, let him know I’m totally
calling the shots. But her brief moment of power passed when a wad
of napkins was shoved in her face.

“I’m going inside to work on the potato salad
and coleslaw. Can you girls finish setting the table?”

“Sure, Mom,” Kira said and took the napkins
from her mother’s arms before walking over to Emma.

“How is it possible that I’m wearing a dress
and you’re not?” Kira asked, eyeing her blonde friend’s relaxed
shorts and polo shirt attire.

“You’re allowed to out-dress me one day a
year—consider it my gift to you.” Emma smiled and sat down in one
of the vacant seats around the table. Kira sat next to her and
dropped the napkins onto an empty plate.

“Want to learn how to fold these?” Kira
asked. Years of working in a restaurant had taught her this nifty
trick and she quickly folded the first napkin into a simple, yet
elegant, pyramid. Kira spent a few minutes showing Emma the steps,
but it became obvious that there was something on her friend’s
mind.

“Is everything okay, Emma?”

“Of course,” she said, but Kira didn’t buy
it.

“Really?” She pressed.

“Yeah… I was just thinking about how sweet it
was that everyone came back for your birthday. I mean, Tristan came
all the way back from backpacking around Europe just for the
weekend—talk about dedication! I’m going to miss this… you know,
having the gang together.” She ended softly, concentrating on her
napkin rather than the people around her. Kira pulled the linen
from her friend’s fingers, forcing Emma to concentrate on her
words.

“I thought we got all of that talk out at
graduation! We’re still going to be ‘the gang’ no matter what.”

“I know, but it won’t be the same. You and
Luke were only gone for what? Three weeks? And still, things felt
off. Sometimes I just don’t want things to change, you know? Like I
don’t really want to grow up.”

You’re telling me, Kira thought but quelled
her inner-monologue. Emma was almost never like this. Sure, was
emotional at times. But normally she was the calm, collected
one—not the vulnerable, nervous one. Only one thing would bring
this side out in her.

“Did something happen with Dave?” Kira asked,
taking Emma’s hand to comfort her. Dave and Emma were the perfect
couple: they were classic southern sweethearts and they would both
be going to college in Texas come Fall. Kira couldn’t even imagine
them apart.

“No… I don’t know. I’m just nervous I guess.
People always say that when you grow up you grow apart, but what if
I don’t want that to happen?”

Kira couldn’t suppress a sidelong glance at
Tristan, who was still trapped by her sister Chloe. She couldn’t
deny that her birthday had made her think the very same
question—for her and Tristan, growing up literally meant growing
apart.

“If you don’t want to grow apart, you won’t,”
Kira urged, turning her attention back to Emma and leaving her own
thoughts for another time. “Nothing will change if you don’t want
it to. I mean, Dave is head over heels for you! You’re all he ever
thinks about and that won’t change.”

Both girls took a moment to look over towards
the grill where all four boys—yes, including Kira’s fully adult
father—were taking turns dropping lighter fluid into the flames to
make them explode. Definitely Luke’s idea, Kira assumed. “Well,
when he’s not playing with lighter fluid, all he does is think
about you…”

“I know that,” Emma said, “it’s just that
we’ll be going to different colleges… they’re only two hours away
from each other, but still, it’ll be different. And people always
say that high school relationships never last, that they are sort
of your first taste of love before the real thing comes
around.”

A sudden tingle stirred at the base of Kira’s
neck and she knew, before shifting to meet his gaze, that Tristan
was watching her. His eyes were hidden beneath the shadow of his
hair, but the tense muscles in his neck told Kira he was
listening—waiting to hear what her response would be. She loved him
and he her, but both of them had sensed the change in their
relationship. He was a vampire. She was a conduit. They were
supposed to be enemies, and the more prominent Kira’s powers
became, the more impossible their future seemed. That wasn’t enough
for Kira to give up on them and forget her feelings, but it was
enough of a crack for a few small, almost imperceptible doubts to
seep through.

“I don’t believe that,” she finally answered
her friend. “Love is love, no matter how old or young you are.”

“You’re right,” Emma said and let a slow
smile spread across her face, lighting her features. She broke her
long stare in Dave’s direction, ready to tackle napkin folding
again, but saw the gloomy expression on Kira’s face. “Oh God, I’ve
totally ruined your birthday! I don’t know what came over me!”

“You haven’t ruined anything,” Kira said,
casually waving the air away. “It’s my party and I can cry if I
want to!”

“Cry?” Luke’s voice interjected from above
Kira’s shoulder. Kira spun in her seat, completely forgetting the
apron Luke had on, and came face to face with the exact part of a
nude male she did not want to be staring at.

Quickly shielding her eyes, Kira muttered,
“Can you take that thing off? I can’t take you seriously.”

“You never take me seriously,” Luke laughed,
stepping even closer to Kira, who leaned further away. Do not
blush, she thought, do not blush.

“Luke.”

“Fine, fine. Ruin my fun,” he said and untied
the apron before slipping it over his head. “I came over here to
talk anyway.”

“And that’s my cue,” Emma said, ducking out
of the way and over towards Dave and Miles by the grill. Luke took
her vacant seat and Kira instantly felt the space around them
thicken. Her throat tightened and she took a deep breath, letting
the air out slowly to calm her speeding pulse. She felt nervous
around him—something she had never felt, not even since the first
time they had met.

“What’s up?” Kira said, hoping her voice had
come out calm and strong.

Luke reached in his pocket and pulled out a
small black box decorated with a white satin ribbon. “It’s not
much, but I got you a birthday present,” he said and clumsily
shoved his arm in her direction.

Slowly, Kira reached out and lifted the box
from his hand. Using the power Kira had only discovered a few weeks
before, she skimmed his thoughts, unable to stop the impulse to dip
into his mind. The buzz of his nerves calmed her. His mind was
hesitant, stopped on a breath and waiting. An expectation hung in
the background, surrounded by a glimmer of hope and a tinge of
excitement. But Kira could tell by the bright green hint in his
eyes that he was energized—she didn’t need the mind reading for
that and she retreated from his thoughts to tug the ribbon free
from its bow.

Kira lifted the lid and sitting inside,
gently resting on a white satin cushion, was a tiny golden sun
sparkling in the daylight.

“Luke,” Kira said, breathing the word out
like a sigh.

“I saw it in a store and thought you might
like it.” He shrugged.

“It’s perfect,” Kira said and set the box
down on the table. Reaching around her neck, she unclasped the thin
chain holding her father’s wedding ring, an heirloom her adoptive
mother had given her months ago when Kira had found out the truth
about her star-crossed parents. The locket with her family portrait
was still with her grandmother back in Sonnyville and the chain had
felt uncomfortably light recently.

Kira untied the charm and slipped it through
the chain, letting it fall to the bottom where it easily landed
inside her father’s ring. The two golden trinkets fit together
perfectly, one slightly more aged than the other, but both
brilliant against the late afternoon sky.

“So, you like it?” Luke asked quietly. His
head was bent towards the ground and he looked at her under hooded
eyebrows.

“I love it,” Kira told him and pulled him in
for a hug. Maybe things could get better between us, she thought
hopefully. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, and
breathed deeply into her hair. Kira willed herself to ignore it and
not ruin the moment, but when she opened her eyes they met a hard,
blue stare and she instantly retreated from Luke.

Kira knew Tristan couldn’t help overhearing.
His magnified senses were hard to turn off, but sometimes she
wished he wouldn’t listen in on conversations he knew would hurt
him. The downturn of his eyes and straight line of his mouth told
her all she needed to know, even if they disappeared a moment later
when Chloe pulled him back to her toys.

“Food’s ready!” Kira’s mother called from the
kitchen.

“The steak is being taken off the grill as we
speak,” her father added.

Luke quickly stood and put the apron back on
to help her father, and Tristan walked over to take his place. She
grabbed his hand, lacing her fingers through his, and pulled him
down into the seat next to her.

“Everything okay?” She whispered.

Tristan nodded, turning away from her to
smile at her mother who had just plopped a bowl of potato salad on
the table in front of him.

“Looks delicious, Mrs. Dawson.” Kira grinned
at the formal use of her mother’s name. He was a hundred years
older than her, but he still wouldn’t call her by her first
name.

“Delicious enough for you to eat?” Her mother
asked hopefully.

“Not today,” he apologized, “I ate before I
came. Special gluten-free diet and all.” Tristan peered at Kira in
his peripheral vision, meeting her gaze with a grin. It still
amazed Kira that her mother didn’t realize what Tristan was, having
grown up around conduits. But it seemed like she had truly blocked
out that entire part of her past and was choosing not to notice
what was right in front of her.

“One of these days you will eat something I
cook, Tristan, one—”

“Mom,” Kira interjected, changing the
topic.

“Right, right. Let me run inside to grab the
coleslaw.”

“She might force feed you, you know,” Kira
joked once her mom was out of earshot.

“I can handle it,” Tristan said and placed
his arm around her, hugging her to his chest.

Kira let her head rest on his shoulder. Soon
enough, things would go back to normal between them. There was no
telling how long they would be in England and some time away from
Luke would be good, even if it was in Aldrich’s castle.

She missed being alone with Tristan. He made
her feel at peace and helped her step away from the conduits. With
Luke it was always about conduits—teaching her how to be one and
teaching her about them. He was a constant reminder of the future
she couldn’t walk away from—one supposedly full of death and
destruction. But with Tristan, even though he was a vampire, she
felt human. He let her escape her powers, so that, even if only for
a small moment in time, she was just a girl with a boy—nothing
more, nothing less. And when you’re seventeen, Kira thought,
sometimes that is all you need.

But she was eighteen now and Kira wasn’t quite sure
what that meant yet.

###

About the Author
:

Kaitlyn Davis graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Johns
Hopkins University with a B.A. in Writing Seminars. She's been
writing ever since she picked up her first crayon and is overjoyed
to finally share her work with the world. She currently lives in
New York City and dreams of having a cockapoo puppy of her own.

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