Ollie Vance - Book One: Secrets and Sparks

Chapter Seven

When I woke up early in the afternoon, I was alone in the bedroom.

My cheeks immediately warmed at the memories but worry settled in when I listened and the entire house was silent.

Confused, I walked to the bathroom and found none of his clothes on the floor, the towel he’d wrapped me with neatly hung back on the rail.

I groaned.

I felt well rested as if I slept for eight hours instead of the actual four. My shoulder felt better and the slightly puckered skin had actually started to flatten to my amazement. I didn’t look like a total disaster when I checked myself on the mirror.

It wasn’t any of that. It was remembering how I once again lost my control with Tristan and why whenever I was on the verge of just surrendering to that insanity, he’d take a step back and pull away. He certainly seemed to have wanted me and I had stopped protesting.

I shook the questions out of my head and checked the clock. It was about two in the afternoon and my answering machine was flashing.

There were two calls. One was from Mary Anne reminding me of the barbecue party at Patrick’s after five. It was his dog Oliver’s birthday and he wanted to throw a little party for a handful of people. It was almost summer and because it was a season that never seem to last as long as we want, people here take every opportunity they have to enjoy the outdoors. Our winters were long and hard that there was always a sense of desperation to cling to the warmer months. 

The second call was from Jesse who sounded worried and asked if things were alright.

I frowned and hunted for my cellphone that was still in my purse on the living room couch. There were four missed calls from Jesse and a voicemail message just asking if things were okay.

I dialed him as I walked to the kitchen to get started on the pasta salad I was bringing to the barbecue.

“Ollie? Thank God!” were the first words out of his mouth when he picked up after the first ring.

“Why do you seem so worried?” I asked as I filled a pot with water and drizzled it with salt. Clipping the phone between my cheek and shoulder, I set the pot down on the stove. The kettle Tristan filled earlier with water to boil was still sitting on one of the burner. So I wasn’t dreaming it.

“I don’t know, to be perfectly honest,” Jesse answered, sounding agitated. “I went to bed early last night after getting back from the gym. I started feeling sick to my stomach and I was breaking in cold sweat. I thought it was something I ate and then I started to feel a knot of fear and I couldn’t understand why. I tried to go to sleep but it was keeping me up. Don’t call me crazy but I started hearing your voice in my head.”

I paused. “What?”

I heard him exhale sharply as if he was struggling to keep himself rational. “I started hearing you say the name Tristan. And it was mostly a jumble of words, like parts of sentences that I couldn’t put together. You said the words painful, hurt, burning, cold, bar, dark. What else? Oh, you also said Stigger, alive, date and Jack and something about your dress.”

My gut turned. Every word he mentioned jarred memories from last night, maybe when I was in a feverish state after the were-demon poison started spreading in my system.

“You also sounded like you were saying them dreamily so I couldn’t be sure if was just losing it or if you were talking to me somehow,” Jesse added sighing. “Tell me I’m not crazy, Ollie. I could only hear you. I couldn’t see anything. I was never as accurate as you were in sensing what was going on with me but I’ve always felt it when something was wrong with you. I could never hear you before, though. Something’s different.”