Night Cat | Night Cat #1 (CURRENTLY EDITING)

Night Cat - Chapter 9

Old Friends; New Problems...

“No way!!”

I laughed, clutching the stitch that developed just underneath my ribs. “Your mom did not say that!” Keegan grinned, flashing his, now brace-free, pearly whites at me.

Keegan Sanchez. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t seen the guy for almost four months while he was traipsing around Rome, and then one day out of nowhere – BAM – he’s back in Crescent Falls.

“I’m telling you Ave!” I shook my head in disbelief. “And then she walked up to him and slapped him!” I burst into fresh peals of laughter at that. When they were in Rome, Keegan’s mom had thought that this Italian guy said “Butt nizza” when he’d actually said “Good Pizza”. Butt nizza means “Nice butt” in Italian. Keegan’s mom had walked up to the guy, called him a perverted pig and then promptly high-fived his face.

I wiped a tear from my eye. “How the hell do these sorts of things always happen to you?”

Keegan shrugged. “I don’t know Ave. Drama just always seems to find me.” He chuckled quietly. “So, what’s new around here? I need updates!”

I blew a bit of my light brown hair away from my face, sighing. “Mr. Carmack was fired. Gloria and Tate broke up. Brie actually got over her fear of heights” I grinned and added as an afterthought, “We actually have to thank Kimi for that one.”

“Kimi?” Keegan looked thoughtful for a moment. “That’s your neighbor right? Nakamora?”

I nodded my head yes. “Yup, that the—” I stopped. “Wait a minute. How do you know Kimi? She moved here only a couple months ago.”

Keegan blinked a couple of times, evidently caught off-guard. “Um...” His expression changed quickly, and he grinned. “Brie told me.” I rolled my eyes. Of course she did. I wondered what else she’d told him.

“Right.” I said, nodding at Keegan. “I should have known.”

“Avery Fallyn, are you losing—”

“Avery!” We were interrupted by the sound of someone calling my name. I didn’t have to turn around to see who it was. Xander.

Keegan looked past me confused and I whipped around in my seat, a grin breaking out on my face when I saw six-feet of pure hotness walking towards me. His face mirrored mine. He was grinning too.  “Hey Xander!” I scooted over on the bench, making space for him. I noticed that Keegan suddenly had a dark look on his face. I didn’t think much of it.

“I’ve been looking for you.” Xander sat down beside me and ran a hand through those light brown spikes of his.

“Me? Why?” I asked, feeling a little suspicious. Did it have anything to do with our little... um... investigation?

Apparently not. Xander chuckled. “I hadn’t seen you in a couple of days, that’s all.” He shrugged casually. “Just wanted to—”

“Who’s your friend Ave?” Xander and I both glanced at Keegan – Though, I didn’t have the same irritated look on my face that Xander did. I guess he could have been excused, though. Keegan’s tone was full of annoyance and dislike, and the way he cut into our conversation was just plain rude.

I managed a smile despite my annoyance at Keegan’s rude behaviour. ‘Oh, right. Sorry about that. Keegan, this is Xander” I gestured towards Xander and smiled. Xander gave Keegan a disinterested nod. “He’s new here.” I added, hiding the confusion from my voice.

“Xander,” I said, continuing with the introductions, “is my friend Keegan. He’s been in Rome for the past four or five months and just got back.” If I thought Xander’s greeting was weird, Keegan’s was worse. All he did was raise his eyebrows and grunt. Grunt!

We fell into an uncomfortable silence after that. I watched the boys regard each other with hostile glares as I racked my brain for something to break the silence. The tension was so thick, you’d have needed an axe to cut it.

“So, Avery...” Xander said finally, after several more awkward moments had passed. “I’ll see you after school, okay?” I nodded yes. Xander and I were going to do a little more investigating. I still hadn’t told him about the stalker bobcat and was planning on doing it that day.

“Sure Xander.” I said, watching him rise from his seat. “I’ll meet you at the gate, okay?”

“Okay.” He looked down at me, his stony gray eyes softening and turning that gorgeous smoky color again. Suddenly, he reached out and pushed a bit of my hair away from my face. ‘See you later.”

“See you.”  He left.

And then Keegan pounced on me. “Who the hell was that?”

I started. “Keegan! Rude much?”

He growled under his breath. “You didn’t mention any new guy. Or that you were friends with him.”

“It must’ve slipped my mind…” It was true. I really hadn’t thought to mention Xander.

“ ‘Must’ve slipped my mind’ my ass!” I flinched at his language. Keegan never spoke like that. Well, not to me, in any case. I could feel my blood boiling.

“Keegan. What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded, glaring at him. Somewhere in my mind, I realized that my nails were digging into my palms. I didn’t care. I was so angry.

“I don’t like him.”

“What the hell has Xander ever done to you?”

Keegan suddenly looked sheepish. “He just… He acts as if he likes you or something.”

Huh? Okay, now I was confused. Why the hell would Keegan care if Xander like me? I mean, first of all, it was so none of his business.

“Why do you care if he does?”

The You-Know-Why look Keegan gave me made me want to smack my head. “Oh.” How could I have forgotten? How the hell could I have been so stupid to forget? A couple of weeks before he’d left for Rome, Keegan had told me that he liked me. Liked me, Liked me. Not just as a friend. I had just laughed at him and shrugged it off because I thought he was joking.

Now, seeing that look on his face and remembering the way he’d treated Xander, I didn’t think he was joking anymore. Keegan Sanchez liked me. Keegan, one of my oldest friends. I sighed. With the problems that kept piling up, the asylum was starting to sound like Heaven to me.