New Revelations: Second Sight Book Two Page 8

  “Oh, ok…because this really hot guy has been checking you out from across the room,” Lauren whispered with a giggle.

  The slick move would’ve been to nonchalantly glance over, but Kate instead whirled her head to look behind her. Sure enough, Declan was leaning against the wall with a plastic cup in his hand and an unsettling stare. Grudgingly, she had to admit he looked pretty good in a plaid button down and a pair of jeans. His facial hair had grown out more in the couple of days since she last him and it made him appear simultaneously rough and sexy. He looked like every mother’s worse nightmare and every girl’s erotic fantasy.

  Lauren was still talking to her. “Wow, does he go to school here? Trish looks way into him.”

  A very cute girl Kate didn’t recognize stood a few inches in front of Declan. If it was Kate standing there, she would’ve clocked him for paying so little attention to what she was saying. Trish’s straight red hair fell past her shoulders and complemented her perfect creamy complexion. Every few seconds, she would move slightly closer and get a little friendlier with her hands.

  Kate could acknowledge that things were tense after their last meeting. However, Declan should’ve at least made an effort to say hello before finding some poor girl to pet his ego.

  “He’s actually a friend…” Kate paused at the word since she wasn’t sure how to categorize Declan. Maybe a colleague would be a more appropriate term. “I guess I should say hi to him.”

  Lauren laughed at her tone. “You don’t sound happy about it.”

  “It’s sort of a complicated friendship. It was great to catch up though,” she said sincerely and smiled. “Are you hanging out for awhile? I could find you in a bit.”

  Lauren headed to play beer pong while Kate cautiously made her way over to Declan. By this time, Trish had completely flattened her body against his despite it not being crowded in the basement. Although Kate gave her a friendly smile, Trish shot her daggers upon her approach. The girl definitely didn’t want an unknown girl trying to interrupt their flirting.

  “Hey,” Declan addressed her. Without warning, he shifted towards her. Although he just moved in for a kiss on the cheek, Kate stiffened. His scruff grazed her skin and his lips were soft as they brushed against her cheek. Declan lingered for a second too long and grinned at her flustered expression when he pulled away.

  “Can we talk?” she asked and decided to silence her inner spaz and tackle the weirdness with Declan head on. Setting some ground rules could get rid of the awkwardness and allow them to continue looking for Max together.

  “Sure thing,” he answered and turned to Trish. “I’ll look for you later.”

  Trish did not look happy about being dismissed and although she gave Declan a charming smile, she shot Kate a murderous look when Declan turned his face away from them both.

  “I’ll be waiting for you,” she purred into his ear and Kate refrained from gagging.

  Kate should’ve been encouraging a rendezvous between the two of them, but she needed to get a few things off her chest first. If the embarrassment lingered, there would be no possible way she would enjoy the rest of the party. As Trish sauntered off, Kate could practically smell the lust that still lingered in the air.

  Barely meeting his gaze, Kate commented, “I thought you had a girlfriend.”

  “What made you think that?”

  “I heard a girl with you the night I called you to meet me at the sub shop,” she replied.

  “Well, if you ever bothered to ask me anything about myself, you would know I’m single,” Declan said with an edge. With a lighter tone, he added, “She was just one of my many adoring groupies.”

  His statement felt true and Kate felt guilt plague her. In the short time they’d known each other she realized that she never did ask him about himself. She knew nothing about his family or any of his past visions. However, he basically just admitted to being a womanizer which made her decidedly less regretful.

  Instead of pointing out his many faults in life, Kate took the high road. “Sorry, I’ve had sort of tunnel vision lately and have only been concerned with finding Max.” She paused. “So…what should I know about you? What is your family like? What do you like to do when you’re not seducing the masses and saving the abducted?”

  Declan fiddled with his watch. “Kate, we don’t have to make small talk.”

  Kate blew out a long sigh. “Thank god because I seriously suck at it.”

  “Why don’t you instead tell me about your visions? Did you see anything more about Max?”

  Quickly, she gave him the lowdown on her visions about Ally. Neither vision had featured Max which made her wonder how she was treating the boy. The more he resisted being her replacement for Zachary, the more violent she might get. Kate relayed how she had called with her tip, but hadn’t heard if Max had been located or not.

  “I mean it would have to be in the news—right?” she questioned rhetorically. “I can’t understand why they haven’t found either of them yet. Without drawing a road map, I feel like I provided as much information as possible to determine where she’s keeping Max,” she sighed.

  He shrugged. “Who knows? She may be using an alias or has gone into hiding since taking him. Just keeping working on it to see if you find out anything else to tell the cops.” He added, “I had a vision of Max, but it took place before the kidnapping. It was Christmas morning and his parents gave him a puppy as a gift. It was cute—made me feel for the little guy. I only wish I could’ve helped some more.”

  They stood side by side against the basement wall as the party gained momentum. The music had been turned up and they had started to yell in order to be heard over the hip hop tracks. Kate almost started cracking up as she imagined Jared taking in the scene. She didn’t picture him drinking cheap beer out of the keg or trying to grope her in one of the darker corners of the basement.

  Turning to face her, Declan gave her a solemn look. He leaned in close to guarantee she was able to hear him clearly. “I’ve wanted to call you. I owe you an apology about the other day.” Shoving his hands in his pockets he said with an uncertain tremor in his voice, “I should’ve never said those things about seeing us hooking up. You’ve made it very clear that you’re happy with your boyfriend. I crossed a line and I’m sorry.”

  His words made the tension she had been feeling fade away and she grinned with relief. “Good because I want us to be friends. Besides the fact that I can count the number of friends I have on one hand, you would be my first psychic buddy.”

  “It is nice to talk to someone who knows what it’s like,” he agreed.

  “Why do you think it happened to us? I mean people almost die everyday, what made us so special to come back from the dead with these powers?”

  It was an intense conversation to have in the middle of a party, but it was something that had always plagued her. Did she have a higher purpose? Who gave them their second sight?

  “I wish I knew. It was hard to not have an existential crisis when I woke up like this. Do you remember anything from when you were in the coma?”

  Kate shook her head. “No, the only thing I recall is the vision of Matt Spencer. What about you? I read they put you in a medically induced coma because of your injuries from the ski accident.”

  “Not a thing. A few days after I came to I began having visions of my family. I thought they were just really vivid dreams until I realized I was in their head. Everyone obviously thought I had lost my freaking mind when I told them.”

  She digested this information and felt a sudden kinship to Declan. Although he was egotistical and shifty about his motives, Kate realized they had a lot in common. The main difference seemed to be that he was comfortable with his psychic abilities while she still struggled with her gifts. She had hated being psychic because it made her feel like an outsider. Her new perspective was to stop caring about what others thought and try to use her abilities to make a difference in the world.

  Kate sent him a sidewa
ys glance. “Do you ever have your own dreams anymore?”

  “No, do you?”

  “No, I miss them sometimes. It would be great to get lost in my own imagination instead of having to relive other peoples’ memories night after night,” she revealed.

  As she felt Declan’s stare on her face, she decided it would be best to mingle instead of spending time with his unnerving presence. “You should probably go and find Trish. I don’t want to make a new enemy.”

  “Don’t worry about her. She’ll forget all about you when she’s screaming my name later,” he joked.

  “You pig!” She smacked his arm and then sent a wave as she walked away.

  Kate didn’t dare glance backwards as she headed upstairs to find Julie. Declan’s hot and cold moods confused her and put doubts in her mind about their budding friendship. She had questions for the psychic, but wasn’t sure how much she’d like his answers.

  ***

  By midnight, the party was wild enough to make her expect the police to come by and bust it up any minute. Gage and Julie had a large circle of friends and those friends seemed to invite even more people. The upstairs and basement were crammed full of warm bodies—making it practically impossible to not feel sexually violated if you attempted to walk around. Julie had accompanied her for awhile, but her hostess duties prevented her from spending too much time actually enjoying her own party. Out of boredom, Kate ended up drinking more than she intended. She had switched to water and figured she’d have to stay at the party for a couple more hours to sober up enough to drive home.

  Declan had made himself the center of attention and was enjoying the distinction of being fresh meat for the ladies of Thompson College. Trish was only one in the harem he seemed intent on gathering. The men of the party seemed irritated over the number of girls dancing and flirting with the unfamiliar face.

  Declan’s antics made Kate feel relief and nausea simultaneously. They had only exchanged a few words since their heart to heart earlier. As the hours passed, Kate began to crave Jared’s soothing presence more than ever.

  “Here, have a shot!” Gage came up behind her and handed her some noxious looking drink in a paper cup.

  “No, I’m good,” she countered.

  “Katie, I won’t leave you alone until you do it,” he threatened.

  The thought was enough for her to swallow the horrendous thing down in one gulp. She tried not to gag as the liquor burned her throat. “What the hell was that?” she sputtered.

  “A Sammy Jager—it’s Sambuca and Jagermeister. A few of these and you’ll finally be able to loosen up and have a good time.” He ignored her glare and continued speaking. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

  “It is a free country.”

  He ran his fingers through his blonde locks and stared at the wall behind her. “Julie got wasted the other night and admitted she asked you to read my mind…”

  Kate didn’t let him finish, “As I told you a million times before, I don’t read minds.”

  “Whatever, but do you mind telling her no? She said you hadn’t seen anything incriminating and you’re not going to,” he promised. As he shifted from side to side, he confided, “I love her and I would never cheat on her.”

  Taken aback by his serious expression, she swallowed back her come back. “Ok, I wasn’t trying to invade your privacy. She was just concerned that something was going on.”

  Gage looked heavenward. “Julie can get crazy jealous. I don’t know why. Why would I hook up with someone else when I’m with the hottest girl I ever seen?”

  His final sentiment was practically romantic poetry coming from a guy like Gage. Kate apologized again and promised that she would no longer try to have visions about him. To be honest, she was relieved. Her eyes would probably burn out of her skull if she had to go through another vision of him participating in a Resident Evil marathon with his friends or fooling around with Julie in the backseat of his car.

  Gage glanced behind him at the dance floor before turning back to her. He was still drunk, but coherent enough that she guessed Julie had gotten him to scale back on the alcohol. In a weird way, Julie and Gage did balance each other out well. With a wry grin, he asked, “What’s with the super psychic stud?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s eye fucking you from across the room. It’s pretty obvious he wants you,” Gage replied.

  “Eww gross,” Kate said and she could feel her cheeks burning. “And not exactly accurate. He’s been all over a ton of girls since he got here.”

  “Whatever you say,” he said with a shrug and then met her eyes. “But if some guy was looking at Julie like that, he’d be missing his two front teeth by now.” Gage leaned down closer to her as she stood there feeling at a loss on how to reply. “Just be careful, Kate. Jared seems like an ok guy and I know you wouldn’t want to screw things up with him.”

  “Thanks Gage,” she said and felt an ungodly urge to hug him. “Jesus, are we having a moment?”

  “Yeah I think so.” His expression exactly matched the distaste in her tone of voice. “Let’s not do this again.”

  “Agreed, we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled program of feeling only loathing for one another.”

  He smiled and ruffled her hair before walking away. She tried to avoid looking over at Declan, but now that Gage mentioned it, he had been staring at her an awfully lot. Even now, his eyes seemed to burn tiny holes through her. When their gazes locked across the room, he pulled the girl he was dancing with closer while still staring at Kate.

  Kate broke contact first and swallowed hard. Was he only using the girls at the party to make her jealous? Maybe his promise to not pursue her had only been a line. She couldn’t bring herself to believe that he was being sincere with her. He still had to earn her trust. It made it implausible to put her faith in someone who seemed intent on playing her.

  ***

  Jared’s phone went straight to voicemail twice before she decided to give up on calling. Kate guessed since it was after one o’clock in the morning, he had turned off his phone before crashing. It was frustrating since he had asked her to call him when she was ready to leave the party. Although she would feel bad about dragging him out of bed, she was certain Jared wouldn’t mind as long as it meant getting her home safely. Instead, she was stranded at Gage’s house.

  The shot had hit her hard and soon after Julie had coerced her into doing another shot with her. She was by no means falling down drunk, but she would never trust herself to drive. This left the options of either calling a cab or sleeping on the floor of Gage’s room. Trying to sleep on the filthy and uncomfortable hardwood floor in Gage’s bedroom was not going to happen. Going home by taxi made the most sense to her.

  As she prepared to say her goodbyes to Julie and Gage before calling a cab, she heard someone creep up behind her. “Are you leaving?” Declan asked as she turned to face him. Trish hung on him as if he were a life raft that she wouldn’t dare want to let go. Her ginger hair was mussed slightly and her cheeks flushed. Her kitten smile made it obvious the two of them had been lip locked and his kisses left her desiring much more.

  Kate had avoided him most of the night. Declan’s unsettling glances and Gage’s proclamations about Declan wanting her provoked her to stay as far away as possible from him. As much as she was falling hard for Jared, Kate didn’t want to invite any unwanted feelings for the psychic into her heart. She rationalized away any stirrings in her gut by telling herself any girl would feel something if a charismatic and good-looking guy began to take notice in her.

  “Yes, I’m going to say goodbye to Gage and Julie before I head out,” she responded and fiddled with her purse from nervousness. When Declan didn’t reply, she said blandly, “It was good to see you.”

  His brown eyes watched her warily. “Are you ok to drive?”

  “I’m going to take a cab,” she replied.

  “I’ll drive you home,” he offered. Trish shot him an exasperated l
ook which he pretended not to notice. Trish’s grip on his arm tightened, but Declan untangled himself from her grasp.

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “Anyway haven’t you been drinking all night? You probably shouldn’t drive either,” Kate said matter-of-factly.

  “Nah, I’ve just had soda. Let’s go,” he replied and then tilted his head to speak to Trish. “I’ve got your number so I’ll give you a call.”

  Kate felt her jaw drop as Trish’s face twisted into rage. Before she had a chance to reply or do bodily harm to Kate, Declan grabbed Kate’s hand and pulled her towards the door. Declan pushed through the crowds and did not pause until they were through the front door and the cool air greeted them.

  “What the hell? I didn’t even see Julie,” Kate protested once they were outside.

  “Send her a text. That girl was about to flip her shit,” he said shortly. “Better to get out now while we had the chance,” he said and took quick strides away from the house.

  Obediently, Kate followed along. The street was empty and dimly lit. A buzzing streetlight gave the night an eerie feel. Declan didn’t bother to check if she was behind him as he rushed down the road.

  “You can’t be serious?” Kate demanded as they stopped in front of a Hummer. Declan opened the passenger door. Her short legs and intoxication made it a struggle to get positioned onto the step rail of the SUV. Declan saw her fumbling attempts and decided to help give her a boost in by pushing her backside.

  She spun around to glare at him. “So help me if you put your hands on my ass ever again!”

  Kate heard his snigger as he shut her door. A second later, he climbed into the driver’s side. “I was only helping you in,” he said and the faux innocence on his face was infuriating.

  “What is wrong with you?” she seethed. “First of all, who drives a Hummer anymore? You’re like ten years too late for this car to be cool. If you want to impress a modern girl, invest in a hybrid.”

  “As you could tell, I have no problem impressing plenty of girls,” he retorted.