by Kendra Mase
The only reason she knew it was Christmas was the fact of how many orders came in with various gift requests and in shades of green or red. Katherine preferred the less ostentatious silver and gold herself.
“Miss Kit.”
Marley. At his gruff, joyful voice, it was as if the fog around Katherine began to separate. “You remember me.”
With a single nod, he grabbed two wide-rimmed mugs off the top of the espresso machine. “Never forget a face. I’m sorry to hear about Emilie, she was a good woman,” he said.
Katherine nodded, holding back the rush of emotion that pulsed behind her eyes at the sentiment. “Thank you.”
His gaze landed on Jace. “And if I’m not mistaken, you are a new one.”
Jace, for once silent in the past twenty minutes, dipped his chin down until half his mouth was concealed by his rust-colored, hand-knit scarf.
Staring at the pulls and tight knits and pearls, Katherine could imagine Emily sitting in their living room before the fire, making it for a gift. The only thing Emilie could not do was knit. Maybe Emily tried to teach her once.
Katherine shook the thought away, stretching her hands inside her oversized coat pockets.
“What can I get you two?” Marley cut through her thoughts.
“Tea please, Marley.”
“What kind?”
“Surprise me.”
“And you, Carver boy?”
Jace looked shocked at the correct assumption. “Uh, coffee.”
“Comin’ right up.”
“How does he know me?”
“Jack.” Even the name made her sigh. She didn’t want to talk about Jack. Yet there she was, drifting back to the table in the corner where she and Jack sat when he first brought her to Keys. Jace followed like a lost dog.
There was no missing, however, the interested looks Jace gave the many art students with more piercings and impressive streaks of color etched through their hair than he must have thought possible.
“He brought me here once.”
Jace sat. The plush chair seemed to encapsulate him.
“So, what brings you to Ashton?” Katherine finally dared to ask.
“Oh, right. That.” He lifted a hand, running it through his hair. It was growing out from the cropped buzz she had seen on the farm. “Would you believe me if I said that I don’t know? I just grabbed my backpack. It was that easy. Of course, my heart was about to explode out of my chest the whole bus ride here.”
“You took the bus in?” Katherine narrowed her eyes.
“Yeah, I called up a few people and they agreed to take me to the town over. I mean, they probably didn’t know where I was going once I got there, but—”
“Wait.” She was getting even more confused. “Does anyone know where you are?”
“I thought I made this clear by the whole showing up on your doorstep thing.”
“Jace.”
“Kit,” he mocked in a deep voice.
“You have to call your mom. You have to go home. You have to—” Though to be honest, Katherine had no idea what Jace should do. He was sitting right in front of her now. In Ashton. That all was clear. And she wasn’t exactly in the place to be giving advice.
Katherine cradled her head in the palm of her hand.
“Tea for the lady. And coffee.” Marley set down the enormous mugs that got a smile from Jace. Taking in the difference of expression between the two of them, he didn’t linger.
Plain English breakfast tea wafted up Katherine’s nose.
Jace attempted to fill the space, clear up the mess he made that only seemed to get messier. “Look, I wanted to do this, okay? And after what you said—”
“What I said?” She certainly did not remember telling him to pull a Jack and run away from home.
“I don’t know. I mean, you said something. Something like how I should get off my ass, basically. To do something about my life. Stop my complaining. Something like that.”
She did say that.
“And when I got here, look at me, Kit. You have to get what I’m saying. When I stepped off that bus at the port authority, freaking out wondering if I had enough cash to get a bus back home before anyone noticed I was gone, relief.” Jace spread his arms as if his newfound zen was a jacket he also did not have on any longer as he made himself at home.
Katherine picked up her cup and looked down into the deep, dark contents. She didn’t ask for honey or milk.
“You know, you don’t look all that great.”
“Wow. Thanks,” Katherine said. “In case you forgot, my aunt died.”
Jace stopped to think before he spoke this time. His manic grin turned somber. “Right. My condolences.”
Katherine looked around the space again, away from Jace. Every time she looked at him, her stomach ached.
“Thanks, too, for not calling my brother right away before. I appreciate it.”
“We aren’t exactly talking right now,” explained Katherine. “Why would you even think—”
“It just seemed like you guys loved each other or whatever, don’t mind me trying to be a considerate human being and ask about your life.”
“He was only being nice to me because of Emilie.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
Maybe. Sort of. The whole devious plot of it was starting to wear on her, if she was being honest. But it was the only thing that made some sort of sense.
Even if it wasn’t much.
“No thanks to you,” she said simply.
He rolled his eyes.
“Jack fucking thinks you are the best thing in the world. He’s been calling my mother for the past few weeks and couldn’t stop talking about you, which, yeah, we both know, isn’t that rare, but it was all you,” Jace said.
“He didn’t.”
“Oh, he did. My mother was practically planning the wedding by the time they got off the phone, whether you guys are together anymore or not. I’d call her if I were you in case you aren’t interested in amber yellow, whatever that is, for your bridesmaid dresses.”
Katherine remained silent, brushing away a piece of hair from her eyes.
“My brother misses you. If you guys fought…”
He didn’t know the half of it. Didn’t he know after all that it wasn’t Jack that ran? It was her. Katherine was the one who pushed everyone away.
The truth of it picked open another hole she had been trying to ignore the past week.
“I don’t want to talk about Jack.”
“Fine.” He lifted his cup to his lips and took a tentative sip. Whatever he tasted seemed to be a pleasant surprise.
“Do you even have a plan?” she dared to ask.
“Sort of. I mean, of course I do. I want to do art.”
The image of the marker drawing on Jace’s thigh flashed to mind.
“Tattoos specifically,” Jace clarified. “Did you know back in town there is literally not a single tattoo shop in a hundred miles?”
It wouldn’t take much for Katherine to believe it.
“Ashton just feels right. Like I am supposed to be here. From the moment I got off the bus, I knew. This is it. I’m finally doing something right. I know it.”
Katherine couldn’t say anything against that. “So, this is what you want to do? Stay in the city and find yourself.”
“Basically.”
Well, then there was only one thing to do. Katherine dug through her bag and extended her phone across the table. “Call your brother.”
“I can’t.”
“It’s your only option right now. Call him.”
Jace took the phone.
To say that Jack was shocked to hear his brother’s voice come out of a number that was most certainly not his own was an understatement if it was to be judged by Jace’s deflated expression. One word at a time, Jace managed to get out a semblance of the story he told Katherine before pausing. “Yeah, I’m here. I’m at Keys with Kit.”
At the mention
of Katherine’s name over the phone Jace spoke into before hanging up, she stood from the table, slowly getting ready. She could only imagine Jack halfway across town by now. “I should go.”
“You aren’t going to wait with me?”
“No,” Katherine said. She wrapped her scarf tighter around her neck. “I can’t.”
“I know that I said things.”
He said a whole lot of things. More things than Katherine did if she remembered correctly, and her things made Jace jump on a bus this morning without a plan once he got to his destination.
“Just don’t torture my brother.”
“He made his decisions,” Katherine countered. She wasn’t the one to clean those decisions up.
“But you have to talk to him.”
“I know.” At the very least, through her anger, she did know that. She knew that eventually she had to talk to him. She wanted to talk to him. To see him. But deep inside all that, the idea of it all hurt. “Just not now.”
After a breath, Jace blinked a few times. He nodded.
“Thanks.”
Jace shook his head now. “I think that is what I am supposed to say.”
“No.” Katherine was pretty sure this time. “Just take it.”
“You’re welcome then.”
“You too,” she said, enveloping him in a hug before she thought better of it.
He didn’t let go until she did.
She must have looked like she needed it.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The first time Jack ever pictured his future, it was him on the farm just like his parents. Kids ran around. He was seven. The next time, Jack pictured himself on the cover of a magazine, or rather, his photos would be. It was around the time his grandmother used to praise him whenever they went to go get them developed at the pharmacy. He held on to that image for a long time, before adding Avril to the mix, his life a constant stream of laughter and parties.
The most recent vision Jack had of his life was Kit.
She haunted his dreams and mind as if she died rather than Emilie. Bits and pieces of all those lives he thought he might lead blended into one, but Kit was always there.
Now, he might as well have thrown it all away, and he didn’t know what to do in order to fix it.
“I want to come with you.”
“You are not coming with,” Jack said to his brother with a hand on the steering wheel. They drove alongside the dreary river, though Jace didn’t seem very interested in taking in the scenery. “I am dropping you off so I can get to work, I’m already late. You are going to go in for your final portfolio interview and then hopefully finish moving into student housing. Put on a smile and pretend to be charming.”
Jack couldn’t believe all that somehow happened in the past few weeks after his brother showed up with only a grin. The first words out of his mouth when he picked him up at Keys were slow, through exposed teeth.
“Please don’t kill me.”
Marley, who overheard behind the counter, really liked Jace’s sense of humor.
They both had gone home for Christmas after Jack called his family to tell them where their youngest ran off to. Only his mother noticed Jace was gone, and no one seemed all that concerned compared to when Jack did basically the same thing, though he had more of a plan going in. His brother was gripping onto his coattails and hoping for the best ever since Jack let him stay on Avril’s couch.
He was lucky The Ashton Institute of Art and Design even had second-semester openings for people like him. He was lucky that Jack knew enough about them to sign him up for an open interview slot. As they walked into the auditorium, already half the seats in the front section were filled with potential academics that looked a lot cleaner and more pressed compared to his brother.
“Do my eyes deceive me?”
Jack didn’t answer as a figure walked toward him. He nudged his brother to go and sit down with the rest of the non-punctual art academics. Hands shoved in his pockets, he had to pull one out in surprise at the hand extended.
“Nice to see you, Jack.”
He chuckled. “Why do I think that’s not true?”
“Ah, you weren’t all that bad,” his old professor said. He hadn’t changed much over the past few years. Gray speckled the once young and spry photography buff who made them study too much Ansel Adams, but still the same.
Still made Jack shuffle his feet as he looked around the auditorium to see if any others noticed their exchange. “No?”
“I’ve had worse.”
Jack chuckled.
“What are you doing here?”
“My brother.” Jack gestured over to the shaggy-haired kid. He didn’t look so out of place among them all, holding his large folder of his work. “He decided to follow in my footsteps.”
“Photography?” Oddly enough, the professor’s eyebrows went up as if in interest.
“Art.”
“Too bad. You know, I always thought you showed promise.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed.
“It’s true.”
“Before or after you helped throw me out?” Jack asked.
“We both know that’s not how it went down.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “I would’ve helped you stay, Jack. All you had to do was ask.”
But Jack didn’t ask back then. He left about a day after being put on probation with the academic board.
“Your work was rough, ill-planned, of course, but in the end, whatever you turned in always struck me as different. You never tried to imitate. I can only hope your brother will be the same in whatever he decides to pursue.”
For some reason, Jack had no doubt Jace would somehow surprise them all. He already did.
“Do you still work in the field?”
“The field?”
“Photography.”
“Oh.” Jack paused, taken off guard by the question. He tilted his chin. “I do. Not how I always wanted to, but I’ve kept up with it.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” his old professor said with a smile. “It did kill me that we let you slip away. I would love to see more of your portfolio sometime. A good friend of mine has actually been looking for photographers, but everyone else I’ve sent to him hasn’t been up to the task. Maybe?”
He gave a long look at Jack.
Without realizing what he was doing, Jack reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. Inside was one of the few old cards he still had and occasionally gave out at the weddings he worked at. Otherwise, the one he handed over now was slightly faded and bent.
His old professor tapped it knowingly. “Good to know the city still hasn’t broken a dream, huh? I have to get going since the board is going to start soon. Watch your phone if you get a call.”
The city built by dreamers hasn’t broken dreams.
Just the dreamer.
An odd, sensitive patch struck the base of his spine as his old professor turned around and walked back down the aisle. Rolling his shoulders to get rid of the twitch, with another nod at his brother, Jack walked out into the atrium. He lifted his phone to his ear.
It rang twice before turning to voice mail. The beep sounded and for once, Jack didn’t hit the end call button.
“Yo, Queen. Where the hell are you? Answer your phone.”
Sliding the screen back to black, Jack paused before putting it back into his pocket.
He’d called her at least seven times in the past month since Emilie died, encouraging her to show up to the funeral. She never answered.
Something stirred in his stomach that something was wrong. So much so, his vision swam with a sudden wave of nausea, though that could’ve also been from the shot he had after setting up the final DuCain run through for New Year’s earlier and needed to get back to. Tonight was the big night.
Every day leading up to it, whenever the doors opened, he waited for Kit to walk through with her big notebook and plans.
She never did.
> With another hit of a button on the way back to his car, he heard the ringing, and someone picked up.
“Hello?”
“Reed, it’s Jack.”
Reed remained silent on the other line as Jack told him everything he needed and didn’t need to know. He told him about Kit and Emilie, and finally Avril.
“I know this is what she always does, but…”
The pause said enough for both of them.
“I’ll find her,” Reed said simply. “Thanks for letting me know.”
He almost thought Avril had shown back up under all their noses when he made a pit stop at Rosin. Everything Kit had already managed to plan down to the minor details began to go off at Rosin without a hitch. It looked the same at DuCain.
Decorations were set, strung, tasteful and sparkling as the clock above the door ticked closer to the new year. Glasses were clinking and the crowd was full of people wearing their best. Peeking around the curtain where one of the girls from Rosin, transitioned from there to DuCain, danced, there was only one thing wrong—besides the obvious.
Jack rounded the corner back toward the dungeons, looking around through the thick stream of faces.
“Have you seen Evie?”
The girl in the spaghetti straps looked at him with wide eyes.
He rolled his. Looping around, he came face-to-face with Devil.
“Expecting someone else? Nice eyeliner.”
Jack’s lip curled in disgust. “Have you seen Evie?”
“Who?”
“Of course not,” he said, walking away. “Bother me again, how about when you can actually be useful!”
Coming up from the main crowd, Jack spotted Nik. Shimmering gold combed through their hair. Nik’s eyes also streaked similarly, caught on Jack the moment he stomped toward them.
“Where’s Evie?”
They shook their head. “Don’t worry about it, Jack. She’s probably just running late. We’ll find her.”
“Then go and find her.”
He had enough to worry about without adding Evie to the list. Half the reason she chose her was because the girl was punctual. She’d show up an hour early to her appointments according to the logbook, whether it was because she was bored or truly wanted to get here on time without the subway breaking down on her.
