Until Next Time (The Shooting Stars Series)

by Michelle Maness

  “Apparently not,” she laughed.

  “I love you, Kaitlyn.”

  “I love you too,” she returned.

  Adam kissed her and tugged her closer and Katherine slid her arms around his neck to return his kiss. It was several minutes later before he set her gently back from him and caressed her cheek.

  “You should probably be getting home, your parents are going to think I am holding you hostage,” he told her.

  “Come back home with me, Adam. Your mom still isn’t here and there isn’t even any proper food in the house,” she reasoned.

  “Kaitlyn, I’m not a kid; I’ll be fine.”

  “Thanks to me you’re without your car,” she reminded him.

  The phone rang before he could answer and he hurried to grab it.

  “Hello,” he answered. “She’s still here,” Adam handed Katherine the phone.

  “Hi, Mom,” Katherine already knew who it was.

  “I was starting to worry about you,” her mother confessed.

  “Sorry, things were sort of in disarray over here and Adam and I have been trying to sort them out. His mom still isn’t home, we ate the leftovers, which were the only decent food in the house, and I am rather reluctant to leave him here,” she admitted.

  “He’s welcome to come back here,” Julia offered.

  “That’s what I’m trying to convince him to do,” she admitted.

  “It’s getting late,” her mother reminded her.

  “I know,” Katherine smiled.

  “Okay. See you in a little bit.”

  “Love you; bye,” Katherine disconnected the call.

  “Your mom getting anxious?”

  “A little. She says you are welcome to return to our house tonight. We can leave your mom the number and you can wait for her there, Adam; at least you won’t be alone then,” she pointed out.

  “Kaitlyn, you are a sweetheart, baby, but I’ll be fine,” he assured her.

  “Okay, I’ll just stay here,” she shrugged and settled into a chair.

  “Your mom and dad would be over here inside of an hour,” he predicted.

  “No, they would be very unhappy but they make a very concerted effort not to crowd me. I’m eighteen now and they try very hard to respect that.”

  “I rather like the fact that they like me; I don’t want to change that,” he told her.

  “So come home with me,” she smiled.

  “You are a bully,” he informed her before leaning over to kiss her. “Let me get my stuff.”

  Katherine stood and was waiting when he returned. Once back at her house they joined her parents in the living room.

  “I see she convinced you to come back over here,” Julia smiled at him.

  “She is rather good at getting her way,” Adam shared.

  “It’s our fault; we spoiled her,” Julia admitted.

  “She makes it easy to want to spoil her,” Adam confessed.

  Katherine felt her cheeks heat but noted that her mom and dad both smiled.

  “She was a cute kid; you see her picture on the mantel? She would get into trouble and then stare up at you with her big green eyes and freckles and it was hard to punish her,” Julia shook her head.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of you as a child,” Adam informed Kaitlyn.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Katherine shot at her when Adam stood and moved to the mantel.

  “You were cute; look at all those freckles,” Adam was smiling.

  “There are entire albums full in the basement,” Julia shared.

  “Really?” Adam turned to smile at Kaitlyn expectantly.

  “Fine, come on,” Katherine sighed and stood.

  A few minutes later she was showing him pictures of herself as a child and explaining who the others were or where they were taken.

  “You have a neat family, Kaitlyn, a real family.”

  “I’m fond of them,” she admitted.

  “We’re headed to bed; don’t stay up too late,” Julia popped into the room.

  “We won’t,” Katherine promised. “Night, Mom.”

  Julia turned off all but the hall lights before moving into her bedroom where Walter was turning back their covers.

  “That was a big sigh,” he noted as she began undressing. “You worried about them too?”

  “I didn’t realize you were! You’ve been so quiet,” she accused.

  “Just watching them.”

  “I like Adam. It’s clear that he’s crazy over our daughter and apparently, oddly enough, he has been more respectful than Nathan was,” Julia shook her head.

  “She’s talked to you about it?”

  “She has,” Julia nodded.

  “That’s a good thing,” Walter assured her.

  “It is,” Julia agreed.

  “What is it your worried about, Julia? That he’s going to start putting pressure on her to sleep with him?”

  “I suppose that’s a possibility but I am more worried that his not pressuring her will speak more convincingly than any words he could say,” she shared.

  “I don’t follow you,” Walter admitted as he climbed into bed. “He’s going to convince her by not convincing her?”

  “Walter, it was your patience and kindness with me that convinced me to sleep with you!” she reminded him.

  “Oh,” he smiled at her; then frowned looking panicked, “Oh!”

  “He’s made his interest more than clear to her; I know that without her saying so. What she did say was that he wasn’t putting any pressure on her.”

  “How do you know he’s made his interest clear?”

  “I do not know, nor do I want to know what he said to her this morning but she came into the kitchen lit up like torch after she went to wake him up,” Julia shared.

  “What was she doing waking him up?” Walter frowned.

  “That was my brilliant idea; I figured with me just up the stairs there was no real harm in it,” she admitted.

  “Do you want me to talk with her?” Walter offered.

  “What can you say that you haven’t already said? She’s eighteen, Walter, and a sophomore at college; we can’t treat her like she’s still thirteen years old.”

  “Why not?” he grinned.

  “Because we would push her away, that’s why not,” Julia responded.

  “I could threaten to break both his legs,” Walter offered.

  “Didn’t my dad try something like that with you?”

  “You’re not helping any,” he informed her.

  “They’re so young,” she sighed.

  “We were young,” he reminded her.

  “We were older than they are.”

  “True,” he acknowledged.

  “Right now I am going to try to sleep and quit worrying,” Julia asserted.

  “I love you,” Walter kissed her.

  “I love you too,” she smiled back.

  Seven

  The brief time between Thanksgiving and Christmas break seemed to fly by and Katherine soon found herself packing to go home for the next month. Adam had, at first, said he was going to remain and work right up until the weekend before Christmas but changed his mind when he learned work slowed with the college-kids home on break. They were carpooling again, Katherine’s dad offering to use his old pickup truck and let her use his car while he was there. They were now almost to her house.

  “I wish you would stay with us,” Katherine informed Adam.

  “My mom lives right there in the same city,” Adam reminded her.

  “I know but I don’t want her being mean to you for a whole month,” she sighed.

  “She isn’t always mean.”

  “Just most the time; I hear the things she says on the phone when I’m there, Adam,” she informed him. She was usually snuggled against him when his mother called.

  “If it gets to be more than I can handle I will come stay with you,” he promised.

  “You’re used to dealing with her,” Katherine shook
her head.

  “I love you, Kaitlyn; I’ll be fine.”

  “Just know that my mom even extended the invitation.”

  “I appreciate that,” he smiled over at her.

  Adam helped Katherine carry her bags in when they arrived at her house, a note from her mom saying she would be back from the store soon and explaining that her dad was helping at the church. Katherine watched Adam smile as he walked around her room taking it all in.

  “Your room is pretty much what I expected,” he told her as he looked over the bright yellow walls.

  “How so?” she asked.

  “Bright, cheerful, and all American; it’s like a room from a catalogue or something.”

  “You know me and my traditional family,” she smiled.

  “Hey, us at prom,” he reached out and touched the corner of a photo on her tack board.

  “I have a duplicate of that one in my photo albums in my dorm room,” she admitted.

  “Walk me out; I need to get going,” Adam requested.

  Katherine followed him down the stairs and kissed him goodbye before returning inside to unpack. Coming home for break would have been a lot harder for her had Adam not decided to come home too, she mused. Had he not she had been seriously considering staying with him until he did. She heard her mom enter and abandoned her packing to go greet her.

  “Hi,” Katherine rushed across the room and hugged her mom.

  “Hi,” her mom hugged her back.

  “When did you get in?”

  “Just a few minutes ago,” she admitted.

  “Did you have a good trip?”

  “Uneventful so I guess that qualifies as a good trip,” Katherine smiled at her mother.

  “Is Adam staying with his mom?”

  “Unless it gets bad, yeah,” she sighed.

  “I take it she isn’t doing so well these days?”

  “Not the best I can tell,” Katherine admitted. “He doesn’t say too much about it but I’ve been there when she calls and it usually doesn’t go well.”

  Katherine didn’t miss the look her mother gave her.

  “We study together,” she shared.

  “Why not at the dorms where there are more people?”

  “That’s exactly why we don’t study at the dorms; it is never quiet short of the middle of the night,” she informed her mother.

  “You worry me, Kattie.”

  “I’m not sleeping with him!”

  “That’s good to know,” her mother admitted. “I guess when you quit flinging that at me in frustration I should get concerned.”

  “Mom!”

  “Just saying,” her mother shrugged. “How’s school going?”

  “Good; I made all As except one B in Music Appreciation; I had trouble with the classical composers.”

  “I’m proud of you, Kattie,” her mother assured her.

  Katherine spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with her mother and then her father when he came home. Sunday was spent at church, Adam joining them, and then with the extended family in Lexington, the neighboring town where her grandmother lived.

  Monday, Katherine called as many of her friends as she could track down and invited them over. Her mother had assured her she didn’t mind and one by one that afternoon several of Katherine’s friends filled the basement.

  “I should have gone off across the state like you, Kattie,” Tessa remarked from where she was sprawled in the floor looking through pictures.

  “Don’t you like Union?” Katherine asked.

  “Yes, but moving off would have been such an adventure,” Tessa sighed.

  “I guess,” Katherine laughed. She didn’t really see what was so adventurous about it but she hated to burst her friend’s bubble.

  “So do you two get to see each other much?” Mandy asked Katherine and Adam.

  “Amy accuses me of spending more time at his place than I do the dorm,” Katherine admitted.

  “You live off campus?” Tessa looked surprised.

  “Yeah, I have a small apartment but it’s my own space.”

  “Uh oh; I bet your mom loves that,” Tessa shot at Katherine.

  “Not so much,” Katherine admitted with a smile.

  “What made you decide to transfer to UT?” Mark asked Adam, his smile suggested he already knew the answer.

  “Kaitlyn,” Adam confirmed.

  “What does everybody call you there, Kattie? Do they call you Kaitlyn?” Stephanie asked her.

  “Only Adam; everybody else calls me Kattie. How do you like Vanderbilt, Steph?”

  “I like it; their nursing program is awesome.”

  “I like Memphis State, but mom swears she watches the Memphis news every night expecting to learn I’ve been abducted or mugged,” Mandy laughed.

  “That sounds like your mom,” Stephanie smiled. “I met somebody,” Stephanie announced.

  “Spill it; who is he?” Mandy demanded.

  “His name is Bryce and he’s doing his residency at Vandy,” she shared.

  “A doctor? Way to go, Stephanie,” Tessa smiled.

  “He’s really nice and sooo good looking; all my classmates are jealous.”

  “Do you think it might be serious?” Mark asked her.

  “Too early to tell. We both still have a long road ahead of us and we’ve just started dating but maybe, down the road,” Stephanie shrugged.

  “How do you like NYU, Jack? You went the furthest out of all of us gathered here,” Katherine asked him; he had been watching quietly from the sidelines.

  “I like it. New York took some getting used to,” he shared.

  “Anybody else seeing someone?” Brandon asked them.

  “Not me,” Tessa sighed.

  “Me either,” Mandy admitted.

  “I met a girl I like just before break. I’m going to ask her out when I return to Clemson after the New Year,” Brandon volunteered.

  “There’s a girl on campus that I like but there is no way she’d give me the time of day,” Jack was shaking his head.

  “You never know,” Adam smiled at him.

  “Is that what you thought about Kattie?” Tessa teased him.

  “Yes, but I started picking up on the fact that she liked me too,” he admitted.

  “We all knew that,” Stephanie laughed.

  They were still talking and laughing when Julia arrived home and even later when Walter arrived home. They decided to order pizza, pooled their funds and invited Katherine’s parents to join them. After the pizza arrived, they piled into the kitchen, some sitting at the table and others standing at the counter. Katherine sat crossed legged on the island, a plate in her lap. Adam was leaning against the counter beside her.

  “Glad to see my island put to good use,” Julia commented as she entered the kitchen for another slice of pizza.

  “Good,” Katherine smiled as she picked sausages off her pizza and placed them on Adam’s plate.

  “What are you doing?” her mother demanded of her.

  “I like meat pizza except the sausage; he likes the sausage,” she explained.

  “Does she do this too you often?” Julia asked Adam.

  “I’ve gotten used to her quirkiness,” Adam admitted.

  Julia grabbed a piece of pizza and left the room; she was still shaking her head. It was late by the time Katherine waved goodbye to everyone but Adam and Tessa.

  “I should go,” Adam told her.

  “I’ll walk you out. I’ll be right back, Tessa,” Katherine assured her friend.

  “I’ll be in your room,” Tessa smiled knowingly at her friend.

  Katherine saw Adam out, kissed him goodbye, returned inside, and climbed the stairs to her room.

  “I’ve missed you, Kattie,” Tessa admitted as Katherine entered her room.

  “I’ve missed you too,” Katherine returned.

  “It sounds like you and Amy have gotten rather close,” Tessa noted.

  “We have but then you and Missy seem to get alo
ng well too,” she referred to Tessa’s new roommate.

  “We do,” Tessa nodded, “but I still miss you.”

  “How’ve you been?”

  “I’m doing good. My question is how are you? You and Adam certainly seem to be pretty cozy with each other,” Tessa’s eyes were bright with curiosity.

  “We are dating,” Katherine reminded her.

  “So we all noted,” Tessa was grinning now. “Do you really spend a lot of time at his place?”

  “I do,” she nodded.

  “Is that all you’re going to say?”

  “Is there something you want to know?” Katherine countered and watched Tessa’s eyes narrow. “No.”

  “Oh,” Tessa looked faintly surprised.

  “I love him and the desire is there but…I guess I’m a little scared, not of the act itself but of the repercussions of the action. I love him so much already, to let him that much closer? If he walked again I think that would completely crush me.”

  “No it wouldn’t, it would hurt like hades but you’re stronger than that. I can’t blame you for being cautious; however, he’s already walked away once.”

  “Yeah,” Kaitlyn sighed. “He’s at college, in college but I know his heart isn’t really in it. He’d like to be doing music.”

  “He loves you; that is obvious,” Tessa noted.

  “I know,” Katherine smiled.

  “Good luck; I hope everything works out for you.”

  “Me too,” Katherine agreed.

  The next afternoon, Katherine drove to Adam’s, knocked, and waited. His mother’s car wasn’t there but his was.

  “Hi,” he smiled when he opened the door. “Come in,” he stepped aside for her to enter. He was dressed in jeans, barefoot, and bare chested; Katherine couldn’t help admiring him.

  Katherine could hear music coming from the direction of his room as she entered.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked her.

  “I was missing you,” she admitted. “Mom and Dad had a meeting at church tonight and I didn’t want to sit home alone. What are you doing?”

  “I’m going through all the junk in my room. I can’t believe some of the stuff I kept,” he smiled and shook his head in bewilderment.

  “Don’t let me interrupt you,” she told him.

  “Keep me company,” he offered her his hand.

  Katherine entered his room, for once it wasn’t neat, and seated herself on the bed as she watched him sift through a pile of papers and various items.