Summary: Years on after they graduate Evergreen High, at their high school reunion, Cary and Kate both make confessions that lead to a passionate tyrst in the back of a vintage rental. That one night left more than impression, the results of which arrive unexpectedly on Cary's doorstep.
Sequel to A Moth to the Flame (on Tumblr iluvaqt, Cary X Kate tag)
Just over fourteen months. That was the last time he'd seen her. If anyone knew he'd been keeping track almost down to the day, they'd probably suggest therapy. He had hoped to track her down or at least call her - he would have if she'd left him with a number - but between his big brother returning home a shattered mess and his own employment to worry about, he couldn't go looking. Stalking, his mind treacherously supplied. Okay stalking. The need to see her burned inside him like a flame that wouldn't dim no matter how he'd tried to quell it.
He'd tried talking to Jed about her, not that their old classmate had been much help. He'd not had much contact with Kate since graduation and before that they'd never reconciled their friendship to what it had been before Jed had tried dating two girls at the same time. Kate had forgiven him but never trusted him the suame, or let herself get too close to him again.
Back in school Cary hadn't been all that concerned with Jed's plight of having two girls mad at him. The solitary Kate, distancing herself from Jed had allowed Cary to get to know Kate a little better himself. Acting the sensitive guy, the quiet supportive listener that the girls had all seemed to appreciate had not only earned Stella's notice but Kate had eventually warmed to him too. Instead of continuing to pigeonhole him as the dumb jock. Shutting up, playing bag carrier and actually paying attention when girls talked around him had given him some neat insight into what they were into and how they interacted. What an education he got.
No, they didn't talk about boys all day long, even the pretty girls had hang ups and he'd learned that yes, while Kate was undisputedly the biggest bookworm in the school, she also had really great taste in music and she had introduced him to one of the coolest hang out spots in town. A coffee house that invited open mic performance to just about anything from poetry, instrumentals to stand up comedy. In their senior year, he'd seen her there a lot even if they only spoke occasionally. He'd been dating Stella openly by then but she had still been no less possessive of his time. Kate had a really pretty singing voice, that settled somewhere between old blues vibe and the sultry tones of Marilyn Monroe. He could almost hear her voice perfectly as he thought back to those memories.
It was a small almost unacknowledged thing but he had always had this curious inexplicable pull toward her. She presented as a studious bordering on obsessively goal-orientated, introverted and standoffish type of girl. Smart and focused but not as polished or confident in her place like Stella had been. Kate wasn't afraid to speak her mind though, as he'd had the occasion to witness more than once when she felt slighted or perceived an injustice. Watching her felt like pulling back layers of a rose that stubbornly refused to bloom. Each layer revealing a hidden beauty, a new hue and a fresh more intoxicating scent. Graduation had come all to quickly and then she'd just up and disappeared. He'd heard she'd applied to several universities, even two overseas, Cambridge and Oxford. All he knew for certain is that she had wanted to major in English literature.
After a long day surrounded by hormonal teenagers with the attention span of lab mice, he had barely enough energy to slip off his tie and wolf down whatever leftovers he could nuke for dinner. The quiet of his room with the city lights casting shadows off the walls would remind him of that vintage backseat. His skin would prickle with the memory of her fingers against his neck, her nails biting into the muscles of his shoulders as she panted and moaned her pleasure in his arms. He would be hard in seconds and too tired to roll himself out of bed to take a cold shower to kill the throbbing ache, he'd push his hand into his gray boxer briefs and jerk away the need. His fist was a poor substitute for her slick tight warmth but in his mind, his memory recreated the exquisite sensation of her enveloping him, holding his dick and drawing into her body, rhythmically stroking and clutching in a deliciously torturous pattern till he couldn't hold back anymore and he had spent, balls deep inside her.
He shucked his underwear down his legs and wiped himself off using the fabric, before toss the article of clothing into a corner. Sated but no less mentally fatigued, he fell back and crawled beneath the covers to sleep. The pile of marking could wait till the morning. If he skipped the staff meeting he could review his students' work before his first period.
A incessant buzzing woke him and he wondered how he could have slept past his alarm when he noticed how bright the sun was beaming through his open window. Half buried by his duvet, he threw it back to cast an eye at his clock. It wasn't even 7 A.M. yet. His clock didn't beep till 7.30 and since the drive in only took 10 minutes he unusually didn't leave until the kitchen clock ticked over 8. The buzz of the doorbell kept going like a bug zapper that lured another unsuspecting victim into its death trap.
Was someone going to get the damn door?Between his inhuman energized, morning person, workout-freak-of-a-brother whom was also currently jobless, and homeless or his bar owner best friend who normally strolled in as he was just stepping out of the shower, he assumed someone would have answered the door already.
Last night, he'd had parent teacher meetings till 9 and after navigating the traffic due the night road works to get home, he hadn't got in until 10. Nick had kept him up three nights in a row before that well past midnight till Cary had to beg off pleading work in the morning, leaving his older brother brother to his uncharacteristic melancholy nursing an Irish coffee and vacantly staring at English football on mute. It didn't matter how late he went to bed, if he even saw a bed, he'd be up with the sunrise, drinking his green muck for breakfast before he went out for a 25-mile bike ride. All this before Cary could even tap snooze on his phone alarm.
Nick had moved back from Vancouver a month ago. Cary had only recently convinced him to keep what savings he had left, and move in until he got back on his feet. His wife, Penny, had been cheating on him with their accountant, and they had also been screwing with his returns so that he'd also been hit with obscene charges for tax fraud. Being a property lawyer, Nick had connections and he'd managed to avoid any jail time but his now ex-wife had managed to pin everything on the accountant and being married for ten years had cleaned him out financially through a divorce settlement and alimony. Nick had been such a wreck that he hadn't even had the presence of mind to put an investigator on her to prove her infidelity, fraud and manipulations to turn the divorce in his favor. Penny had been his high school sweetheart, had followed his brother first to Harvard and later to Canada when he'd got offered a junior position with a big property developer in Vancouver right out of college. He'd never seen her for the selfish opportunist she was. And Cary being the much younger brother, hadn't noticed. Nick had been half way through law school when the family had decided to move from Wilmington to Evergreen, North Carolina. His father had been offered the City Manager position in the neighboring county after working as the projects manager for the Assistant Mayor's office for ten years. It was a substantial pay rise and a career advancement so his parents made the move. Granted it could have been only a two-hour trip by car, but his Dad hated a long commute so they moved, and Cary got to enroll in a recently re-voted, previously, all girls school. Every teenage boys dream. It hadn't been the cruise-ride he had initially thought but it had been far from bad either. Besides, it had led to Kate.
The buzzing had mercifully stopped, but now awake he decided he might as well get started for the day. He pulled on a pair of shorts and scrubbed a hand over his face. Nick had more than likely put the coffee machine on, he'd wake up properly and then go shower.
No sooner had he stepped out of the short corridor that led to the living area and kitchen, did he notice Nick in his riding gear holding a teary-eyed hiccuping baby while doing a minimal job of calming his irate, harassed, normally reclusive neighbor who looked fit to strangle someone.
Nick gave him a wide-eyed look that pleaded silently for help.
"You," the towering blonde glowered, thrusting her finger in his direction. "Deal with this," she said gesturing at the baby. Then, she unceremoniously kicked a large black travel bag and a high chair through the door, before she stomped back to her apartment on the other side of the void in their building. Slamming the door so violently, it rattled pitifully in the frame behind her.
"Well she's wonderfully cheerful for a morning person."
Cary snorted and crossed the room, wordlessly taking the still mewling wet-faced baby. She was cute if you ignored the red-rimmed eyes, the snot and the drool leaking down her chin. What was that smell? He extended his arms, hoping to distance himself and that only made her more distressed.
"You're not supposed to hold them like they're going to explode," Nick quipped, folding his arms in observation.
"I'm pretty sure she just did. How can something so small make a smell so gross?" Cary felt light-headed. The stink was crawling up his nose and into his brain, he could feel brain tissue dying. He was seeing double and the stink was making his eyes well up. What did the kid eat? She didn't look old enough to be eating solids, but then how would he know. He didn't know a thing about babies.
"Did Yvanna at least tell you why she was dumping a kid on us?" he asked his brother.
Nick shrugged. "She tried to tell me it was mine. I think me laughing in her face didn't help her warm neighborly disposition. Mentioning my ex and my balls probably did help endear her either."
Cary let out a snort, his lips pulled into a smirk. "So that's why she looked fit to deck you. You should watch yourself around her. The maintenance guy tried to get fresh with her once, he ended up with a missing tooth and a dislocated jaw. She might look like the quiet, artsy type, but she's all muscle under those paint spattered coveralls. I've run into her at the gym once or twice. She goes early to avoid the crowds." He watched his brother's eyes glance to the door, a look of thoughtful reflection briefly passing over his face before he turned back to him, nodding at the kid.
"You might want to change her before the whole apartment smells like shit."
"Why do I have to do it?" Cary heard the whine in his voice and only just resisted the urge to scowl. He wasn't four. And his brother shouldn't be able to boss him around in his own place.
"Because genius, the lady's adamant she's yours."
Cary glanced at those big watery eyes and felt his heartbeat pick up and painful tightness stir in his chest. Nick slapped an envelope against shoulder. It was open. He thrust the baby back at Nick who caught her with effortless grace and held her like he was born to do it. And he probably was, it was one of the sore points, Nick had confessed to putting strain on his marriage. His brother had wanted kids, Penny hadn't. While he watched Nick open the diaper bag, and rummage through it with one hand, the baby propped against his chest supported by the other, Cary turned his attention to the thick paper making an ominous crackling sound in his grip.
Yvanna said the kid was his. Or had assumed she was Nick's first. The letter had to have more answers. He wasn't surprised it was open. His neighbor had strange habits and ideas. She'd brought him mail opened before, claiming that it had wrongly been put in her box. Why it was open, she offered what seemed like a weak excuse that she hadn't read the address window before tearing into it. He shrugged it off, she seemed lonely at times, if his drama could give her a feeling of escapism or a connection to another human being then it was no big deal to him. Even if her choices to avoid people meant she had limited opportunity to make friends.
He'd never seen her handwriting before but as it dawned on him, whose script he was reading, and what he was reading, he felt all the air in his body leave him in a rush. The paper began to shake and it got difficult to continue reading. Instead he stared unblinking at the half dressed baby on the coffee table.
"What? Cary?"
He could hear the worry in Nick's voice, it was written all over his face. His brother kept one hand on the baby's belly and snatched the paper from where it rested against his knee under slack fingers.
"Kate?" Nick asked absently in confusion, while his eyes continued to scan over the paper and dart between Cary's face and the baby's. "I don't remember her. Is she the redhead?" he asked with an eyebrow raised in skepticism. No doubt discounting that theory off the bat with the blonde haired child gazing up at him.
"Why are you guys watching chick flicks this early? Nick, come on man, stop torturing herself. You're better than her, don't let her take your manhood, dude. And stop trying to emasculate your brother with your wallowing. He does well enough on his own mooning over that brunette–whoa, who had curry?"
Cary swiveled and looked over the back of the sofa to see Rhys walk into the room blinking blearily, his nose wrinkled in clear offense at the smell, before his eyes rounded at the sight of the baby.
"Who's kid is that?"
Cary reached over and drew her hesitantly, carefully off the table. He pulled her to his lap and looked down at her face and met her big blue-green eyes. Eyes that were much like staring in the mirror. Her nose and lips though. Her little nose and pink tiny lips were a perfect miniature replica of her mother's.
"She's mine."
There was a tremor to his voice as he made the claim, that it wasn't nerves or displeasure but from a breathless uncertainty and irrational doubt that this had to be a dream. It was surreal. It felt like a comical cliche movie plot that his roommate had just accused them of watching. His face while pale as a sheet was pure wonder as he looked at her. They'd made her. That night, the one that was immortalized in his memory, haunted his dreams and often spilled into his waking hours, had given her life. His fingers encompassed her small body and as he drank in her clean, innocent, baby scent with a kiss to her blonde tuffs of hair. He swore then silently with renewed determination that he'd find and bring Kate home, no matter what she pleaded for in her letter. They both wanted and needed her. She belonged with them.