Where It All Began (Phoenix Falls Series)
Where It All Began: Chapter 16

Happy 4^th.

I reread Kitty’s text about ten times before shooting her one back, with a smiley on the end for good measure. Then I turn my phone fully off because that’s enough baby-softness for one day.

Plus, I’ve just woken up at two in the afternoon and I’m the only one who’s not down at the lagoon yet for the annual Fourth of July celebration. I haven’t been able to attend it for the past couple years due to touring with the band, but you can bet your ass that if Kitty’s going, so am I. I try not to get too het up about the fact that Kaleb drove them down there instead of me, but at least she texted so that I know she’s okay.

I take a deep breath as I look over to my right where the garage is, the shaded spot where they park their sparkling sapphire blue Chevy stomach-droppingly empty.

I start counting to ten.

She’s okay. She texted, and you know that she’s okay.

I didn’t fall asleep until way too late last night because of all the maintenance we had to do around the ranch. We had to kick the working up a notch due to the sudden summer storm warning that the weather broadcaster claimed is threatening the area. After Kaleb baled up all of the fields of straw yesterday, he showed me around one of their monster machines and taught me how to wrap the hay for storage, so I spent the entire evening taping them in some sort of candy pink ranch cellophane. I cross my ankles as I take a sip of my coffee, leaning my shoulders against the door frame out back, and I glance over to the open stable doors, stuffed up with what looks like a hundred giant marshmallows.

When I reach the bottom of the mug I chuck the rest out onto the dirt and then turn my phone back on because I’m an addict in need of another Kitty hit. I blow out an agitated breath when I see that she hasn’t opened up my last message and I scroll back up through our entire conversation history, disastrously one-sided.

On the plus side, it gives me hope that she’ll be this dismissive with every other guy hounding her phone.

On the downside I know that the meaner she treats them the more they’re gonna wanna chase her.

Damn it. To prevent myself from smashing my forehead through the wall I check my other messages, only opening up the ones from Jason Coleson. I skim over the messages, a little bummed that I’ll have to decline his invite.

I would one thousand percent rather head over to Jace’s house right now and attend the Coleson’s Fourth of July barbecue over a sordid beer soaked rager down at the lagoon, but my intentions would become pretty fucking obvious if I drove across town, stole Kitty away from her brother, and then took her to a family get-together that’s more intimate than dinner with the Corleone’s. If she wants us to be a secret then I’m not about to be the one who shows our hand.

Time to go replace her.

The cattle are being kept in the barn today seeing as there’s not going to be anyone here to watch them throughout the afternoon, so I lock up all the doors and head inside the cabin. I rinse out the coffee mug, take a quick shower, and then, grabbing my guitar, I finally head out.

I unlock the Jeep and shove my guitar case down on the floor at the back so that it doesn’t get knocked around too much. Then I duck into the driver’s seat and peel out of the ranch.

I haven’t played the thing once since we got here. I’ve heard Kaleb strumming out a couple tunes here and there but he’s the singer so his skills on the strings aren’t of much consequence. It’s not as if I’m gonna forget how to play because I’ve been playing it since forever, but I know that I really should be getting back into the rhythm of things before we leave for the road again.

A feeling of disgruntlement settles in my abs, making me grimace as I pull off the side road into the main square of Phoenix Falls. Jesus. The thought of being on the road again should not be making me feel so empty, and yet all I can think about is the one thing that I’m going to be so mad at myself for leaving behind the second that I’m all packed up and set to go.

No. I swallow hard, fists gripping into the steering wheel tighter than they should be. I need to relax. I can fix this. I can make it all work out.

But how the hell am I going to make it all work out?

It’s another fifteen minutes before I reach the clearing at the start of the forest, a makeshift dirt track signalling the parking area that’s a little deeper inside. I bump slowly over a series of stones and tree roots, teeth grinding together as I imagine Kaleb doing fifty down this thing, Kitty bouncing in the passenger seat.

I instantly decide that I’ll be the one driving her home.

Fuck getting wasted at a Fourth of July rager, I’m going to make sure that she’s getting into my car as soon as she’s done here. I don’t trust anyone else to take care of her the way that she deserves.

Once I reach the parking bay I ease into a gap between two other cars and dismount the SUV with only one agenda in my mind. Find Kitty.

I’m so fixated that it takes me all the way until I’ve reached the lagoon to realise that I’ve left my fucking guitar in the backseat of my car. I groan internally, wondering how to stop being so whipped in the hopes of recouping a couple brain cells. As I scan my eyes around the water, crystal blue and sparkling as the sun illuminates the surface through a big gap in the overhead canopy, I replace the next best thing.

Kaleb, dressed in a pair of his scuffed up ranch jeans and a black shirt, is sat on a solid slab of stone overhanging the water, Chastity and a few of her friends with him. They’re wearing trucker hats, jean shorts, and stringy bikini tops, and one of them is playing music at volume three million on her phone. I make my way over to Kaleb and signal him as soon as I catch his eye. I don’t want to step one foot closer to the oestrogen circle that he’s found himself at the centre of.

He gives me a quick grin, whispers something into Chastity’s ear, and then gets up and meets me at the edge of the water.

“Wanna come up?” he asks, tilting his head back slightly in the direction of the women, probably assuming he can wingman me or something.

“Just got here,” I say. Translation: no.

As if subconsciously reading my brain he suddenly says, “I think Kit was helping the guys build a campfire up there.” He jerks his thumb somewhere through the trees to his left.

My brain glitches. Who the hell are the guys?

“What guys?” I ask, my forearms twitching.

“You know, the usual crowd.”

That does not make me feel any better.

“I last spotted her with Tyler so, actually, that probably won’t be of interest to you.”

My eyes go blank, a red haze descending on my vision.

“Oh, and Chase said she could ride home with him in case you drink too much tonight.”

A dull ache starts pulsing in my temples.

“You left her with Tyler,” I say flatly, my voice the kind of calm that scares small children. “And you wanna let Chase drive her home.”

Kaleb nods absentmindedly, attention momentarily pulled behind him as the girls start laughing at an explicit Lana Del Rey lyric.

I take his distraction as my cue to dip so I give him a quick slap on the shoulder and tell him, “I’ll catch you in a bit.”

I’m halfway around to the other side of the water before he even notices that I’m gone.

After about a minute of crunching my way through a shabby pathway of sun-scorched twigs and brittle, I hear it. The snapping sizzle of a midday campfire being prepared for the night’s food, and the tentative twangs of someone brushing up on an acoustic guitar. I change my direction a little, heading more to the right, but then I stop dead in my tracks as a light melodic voice suddenly entwines with the air.

It’s a girl and she’s singing the first verse of Bring Me To Life by Evanescence. Quietly, I step a few feet closer, hoping to catch a glimpse of her from my position on the outer edges of their set-up, but there’s a group of guys right below me obscuring any view of the people sat around the fire.

I can tell that she isn’t the person who’s playing the guitar because when she’s about to reach the chorus a few chords get botched. She pauses, waiting for whoever’s by her side to get back on track, and then she sings the most beautiful high note that I’ve ever heard in my life.

Who the hell…?

Amazed, I kick my way through the parched thicket until I’m shoulder to shoulder with the group of guys who have been watching her for the past minute. My breathing stops. A painful sensation lodges deep in my chest and my eyes grow wide as I realise what a fucking idiot I’ve been.

Of course it’s her. Who else could it have possibly been?

Kitty’s got her knees bent up as she perches on a log, the sun beaming straight down through the leaves and illuminating her in a holy golden spotlight. She’s wearing a red tie-neck top and a pair of shorts that are covered in little rhinestones, making up the shape of the American flag.

From this angle, she’s also unintentionally flashing her denim-clad pussy for the whole audience to see. My jaw ticks aggressively as I think about what’s going through every guy’s mind right now and I squeeze my nails into my palms, desperate to calm down.

That’s no longer possible when I see the guy sat next to her.

Tyler stops playing as soon as he notices me standing there and an easy grin spreads out across his smug face.

The veins in my neck constrict the longer that I look at him.

Kitty let him know that she could sing… she told him that she could sing before she told me that she could sing. Why the fuck would she want Tyler to know before me? Why?

My brow creases and I turn my gaze to Kitty.

Her eyes are wide and her cheeks are changing from drained of all colour to sugar-frosting pink. She grips her fingers into her knees. Flashes a shocked look over to Tyler, then back to me.

The guys who were watching haven’t seemed to notice anything weird about the sudden pause, instead taking the break to pop open a few new drinks and flick through some music on their phones.

I step past them until I’m right over her, my own eyes blacking out as I take her in from this angle. Fuck. Why did she have to be so pretty.

“You can sing?” I ask, my voice low and ringing with hurt. Because, yeah, I’m fucking hurt.

“I-” She’s about to start saying something when Tyler suddenly murmurs something to her.

In fucking French.

My last grain of composure explodes like a grenade.

“You talk to him in French?” I’m so aghast that I can’t actually bring myself to shut the fuck up. Do I sound like a jealous asshole? Yes. But do I give a fuck?

Tyler takes the wrong moment to start talking in English and he mumbles, “I’ll be doing more than just talking to her in French-”

That’s it. I step forward with every intention of unhooking his guitar strings and tying them nice and tight around his stupid neck when Kitty bolts upright and presses herself between us. We’re all on our feet now and this is three seconds away from getting real ugly.

“Madden,” she pleas.

I stare down at her, jaw hard, and I try to transmit her a thought.

I’m so angry at you.

Her eyebrows pinch in the middle and her eyes widen and sparkle. Guilty as sin.

“Yeah, Madden, back up.”

The smile in Tyler’s voice makes me want to chloroform him.

I slide my eyes over to his, gratified by the fact that I’m so much bigger than this piece of shit. So what if he’s six-one? That’s short to a guy my height.

I smile down at him, eyes so emotionless that I’m probably giving him the creeps.

“Madden,” Kitty whispers, pressing her little paws palm-up against my abs.

I have to stifle my groan as her touch ignites a surge of heat down to my groin, my shaft quickly hardening and growing heavy in my jeans.

“Step aside,” I grunt, biceps flexing hard with adrenaline.

I don’t know what I’d rather do right now: hoist Kitty up around my waist and fuck her hard against a tree, or wrap my bare hands around Tyler’s throat and throttle him until he’s unconscious.

Maybe both.

Probably fearing for that nice shiny guitar in his hands Tyler suddenly takes a step backwards, chest heaving like he’s ready to go but eyes flickering with self-doubt, and he mumbles something else in a rugged French accent that makes me want to break his jaw.

Kitty turns her head to him and gives him a curt little nod. I cock up an eyebrow ’cause what the hell’s she nodding to him about, and then I watch with un-sated rage as Tyler brushes past the other guys and heads up towards the water.

Au revoir motherfucker.

“Madden, let me explain-”

I tangle my fingers into her hair, tilting her head back so that she can look up into my eyes and see how mad I am right now. How riled. How jealous.

“Madden-”

“Not here,” I say gruffly, sorry to be cutting her off but eager to get her somewhere private so I can finally show her how she’s been making me feel every damn day since high school. “I know a place.”

She nods up at me, that same sorry expression still arching her eyebrows upwards. Feeling one brief flash of kindness, I unhook one of my hands from the back of her neck and smooth my thumb gently over the little crease in her brow. Her forehead relaxes and as I’m about to pull away she quickly reaches for my wrist, batting her lashes apologetically as she presses her lips softly into my palm.

My muscles tighten at the feel of her gentleness and a groan rumbles in my chest.

Don’t worry princess, I think to myself as I pull my hand away and begin to walk her backwards, deeper into the forest. We’re about to get to that part.