Jace and Kate

Chapter 14

Jace

I couldn’t sleep that night, with Kaat in my bed and a song just bursting out of me, I had to get up and start to work on it. First, I wrote down the words. Then I walked over to my piano and turned on the floor lamp that stood next to it. It was originally over by one of the chairs but I moved it after the fifth time I woke up in the middle of the night with a song on my mind, stubbing my toes twice. I guess music comes with a price.

I started to fiddle around with a few keys, before finding the right ones. I wrote down the notes on a new piece of paper in my music sheet book. The book has been tattered, the cover is bent and folded and ripped. The pages are faded yellow from the years that it has been with me. From time to time I will look through it, sometimes I will find some songs that I started but never finished writing. I will start to finish them but I can never find the inspiration that I found in that moment.

Before I knew it, it was morning. I had been up all night writing and composing my song. It was finished so it was time well spent but I was really tired. I was just finishing the end of the song when Kaat stumbled out of the room in a tired trance. She walked up behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. My hands stayed hovering above the keys, as her palms slid slowly off my shoulders and down my chest. Her hair peaking over my shoulder as she leaned lower and lower to my ear.

“Good morning.” she whispered then nibbled on my ear. It seriously felt heavenly.

Then she suddenly stopped and plopped down next to me on the bench. I turned towards her and leaned in to give her a kiss but she put her hand in front of my face, stopping me dead in my tracks. She really knew how to control me.

“What are you working on?” She asked me, turning from me and looking at the music sheets splayed out in front of her. She placed her hands on the keys that were to be played in the intro and began to play my song. She stopped when it got to the part where the lyrics began.

“I couldn’t sleep because I had an idea for a song. I have been up all night, writing this for you.” I said looking to her face to gauge her reaction. She looked at me for a minute, with a straight face. Then a smile slowly started to show itself.

“For me?” she asked in a little bit of a skeptic tone.

“Yeah.”

“That’s really sweet, Jace.” she said before giving me a kiss on the cheek.

I blushed, something I hardly ever do, but I seem to do it quite often when I’m around Kaat.

“Would you like me to play it for you?”

“I would like that.”

I began pressing the combination of keys I had been working on all night. I started to sing the lyrics that came naturally. Just being in her presence made the words I was singing seem more true than ever before. My throat hurt from singing it bare last night, but I powered through it.

I glanced over at Kaat to find her with her eyes closed, just listening to the slow song my fingers were making the piano play. She swayed in time to the slow tempo. She looked peaceful, and for a girl who just woke up, she looked beautiful. Her hair was sticking up in places and her make up was smudged a bit, but she till managed to look gorgeous. She was as radiant as could be with the sunlight that was seeping through the curtains and through the apartment shining down on her head making her look like an angel.

I finished playing the song and watched as Kaat’s eyes fluttered open and her smile returned to her face.

“That was beautiful, Jace. I think it’s your best one yet, and I’m not just saying that because you wrote it for me. It really is a beautiful song.”

“Thank you. It was inspired by a very, very beautiful woman.” That time, I managed to make her blush. Her cheeks turning a cute shade of rosy red.

I leaned in to give her a kiss right when she was turning to face me again. Our lips met instantaneously. We didn’t start with the petty kisses first like we usually did, but we went straight to the heavier stuff. She still tasted like the wine we had been drinking last night.

I place my hands on the back of her head and hold her while her hands slowly move from my forearms, down my bare chest and my sides, to my boxers, which were poking out of my jeans. I knew she didn’t want to go too far, for reasons that were understandable, but with her edging me on like this, I didn’t know how much self control I had left in me.

We broke away for a moment and I told her what was on my mind, well, the important things she needed to know anyway.

“I really want to keep going, too. But there is also a nagging part of me that says no because we only just met Monday.” she took in another breath as if she was going to say something else but thought better of it.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No really?”

“I just don’t know if I can trust you. I don’t want our going further to be just something that’s ‘whatever’. I want it to be special. I want it to be with someone I know and trust, not just some thing we do on the weekends. I know that probably sounds stupid.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Well I do and I don’t. I do trust you enough to hang out with you and go on dates with you, but not enough to where I know that it is only going to be me. Maybe I’m just being selfish-” she blurbed before I stopped her.

“No. It’s completely- I get it and I think it’s admirable and kind of sexy.” The last part might not have been the best thing to say but it came out before I could think twice.

I poked her in the side and she smiled and squirmed away. I laughed at her and started to tickle her again, pulling her to me and wrapping my arms around her so that she couldn’t break free. She exploded into a fit of her light, giggly laughter.

“Stop it!” she yelled in between bursts.

I hesitated but then I gave up.

Once we had calmed down, I asked her if she wanted some breakfast.

“Sure, if you don’t mind me helping.”

“That would be great.” I smiled.

I grabbed my t-shirt off of the arm of the couch and swung it on over my head. She grabbed my hand and dragged me over to the kitchen.

“So what should we make?” she asked, saying out loud what I was thinking.

“I don’t know. What are you in the mood for?”

“That, my friend, is a dangerous question to ask a girl, but I guess if I had to choose then I would say pancakes and scrambled eggs.”

“Pancakes and scrambled eggs it is my lady.” I bowed, she laughed again.

“Alright, so what do you need me to do?”

“Um, you could grab the eggs from the fridge. I will get the batter made. Could you grab a couple of pans out of the cupboard down on the right side of the stove?”

I walked over to the cupboard that held the Bisquick and I grabbed a few other spices to put into the pancakes. I strode back over the counter top that was next to the stove setting everything out.

“Ok now what?” She asked sidling up next to me, with eggs in hand.

“Well, do you want to make the scrambled eggs?”

“Sure. Do you want anything in them?”

“Maybe some cheese and some cilantro.”

“And where would I find this cilantro?”

“It’s over by the corner on the counter, on the spice rack.”

“Ok.”

I watched her strut over to the spice rack and back to the fridge. It felt really nice to have someone in the apartment with me. Someone who was willing to help and looked dang fine in my clothes. Kaatlynn made me happy. If I had to choose who to marry, out of anyone in the world, it would definitely be Kaat. She could quite possibly be my dream girl.