Cayden stepped out of his apartment
just in time to catch Kathryn Hayes walking down the hall. “Hey,
wait up,” he said as he sprinted down the hall to catch
up with her. “Where’s the fire?” He questioned
once he got to her side.
Kathryn shook her head slightly.
“I’m late for rehearsal,” she responded. “What’s
up?”
“I just wanted to give
you this,” he said as he reached into his knapsack and pulled
out a picture. He handed it to her and smiled as she glanced
at it.
“This is the picture we
took for Christmas,” she noted.
“Yeah, I printed out a
copy for each of us. I gave everyone else their copies, but for
some reason I kept missing you.”
“You could have gave it
to Jesse,” Kathryn said.
“I wanted to give it to
you myself,” Cayden explained as he shrugged his shoulders.
“That was nice of you,”
she said with a smile as she glanced at the picture again. “Wow,
look at us,” she commented.
“Yeah,” Cayden smiled,
“we look like a bunch of models from MTV or something, right?”
He said jokingly.
“This is probably the
only good moment we had that night,” Kathryn noted. “Before
. . . you know . . . everything blew up in our faces.”
“Yeah,” Cayden agreed,
“that was a bad night, wasn’t it? But hey, that’s
all in the past, right? We’re moving on. Aren’t we?”
He questioned.
“Of course we are. Well,
Jesse still got some resentment where Gage is concerned,”
she noted, “but he’s moving past it. It was hard for
him to find out that Gage and Julia . . . well, you know,”
she said.
Cayden nodded. “I think
everyone was shocked, really. Speaking of which, how has Devon
been treating you? She threw a fit when she saw the two of you
kissing.”
“She’s been surprisingly
great about it,” Kathryn responded. “I think it was
the initial shock that threw her off, but if she’s got any
resentment or jealousy then she’s not showing it. She’s
been great.”
“Good,” Cayden smiled.
“I think, for the first
time in a long time we’re all finally getting our lives
back on track,” Kathryn explained.
“Thank God,” Cayden
chided, “because you were all a bunch of basket cases when
I first moved in.”
“Screw you,” Kathryn
said with a laugh. “I think it was because you showed up
right when things were at their worst,” she explained. “We
don’t seem to be at our best in this building when there
are new people.”
“No kidding,” Cayden
teased as Mason’s door opened. Both he and Kathryn glanced
in that direction and witnessed Sarah Mulberry step into the
hall. Kathryn and Cayden glanced at one another in surprise as
Mason stood in the doorway smiling at Sarah.
“That was great,”
Sarah said with a smile.
“When will I see you again?”
Mason questioned as he tried to encircle his arms around Sarah’s
waist.
“I don’t know,”
Sarah responded as she gently pulled his arms away. “I have
a busy schedule . . .”
“But you’re just
down the hall,” Mason explained.
“My grandmother is still
very sick,” she said. “I’m the only one that’s
here to look after her. I’m not sure when I’ll have
the time to hang out again,” she explained.
“Well, then let me give
you my number,” Mason said as he ducked back into the apartment,
returning a few moments later with a slip of paper. “Here,”
he said as he handed it to her.
Sarah reached for the paper
and smiled. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll give
you a call when I have some free time,” she promised.
“Great,” Mason said,
“I’ll see you soon, then.”
“Definitely,” Sarah
said as Mason shut the door. Sarah Mulberry glanced down at the
slip of paper with Mason’s phone number on it and tore it
into several tiny pieces and tossed it to the ground. Turning,
she caught sight of Cayden and Kathryn and smiled. “Hey
guys,” she said as she walked toward them. “What’s
up?”
Cayden glanced at the pieces
of paper on the floor, then at Sarah and smiled slightly. “Not
much,” he responded.
“Kathryn,” she said
softly, “How is Jesse doing?”
Kathryn stared at her in disgust.
“He’s fine,” she answered.
“Great. I was just about
to go visit him.”
“He’s busy,”
Kathryn responded quickly. “He doesn’t have time for
you.”
Cayden glanced at Kathryn with
surprise. The tone and pitch of her voice was different than
anything he’d ever heard from her before. Her ears seemed
to be turning bright red right in front of him. He could feel
the tension between the two women building.
“Why is that?” Sarah
questioned, a smile on her face.
“Because he’s painting
something for me,” Kathryn answered quickly, “and after
that he has a bunch of paintings to do for other people so he’s
not going to have time for you,” she explained.
“That’s too bad,”
Sarah said as she shook her head with disappointment. “It
doesn’t sound like he has a lot of fun,” she noted.
“We have plenty of fun,”
Kathryn retorted.
“Maybe he needs to have
more fun,” Sarah commented with a shrug before turning away
and walking down the hall toward her grandmother’s apartment.
Cayden turned toward Kathryn
and shook his head. “What was that all about?” He questioned,
quizzically.
“Nothing,” Kathryn
said as she turned away and walked toward the elevator. “But
I’ll be damned if that bitch is going to sink her claws
into Jesse too,” she added as she boarded the elevator. |
