Ingeniosus. (Re-written)
“Hades” Chapter 1
Everything is different now. I can’t be who I used to be, my life is like empting your pockets to find there was nothing there in the first place. Things have changed, and my mother said that I should try to fit in with the normal kids. But how can I when I'm not normal in the first place? I can do things that people only dream of, but sometimes I wish that occasionally I could fit in with others my own age.
I was in my new room, lying on the cold wooden floorboards. Staring up at the faults that cowered in the corners of the plaster, staring at the place where the two different whites met and created another bland shade of meaningless colour. My vintage bed had been placed in the far corner of the room, draped with violet sheets and strung with small twinkle lights that clung to the headboard. On the other side of my room was a dark wooden desk that was stacked with boxes of my possessions. There was a small television on top of a shelf crammed with books about fantasy, romance, art and other books that were made of leather and had gold bindings; these books were given to me by my mother, but I had never gotten around to reading them.
The day was moving on; the late afternoon sun was beating down on me, through my open window. I was stretched out over the floor, letting my thoughts drift to a distant place. Just thinking of where my life is taking me, where I am being led to. Why does whoever watches down on me, feels the need to screw with my mind? Why does my Mother think just because I made a mistake, it justifies us to jump town? I may not have answer to any of these, but thinking about everything is kind of a habit I have fallen head first into; stressing over little things and easily becoming distracted.
Slowly I pushed myself to my feet; all of my joints protesting, clicking as I do so. I paced into my small white bathroom, only noticing the glint of the sun on the tiles as I stopped in front of the mirror like a drone.
I could see my messy reflection. My long, dark brown hair fell in untidy curls that reached about midway down my back; I knew it needed to be brushed after the long car ride to Melbourne, but I wasn’t up for the challenge of unknotting it, so instead I pulled it into a low piggy tail that I flicked over my shoulder effortlessly.
My figure wasn’t model thin, but it was decent enough—I had been told many times to use my assets, which until recently, I hadn’t realised they had meant my boobs.
I stood unblinking; staring into my eyes like they could become a window to another realm, which honestly I knew wasn’t possible, but I didn’t mind the thought of escaping into the unknown. The dark blue of my eyes shone back at me brightly; a cloudy blue was dancing with flecks of lavender amongst the iris.
I reached down, splashing bliss of cool water against my cheeks; closing my eyes in the few seconds it took for the water to drizzle off the ends of my fingers and plummet into the sink.
I strolled into the lounge room, cracking my knuckles, which rewarded me with a devilish scowl from my Mum and an agitated shake of Max’s head.
Max was rather tall and lanky, his ruffled brown hair always that little bit too short to cover the decent sized scar that was positioned just above his left eyebrow. He wasn’t a nice man, he was constantly yelling at Mum and there were times where I thought that he might actually be hitting her. I worried about her, but she promised me that everything was okay as long as I didn’t try to interfere. That never made me feel any better—but I had learnt my lesson after last time that I tried to help.
Black eyes didn’t suit my pale complexion.
I hated Max Harrop and I wished my Mother had never remarried such an asshat.
The living room was full of unusually bright colours; the couch was a baby blue with a purple throw-over chucked across the edge, one of the walls was painted an unattractive green and the teal carpet was partly hidden underneath a dull pasty rug. The lights were fluorescent and only emphasised the lack of furnisher in the long, slim room. The delicate lace curtains hung over the large white window frames with precision and grace.
We had only just arrived in the big city—and being sixteen, I already felt trapped, confined in this old house.
I wanted to be myself, but in order to do so; I needed room to breathe and time to think.
I stepped onto the porch, locking the front door behind me as I stuffed twenty dollars into my bra. The steps creaked as I placed my weight on them, spinning on my heels so that I could look behind me at the house that was supposably my home. It looked smaller from the outside, but in all truth it was quite roomy inside. The dark bricks blended in effectively with the mouldy grey shingles which covered the roof, the face of the house was neat, but looking closer the cracks in the mortar were obvious.
I started strolling along the rugged cement footpath, passing larger houses and conjoined units, not intending to go anywhere particular. I came to a halt a few blocks away from the safety of my new home— standing mouth agape in front of a bright, neon signed, busy-looking club. The name of it was odd, something that would be more realistic in a movie, but yet here I was, standing in front of a club with “Hades” flashing from red lights.
I was in a war with myself, trying to decide if I should turn around and wander aimlessly until I found my way home, or head into the club—eventually I chose the latter.
As I stood in the small queue, I allowed my eyes to wander over the remaining few left in the line in front of me. I had been able to see under the glamour that masked the paranormals real appearance for maybe two years now, so as soon as I looked around I realised people in this club weren’t just your average crowd.
A few of them were covered in it, hiding their true identity from the unaware humans, but I could see straight through it like I was lifting a curtain out of my eyes to reveal the street beyond.
I didn’t know much about the world I lived in or what was really messed up in my mind, but I knew enough to know that I shouldn’t mingle too much with the glamoured and no one should know what I can do.
I chose to focus my attention instead on the bouncer; he was tall with a crooked nose. Yet he wasn’t your average bouncer; I could tell at first glance he wasn’t normal. Underneath the glamour he had long, claw-like fingernails with dirt trapped beneath his skin. His eyes were bright yellow and hypnotic; cats eyes that glowed in the dark. His lengthy black hair was ruggedly cut around his face, draping over his eyes like a veil of darkness. He was not a nice looking man; he was the type of guy that you might expect in a creepy movie, as a criminal or even some sort of drug dealer. However, the sombre expression which was pasted onto his face somehow let me know that he wasn’t a threat.
He didn’t scare me; he had a safe, welcoming presence about him that made me feel calm, but it wasn’t like I wanted to be stuck in a dark alley with him any time soon either.
I flashed a fake ID that got me inside Hades. There were people everywhere—most of them were people anyway. There were bright coloured lights that flickered between pink, gold and occasionally a fleck of green was mixed in between. The sparkly dance floor looked to be covered in glitter, reflective disco-balls above my head twinkled with different shades of colour that I wasn’t even sure I could name. The sweaty young dancers were dressed in clothing what could only be described as scraps of material which hung over select parts of their bodies. Their skimpy outfits jolted around them as they were dancing; which involved maximum head bobbing and swaying mostly any body part they could, with the occasional lunge towards each other or sometimes the floor.
Off the dance floor there was a bar that served strange cocktails that glowed underneath its glamour, a few red substances, which I was sure to be blood and then the occasional drink that was just your average human liquor.
Couples were embracing or fiercely slamming there mouth to their partners as they stood in a corner and held one another against a wall. Drinks were being spilt everywhere as they groped each other. None of it was done in an attractive matter, mostly it was slip your hand under here and grab hold of that.
I had eventually decided that there was nothing that really urged me to stay; it was getting late, and if I stayed too much longer Mum would be scowling and boring me to a premature death with one of her infamous lectures.
As I pushed myself through the crowd of sweaty dancer, I managed to emerge on the other side with only a good jab in my ribs from some guy lunging towards me. When the crowd separated from around me I felt as if I had parted the red sea.
Until I tripped over someone’s foot.
My feet were knocked out from underneath me and I felt my hair whip around my face. I thrust my arms forward to prevent the impact from hurting like hell, but only rewarded myself with my elbows giving way; landing on my stomach with a winded feeling in my chest.
I closed my eyes with embarrassment; I knew there would be someone sniggering over my lack of balance, someone staring at me—just so that when I got up my cheeks would flush with colour, like they always did.
I was used of falling over, tripping over my own feet. It had become a lousy talent; the gift of tripping over a flat surface. I was what average people would call naturally clumsy.
I opened my eyes; trying to focus on the figure leaning over me. He was attractive—I could see that much. Also, I was pretty sure he was normal; I couldn’t see any glamour over him. His blonde hair was tousled around his face, hanging slightly too long at the front, so that he had to push it out of his eyes. His deep, round eyes were a chocolate brown and glistened with the coloured lights shining above his head, making them look almost black and never ending. His arched eyebrows framed his face, drawing attention away from the slight imperfection of the remnants of a black eye.
He was wearing a thick, silver chain around his neck and from what I could see; he was tanned and muscular under his loose grey shirt and tattered designer jeans, which hung from his hips.
He offered me his hand to help me up, and I took it gratefully. I could feel the colour burn through my cheeks as he easily pulled me onto my feet and slowly dropped my hand, letting my fingers drop through his.
My demin shorts had managed to end up on a weird angle, so I rotated it and dusted my hands off from any glitter that I had picked up off the floor.
“Are you okay, princess?” asked the blonde stranger.
I quickly glanced down at myself, shaking out my wrist that managed to catch most of the impact. “I’m hardly a princess,” I said with a tiny smile trying to escape my lips, and what I was sure to be colour flushing my cheeks. “And I'm okay, thanks. Embarrassment is good for the soul.”
Princess? Who goes around calling complete strangers a princess? I thought as I grabbed at my hair, trying to capture the loose strands back into the piggy-tail. All the while, I was trying to stop a goofy smile from spreading over my face.
“My name is Jai by the way. What’s your name?” he said quite formally, but the smirk that spread over his face showed that honestly, he wasn’t very formal. Ever.
“Oh. Umm—I’m Savanna,” I replied, a lot less formally.
He rolled his shoulders, stretching out is posture. I’d known all along that he was tall, but never put a measure to it. Looking at him stretch out in front of me, I guessed he would be at least six feet. Maybe even six-one.
He seemed like the kind of person who you would expect on the front cover of some girly magazine, not wandering a club to pick up strangers that literally fall at his feet.
“Savanna,” he said my name, dragging out the syllables in an attempt to see how it felt rolling off his tongue. “Would you like a drink?” he winked, actually winked.
I was mildly shocked—why was a guy like Jai interested in me?
I’m just a clumsy brunette from a small town in the middle of nowhere.
“Just one. Thanks,” I said smiling; bitting slightly on the inside of my bottom lip, trying to stop myself from staring at him with my mouth agape.
“Come on then,” he said cheerfully, letting the formal tone slip from his voice.
He interlocked our fingers, pulling me gently behind him as he made his way across to the bar; everyone moved out of his way with either smile of admiration or showing fear swirling in their eyes.
His fingers slipped through mine as he let go, ordering us two drinks. With his fingers no longer clutching mine, I felt the warmth drain from that spot, like I needed to be around him.
He had ordered two average looking beers—handing over some cash that was surely too much for just those drinks, telling the tender to keep the change.
“I'm too young for alcohol—” I started, trying not to sound like a dumb kid. In all honesty I would be happy for something with a little kick after my long day.
“Aren’t we all...” he smiled and directed me to a couch in one of the more secluded areas, sitting down so that his body was angled towards mine. The entrance to this room was blocked off with another glamoured bouncer.
The area that we now sat in was reasonably fancy; the walls were painted a dark mahogany with a small pattern circling the edges, the floor was plush carpet that welcomed your every step. The couches were draped with throw over rugs and elaborate pillows; a smaller coffee table resting in front of the couch was covered with red rose petals.
All in all, it was a strange scene for a night club.
The area we sat in was private, which gave me the illusion that this guy held some sort of power around these parts of town.
“So, tell me... did it hurt?” he asked.
“What?” I retorted, hoping we weren’t going to converse on how regularly I fell on my face, because if he did he sure would have something coming.
“When you fell from heaven—”
I rolled my eyes.
“Actually,” I leaned closer, whispering in his ear. “They kicked me out.” I ran my finger along his leg.
I wasn’t in an overly flirty mood, I had met plenty of guys with his kind of reputation and I wasn’t in for another one at the moment.
Though I did just mess up his cute pick up line, I was proud of myself for actually having enough self respect to retort.
I stood up and walked towards to door, giving him the finger.
“I’m not going to talk to you if your too busy trying to figure out ways into my pants,” I spat the words at him, crossing my arms.
“Sorry. How about we try this again—no flirting—please?” He asked, scanning the room with his eyes like he expected it to be bugged with hidden cameras.
“Okay then, tell me about yourself?” I started, strolling over to sit on the opposite end of the couch.
I knew I probably should leave this guy the hell enough alone, but there was something about him that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
So I put my mind to trying to find out more about him. “What lies behind the façade of Jai,—what’s your last name, anyway?”
“Call me Jai Payne. I mean it, call me.” he said smoothly, like he had practiced that in front of a million other girls.
Who was I kidding? He probably had practiced that in front of a million other girls.
Had he?
He scooted closer to me and flung his arm on the edge of the couch, behind my head. It was like he was daring me to pry anything out of him. I wasn’t sure if I should scoot away and show my panic or do nothing and feign boredom; I chose the latter.
“Tell me something interesting about yourself,” I said, using a voice a detective might uses when interviewing a suspect. I was biting down on my lip and grinning seductively at him. “Do me a favour—”
“What kind of favour...?” he winked.
I was pretty sure he is an ‘innuendo type’. I thought, thinking of the way he had twisted my words to take them in a totally different meaning. Probably something a bit more immoral.
“Free time,” he repeated thoughtfully. “I spend what little time I have with my best mate and sister—when I'm not at the School. I admire my stunningly good looks and occasionally strum a few strings on a guitar.” The smile that lit up my face could have brightened the whole room.
He was actually being honest, and somewhere deep inside me that pulled on some of my heart strings.
Suddenly, just like flipping a switch, I had forgiven him for the stupid pick up line.
“What about yourself, Miss—”
“Savanna Ryder,” I finished for him.
Jai was a guy who had attitude mixed with honesty, something of a rarity in most guys.
I stared at him; picking out the small kink in his nose and his prominent jawbone, the hair that dangled in his eyes when he turned his head, or even the way that he ran his hand along his jaw when he thought I wasn’t looking.
Quickly I glanced away, focusing my attention on the petals resting on the coffee table—the red petals that just looked like a colourless blur, because my eyes were just dancing around trying to do anything but acknowledge the fact I had been staring.
“At least I won’t have to worry that you disagree that I’m stunning,” he said with a huge grin plastered onto his face. I could feel the colour rising in my cheeks for third time this evening.
Who was Jai? Was he a perfect stranger looking for some innocent girl to flirt with? I thought, then tried to mentally back track—I wasn’t totally innocent, but I tried; most of the time, anyway.
The hair on the nape of my neck was standing on end, and the room temperature seemed to be set on chill. Ordinarily I would have told him to stop hitting on me and walked off, but in all honestly; I wanted him to flirt with me.
There was something about him that drew me to him in a way that I couldn’t really explain.
“Have you ever swum naked?” he asked suddenly.
My mouth threatened to drop, but I held it in check. I could feel the colour rise in my cheeks.
“You’re hardly the person I’d tell,” I answered, pouting my lips and raising an eyebrow at his sheer peculiarity.
“Ever been to a shrink..?”
“No,” I lied. The truth was that my Mother had been sending me to psychologists ever since I first met my biological father. She worried that I would have a mental breakdown, something about the thoughts of abandonment. It wasn’t my choice that I had been seeing a shrink, and I would prefer not to talk about it.
“Ever done anything illegal?" he asked.
Somehow I knew that Jai didn’t mean occasionally breaking the speed limit, getting in an odd fight and a parking fine. “No.”
“Troubled childhood?”
“Yes,” I answered honestly. If having my father behind bars for the rest of my life, getting dumped by my boyfriend because I told him the truth about me, jumping towns and falling on my face constantly was counted as troubled, I was an understatement. Because not only was I all of the above, but I also didn’t fit in anywhere, even when I looked beyond the glamour.
“That must have been hard. Sorry.” he said, actually sounding like he meant it. There was an act of silence on his behalf, and the edge of his eyes seemed to soften a touch, like the walls that he kept himself behind were slowly inching down.
That made me only want to find out more of what was underneath his ruggedly handsome exterior.
“My questions now—what happened to your face?” I asked, gesturing towards a black eye.
“Ran into a fist.” He raised an eyebrow and smirked, a smirk I was becoming far too familiar with.
“Who are you really? –I mean—you go around handing out fifties to bar tenders for two drinks, you bring me into this fancy private room and everyone in the damned club seems to either admire you or are shit scared of coming within a mile of you.—Who. Are. You?”
“Batman.”
“I'm serious,” I pushed.
“Batman.” He leaned closer. “But can you help a fella out and pretend I didn’t tell you, don’t want my true identity getting out,” He winked.
“Smart arse,” I scoffed, rolling my eyes.
My curiosity had finally won out, I had made the decision that I would find out.
In all truth, being different had its advantages. I didn’t usually use my special talents, as my Mother called them, to find out the juicy details about any mysterious stranger, but Jai seemed interesting.
I would take my chances on him.
I could practically feel the wheels in my head rotating as I focused all of my attention on him. I could all but see the sparks that were penetrating my mind as I locked my eyes with his.
I was invading his personal space on a whole new level; scanning his mind for background information. It was like I was tugging on invisible strings that were tied in little bows around his memories.
The strange thing was that I was abruptly cut off, like a concrete wall had just been slammed down between us—and this wall happened to be topped with barbed-wire.
This never happens to me, I thought.
I could always see into others minds, search through their deep dark secrets—no matter how much of a stalker that made me.
I could manipulate them in such a way that they were left thinking they always knew me, no matter our past relationship.
But I didn’t do this often, I felt no need to pick through the things that some people left wanting to be unsaid.
Who was Jai, really? If I couldn’t get into his mind, I was sure there was some paranormal crap going on... something that involved things that went bump in the night.
“Did you know, its awfully rude to snoop?” Jai said, blowing out a gush of air before raising an eyebrow in surprise.
How did he know? They never know what I'm doing. He can’t know. It isn’t even possible—How did Jai know? I thought, letting my mentally rambling continue as I stared at him with my mouth agape.
“How did you....” I stopped mid-sentence, letting my words drift away into nothingness. I couldn’t just tell him that I was in fact snooping.
What if he was a paranormal, toying with my emotions? I thought, but it wasn’t like I was planning on telling him my hidden secrets anyway.
I stood up, placing my untouched drink on the coffee table. Jai’s arm slipped off the back rest and landed by his side. “I—umm—have to go,” I muttered as I took a step forward unconsciously.
I was frightened, actually frightened.
Was it because I can’t tell anyone what I can really do, after what happened last time? Or did it frighten me more that he knew what I was doing? It was both.
I slammed my knee into the edge of the couch and let out a faint groan of pain as I edged myself towards the door.
“Don’t leave—we were just starting to have some fun. Plus it ain’t every day that I find someone else special, someone who is the same as me...” I could hear Jai’s voice, but I knew his lips weren’t moving. His voice was projected inside my mind like a loud speaker. “..And plus, your beautiful.” He said, out loud this time.
I headed for the door, not turning back to face him. My hands were shaking and my breath was trembling as I forced myself through the crowd of bobbing dancers. I was finding it harder and harder to breathe as I made my way out the door.
The clawed bouncer was standing with his chest puffed up as I rounded the corner into an alley.
I pushed myself up against the wall; digging my shoulder blades back into the cold brick as I tried to flatten out my posture.
I was out of breath; every inhale of air seemed to burn as it entered my lungs. My body was damp with cold sweat, and shaking uncontrollably from my sheer panic.
It was frosty outside and I tried to focus on slowing down my accelerated heart beat as my heavy breaths created a dancing pattern of fog before my eyes.
I clicked my fingers together twice with impatience, before the spark between my forefingers finally ignited. There was a small, bright flame hovering over my palms, baring light to the little distance I needed.
I looked around the alley; the windows to the club were covered with shutters, obviously put there to keep out the minors, like me. The cement street was covers with discarded rubbish and overflowing garbage bins.
Suddenly I froze. There was a figure wandering around in the darkness, creeping closer to me with every step. Each step that they took I could feel my heart rate accelerate. And to my unease, I noticed who the figure was.
Jai.
He looked astounded; keeping his gaze suspended between my face and my palm. It took me a few seconds to realise what he was staring at; then it hit me.
The flame hovering over my hand.
Shit! I thought, realising that I had totally forgotten about it.
I buried it inside my hand with lightning pace, extinguishing the flame without a second thought.
There was no light at all once the flame had disappeared. It was like all of the light in the world had been sucked into some sort of vortex; confining the light into nothingness.
I heard a faint crack, and then there was light illuminating the alley. The light was bright enough to be a portion of the sun, but I knew better—that light was emitted by Jai.
I could see nearly as clearly as day; Jai cupping his hands around a glowing, miniature flame, the light producing from it so brightly that it left me in a state of awe.
All the pieces clicked together in my head instantly. My mind grew heavier as I realised what I had thought the impossible—Jai was like me.
He knew as well as I did what it felt like to be different to others, an outsider, someone special—someone like me.
“How can you possibly do that? You shouldn’t—no one can—no one but me....” I started, but finished with my voice drifting off into silence.
“...No one but you?” he said, like I was the punch line to some joke. “You aren’t that talented princess, there are others like us—are you honestly naive enough to think that you were the only one your age, you are aren’t you?” he let out a soft cackle. Making a small movement in his shoulders to allow himself to grip onto the rest of his decency. “Why did you have to leave Hades, it was much warmer inside?” he said with a grin of satisfaction, a smirk I was becoming far too equated with. So I did the “mature thing” and stuck my tongue, ignoring him.
Apparently, I am classed as naive for thinking that I was the only one. But I didn’t care right now—there were others my age, others who grew up dealing with the same paranormal shit that was happening to me.
I grew up thinking I was an outcast, but Jai probably grew up knowing where he fit into life—fitting right in with the others his age that couldn’t control their gifts.
“Calm down, princess—its okay,” Jai said with a look of amusement carved into his face, all the while there was a mask of comfort that seemed to shimmer over him like a frame stealing the attention away from its portrait.
“Didn’t I already tell you that I am not a princess?” I snapped. “Oh, and one more thing—did you know that I was different when you met me tonight?” I merely whispered. Somehow this was important for me to know.
Even as I spoke, I realised that I was talking extremely fast. Faster than what a human would be able to pick up with their low level of hearing capability.
If Jai was in fact human, he wouldn’t have been able to slow the words down enough to understand what I was actually saying. If he was human, he would have just thought I was some idiot girl who had spontaneously decided to start humming. “So, did you know I was different?” I said more firmly.
“No,” he said. Closing his eye and glancing towards the ground before letting out a sigh. “I just thought you were a beautiful, clumsy, passionate girl... until you decided to—how do I put it?—ah, kidnap my thoughts.” He now looked up at me. “So, then I had to find out what really was going on, I couldn’t be incorrect.” He winked.
“Haven’t you ever been wrong before..?” I asked smugly.
“Yes, but it really does pain me when I am.” He smiled. “But don’t worry, I'm not in any pain—there is no immediate need for you to kiss me better, just yet.”
“You want me to—to kiss you?” I blurted out before thinking about what I was really asking. I often said things without thinking, and just then was a moment which I really wished I could take back.
Couldn’t I have told him: duh, I'm not normal—congratulations for figuring it out? But instead I chose to ask him what should go down as question of the year, want me to kiss you?
Apparently my brain was more focused on flirting that it was on concentrating that his guy was like me.
“Caught your attention, did I?” he whispered, taking a step closer to me. “Hmmm—I knew you wanted to kiss me, press yourself up against my body... I mean, who wouldn’t.” he said slowly, seductively. While gazing into my eyes, it was like he had carved us our own little world, a world where no one else could find me.
It made me want to take a step closer to him, allow him to wrap his arms around my waist and just hold me.
But I didn’t.
I didn’t move; I stood exactly where I was. Except that I flung my hair over my face and hid behind it—like a knight behind his shield—and allowed myself to blush a bright shade of crimson, for the fourth time tonight.
“Are you embarrassed, princess?” he asked, noticeably amused by my shyness.
“My name is Savanna,” I said firmly, glancing upwards; probably still flushed with colour. “Just in case you forgot—”
“I didn’t forget,” he sighed, a wicked smile spreading across his face, weakening my knees.
He stepped closer again, raising his hand slowly with his eyes locked on mine. He slowly swept my fallen hair behind my ear, letting his fingers linger—trailing a path down my jaw, before he retracted his hand and shoved it swiftly into his pocket.
I was startled; not by his action, but by the way my body reacted positively to it. I was having trouble trying not to picture myself running my hands along the flat muscular planes of his back, along his abs and then entwining my fingers into his soft blonde hair, gazing into his chocolate eyes.
I took a step away.
Breaking the silence he said, “I thought you had to go...?”
“Well, I kind of still do. I left home later this afternoon”—I looked up at the sky, the stars blinking down at me.—“and now it’s late... they are going to kill me.” I sighed and then looked across at that faint grin trying to form on his face. “And as for you, you’re walking me home,” I said, hoping for a tone of voice that conveyed assurance not doubt.
“Are you asking politely—or demanding?” he queried me, with a big sarcastic grin folded into his features.
“Neither. To put it simply: I'm taking you hostage,” I said with a confidence.
“Fair enough, but on two conditions...”
“What?” I asked, grinning like a fool.
“I want your number.”
He let the flame hover in mid-air, reaching deep into his pocket and pulling out a small, shiny black phone—placing it into the palm of my hand. I looked up at him and shook my head mockingly, before typing in the digits for my mobile number.
At the start of the night I had been worried about Jai’s constant flirting, but now, I was more worried that he wouldn’t flirt “Condition number two..?” I said, swallowing my heart that had made its way to my throat.
“I get to take a caller ID picture of you.”
“Sure, but wait one second...”
I pulled my fingers through my tangled hair like a brush, pulling the hair tie out and placing it around my wrist. Holding my palms behind my back, I thought about the colours that would brighten my complexion, something that would make sure he wouldn’t forget me.
Violet and a mix of blue and white sparks shot out from the middle of my palms. Tingling as they broke the surface of my skin and glittered out behind me; hovering in the air behind my sides.
I knew I could do all sorts of things just by thinking it—so this small task wasn’t tiering like it used to be.
“Okay, Jai. Now take the photo...” I thought to him, letting him pick up on the thought that I placed into his head. He understood perfectly.
The camera phone flashed a bright white; taking away my vision for a second.
Carefully I absorbed the sparks with a tiny twist of my fingers, allowing the colours to drift away.
I pulled out my damaged flip phone, pressing hard on the worn buttons until I got to the camera feature.
Jai stood before me in a pose that I could only describe as cute; he had one hand touching his jaw, the other on his hip and his eyebrows raised in an attempt to look suspicious.
When my camera flashed, and Jai smiled—it felt like everything in the world was just slightly better off.
Jai had made a quick call, telling whoever was on the other end of the line that he was walking back to his house, explaining to them a few times that he was fine and there was no need to worry about his safety on a short walk.
We arrived at my house a little while later, after a few wrong turns and having to turn in the opposite direction twice I finally found my house.
Jai soon surveyed the small brick house with nothing but a few rose bushes in the garden with a smile; but I could see that under the surface he was truly trying to hold back a laugh.
“What is funny about my house?” I pouted my lips and crossed my arms in a small attempt at being upset with his change of emotions.
“Nothing. It’s just that my house is only—one, two, three—three houses down.” He said locking eyes with me once again. “I live with my sister, Sage—and my mate, Caleb and his parents.” He seemed to want to make this point clear.
His point was that he didn’t live with his parents.
“What happened..?” I asked, unsure if my question was wanted.
He tensed. “That’s something we can talk about another time,” he said, before taking a deep breath in, and relaxing ever so slowly.
“Oh, so there is going to be a next time, huh?” I asked, sarcasm layered into my voice.
“Most definitely.”
He sighed and slowly leaned forward, slipping his hand onto my waist—pulling me closer to him.
The way my body reacted to his hand on my waist was enough for me to realise that I really didn’t want to push him away.
But unfortunately, I did.
I placed my hands on his shoulders; my thumbs fitting perfectly into the grove above his collar bones. Gradually I eased him away, pushing against his chest until we were arms length apart.
I could feel his muscles tighten under my palms as I stood there. His expression was briefly one of disappointment before he masked his emotions.
I barely knew Jai and if he wanted to kiss me, he would have to get to know me first.
Its not that I didn’t want to kiss him—truth be told, I could totally imagine flinging myself into his arms and slamming my mouth against his, but if I kissed him now; he could slip away.
I wanted to know him.
“I thought I was the one who wanted to kiss you—if I remember you telling me correctly.” I said, replaying tonight in my head.
I still had my hands lingering on his chest and it didn’t seem to bother him, but it definitely had an effect on me—an effect that once again left me wanting to fling myself at him.
I was standing so close to him that I could make out each individual scent of his alluring aroma and feel his breath washing over me like waves from the ocean, crashing down onto the shores.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, but only half of his smile was displayed on his face, the rest was hidden under the disappointment. “Do you realise I kind of have a soft spot for you?” He spoke his words so effortlessly that for the fifth time tonight, colour blazed underneath my cheeks.
“But,” I whispered playfully, running my thumb in circles over his collar bone where my hand sat. “do you realise we only met a few hours ago?” I asked with another goofy smile spreading over my face.
“A lot can happen in an hour...” Jai said smiling, before he caught the second meaning behind his words and for the first time tonight he was the one to blush. His lips pulled up at the corners and his chocolate eyes were glinting with humour.
His expression filling me with confusion and happiness all at once.
“If you want—we can—umm—we can go out some time, officially—I mean. But only if you want to?” I said quickly and nervously as I stared at a lone crack in the cement beneath my feet.
“I would like that very much,” he said. His face lighting up with a huge weaken-you-knees grin spread across his features.
I reached up, standing on my toes—and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
Jai thought one word to me. “Princess”.
I blushed once again, as I whispered “good-bye” under my breath and half skipped up the steps to the front door.
Standing on the porch, I watched as Jai disappeared silently into the night.
I though it was very good, but there were just a few things wrong. Nothing big, just that there was a few spelling errors. I would very much like to see what happens next. 