Kyra looks up from her journal as she hears a soft knock on her bedroom door before it quietly swings open from its previously ajar position.
“Hey Ky, I’m about to leave for the night,” her mother says as she walks in wearing a pair scrubs adorned with little candy canes and Christmas hats. “You need anything before I go?” She asks as she walks into the room, her feet padding quietly against the thick carpeting.
Kyra shakes her head and smiles. “Nah, I’m good. Hopefully for you tonight won’t be as rough as last night,” she says to which her mother sighs and nods.
“Hopefully. I’m hoping that since it’s Christmas Eve people will have other things to do than to come to the emergency room for a cough,” Laura chuckles and absently straightens some lotion bottles on Kyra’s chest of drawers. “But then I’ll be off for a few days, so we’ll at least be able to spend Christmas and New Year’s together.”
Kyra nods and smiles at her mother. “I know. It’s fine Mom, I won’t be alone tonight anyway, I’ll be over at the Chasez’s.”
Laura nods. “Right. I have a salad and a plate of Christmas cookies ready in the fridge that you will bring over when you go.” She glances out of the window behind Kyra then says, “I’m surprised you’re not there already, I thought you wanted to be there when Josh got home.”
“Yeah, but he’s not th-” Kyra stops mid sentence when she also glances out the window and sees what she’d been waiting for all day; his jeep parked in the neighboring driveway. “Damn it,” she groans as she hops off her window seat and quickly rushes over to her mother to place a peck on her cheek before flying down the stairs to the kitchen backdoor. After jamming her feet into a pair of old boots, pulling on her jacket and stuffing a knitted hat over her hair she quickly makes her way out into the cold to reach the Chasez back door in record time.
She knocks as she pushes the door open, calling out his name as she toes off her boots and quickly sheds her jacket and hat. When she hears voices coming from the living room she heads toward the sound but then as if out of nowhere she walks into something solid. A pair of very familiar arms wrap themselves securely around her and she looks up already knowing who they belong to.
“Hi,” he says with a wide smile, his eyes crinkling familiarly at the corners. Have his eyes always been that blue? Has he always used that low, sexy voice when speaking to her?
“Hi,” she responds, her voice a little lower than usual. “I’ve been waiting for you to get here all day, then I get distracted for a minute and you show up.”
He chuckles and shrugs his shoulders. “I’ve only just gotten here, you didn’t miss much.” She feels that chuckle all the way down into her toes and she suddenly feels really warm. Has he grown taller in the last two months since she’s seen him?
She clears her throat as she realises that he’s still holding her. “I um, I figured...but I really wanted to see you,” she finally says, unable to avoid looking at his lips as runs the tip of his tongue across them. Now she wishes that she’d spent a little more time getting ready.
“Oh yeah? Miss me that much?” He teases but then somewhat dismissively turns his head toward the voices coming from the living room.
She narrows her eyes for a moment but then decides to let it go as he returns his attention to her. Had he grown older all of a sudden? Had she? Had the kiss they’d shared the last time they’d been together changed anything? Everything?
With a steeling breath she reaches up with one hand and touches the tips of her fingers to his jaw. “Josh, before you leave again I think we need to ta-”
“Oh my god, JC! Is this her? This is Kyra right?”
Kyra pulls her hand away from his face and they both look over his shoulder to see a tall brunette who’d stepped out of from the living room looking at the two of them. She feels him tense for a moment then let go of her as the girl comes closer to them. He smiles at the girl but she can tell that it's forced.
“Uh, yeah. This is Kyra, you’ve met her before though,” he says sounding embarrassed.
The brunette steps forward and genially hugs Kyra, who, totally unprepared for it, sort of stays stiff in the friendly embrace. “I’m so happy to see you again, I didn’t recognize you right away.” She sets Kyra away from her and looks her up and down as if appraising her. “You’ve grown so much in the last year!”
Still unable to make her mouth form words, Kyra stands there quietly as the girl shifts away from her to wrap her arm around JC’s waist and sidle up to him. “JC talks about you all the time, I feel as if I know you. It’s like you’re just like my little sister too!” She laughs and JC seems to grow even more uncomfortable as he fidgets his fingers and then scratches the back of his head.
“His little sister?” Kyra finally finds her voice and she fakes a smile as she tries to catch JC’s now downcast eyes. “How sweet,” she says sarcastically then turns to look at the girl once more. “And you are? I’m sorry, he’s never mentioned you.”
The girl seems taken aback only slightly, her smile falters then it returns. “I’m Cam. Carmen, actually but I go by Cam. JC and I are on the show together, I think we met there before.”
Kyra can’t help the words from coming out of her mouth. “Yeah, but it was dark in the utility closet.”
A light hue of redness creeps up on Cam’s cheeks as she momentarily looked away from Kyra and down at the floor. Josh shakes his head slightly as his eyes find Kyra’s: he’s not happy, she can tell, but she doesn’t care right now.
Before any of them can say anything else, Karen walks by interrupting the suddenly tense moment. “Kyra, sweetheart do you have the salad your mom was supposed to make? We’re about to have dinner.”
Kyra shakes her head. “Sorry, I forgot it. I’ll go get it right now.” Before anything else can be said she’s off to the back door; boots, jacket and hat back on before she beelines it back out into the cold.
The kitchen door of her house barely has time to close behind her when it opens again. “What the hell was that about?’ JC says to her back as she walks toward the fridge after quickly taking her boots off.
“What do you mean?” She asks as innocently as possible, her back still turned to him as she pulls out the large salad bowl from the fridge and sets it on the counter.
“All...that…” he stutters as if he doesn’t know how to say it.
“All that what?” She repeats as she grabs the cookies from the fridge as well and places them on the counter before shutting the refrigerator door.
“Come on Ky, you know what I mean. That wasn’t very nice,” he says crossing his arms over his chest.
She sighs dramatically and turns to face him. “It’s not like I didn’t say the truth, you really haven’t mentioned her lately.”
“Yes, I have! I told you I really liked her!”
Now it’s Kyra’s turn to cross her arms over her chest. “You never said it was official,” she says and curses herself for how petulant her voice sounds.
He blushes and clears his throat. “It’s not official, official…”
“Bringing her home for Christmas sounds pretty official to me…” She mumbles and looks away.
He sighs. “Why are you acting like this?”
Kyra shrugs, still not looking at him. He prompts her by repeating her name once more and she finally sighs, her shoulders sagging. “I don’t know...I just...I don’t know.”
He shifts uncomfortably in his untied boots. “Are you jealous or something?”
Kyra’s eyes connect with his and before she can really think of the consequences, the word “Yes,” slips from her lips.
*
JC slipped away from the crowded living room to look for Kyra who had quietly disappeared several minutes ago. He had a good idea where she’d gone and his suspicions proved to be true when he laid eyes on her sitting on the window seat in his childhood bedroom. Being the oldest, he’d been lucky enough to have the furthest bedroom down the hallway which, though slightly smaller than his brother’s or sister’s room, had the benefit of being a corner room with two windows instead of one, as well as being the room furthest away from his parent’s room. He’d spent many nights sitting on either window seat, either looking out into the backyard or looking at the side of Kyra’s house where incidentally her bedroom window faced his. This had come in handy many times as they’d been growing up; being able to communicate with hand signals and even flashlights through the shared window views. As they’d grown older he’d even caught her changing with the blinds open a few times, for which he’d come to find was another reason he’d been thankful his room was far from his parents’.
“Did you know I saw you changing a few times with the blinds open when we were growing up?” he asked teasingly as he came into the room.
She laughed softly and she looked away from the window to glance at him over her shoulder. “Did you not realise I could see you too?”
That realisation left him momentarily speechless, then he laughed. “So you did it on purpose?”
She shrugged, then a small smile spread over her lips. “Not the first time.”
He chuckled again and she turned to look out the window once more. He could tell that she was bothered. She’d been smiling and laughing all evening through dinner and the festivities, but he’d been able to tell that those smiles never completely reached her eyes.
“You okay?” he asked softly to her back as he moved forward to take a seat next to her.
She nodded as she fidgeted with a loose thread on an old throw pillow she had in her arms. “Mostly,” she answered quietly her eyes never leaving the window.
“What are you looking at?” he asked, even though he knew she was looking at her old house. He’d noticed she’d been stealing glances ever since she’d gotten there earlier that morning.
“I don’t know….just the house I guess. For some reason I keep wondering who’s living there now, you know? Is it a family that’s enjoying the house or a couple waiting to build their family or even someone looking for a quiet retirement? I don’t know, I just can’t help but wonder…maybe that’s just the writer in me…”
She trailed off and he nodded. “Probably,” he answered then unable to help himself he also looked out of the window and stared at her old house. It looked pretty much the same as it did in all of his memories, except for the now darkened inside of the house only lit by the red glow of Christmas candles adorning each windowsill.
“I asked your parents about the new neighbors and they said they’ve never really seen them. That a company comes by every so often to mow the lawn or clean the snow but that no one really seems to live there yet. Isn’t that weird? It’s been almost four years since I sold it.”
JC shrugged. “Maybe the person who bought it has other plans for the house.”
Kyra shrugged as well and he reached forward to touch her chin with his fingertips. “Now, how about we go down and kick everyone’s ass at cards then come back up here and reenact some of your teenage fantasies in my old bedroom?”
She laughed and blushed before she rolled her eyes. “Your fantasies you mean?”
He laughed too as they both stood up and took her hand in his as he headed toward the door. “Well, come to think of it, we probably had pretty similar fantasies...but I’m better at acting things out than writing about them so we’ll go with mine.”
*
