Kae

Anxiety started to turn into full panic. No Evan. No Zarg. He wasn’t at school, and he wasn’t answering his phone. Kae made her way to the only room of the house she hadn’t been to, her parent’s room. The door was closed. She held her breath and nudged it open to find Evan curled up in the fetal position on their bed looking at his phone. Zarg, who was never allowed on their parent's bed, was now curled up in a large ball next to him.

“Hey!” Kae said, venting a little frustration.

“What?” Evan replied, clearly angry.

“Why didn’t you wait for me? I was scared to death.” Did she just say that out loud?

“Barrett’s Mom offered to drive me home, and I wanted to see if Mom and Dad had made it home. It's not like you were replying to me and…I was worried, okay? So, I went home. Next time answer you damn phone and be where you're supposed to be.”

“Well, next time…” She couldn’t be mad at him, she wanted to be, but she was just glad to see him. Ugh. When was she ever glad to see him? This was a first. “I take it you haven’t heard anything from them yet?”

Evan threw an annoyed look in her direction. “What are we going to do? I’m really scared.” She could see he had been crying even though he had tried to hide it by looking away.

She didn’t say anything, all optimism had drained out of her. She would now trade all of her newfound freedom for a single word from her parents. She racked her brain for a way to cheer him up. And for that matter, a way to cheer herself up as well. Then an idea came to her. “Hey, I have something that might help a little.” She waved for him to follow her. “Come on.”

Evan slowly got off the bed, still wiping his red eyes and followed her.

When Kae got to the kitchen she shoved her hand into her purse and pulled out a shiny blue credit card. “You see this? This is the emergency credit card Dad gave me. If I ever needed to purchase something. Well, I think it is time to test it, don’t you?”

The doom on Evan's face broke a little and a small smile found the corners of his mouth, which surprisingly cheered her up as well. His voice cracked as he said, “Pizza?”

“From Dan’s too, since Mom isn’t here to be cheap!”

----------------------------------------

Evan

A little while later when they were expecting their pizza to arrive, the doorbell rang. Evan’s stomach grumbled in anticipation. “I’ll get it.”

“Careful,” Kae said, under her breath. “Let’s see who it is.” She pulled her phone out to activate the doorbell camera and saw a short, petite girl with a jet-black bowl haircut wearing a stylish pair of sunglasses. She wore a tight-fitting red t-shirt with a fish shaped name tag. Her black form fitting shorts were held up by black suspenders. In one hand was a large clipboard and in the other was a pen. Slung over her shoulder was a large black bag.

“I’ll definitely get it.” Evan said, noticing the way the shirt hugged the girl's curves.

“She’s too old for you and probably selling something,” Kae said, somewhat incredulous.

Evan was already on his way to the front door. “So? She’s cute.” He opened the door and was greeted with a big smile.

“Hi,” Evan said, already smitten by the girl who was prettier in person than on a camera.

“Hi, I’m Kristin,” she said, looking up from her clipboard and lifting her sunglasses to the top of her head. “Did you know one oyster can filter fifty gallons of water a day?”

“I uh, can’t say that I did.”

“The oyster banks are critical part of the Gulf Coast ecosystem and I’m collecting signatures to help prevent their overharvesting.” She tilted her head and her eyes wandered above Evan's face. Did she just look into the house? Wow, she had pretty eyes. “Would you be interested in helping save our environment by signing?”

“Um, yeah, I love oysters, or I mean, the environment.” Evan fumbled over words which his mouth now deemed impossible to say in front of this cutie.

She handed him the clipboard which he eagerly signed. “Thanks, Evan, and here, have a stress oyster for helping save the environment.” She rummaged around in her bag and then tossed him a small squishy oyster.

He looked down at the grey, smiling oyster and gave it a squish. “Ah, thanks.” He gave it a few more squishes and looked up at her. He had been so focused on her cuteness that he never realized, until that moment, that he had seen her before. Somewhere. He was good with faces, and he had definitely seen her before. “You look familiar?”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“I do?”

“It’s like I have seen you before, somewhere.” He couldn’t place it, but he was certain he had seen her.

“Well, I don’t know. I just moved into the neighborhood a couple weeks ago, but uh…is there anyone else here who would be willing to sign my petition?” she said, taking another deliberate look into the house. “Perhaps, a brother or sister or parent?”

“No, they’ll be home later, but uh…feel free to stop by then.” His face warmed. He could have kicked himself in embarrassment at his own stupid words if he could have.

“Okay,” she said, with a smile. “Thanks again for the signature, Evan, and here’s my number if anyone else wants to sign or… well, have a good rest of your day, okay? Bye.” She wrote a number on a card and handed it to him. With a parting flirty smile, she turned and left.

He watched her walk down the walkway and noticed the construction workers were no longer in the front yard, which was odd considering their stuff was still there. He closed the door and walked back into the kitchen to find Kae digging around in the refrigerator looking for something to drink. For a brief minute he thought it was his mom who always did the exact same thing. There was hardly ever anything in there other than diet sodas and the occasional lemonade, but both Kae and his mom always dug around expecting to find the perfect unique beverage that had eluded them until now. Kae really was so much like Mom.

“That was super sus,” Evan said, as he sat down at the kitchen table with the squeezy oyster still in his hand.

“Why, because she didn’t give you her phone number?”

Evan huffed in amusement. “No, she did, without me asking.”

“Damn, she must be desperate.” Kae laughed. “So, what was that all about?”

“Saving the oyster banks petition.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Kae said, popping the top on a diet soda.

“Nothing, but she called me Evan and I swear she never looked at her clipboard to see my name.”

“You were probably too busy drooling over her to notice. I mean, she was cute.”

Evan shook his head. “Plus, I swear I’ve seen her before…but I can’t place it.”

“Come on, she’s hot, you probably hoped you’d seen her somewhere. I mean, if you ask me, it couldn’t go any better. A girl literally came to the house and gave you her number. It’s not usually that easy.”

“Exactly. It was too easy, it just—” Kae’s phone rang.

She picked it up to see who was calling. She held her finger over the answer button but froze.

“It’s from outside the US.” She said, unsure. “Eh, it’s probably not Mom or Dad.”

Evan shoulders slumped. What was wrong with his sister? “Oh, yeah, better to be safe and not answer it. We wouldn’t want you to have to accidentally talk to a telemarketer while Mom and Dad are missing!”

“Yeah but…” The phone stopped ringing. “Well, they can leave a voicemail if it’s important. Right?”

Straight-As but no common sense. “That was sarcasm, answer the damn phone next time!”

“The call went to voicemail.”

“Whatever.” Evan said, still irritated with his sister. He went looking in the pantry for a snack since the pizza was taking forever to get there. He found someone had hidden a bag of chips strategically placed behind a couple cans of beans where it would remain undetected. His first thought was that he had scored before he realized this was probably just more of his dad’s ridiculous antics, which reminded him of the fact that he wasn’t home. Neither was Mom. Where could they be? He rubbed his eyes to make sure no tears escaped before placing the chips back in their original spot. He wouldn’t dare eat them. He kept his head in the pantry for a few more seconds to gather his composure. Kae didn’t need to see him cry. When he did pull his head out, he saw Kae holding her phone to her ear while tears ran down her face.

“They’re okay!” She cried.

“Wait, what?” Evan yelled, louder than he realized.

“It was Dad, he left me a voice mail, they’re okay.”

She called the strange number, and the warm sound of their dad’s voice blared out of the speaker. “Kae?”

“Daddy?” Her voice cracked and she started to sniffle, like she was now just a lost little girl who missed her parents dearly. “Where are you? Is Mom there?”

Evan’s eyes welled with tears, his throat tighten as relief overwhelmed him. Watching as Kae lost it was too much.

Mom spoke. “Hi baby, I’m here, we’re okay.” Her voice started to break up.

“Why aren’t you home?” Evan said, anger now filled his words. “Why didn’t you call?”

Dad replied, with uncertainty in his voice. “Sorry, we uh…we’ve had some issues.”

Adelfried’s voice was as if he was in the background. “You should tell them. They need to be prepared, just in case.”

“What? Tell us what?” Evan demanded.

After a lengthy discussion and more tears they explained what they had gone through. Although Evan was sure some details were probably left out, the end result was nerves were mostly calmed. It was decided Kae could use the credit card to order dinner every night, but that they had to go shopping for their breakfasts and lunches. Everyone would check in via text twice a day and there would be a family phone call every night and anything out of the ordinary would be discussed. There would be no mishaps because someone didn’t mention the weird stalker with the mask following them around bullshit.

“Under no circumstances is Kyle to come over or are you to see him while we are out of town. Do I make myself clear?” Mom’s voice was like iron.

“What if I accidentally run into him at school? Am I supposed to run the other way?” Kae said, twisting her head in disbelief.

“I swear, if you get pregnant, I’ll fly home and cut off his you know what and you two will be living on the street taking care of that baby!”

“Mom, seriously?” Kae yelled.

“Don’t Mom me, I swear I’ll cut it off! You aren’t a woman yet, you are still a girl, and you better not be having sex with him. When I was your age, I wasn’t even allowed to have a boyfriend, so you better not be making babies.”

Evan fought back the giggles when Adelfried added. “That is good advice Kae, listen to your mother. You are still very young and have many childbearing years ahead of you. With the medicine today you can extend your birthing years—”

Dad cut in. “Okay, she gets it. Now, we will talk tomorrow, okay?” Good ole Dad to the rescue.

Evan burst out laughing uncontrollably

“Oh my god, talk tomorrow. Bye,” Kae said with frustration and cut the line off.

“That was amazing.” Evan said, still in stitches. “You going to share that gem with Kyle?”

Kae gave him a dirty look for as long as she could before cracking and started to laugh. “Are you kidding? He’s already scared of her. I don’t want to traumatize him.”