“Thank you. And I want you too. It’s getting worse by the day,” I admitted softly.
“Well I’m glad I’m not the only one,” he said and I could hear his relief.
“Definitely not.”
“I’m serious.” He pulled back to look at me. “Don’t feel pressured. Whenever you say stop, we stop. I would never do something unless I knew you wanted it. You know that right?”
“Yes. I know that. It was just so intense and we were so...I have no idea why I thought that, it was just a flash. I know you’d never hurt me.”
“Good.” He kissed me quickly. “I love you, baby,” he murmured against my lips.
“I love you, too. Thanks for teaching me to surf.”
“Anytime.”
He slung his arm over my shoulder and we made our way inside.
Amber was gone by the time we got back, which I was ecstatic about. I did find Kyle picking up trash off the floor in the kitchen though. I looked at him questioningly.
“The trash was all over the floor when I woke up,” he said shrugging and went back to it.
Bish was more than willing to get out of the house and Kyle was game for anything so we all got ready and piled in the Jeep as Caleb took us to this little Panini place in the middle of town called Chew Bread.
It was fantastic. It was even more amazing that the people who ran it were gray, had to be in their seventies and the food was fast and delicious. And of course, they knew Caleb and Kyle. It seemed everyone knew them everywhere we went.
Caleb bought some of their fresh baked bread and we headed back home. He called Zeke and told him it was a go for the show on Friday. Kyle rolled his eyes and his thoughts were along the lines of thinking Caleb was a show off.
Once home Caleb had to leave for his first practice.
“You can come if you want,” he told me as he played with my fingers. “It’d probably be fun to watch me mess up from being so out of practice.”
We stood in the driveway by the Jeep, the sun blaring down on us but the breeze from the beach keeping us a strange cool at the same time. I loved it.
“I’m fine. I’ll find something to do.”
He sucked his lip in and out in anxiousness. He had wanted to do this but now...having to actually leave me under someone else’s protection was making his veins tingle with discomfort.
“I’ll call Zeke. Tell him I can’t do it, something came up.”
“Caleb,” I said and put my hand over our hearts in his chest. “I’m right here. You can feel me the whole time. You’ll only be up the beach a ways, right? It’ll be fine. Bish and Kyle are here and I’ll stay in the house with them, ok?”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. It’ll do you good to do something other than worry about me.”
“But I’ll just worry anyway,” he sighed. “You know that. This gig isn’t something I have to do.”
“This is something you’ve always wanted to do. I’ll be fine. I won’t go to sleep, I promise.”
He fingered my shorter locks in reminder and smiled sadly.
“You can’t always help it, Maggie.”
“I won’t. I think I learned my lesson,” I muttered dryly.
“If you’re sure, I’ll go, but promise me you’ll stay inside. And that you’ll call me if anything at all happens.”
“I promise. Have fun.”
He looked behind me to the porch and saw Bish watching us. He got a sudden grin on his face and I heard his thoughts a second before he pressed his lips to mine. He engulfed me in his arms and lifted my feet from the gravel, kissed me long and good until I was breathing funny and my cheeks were flushed in delightful confusion.
“Now,” he said through his breaths. “Bish can have something to complain about.”
I laughed remembering me goading him about not kissing me anymore.
“Yeah, I think you accomplished that. Now you’re leaving me to deal with it.”
“Yep,” he grinned wider. “Have fun.”
“I will. Knock ‘em dead.”
He got into the Jeep and left quickly before he changed his mind. I turned to see Bish with pursed lips and crossed ankles as he watched me make my way to the porch.
“So, what is it that Caleb plans to do with his life?”
I rolled my eyes and moved to sit beside him on the Adirondack chairs.
“Oh, so we’ve moved on to this? Interrogation?”
“No. I’m curious. It’s hard to support yourself let alone others. I want to see what Caleb is planning on doing to support my baby sister since she has no plans to get rid of him.”
I sighed but answered his question.
“He’s going to school to be an architect. His family owns a huge firm and he plans to work for them.”
“Huh.”
Hmmm. Pretty good one.
“Kyle is too. It’s a huge deal.”
“Hmm.”
“Caleb also owns his own company.” He looked surprised at that, as I knew he would. “He runs a tutoring service for kids that are struggling in school.”
“Really? Dang.”
“What?”
“Well, I can’t really make fun of him now can I?”
I laughed and bumped my shoulder against his.
“You could just learn to like him. That’d be easier.”
“Maybe,” he mused. “But it’s hard to like people when they keep things from you.”Once again I pondered telling him, spilling all my beans without Caleb here to stop me. But I stopped myself and sighed instead.
“Come on. I’ll make you an iced coffee. I know you like those.”
“Sure,” he said and followed me inside.
I went to sit on the couch and sipped my coffee with Kyle while we watched a DVR episode of Saturday Night Live. Jim Carrey was the host and I found myself laughing pretty quickly. Bish heard us and peeked in to see what was going on.
“Jim Carrey’s hosting again?” he asked.
“Yeah, man. He’s such a frigging idiot. He should host every week,” Kyle laughed as a segment where he was a psychic medium contacting dead relatives and bumped my arm to get me to agree.
“Mmhmm,” I mumbled and cringed when he started impersonating Alan Thicke and Kyle slapped my leg as he laughed harder, doubling over.
“Jeez, Kyle,” I said and slapped him back. “Have you ever even seen Growing Pains before?”
“Have you?” he rebutted in a sarcastic voice and shook his head in jest at me, his hand still on my leg squeezed once and I glared at him before he grinned and moved his hand away. “Leave me alone. Carrey’s the man. I don’t care what he does, it’s funny.”
“I guess. I prefer Jimmy Fallon and Will Ferrell.”
“What? But Carrey is classic funny. Like Adam Sandler.”
“Oh, come on,” Bish complained. “If you want funny, you gotta go back to the source; Steve Martin and Bill Murray.”
“Ok, sure,” Kyle agreed. “But times have changed. They aren’t the same kinda funny anymore. There’s a whole new genre of comedy.”
“That’s true,” Bish conceded and sucked down a gulp of the coffee I’d made him.
“Really?” I asked dubiously. “You’re really sitting there debating various degrees and levels of funny when SNL is on, right now?”
“Maggie, Maggie,” Kyle crooned. “You are so naïve. My friend over here is correct. And if you wanna see true funny, we need to just go rent Greatest SNL Moments of the cast of ’85 –’90 off Netflix and be done with it.”
And he did just that.
Caleb was back in a couple hours, just like he said and time flew by. After SNL, Bish and Kyle tried, while Caleb was gone, to teach me how to play Halo and Kyle explained how Call of Duty was so much better but he’d left it at home.
I wondered why with all his money he didn’t just go buy another one. I sat on the couch with Kyle most of the time and had to push him or his hand away more than once and eventually just made my way to the suede beanbag to sit by myself. Kyle texted Amber to see if they could meet up again, like maybe tomorrow night. I rolled my eyes.
So, after Caleb came home and we ate some chips and chicken salad sandwiches I made for supper we all sat down to watch a movie. Kyle suggested the latest horror flick so that’s what he rented. He laid out on the beanbag with his hands behind his head after turning all the lights off. Bish sat in the club chair, one foot over his leg, and Caleb and I took the couch.
I snuggled into his side with his arm around me but pretty soon I was clutching his shirt in my fist and burying my face in his shoulder every few minutes at the disturbing images. Kyle had picked a gory horror movie about a guy who kidnapped people, locking them in a room and making them solve riddles about the bad things they did in the past. They all died in extremely gory and vile ways.
It made my stomach turn.
While Kyle laughed at me, Caleb kept his hand on my arm or neck at all times to draw off my anxiety but thought it was funny too. Even Bish chuckled once or twice when I let out a girly little gasp or squeak. It was ironic that I had made so much fun of Beck and her scary movies but I was the one cringing this time. It hit home a little bit too closely to the well and Sikes. I blocked that part from Caleb.
Eventually I fell asleep against him and tried not to dream of sick men hell bent on making me pay in gory ways for my transgressions.
In the morning, we had our short surfing lesson, to which I made three full glides. Then Caleb went ahead and got his practice over with, with Zeke. When he came back he told me he was surprised how easy it was to pick it back up and he thought it was going to be great. After lunch all the guys resumed a previous game of Halo.