Page 59 of Shake the Habit

That was what he’d told me before, too. “But why would that be a habit?”

“I didn’t want people to see me looking happy. Or see me getting upset, or angry,” he added after a second. Then he added more, too. “My mother didn’t like it and she used to get annoyed. I remember reading a book that I thought was funny and she told me that if she heard me laugh one more time, she’d put it in the burn barrel.”

Witch. “I like to hear you laugh,” I said. “I would like to see all those emotions, if you don’t mind showing them now.”

“I’ll see about shaking the habit,” he said. Then he reached around Sir to put that same hand on my shoulder. The dog leaned against him, resting all his heavy weight against Caleb’s side. “He thinks that I wanted to cuddle,” he noted and laughed, but he didn’t cover it with his knuckles this time.

“Sir, come over here,” I ordered, and he listened.

Caleb came to my bedroom door later that night. “This is the book I was talking about earlier,” he said. “It’s the one that made me laugh.”

“Cold Comfort Farm,” I read from the cover. “It’s funny?”

“At the time, I thought it was hilarious, but remember that I didn’t have a gaming system, computer, phone, or anything else that most kids use to amuse themselves.”

“That was how I amused myself.” Also, with drugs, alcohol, and boys.

“Kayleigh?”

“I was just thinking how much I missed by acting like an idiot,” I said.

“I missed a lot, too.”

But that was due to his mother’s poor choices, not his own. “We could read it together,” I suggested, and he started to put his hand up to his mouth, but he lowered it, looked at me, and smiled. It was so nice to see.

“So we just lay there and read, and I like that book. It is funny,” I explained the next morning. Caleb and I had driven down to work together, so we’d drive back, too, and I was already looking forward to seeing him in…I checked the time on my laptop. It was only seven hours and thirty-eight minutes away. I could wait that long, if I texted with him a bit.

“First you’re a dog owner, and now you’re a reader,” Cassidy said, and since she spoke through the speaker on my phone, Sir looked up and puffed out a breath that made his beard flare. He knew the word “dog” meant him, not any of those other four-legged creatures.

“I’m expanding my horizons,” I told her. I was glad that we were talking normally and she wasn’t mad about how I’d ruined herhomecoming over the weekend, and she also wasn’t mad about how I’d woken her up this morning because I’d forgotten how much earlier it was on the West Coast, their latest tour stop. Our talk soon moved to Marc, because Cass had heard from Aria, who’d heard from her mom, who’d heard from Marc’s mother, that Taygen’s family was going crazy.

“Apparently they had already put down some non-refundable deposits on wedding stuff,” Cass said.

“Marc will pay them back.” I quickly checked the app to see the balance in his personal bank account, and saw that things were fine. “He can pay them back,” I echoed with more confidence.

“They’re telling everyone that he was too wild for her, that they never liked him or his family.”

“All million and two of us? That’s a lot of hate,” I said, but then remembered Taygen talking about their guest list. “She did say something about not inviting everyone to the wedding.”

“I understand her issue with that. So many McCourts,” Cassidy sighed. Our grandfather had been one of ten siblings, so there really were a million and two. Literally.

“Some people ran away to Hawaii to hide from all of them,” I reminded her.

“Some people had a wonderful wedding, with all her favorite relatives,” she said firmly, but then hesitated. “KayKay, you keep apologizing to me, but I’m sorry, too.”

“For what?”

“I was thinking about how we watched you at my wedding and I was thinking back to last summer, when we went to Chattanooga to see Jack perform at the club. You must have known I was keeping track of you then, too. It must feel like you’re living in a police state.”

“You took care of me for years,” I said. “You dragged me out of bars, put me in the shower, and set me up with glasses of water so I wouldn’t get hungover.”

“That never worked.”

“We were friends but you had to babysit me,” I told her. “You shouldn’t have been in that position. I forced you to take care of me.”

“I was thinking more that I enabled you. It was because I love you so much, and that’s why I’m watching you now. But I’m going to try to stop because I do trust you. I do,” she repeated, and I wondered who she was trying to convince. Me, or herself?

“I’m going to be perfect,” I told her. “Not just clean and sober, but perfect in every way. I’ll be a hundred percent responsible at all times, and no one will ever have to doubt me.” I nodded as I thought about it. “Rather than me being the family joke for being such a jerk, I’ll be the family standard for good behavior. I’ll be able to babysit for you and you’ll never have to worry. I’ll never make anyone worry, not ever.”

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