Page 18 of The Trauma Response
Quiet fills the table again and I realize I’m the one making things awkward. If these are Cai’s closest friends, then they probably know about our childhood and my accident. Since I want to get to know Cai in his environment again, I decide to put back on some of that old sunshine personality and do my best to win them over, get people talking without the stiff tension among us.
“So, how did you end up becoming friends and riding as a group?” I ask, curious to fill in the gaps between the years since I’ve known Cai.
Cai takes a breath to tell me when one of the guys pipes up. Holt chuckles and says, “That’s easy. He and Thor are besties. Connected at the hip and all that.”
Thor shoots Holt a glare at his use of the word bestie, but his lips turn up into a grin again. “Nice try, but it wasn’t me who brought him in. He was a stray who followed us home after that bike show, what, maybe a few years back now? He’s cute like a kitten, so we keep him around.”
Des raises an eyebrow. “A stray?”
Cai eyes Thor. “I think I brought you in, my friend.”
I laugh and ask Des, “What’s your version?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “Don’t ask me. He was here when I started riding with them. I assumed he was childhood friends with someone in the group.”
“I keep telling you all, Cai responded to that accident I had a couple years back. We chatted about bikes, and I invited him to ride one weekend,” Christian says. “That’s how he joined us.”
Chantelle scrunches her nose. “That’s the least believable option.”
“How is that the least believable?” Christian asks and sips his water while Roxy listens intently.
“I don’t know. It just is. Besides, we all know I’m the one who brought Cai into the group. We met at a Dragons game, remember? You were working that night the mascot’s fire-breathing stunt went a little wrong and caught the curtain on fire.” Chantelle sips her drink, fully confident that she is the reason Cai rides with them.
Cai merely shakes his head and chuckles.
“Well, which is it?” I ask. “And also I need to hear the story about the fire-breathing stunt gone wrong.”
Cai side eyes me with a stinking smirk and says, “Well, one of them is right and the rest do not pay attention or listen to anything.”
A hail of straw wrappers, French fries, and napkins fly at Cai at his refusal to validate the winner of the impromptuhow did Cai get hereguessing game.
“Well, however he got here, we’re sure glad you saved his life all those years ago. It sure wouldn’t be the same group without him,” Holt says.
“Yeah, Hotshot keeps us laughing. Usually,” Thor adds. “Thanks for saving his life when he was young and dumb.”
I arch an eyebrow and lean closer to Cai. “You told them about the pool accident?”
“The rundown, yeah. I left out some of the most embarrassing details.” Cai’s cheeks brighten, which is not lost on the table of friends.
Thor lets out a low laugh. “What did you leave out? Did you steal a kiss during CPR?”
Oh my gosh. My jaw falls open, and I snap it closed as fast as possible. My own cheeks heat even as Cai’s get redder. “I most certainly did not. I am a gentleman, you know. Besides, of all theways I imagined kissing her back then, trying to kill myself first was not one of them.”
“Ah, but youdidimagine it, didn’t you?” Thor asks but by his tone I know he’s only joking. At least, I hope he is because this conversation has taken a shocking turn.ShockingI tell you.
“Okay, okay, moving on. I can’t stay long. I’ve got a shift in the morning,” Cai says, shutting down all talk about our childhood together and thisimagininghe mentioned.
The conversation drifts toward Chantelle’s book signing and other topics, but I can barely pay attention to any of them. I’m too caught up on what Cai admitted, almost like it was nothing. Was it easy to admit because he doesn’t feel the same way about me now? Of course he doesn’t. It would be crazy for me to assume such a thing, but to discover he thought about kissing me when we were teens throws me for a loop. I tried so hard to get him to notice me, and he never seemed to see past me as Whits, his best friend’s sister. Except after his accident. That night at the hospital when he lay in the bed waiting for his parents to arrive, he reached for my hand and thanked me for saving him. The softness of his voice and the closeness of the moment almost had me admitting my feelings for him, but I chickened out.
But what if I admitted it now? What if I told him that I had the biggest teenage crush on him back then? Would it matter now? Do Iwantit to matter now? I chew my lower lip and focus on Cai, how he interacts with his friends, that glorious smile that pops out when someone says something funny or laughs at his joke. The way he looks back at me every few seconds and his eyes soften the same way they did back then.
Do I want it to matter? Yes, yes I do.
Because I never fell out of that silly crush on Caius Gray.
Chapter ten
Two hours pass and I finally see my Whits’ true personality back on full display. She cracks jokes, laughs like she doesn’t care who is watching, and I’m pretty sure she has no idea her hand is settled on my lower thigh, just above my knee. She periodically squeezes and releases my leg, almost every time one of the guys says something ridiculous and she laughs so hard she snorts. And because her laughter is so infectious, the guys seem to be in a competition to see who can make her do it the most. Part of me wonders if the numbness in her hand prevents her from realizing what she’s doing. The other part wants it to be intentional, something she does because she wants the constant connection between us.
