knocks his drink to the ground.

Luke’s head whips in his direction and he shoots Seth a

death glare. “Next time a fucking warning would be nice.”

Seth brings his straw to his lips and slurps on his drink. “I’m

sorry, but the dead silence is maddening.” He sets the drink back

down and wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “We need to

have some fun.”

Kayden immediately stiffens and the rubber band on his

wrist snaps and snaps. “Yeah, I think I’m just going to head back to

the house.”

Seth shakes his head as he rips the wrapper of the straw into

tiny pieces. “No way. We did not drive out here to hang out at the

house. We came here to have some fun.”

“Seth, I don’t think—” I start.

He talks over me, flicking the pieces of wrapper into the

center of the table. “No. This isn’t going to happen. We all have

our problems we’ve been dealing with and we all need a break

from life. So we’re going to get dressed up and go have some fun.”

“Where?” Luke questions and moves the straw to his lips,

taking a drink. “At, like, a club or something?”

“No clubs,” I beg with my hands overlapped in front of me.

“Please.”

Seth aims a weighted look at me. “Miss Callie, we’ve gone

over this. Clubs are fun. And you have big, strong Kayden here to

protect you.”

My shoulders tighten and hunch as I think about just how far

he went to protect me and his hand grabs mine from beneath the

table. It’s like he can read my mind and he leans over and puts his

lips to my ear.

“It’ll be okay,” he says softly, meeting my eyes and giving me

a crooked smile. “If you want to go, we can go.”

I lean in until there’s a sliver of space between our lips. “I

want to do whatever you want.”

His pupils are huge and his breath caresses my cheeks. “If

you want to go out then so do I.”

We’ll never be able to reach a conclusion this way and I

guess Seth sees that too.

“Then it’s settled,” Seth says and it makes me kind of irritated

because I can tell Kayden doesn’t want to go out. “We’re all going

out and have a fucking fun night.”

Luke sets his drink down on the table and I catch him

glancing at Kayden. Maybe I’m not the only one concerned.

“Is everyone okay with this?” Luke asks, but he’s looking at

Kayden.

Kayden leans away from me and shrugs as he reaches for his

soda on the table in front of him. “I’m good, man.”

“I don’t think—” I start to protest.

Setting his drink down on the table, Kayden squeezes my

hand with his free hand, then slants over and places a soft, moist

kiss on my cheek. “Callie, I’ll be okay.” He breathes against my neck as his finger grazes my wrist. “I promise… you need to… you need

to stop worrying about me.”

“That’ll never happen,” I whisper, letting out a slow breath

and I nod, my cheeks burning from his kiss. I don’t want to go out,

and not for the reasons Seth thinks. I’m worried about Kayden. We

haven’t talked about what happened and it needs to be talked

about. Because I don’t understand any of it. All I want is to go

somewhere and talk so I can ask him all the questions I have

bottled up in my head for the last months.

Seth raises his glass in the air to make a toast. “I say, from

now on, or at least for the next couple of days, we let the niceness

be.”

Luke heaves a heavy sigh and tolerantly stretches his arm,

bringing his glass up to Seth’s. “As long as we’re not sitting around in the house, I’m all for the niceness.”

Kayden still keeps hold of my hand, and using his free one,

lifts his glass up. “I’m in.”

They all look at me and I feel tinier than I already did.

Wrapping my fingers around my damp glass, I sigh and tap it

against theirs. “Fine, but no trouble.”

Seth giggles. “Darling, trouble is my middle name, so just roll

with it.”

Luke snorts and even Kayden cracks a smile. But I keep

frowning because it feels like we’re running away from our

problems. If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that running away from them only allows them to chase you.

“To the niceness,” Seth says and clinks his glass against ours,

spilling a little soda onto the table.

“To the niceness,” the three of us mutter and our glasses

collide, making a promise I’m not sure we’ll all be able to keep.

Even though I’d like to believe that the next few days will be filled with laughs and giggles and sunshine, I’m worried a storm may roll

in.

Chapter 11

#45 Don’t let the man bring you down

Callie

“Seth, I don’t think I can do this.” I’m super squirmy as I take

in my reflection in the mirror. My skin is pallid and even though

the dress goes to my knees, I feel naked. The straps barely cover

my shoulders and I’m showing more skin than I’ve shown in the

last six years. The freckles on my skin are exposed, along with my

boney collarbone and somewhat flat chest. Even the sandals on my

feet make me feel bare. And my hair is down, which I’ve never

been a fan of.

“I look weird,” I say, tugging the bottom of the dress down.

“And… naked.”

Seth shakes his head as he steps back to examine me. His

hair is swept to the side, with a slight fluff in the front. He has on a pair of tan shorts and a gray button-down shirt with the sleeves

rolled up. “You look beautiful.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “I don’t think I can do it.”

“Of course you can,” he says simply, turning back to the

mirror.

I shake my head. “Seth, why are you so dead set on this?”

He’s fiddling with his hair and pauses. With a determined

look on his face, he turns away from the mirror and looks at me.

“Callie, I’m dead set on it for the reason you aren’t. You have to let it go. I know it’s hard, but you need to move forward—we all need

to move forward and let go of the past.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” I ask. “Because it feels like you’re

running away from something.”

“I’m not running away from anything.” He fastens the bottom

button on his shirt. “I let go of the running away the day I started

dating Greyson. It was like I’d been freed from the fear of what

happened and I finally could be myself again.”