The Redemption of Callie & Kayden

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