Page 27 of Shake the Habit

“It’s so nice up here,” he’d noted, as another neighbor had waved and greeted us from her porch. “I can understand why my mother didn’t like it. She wasn’t friendly like this and she would have gotten annoyed when people talked to her.”

The more he said, the more I was convinced that Lara-Lee Woodson and I would not have gotten along at all. But I was grateful to her, because she’d done something amazing: she’d made this man, and the more time I spent with him, the more I liked him. Now, when he invited me and Sir over for dinner, I forgot my exhaustion. “Yes, absolutely!” I answered. “We’ll be there.”

“No, scratch that,” he said. “It’s too far for you to drive. I’ll come up the mountain and see you instead. I want to take another look at the columns on the porch, anyway.”

“You’re a hands-on landlord,” I complemented. “I appreciate it.”

I appreciated all of what he’d done for me and Sir. It had turned out that there weren’t too many other landlords who were excited about renting to me and my slightly-more-than-hundred-pound dog, especially not in the time frame I’d needed. My time frame for a move had been immediately, now, with extreme haste.

“We can stop looking,” Caleb had said after we’d spent some time calling, texting, and emailing about various places (and getting negative responses back). “I know a house on Signal Mountain, but I’m not sure if you’ll want it. It’s worn-out and needs multiple repairs, and it’s a good distance from your job. But it has a fenced yard and I know that the owner is a big fan of Sir.” He’d given some good tummy scratches as he’d said that. “What do you think, Kayleigh? Would you want to move into my house on the mountain?”

Part of being an adult and being responsible was due diligence—however, sometimes you just needed to jump on the opportunities that were offered to you. “Yes,” I said without hesitation. “Oh, I’m very relieved.” Because I might have talked a good game about how I wasn’t worried about finding a place for me and Sir, but I had been. My biggest fear was that I’d have to turn to my parents or the million and two other McCourts to beg for their assistance, and they would think that I was helpless, dumb Kayleigh again.

So, Sir and I were now driving down to work every day and back up at the end of it, trips which he didn’t enjoy. I’d decided to let him sit in the front, which I’d been avoiding because I didn’t think it was safe. I’d bought a dog seat belt and he wore it after a lot of arguing. He didn’t fit very well in my smaller seats so he couldn’t lie down, and he rocked back and forth as we went around the curves of the road. He cried, too, and he tried to snuggle with me as I tried to drive.

That was why I made the suggestion now that Caleb could stop by the office to meet us here, and then he could take Sir with him in the truck. I’d also purchased a seat belt for that vehicle, so my dog would be equally safe in it.

As usual, he heard the truck’s arrival long before I did, and he ran to the glass door and butted it with his big head. “Let him come to us,” I said. “It’s something my nana used to tell me about boys and now that I’m old, I lean toward thinking that she was right.” I lasted for about twenty more seconds as we watched Caleb park, and then I went to open the door myself.

“Hi,” I said, and he smiled back at me.

“Hello, Kayleigh McCourt. Sir, are you ready?”

My dog, as usual, rushed to greet Caleb and leave me in the dust. But I smiled at that, too, because it made me happy that he had such good friends.

And I did, as well. As I was driving behind them toward my new home, my cousin Cassidy called me from wherever she happened to be right now. “Hi,” I said happily. “How’s the tour?”

“Good, wonderful!” she answered. “Aria, are you there?”

“I’m here,” my other cousin said, so it was kind of like the three of us were together again. “KayKay, something’s going on but she wouldn’t tell me until we were both on the phone.”

“I do have news,” Cass announced, and I heard tons of excitement in those words. “Are y’all sitting down?”

Aria said yes and I was, of course, since I was driving. “What is it?” I demanded. “Tell us!”

“Jack asked me to marry him, like formally with a ring and we already planned our wedding and it’s going to be in Hawaii and also…I’m pregnant. We’re going to have a baby!” Cass told us.

“Oh, Cassidy,” Aria said, and started sobbing with happiness. This was what our friend had wanted more than anything and if anyone deserved it, she was the woman.

“I’m so glad for you,” I told her. “This is amazing!”

We were all crying and that was fine, except that I was also driving. I was doing my best, but the truck carried Sir and Caleb further and further ahead of me as Cassidy discussed how she was feeling and told us about their future plans. One of those plans was happening almost immediately: they were having their wedding in only two weeks.

“Wait, what? You want us to go to Hawaii in two weeks?” I asked. I wasn’t much of a traveler but I had an idea of how expensive that would be.

“Jack and I are arranging everything,” Cass said firmly, which started an argument between her and Aria, who also didn’t have a lack of funds.

“I don’t need you to buy me a ticket, either,” I said, but they pretty much ignored that. The wedding was going to be quick and out of town due to her fiancé’s celebrity and also due to all the McCourts.

“I can’t plan a big thing right now,” she explained. “We figured if we went far, far away and only invited our parents and very close friends, no one would be mad.”

“They’ll still be mad,” Aria cautioned, and Cass answered that she knew, but maybe they wouldn’t be very, very mad.

“Anyway, I have to have the two of y’all…because I need bridesmaids! What do you think?”

We were both screaming yes, which made it a good thing that Sir wasn’t in the car. He would have gotten worked up with my level of excitement, but it wasn’t every day that your best friend announced that she was marrying a country music star in a tropical-destination wedding in two weeks.

Sir got worked up anyway and barked at my car when I pulled into the gravel driveway at Caleb’s house—my new rental. I’d taken the day off from church the weekend before and we’d packed my belongings into his truck and into my uncle Travis’s trailer, which I’d borrowed. My uncle had also wanted to loan some of his children, my cousins, to help, but I didn’t have much stuff. Really, it was kind of a pathetic assortment for someone as old as I was. People my age were doctors, or well on the way.They were running for seats in government, they were teachers helping kids figure out the world themselves. They were married with families, like Aria and soon, Cassidy.

---