Page 67 of Shake the Habit

“Why don’t you want to, Kayleigh?” Aria asked. “Are you feeling insecure?”

I had felt that way in the past, especially after my second rehab stint. Before I’d gone to that place, I’d lost weight because I hadn’t been eating well and then afterwards, I’d swung the other way.I’d gained a bunch when I’d started to put food in my mouth to feel better, instead of alcohol, drugs, or a man’s tongue (or other body parts).Things had eventually evenedout, though, and now, with the exercise I was doing, I was comfortable with my body again. I actually felt great about it.

I was feeling pretty great, in general. All Caleb had to do was look over at me—or if I saw his name come up on my phone—or if I heard someone start to say “cake” or “cagey” or “caper,” my heart seemed to lift. It was surprising how many words began with the same sound as his name, and you could pick up on so many if you were listening hard.

But I shook my head at my cousins. “No, it’s not body issues.”

“So…” Aria waited. They both did.

“I’m not the kind of woman who wears things like that,” I explained.

“Attractive things? Sexy things?” Cassidy asked. “Yes, you definitely are.”

“No.” I removed the hanger from her hands. This shopping trip had been a bad idea. It was very fun to hang out with them, of course, and I always wanted to hear what they were doing and to gossip about our family. Taygen and Marc had been a topic which took a lot of our time today.

But they had also spent a lot of time talking about Caleb, and they hadn’t been satisfied with my answers to their million and two questions. They also weren’t satisfied with what I was saying now, so I tried a different tactic to explain myself.

“Don’t you remember the advice we got about keeping up the mystery with guys?” I reminded them.

“‘Don’t show everything, girls,’” Aria quoted her mother. “‘Leave some secrets for him to discover after y’all are married.’”

“Of course, she was the one pregnant with your brother when she walked down the aisle with Uncle Jed,” Cassidy pointed out, and Aria said that Cass wasn’t one to talk, either. They both laughed, but they weren’t distracted for long.

“Why don’t you want to look cute for Caleb? Does he have something against lace? Nudity?” Aria asked me.

I started to walk toward the shop’s doors. “I’m ready to go,” I said over my shoulder. “How about lunch?” I saw the look they gave each other, but they also gave me a break. For the moment.

Cassidy was home for good from their tour but we all lived in different places around the area, so we had met at the mall in Chattanooga to shop. Cass wanted some clothes that fit her, since she was getting bigger but was not fully maternity-sized, not yet. Aria was always looking for stuff for her kids, because she loved to dress them up and also because they were growing so fast. We’d accomplished those things, and then I had casually suggested that we stop at a lingerie boutique.

For the past one thousand, five hundred, sixty-one days, no one had seen my underwear except when my mom had thrown it into the washer with one of her loads. And now? Somebody might get the chance: Caleb. I’d been thinking a lot about that—I wasn’t concerned how I’d look in skimpier clothing, but I was worried about stepping things up with him. So far, we’d been kissing. Period. We were doing that plenty but it was still the gentle, easy, no-pressure-to-up-the-game stuff. Yes, it still hadthe same effect on me, the one where I felt buoyed up by the air so that I floated off into space. But I always pulled back, and he never pushed for more.

Aria and Cassidy caught up as I power walked toward the food court. “KayKay, what’s going on? Also, slow down, because I’m getting winded a lot easier now,” Cass told me, and I immediately stopped.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone in there,” I said.

“Why?” Aria asked again.

“I don’t know if Caleb likes lace, because I haven’t been wearing any in front of him. We’re not there yet,” I admitted.

“There’s no need to rush,” she told me.

“But don’t you want to?” Cassidy asked.

“Yes. No—I don’t know,” I confessed. “I don’t want to ruin things. We’re doing so well and I’ve never had this experience.”

“Normalcy?” Aria suggested, and I nodded.

“That’s it exactly. I feel totally safe and comfortable with him. There’s never any drama,” I answered. “If he says something, he means it. If he’s thinking about something, he’ll tell me. If he’s going somewhere, he doesn’t hide the destination.”

“And you don’t know how to deal with that,” Cassidy said, and I nodded again.

“I’m also not being dramatic, myself,” I continued. “There’s no reason for it! I don’t have to cry or cause a scene, because we talk about things. I don’t need to secretly check his phone andhis pockets to find out if he’s seeing other girls, because I already know that he isn’t. I don’t ever follow him, because he lets me see his location on my phone.”

“My word, when I think of the hours we spent spying on your boyfriends…” Cass let the thought peter out, but I knew that there had been a lot of those hours.

“Sorry.”

“We had a lot of fun doing it,” she recalled. “We sang and danced in the car the whole time.”

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