Page 33 of Right Place, Right Time (Second Chances)
Chapter Fifteen
Kate
The past few days have been…interesting. I’d come home one day and unexpectedly found Casey’s long lost best friend, Decker, asleep on our doorstep, and Casey fast asleep inside the apartment. She’d just arrived home, and turns out, he’d followed her home from South Carolina. Though, technically he’d flown, so he arrived earlier than she did. I’d agreed to let him stay at the apartment, knowing that having him near was the only way he and Casey would work their shit out.
But poor Decker…he was going stir crazy being stuck in the apartment all day while Casey was at work. Evidenced by the way he’d just grabbed her keys from her hand and ran out of the apartment like a bat out of hell when she arrived home from work.
“What the hell just happened?” Casey asks, standing in the doorway.
I laugh at the stunned look on her face. “He’s been like a caged animal all day. Practically bouncing off of every surface in this place. We played two games of Monopoly, Casey. Two! Do you know how much time it takes to play two games of Monopoly? I was about to ask Dr. Vasquez if he had any ketamine.” Dr. Vasquez, who is a veterinarian, is our neighbor.
Casey laughs with me. “Thanks for hanging out with him today.”
I give her a sad smile. “You know, you could just tell him,” I suggest. Lord knows it would make everything so much easier if Casey would just disclose her health situation to Decker.
“No, I can’t,” she sighs.
“What’s the big deal?” I ask, ignoring her responding glare. “Seriously, Casey. You can use all the support you can get.”
“That’s the thing!” she shouts, raising her hands and slapping them down on her hips. “I already get babied enough by you and my mom. I don’t need anyone else tiptoeing around me. I’m fine.”
“You’renotfine. But whatever. You know I’m not going to say anything. Butyoushould. He deserves to know.”
“Whatever,” She shakes her head and storms over to the couch, plopping down on it with a thud. I shake my head at her performance and finish cleaning up the mess in the kitchen from mine and Decker’s snacks earlier.
“That was dramatic,” I say as I sit down beside her and take one of her hands. “You know I only care about you and want what’s best?” She nods but doesn’t say anything, so I continue. “Decker cares about you and wants what’s best for you, too.”
“Drop it,” she says as she pulls her hand away from me.
“Fine,” I sigh. She is the most hard-headed person I know. I take the nail file out of my nail bag and begin filing my nails. If she doesn’t want to talk about it, I’m not going to make her.
“So…what’s up with you? You’ve been acting weird lately.”
Well, how’s that for karma?
“Nothing’s up with me.” I don’t bother looking at the “yeah, right” look on her face. I can feel it from here.
“You can play nonchalant all you want, but something’s up with you.” She snatches the file from my hands and starts doing her own nails. Bitch.
“I was using that.”
“Start talking,” she says.
I start chewing the inside of my lip—a tell-tale sign of my nerves, which Casey is completely aware of. I see her eyes widen. Great.
“I’ve been talking to a guy,” I say quietly, not sure how much of mine and Jay’s story I want to unveil. I know what she’ll probably think, and I don’t want her to jump to conclusions about him.
“What?!” she asks. She drops the file and turns to face me. “Tell me everything!”
“It’s nothing,” I say, rolling my eyes. “He’s totally not my type.” I try to downplay it, hoping she’ll back off. She tilts her head to the side, and I can see her wheels turning. She’s not going to back off. I’ll need to put her out of her misery…fast. “He rides a motorcycle. He’s a mechanic,” I shrug, trying to make it seem like it’s not a big deal and instantly feeling terrible that I’ve just put Jay in a box.
Casey’s eyes widen, but she still says nothing. I worry that she’s judging him, and I don’t like that idea. Not at all. “He came into the restaurant a couple months ago. We talked a little bit, but he was there with his friends so we couldn’t talk much. He gave me his number before he left, and we’ve sort of been texting ever since. Sometimes we talk on the phone.”
There…that was a slight stretch of the truth. No, he didn’t come to the restaurant with friends, but what would Casey think if I’d told her he came there just for me? She’d want to know more, and I’m not ready to tell her more. I’m also not about to tell her I’d ridden on his motorcycle and invited him inside our apartment. That we’d gotten hot and heavy right on this very couch. She’d freak out.
I start to blush under Casey’s scrutiny. “Say something!” I shriek, slapping at her arm. She grimaces, and I feel bad; I might have hit her harder than I’d meant to.
“You’ve been busy!” she says after a moment, smiling.
