Bryan snorted.“Are you sure, because it didn’t sound like it when I called you this morning.”
“What happened?”Toby asked.
Paxon shrugged.“It’s normal.”
“What’s normal?”I asked.
Paxon met my eyes and smiled.“Mini-me being Mini-me.He didn’t want to go to school this morning.I can’t wait for Christmas break.It’ll be a good reset for him.”
“Did he talk his way out of going today?”Bryan asked.
“I think if he’d held on for another ten minutes, Dad would have caved.”
“Your dad would let him skip school?”I asked, surprised.
Paxon nodded.“If he thinks we feel overwhelmed and need a mental health day, he’ll let us take it.Cal usually gets like this this time of year.”
There was a tone in Paxon’s voice there at the end, and I tilted my head as I mulled it over.Paxon met my inquisitive gaze and only gave me a small shake of his head, a nonverbal ‘don’t ask’ type of response.
A student walked by and snorted.We all glanced at the guy and my heart jumped in my chest as the boy passing by was looking at me and then between Justin and Toby like he knew.
We never outright said we were in a relationship, but we didn’t go out of our way to hide it either.I let the guys hold my hand or put their arm around my shoulder or hold me against them.They liked carrying my stuff, which meant Bryan currently had my book bag since we had the same homeroom and first period together.And some of them enjoyed kissing my head.
We hadn’t publicly kissed on the lips, but they enjoyed kissing my temple or on top of my head or my cheek.All pretty light displays of affection, I thought.
But while they weren’t talking where I could hear them or approaching me about it, people had to know what was going on between the guys and me.And these moments always embarrassed me.Made me feel like I was doing something wrong, like I was greedy.
I don’t know about being greedy—maybe I was—but I was doing what that felt right and after talking with Seth’s aunt about it, I didn’t want to stop.They were willing to explore this relationship with me and I wanted to try.
Darn did I really want to try.The thought of losing even one of them was enough to send me into a panic attack.
“Ignore him.Kevin’s a tool,” Paxon said as he glared at the back of Kevin’s head.
“Is he a tool who’s going to be in trouble later?”I couldn’t help but ask.
Paxon pulled the blinders off me a while ago.He was more than capable of standing up for me.I had caught him in a school fight just before Halloween.He was lucky the principal didn’t find out.Principal Calgary had a zero-tolerance policy against school fights and bullying.
“I won’t do anything,” he said, but his focus was on his drink rather than on me.
“We should do something,” Toby snapped out.“I should be able to hold Cadence’s hand without people getting all judgy.”
Bryan straightened.“Should we make it seem like just one of us is dating her while at school?”
“No,” I said instantly.“We spend so much time at school and Toby is right.I should be able to hold your hand when I want to without people trying to make a big deal out of it.”
“Just do it,” Justin said.“We don’t have to explain shit to anyone.Let them talk it out themselves.”
“That’s why Cadence got into trouble last time,” Bryan pointed out.
I shuddered.Some of the girls were spreading nasty rumors about me and basically talked some guys from another school into assaulting me because they thought I’d be easy.I could feel their touch on me again and had to suppress the memory.It’s been nearly two months since that’d happened.Yet it felt too much like it had happened just yesterday too.Another thing I was working through with my therapist.There was way too much content for Dr.Arason to work with when it came to our sessions, and I never really knew what we were going to talk about each week until the session started.
“Keep it balanced,” Justin said.“Don’t smack on Cadence, but feel free to hold her hand.Just keep doing what we’ve been doing.They’ll talk if they want to talk.We can’t stop that no matter what we do.”
“The boss has spoken,” Toby said, all too happy about the verdict.He even dramatically yanked me halfway into his lap as he kissed the top of my head and made a loudmuahsound to go with it.
I pulled away and shook my head as I took in his big shit-eating grin.
“Right,” I said.“And this is where I go to class.”
