She laughed. “You don’t like seeing your parents together?”
“I do, but come on? Would you like to see your parents making out?”
Sadness washed over Lauren. “If I’m honest, yeah, I would. My parents died when I was fifteen years old.”
“Oh, crap, shit, I’m so sorry.” Cassie covered her mouth, concern etched on her features.
“Don’t be.”
“I was so insensitive.” Worry filled her voice as she reached out, putting a hand on her arm, trying to offer comfort.
“It’s fine.”
“Caleb didn’t tell us.” The accusation was clear.
“He doesn’t know.”
“Huh?” Cassie titled her head to the side.
“I mean, the subject of parents, whenever he’s asked, I’ve never him to not tell anyone. I don’t like people to feel sorry for me.” Lying on the spot wasn’t good. “Oh, look there he is.” She didn’t say goodbye to Cassie.
Running up to Caleb, she plastered a smile on her face. “If you’re asked about my parents, tell everyone that I don’t want people to know.”
“Huh? What?”
“My parents. They passed away from a car accident when I was fifteen. They were amazing parents. I love them, miss them, and talking about it is hard. I let it slip to Cassie.” She didn’t know what else to do and so she patted him on the shoulder.
“Wow, I’m … wow. I didn’t know.”
“We didn’t exactly cover it.”
“I know.”
“It’s fine.”
“It is?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s fine.” She wanted to stop talking about her parents’ death. What no one knew was she’d been in the car with them, the only survivor. A drunk truck driver had plowed into them. It was a miracle she’d survived. Even to this day, she remembered waking up in the hospital being totally alone.
No mom to bake her cookies or father to tell her jokes. Her life had been fucked. She’d gone into the foster care system, worked her ass off, and left at eighteen with a job and graduating high school. It was the least she could do.
The accident was six years ago, but even now, it cut her to the core. She hated the memories worst of all.
Oblivious to the tension, Caleb’s parents decided they should play in teams.
“I’m not very good,” she said. “I don’t play tennis.”
“No worries. Caleb will help you,” Timothy said.
She nodded and pressed her lips together.
First match, they played against Cassie and William. It wasn’t long into the game that she realized Caleb was competing with William and his hatred for him ran deep.
She and Cassie ended up sitting the game out, having a nice drink of iced tea while they continued to play.
Timothy intervened, called it a tie, and then more couples could play. When it came to her and Caleb playing his uncles, she did everything she could not to scream as the ball approached.
Caleb was sweating profusely and by the time they were due to play his parents, she was a nervous wreck.
“You never played tennis?”
“Never,” she said.
The ball was served and it came toward her. She hit her racket or bat, or whatever it was called, and it flew across the court for Louise to counter it.
She tried to avoid the ball as much as possible. Several times, she and Caleb would end up plastered against one another. Fortunately, she didn’t hit him with her hitty thing. She really didn’t know what it was called.
By the last serve, the ball headed for the center and instinct took over as she went for the ball, only to fall to the ground under Caleb’s weight as he fell on her. The ball landed past them, giving his parents the win, and she groaned.
“Are you okay?” Caleb asked.
She touched her head. “I don’t know. Ouch. That hurt.”
“Is she okay?” Timothy and Louise both asked as they came over, as well as Cassie repeating the question.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Bruised ego but all good.” She didn’t want to get up and move.
“Let me go and take care of that,” Caleb said. He got to his feet and held his hand out to her. She took it, and leaving the tennis court, they made their way back to their room but went straight for the bathroom.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“I hit you pretty hard.”
“You body-clocked me. Hitting sounds very abusive,” she said. “If I’d known I was going to have to do sports, you’d have so been on your own.”
“You wouldn’t have helped me?”
“Hell, no. Are you crazy? Tennis is a deadly game with that ball flying every single direction.” She shook her head. “There’s no way I would have ever done anything like that. It’s scary.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I totally do.”
He touched the back of her head. She groaned.
“How does it feel?”
“It feels fine. Honestly. Just a little bump.”
He placed a cold compress on her head. “I’m sorry about your parents.”
“Thank you.”
“I know Cassie feels awful.”
“I’m sorry I almost messed up. How can two people who’ve been together not know every little detail about each other?”