Lost

Chapter 5 - Little Shy Girl

Caleb Warner took a huge breath, whipping his hands on his jeans one last time before holding his fist up to the door, hesitating before bringing it down. Caleb had been thinking about this moment all day — the moment he would finally get to meet his best friend's little sister. Jodee. The 16-year-old didn't know why he was scared, there were a thousand harder things that he had done — none of them meeting some five year old. His attitude was normally that he gave zero shits about anyone or anything. But this little girl managed to make him feel scared and self conscious for one of the first times in his life. On any other day, he loved that he had cuts on his face — showed other people not to mess with him — but today he spent an hour looking at his split lip and trying to find a way to fix it. All because he didn't want Jodee to see that.

Ace Chambers tried to continue to tell himself that it would be fine. He knew he could trust Caleb. He knew Caleb was a good guy. He knew that Jodee wanted to meet Caleb. He knew this was a good thing and he knew this was the right thing, but he just couldn't shake the doubt. There was literally nothing that could go wrong and Ace knew it was just the overprotective beast in him attacking his brain. But he couldn't help but pace the room and his brain couldn't help but let his thoughts drift back to Jodee and Caleb every time he felt himself starting to relax.

Jodee Chambers remembered that her big brother's best friend is coming over for dinner tonight. She was still excited as she was this entire day — despite her shy nature she was a people person. But her little brain was solely focused on her coloring book right now that she wasn't thinking about it.

The sound of a loud knock at the front door of Caleb finally biting the bullet brought everyone's attention at the door.

Ace looked at his baby sister one last time, his lip caught in between his two rows of teeth. He decided against saying anything to her before going to go get Cal, ripping his eyes away from her back turned to him and making his way towards the door.

"Hey, Cal." Ace murmured, only opening the door a little bit to reveal his best friend but so no one could see inside the door and just Ace's head was peaking out. 

Caleb swung around, having previously turned his back to the door as he was so nervous. "Hi ... Ace."

Ace took a step back, looking at Caleb for a second longer as he took in his appearance. He was nervous, Ace came to the realization of a little smirk playing on his lips. "Come in." Ace took a step back so Cal could enter into the resistance.

"Thanks," Caleb muttered, slightly embarrassed as he rubbed the back of his neck.

The boys weren't used to being awkward and so formal around each other. This was all new to them.

"Jodee! Come say hi to Caleb." Ace yelled to the living room where Caleb could just barely make out a little brown head peeking over the couch.

A little girl, small for her age, made her way over to where the two older boys were standing. She mostly kept her dark brown eyes locked on the floor, only a few times glancing up to watch the new kid before going back down to the floor. Jodee ran as she got closer, immediately placing herself behind her brother's long leg. Her little arms wrapped around him as half of her face was hidden and half of it looked up, shyly, at the new boy in her house.

Caleb couldn't help but mutter a small 'aww' when she came out, looking up at his friend with what can only be described as adoration and love. Ace looked back at Caleb with a look that said 'I know' sharing the knowledge that they both thought she was extremely cute. 

He had expected the little girl to be a little shy and very sweet as that's what he gathered of her personality when Ace rarely spoke about her. But Caleb did not expect his heart to drop the second he saw her in a way he had never felt before. He didn't know why but this little girl was the cutest kid he ever saw and he immediately fell in love.