Call It What You Want To

Chapter 20: Kyler

Spending two hours in a car with Taya's parents and no Taya was not on my bingo card for this year, but it was an adventure nonetheless. I met up with Mark and Carrie in their driveway before the sun was even up this morning so we could all head down to Indianapolis together. Once we were all in the car, Taya's mom leaned back in her seat and handed me a wad of tinfoil.

"Pancakes! Don't worry, I made yours with my carb conscious recipe," she smiled. "And a greasy whatever-you-wanna-call-this for you," Carrie said as she rolled her eyes and handed another tinfoil package over to Mark, who seemed really happy about his "greasy whatever-you-wanna-call-this".

I thanked her and started eating, completely forgetting to eat this morning, other than grab my coffee. I couldn't help but smile and keep thinking about the simple act of making sure the food was Type 1 safe. My mom would just make something for everyone and either Declan would be complaining that it was gross or I'd have to suck it up for whatever "normal" food was being had and I'd adjust my insulin for the night to make up for it. It was really nice of her to go out of her way for me like this.

I fell asleep in the backseat probably thirty minutes into the drive since it was still the ass-crack of dawn on a Saturday. As we pulled into the semi-familiar Indy Iron parking lot, the jostle woke me back up. "Good thing you woke up, because I usually wake Taya up with a wet willy," Mr. Beckett joked as we parked.

"Mark! Stop it!" Carrie laughed, slapping Mark on the arm. I laughed with them as Mrs. Beckett said, "Ky, I promise I wouldn't let him do that to you. I don't even let him do it to Taya anymore."

We went in and got our spectator wristbands, and started craning our necks to search for Taya or anyone on the Greyhaven team. "I see Adrielle and- oh, there's Malik, where is she?" Mark was muttering.

"There she is!" I announced, starting the trailblaze over towards Taya, who was talking with one of the guys on the team. I'd have been able to recognize those quads anywhere. "Tay!" I called out as her parents and I got closer. She turned in a circle before her eyes landed on us, and the minute she saw us I watched her whole face light up.

"Hey!" she squealed, the glitter that she had decorated her face with sparkling on her cheekbones and signature braided ponytail curls bouncing down her back. I grabbed her in a hug and kissed her face, careful to avoid getting a mouthful of glitter. A kiss got planted on my cheek before Taya ducked to go hug her parents. "You guys just get here?" she asked. I could tell from the edge in her voice that her caffeine high must've already started this morning.

"Yeah, like five minutes ago," her dad said. "You ready?"

Taya ran us through what she'd been doing so far that day, eventually drawing to the conclusion that she was excited but nervous, and she slowly drifted over into me for my arms to loosely wrap around her. As our conversation closed, an announcement went over the P.A. system that all lifters needed to go to their designated warm-up areas for their info session. "Alright, I gotta go. Bye, I love you," she said to both her parents, hugging them. Taya stepped over to me and grabbed my hands before leaning in and smiling. "I love you," she grinned, and I mirrored her expression as Taya giggled.

"Hearing you say that is so much better than reading it over text," I laughed before pulling her in for a final hug, leaning back so we could kiss one last time before she left. We went full lips this time, and I think that on top of the "I love you" left Taya's parents completely shell shocked. "I love you too, go kill it!" I called after her as Taya disappeared into a sea of singlets to find the rest of her team.

"Was that the first one?" Carrie leaned over to me after we got situated in our seats. It took a minute for me to register that she was talking about the "I love you".