TEASE ( A Stepbrother Romance ) By Caitlin Daire

9

Chapter Nine

Cade

"Dude, you actually hit her right in the head?"

I nodded at my friend Nicki, and she snorted with laughter. "Jesus, no wonder she hates you!"

"It's not funny," I protested. "She hasn't spoken to me since it happened yesterday."

"Probably because she has a concussion and forgot how to form a coherent sentence."

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, fine, laugh away, but seriously, I have to do something about this. She already can't stand me from when we were kids, and now she probably thinks I'm trying to kill her."

Nicki arched an eyebrow. "You knew each other when you were kids?"

"Yeah. We went to school together until the seventh grade."

"And she hated you?"

"Apparently. Claims I made her life hell," I replied.

"Did you?"

I sighed and told her everything I knew-how I'd given Charlotte a bit of crap by playing pranks on her, but nothing life-ruining as far as I knew.

Nicki was one of my best female friends. She was close with all my guy friends too, and was pretty much known as 'one of the guys' even though she could be quite feminine in some regards. She was always around to give us girl advice whenever any of us admitted we needed it-which was rare-and after the ball debacle yesterday, I definitely needed it. I'd tried to explain things to Charlotte via text after she'd run away from the bleachers before I could say anything, but she hadn't replied, and when I returned home last night, she'd already been locked away in her room. She'd also left the house first thing this morning, before I was even awake, so I hadn't had a chance to speak to her and apologize properly.

Nicki glanced over at Blake, who was sitting with us in the quad at RMU, and then looked back at me when I finished speaking. "So you wanna hear a female opinion on this, right?"

"Always."

"Girls can be way more sensitive than guys at that age. Trust me, I remember being a kid, and boys are pretty much socially conditioned to be all tough and insensitive. It's the opposite for girls; they're shown and told that they should be sensitive and nurturing. So both the sexes internalize those things, and bam....a lot of boys end up being tough little shits, and girls often end up being more emotional and sensitive."

"Thanks for the sociology lecture, Professor," Blake interjected, grinning.

She whacked him with a file. "I'm serious! I'm not saying it's a good thing. It's crap," she said, still looking at me. "But what I'm saying is, maybe Charlotte is just way more sensitive than you think. Or at least she was, all those years ago. Maybe you actually really upset her by....what was it...putting spiders in her desk?"

"Toy spiders. And toy rats."

"Whatever. Maybe she saw that as serious bullying back then, I don't know."

I sighed. "Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. I just don't know how the hell to ask her about it so I can apologize properly."

She rolled her eyes. "Jeez, for guys who are meant to be tough, you football players are a bunch of pussies. Just talk to her! Don't worry about finding the perfect words or whatever. Just go up to her and say, 'Hey, Charlotte, sorry for being a prick in junior school. Can you please outline every single thing that upset you, so I can apologize for each individual incident and clear the air?' See? Easy."

I shrugged. "I dunno, that seems kinda awkward."

"Of course it's fucking awkward, you're talking about stuff that happened in grade school. But if it helps the situation and makes her feel better about being your stepsister soon, then you've gotta do it."