Bring Me To Life

Realize

If you just realize what I just realized, then we'd be perfect for each other and we'd never find another
Just realize what I just realized, and we'd never have to wonder if we missed out on each other
----Realize, Colbie Caillat

November 2016

Cait was drenched in sweat, her shirt sticking to her body. She wanted to take it off, but she didn't necessarily want one of the guys to wander in and find her in just a sports bra.

Her leg had finally reached the point that she could work out hard, work toward getting back into competition form. She still wasn't allowed to actually ski, but she was getting closer.

As the treadmill began her cool down, she settled for pulling the sticky shirt away from her skin. She lifted it up, revealing a few inches of her midsection. She never saw the hazel eyes that fixated on her exposed skin.

Grayson groaned and resumed his trek out of the building. She was driving him crazy. But he had bigger problems right now.

He wasn't playing well. This was not what the preseason player of the year, the Wooden Award favorite, was supposed to look like. He'd been awful at C2C and not much better in the exhibition games.

He wondered briefly if it could be blamed on that red-headed Irish witch that wouldn't get out of his head. But, deep down, he knew it wasn't Cait's fault. He was pressing. And he was hurt, although he wouldn't be admitting it anytime soon.

His relationship with Cait was fine. That was the only word for it. Since the night of his birthday, they'd barely argued at all. They were civil, even polite to one another. But everything was superficial. There still hadn't been any conversations about their shared media experiences or their "competitive disorders." Or about them.

Grayson had resolved to give her space and that's what he was doing. But this was awful. He preferred fighting with her to this. At least when they argued, there was some emotion involved.

They were never alone together. He was busier than ever with classes and practices.  The guys were always clamoring for an invite to their Thursday dinners and Cait didn't seem to mind. And this week was worse.

With their first game on Friday, Luke's family was arriving tomorrow. So, Luke had appropriated Thursday dinner to bring his parents and sister to meet Cait. Grayson wondered whether Luke had ulterior motives, but even he had to admit that Luke and Cait were just friends. Luke had discovered that they were literally born three days apart and decided that Cait was his long-lost twin, his sister from another mister, in his words.  Not that Anna seemed to think much of that theory, or of Cait in general, but Grayson never saw any evidence that the relationship was anything other than platonic.

So once again another Thursday dinner would go by without any chance to really talk to Cait. Grayson wallowed in that self-pity all the way back to the dorm and then took a long, rather cold, shower.

*****
Dinner turned out to be better than Grayson had anticipated.  Leave it to Jennifer Kennard to get all kinds of information out of Cait.  Luke's mom was practically interrogating the poor girl, but in such a sweet way that Cait couldn't even be offended.

He learned that she spent most of her time growing up on her father's cattle ranch in Summit County, Colorado, but that she also spent plenty of time in Manhattan and a house in Kona, Hawaii.  He found out that she had traveled a lot with her dad, being included in some of his business trips even when she was very young. 

There were colorful stories about the ranch hands and Chitana, the housekeeper who taught Cait to cook.  She was part Native American and part African American and was the closest thing Cait had to a mother, as far as Grayson could tell.  He found out that Cait had two horses and laughed at their names.