Unknown (The Secret Life of Cassie Martin #1)(32)

“I spun around and saw the guy leaning over, holding his nose. His bandmates were laughing behind him about how he let a little girl take him out. I leaned over and saw that his nose was bleeding. I couldn’t apologize enough. He assured me that it was fine, but before I could say anything else, Mia walked over and put her arm around him. She checked out his face and told him we didn’t live far. They walked with us back to our house, and Mia fixed him up. They started dating right after that, and the last I heard, they’re getting married next summer.” It’s hard to believe my nearly breaking someone’s nose could bring two people together.

“Okay, Lucca. You’re up.” I grin at him.

“Mine’s a quick one, too. So, you all know my padre was a professional footballer. My madre would take me to every game when I was little.” At least his mom paid attention to him when he was little, not that four isn’t little.

“I don’t remember any of this, but I’ve seen the video. My parents have also told this story hundreds of times. During one practice, we happened to be there. I remember liking to kick around the ball. I didn’t like clothes. I used to take mine off any chance I got. No one actually saw this part, but I ended up taking off all my clothes. I was three, mind you, so I didn’t care who saw me naked. Can’t say much has changed there.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me, and I close my eyes. Bad idea. Now, I picture hot, tanned, Italian muscles standing in front of me.

“After taking all my clothes off, I end up running onto the field to try and kick the ball. We only know this because I yell ‘Ball!’ over and over. This is the part that was caught on camera. I was dodging around people who were only halfheartedly trying to catch me because they were laughing so hard. Finally, the goalie caught me.” A chuckle escapes, and Lucca tries to control himself. “He ended up lifting me up really high. It was something they all used to do with me. They would swing me around when they played with me. This time, though, I ended up peeing in his face. He had enough sense not to drop me.” At this point, Lucca laughs so hard he can barely talk.

I peer over at Noah. “Can you find that footage?”

Noah nods and winks at me.

“Poor guy,” I add, thinking about what it would be like to have someone pee in your face.

“He thought it was funny. He didn’t pick me up for a long time after that, though.” Lucca laughs again.

“Jay, it’s all you.” I point at him.

Jay starts. “I was out hunting with my dad and my uncle one day. My uncle had just purchased a new rifle, and he wanted to try it—”

“Wait!” I interrupt him. “Your funny story starts out about a rifle?”

“It gets better,” he reassures before continuing. “My uncle is a terrible shot. My dad tried to convince him not to buy a rifle, but he looked up to my dad so much for being a SEAL he bought it anyway.

“My dad didn’t want him going out by himself, so he made my uncle promise to wait until we could visit. The day after we got there, he wanted to go out. My dad insisted on taking me with them because he was worried my uncle would get hurt, and someone would have to go get help while the other person stayed with my uncle.”

His poor uncle. At least, he tried.

“We walked about a mile and a half, maybe two miles, before we stopped and looked for a good place to rest. My dad didn’t want to go too far out, because if someone did get hurt, we wouldn’t be in a bad spot to be rescued. At this point, my uncle wanted to take out the rifle and show my dad the features from the scope to the barrel. My uncle started to look down the barrel, and my dad jerked the thing out of his hands before he shot himself, which made my uncle mad. He started yelling at my dad.”

I’m horrified on his father’s behalf. It’s obvious this uncle hasn’t hunted much if he doesn’t know gun safety rules.

“My dad stayed calm and pointed to a tree about twenty yards away. He said to my uncle ‘Are you sure it isn’t loaded?’ and shot a hole in one of the leaves on that tree. My uncle stared for a second and then stared down at himself. He had shit his pants.” Jay delivered that last part with such a straight face it takes me a second to register what he said.

“What is it with you guys and stories about excrement? Yuck!” I shake my head at the thought of it.

“It’s your turn, Noah. No bathroom stories,” I warn him.

“I’ll try.” He smirks.

I’m going to end up with another bathroom story. I just know it.

“So, I got bored a lot when I couldn’t walk. You already know I spent most of my time on my computer. I started back to school. They let me keep my laptop with me even though no one else had one.

“One rainy day, the lights at school flickered because of a storm. The storm finally passed, and the lights went back to normal. I decided to mess with them, though. I hacked into the school’s electric panel, as well as the intercom system. At first, I just made the lights go off and on, or I made the intercom buzz for no reason. I did this quite a few times during the day.”

I eagerly scoot to the edge of the table. Oh, what did he have planned for his school?

“That amused me for a while, but I wanted to try something else. I started making the lights go off in patterns. People started whispering that the place was haunted. I did this for about another hour. Right before the end of the day, I made the lights go crazy, and I played the theme song to Close Encounters of the Third Kind over the intercom. I finally matched the light pattern to the music.” He hums the tune. “They never did find out it was me. For days, everyone was sure there were ghosts or aliens walking among us.”