Caleb

Chapter Twenty One

Caleb ~

A few hours later, a sound pulled Caleb from sleep causing him to raise his head up off of the couch where he had fallen asleep. The media room was dark and he and Lainey seemed to be the only two left inside.

Caleb searched the air again for the sound that had woken him up and quickly realized it was coming from Lainey. The only problem was, it wasn't one of her sweet hums of contentment, or the angelic sound of her voice, the noises that were coming from Lainey were strained and painful. It only took Caleb a few seconds in his sleepy state to register that her legs had started to cramp while she slept.

"Shit."  she muttered under her breath as she sat up and brought her leg to her chest, clutching her right calf and foot.

Sliding out from underneath her, Caleb positioned himself in front of the couch on his knees, firing off a quick text to Marcus before he started to work on Lainey's cramped muscles. She sucked in a breath and held it against the pain, trying to run from it and fight against it with her face grimaced.

"Don't fight against it like that Darlin. Take some deep breaths for me." Caleb soothed as he took her foot in his hand and flexed it back, stretching out the spasmed muscle in her leg.

A few seconds later a tired, shirtless Marcus appeared in the doorway holding an electrolyte drink in one hand and palm full of medication in the other. Caleb chuckled at Marcus as he handed him Lainey's drink and pills. Marcus must have thought it was an emergency because he was in nothing but his boxers and still looked half asleep.

"She alright?" Marcus asked, his voice thick with sleep and even deeper than usual.

"I'm okay. Thank you Marcus." Lainey said with pain in her voice, but a forced smile on her face before gulping at the contents of the bottle that had been handed to her.

"Good. Need me to stay? How can I help Doc?" Marcus asked, rolling his shoulders in a circular motion to loosen his muscles as he readied himself to help Caleb work on Lainey.

"Nothing compared to what you saw the other night, but I wanted to get ahead of it. Go crash, man. I appreciate it."

"Will do. Holler if you need me," Marcus said over his shoulder before he disappeared down the hall to his room.

It only took about fifteen minutes for the cramp in Lainey's calf to subside and Caleb watched as her muscles slowly unknotted and righted themselves beneath Lainey's skin, allowing her to finally relax and breathe normally.

Caleb climbed back onto the couch and let Lainey reclaim his lap as her pillow.

"How are you so good at what you do?" she asked looking up at him. "You know so much about my condition and you've only known me for a few weeks."

"Like I said before, I read a lot...just not poetry or novels," he chuckled.

"I'm always trying to learn new things - new ways of helping people."

"But why medicine? Why not just do the Navy Seal stuff and help people that way, like the rest of your team?" she asked with genuine curiosity in her eyes.

Navy Seal stuff, how fucking cute is that?

She was trying to learn more about him and what makes him tick, which thrilled Caleb, but that particular topic of conversation was not usually one that he shared with others. Sure plenty of people had asked why he chose the medical field, but he always gave a half truth of - "I just like helping people and find it interesting" - But not Lainey. Lainey deserved the whole truth. Vulnerability goes both ways.