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“Have you considered actually sitting down with the man and telling him how you feel?”
“A million times, and in my head it never works out the way I want it to.”
“The two of you have been circling each other for years. It’s nonsense.”
“You hated Chase for ten years for ruffling your hair,” I remind her.
“He saw me as a child when I was completely head over heels for him. I don’t think Cash has ever looked at you the way Chase looked at me that day. You’ve never been his kid sister or the weird girl next door.”
“Don’t,” I tell her. “You’re making it sound like Cash is a pervert.”
“He actually showed up for our eighth-grade dance, don’t you remember?”
How could I ever forget? It was the first night he kissed my temple. The immature thirteen-year-old held onto the memory of those warm lips against her skin for many years. Only he never did it again until after I graduated high school.
When I joined him at Sam Houston for school, he had a girlfriend. We spent a lot of time together there, but he acted more like a protective force than anything else. We only had a year together before he graduated and went on to the police academy.
We visited as often as his job in Houston allowed. He did an internship in Houston and stayed there until I graduated. It wasn’t long after I came back to town. Four years away from Lindell seemed like a short amount of time, but it was long enough to know home was where I always wanted to be.
By the time he came back, the girlfriend was gone, which was a relief. I don’t know if I could’ve stayed here if he brought someone back home with him.
I’ve been lucky this long that he hasn’t found someone else. I know the day will come, but maybe when it does, I’ll already have a part of him. It’s honestly more than I ever should’ve allowed myself to want. I know I turned him down outright when he first offered, but the idea dug inside of me until I was dreaming of a half of a dozen little Cashes running around, their laughter filling the house.
Those fantasies of course ended with him coming home, and pressing his lips to my temple before whispering all the things he wanted to do to me once we got the kids in bed.
I woke up flushed and aroused. Despite being alone in my house, I was a little embarrassed.
It was that need that kept me away for over a week, but I knew it was pointless. There was no point in trying to keep avoiding him. The man is entwined into every aspect of my life.
“The point I’m trying to make is that Chase and Cash are two very different people.”
“Cash doesn’t want kids,” I tell her. I see the pause, the way she opens her mouth to speak, but my words derail her.
“Really?” she asks. “I don’t really see Cash as the type of guy that wouldn’t want—”
“He doesn’t. I know he doesn’t, so there’s no sense in getting my hopes up that whatever happens between the two of us is going to lead to more, because it won’t. We don’t want the same things out of life, and that makes us incompatible.”
It hurts my heart in a way I never thought imaginable to admit that out loud.
Madison frowns in my direction, but she doesn’t say another word. I’m not going to explain to her why Cash feels that way. Those secrets were confidences that he shared with me. I’d never share her secrets with him.
After leaving the nail salon, we head to lunch, but there feels like there’s a distance between the two of us now that wasn’t there before.
I know we’ll get past whatever it is, but it makes me have second thoughts about tonight with Cash.
Will things get so weird between the two of us that we do a lot more than just avoid each other for a few days?
What if it totally destroys our friendship?
I vow to not let that happen. If we stick to the rules, then we’ll be fine.
I’m certain of it.
Chapter 11
Cash
It’s closer to eight when I’m finally able to take a lunch break and head over to Adalynn’s house. I feel that same urge to knock that I do at her parents’ houses, but I know that would be incredibly weird. Besides, what if she’s waiting in the bedroom for me already?
