AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I hate it.” She sighed, but this time, she relaxed a bit. “It’s been...I don’t know. Weird. It helps that we haven’t stopped moving for what feels like a month. Davis is distracted, but I guess I am too. He and Henry haven’t seen each other in forever, so he’s always around. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind—it’s Henry—it’s just, I feel like I’ve seen Davis less than I’ve seen you, and I sleep with the man.”
“There’s a lot going on. Soon you’ll be on your honeymoon, just the two of you. You’ll be so tired of him, I’ll have to fly back and visit to serve as a buffer.”
Cass laughed. Then sighed once more, sagging a little. “It’ll be over soon,” she reassured herself. “Anyway, Henry’s been talking about you nonstop. He really does not like Remy. It’s the best.”
I made a noncommittal noise as she continued.
“It’s driving him nuts that you’re staying with him, but when I nudge him into talking to you, he clams up. Dinner should be fun though—try to get a seat near him. And then tonight, there’ll be music and dancing and drinking...the perfect ambiance for a good snogging.”
Somehow, I doubted Henry would be the one snogging me, but I said nothing, not keen to tell her what I’d been doing with her cousin. I valued my life too much.
“Should be fun. Plus, I’m going to teach you how to line dance.” She put her hands on her hips and jigged her feet around.
“Can’t wait,” I said, leaning back against the seat behind me.
Cass did the same. For a minute, we watched the team practice. Well, I watched Remy throwing the ball as hard as he could to Wilder, Cass’s high school boyfriend, enjoying the pop the ball made when it hit his leather glove. I wondered who Cass was watching and figured it was probably him.
Wilder was, in many ways, her unfinished business. As she told it, they were mad for each other, started dating at thirteen and went on through the end of school. But Wilder was recruited to UCLA, and she came to Oxford, and things sort of...trailed off. Technically, they never broke up, just ghosted. I think she didn’t want to admit aloud it was over, but it made no sense to keep up the effort when the two of them had no plans to be in the same place again, maybe ever.
Now here she was getting married, and he was busy sleeping with the female population of Roseville, if the rumors were true.
I wondered how much it bothered Cass. Judging by how little she’d said about it, I reckoned it was a lot.
“All right, that’s enough of my cousin for one day,” she said, standing as quick as that. “Come on, gorgeous. There’s a hot glue gun at Mama’s house with your name on it. That tulle isn’t going to glue itself to itself, you know.”
When she extended her hand, I took it and stood, gathering up my things. And as we made our way down the bleachers, I felt Remy’s eyes on me. I turned to the feeling, and we shared a smile that Cass didn’t see, however brief it was. Which presented a new problem.
If this kept going on, I’d have to find a way to tell Cass everything that had happened between me and Remy.
And God help us all when I did.
21
you snooze, you lose
REMY
I stared at the door of The Horseshoe half the night waiting on Jessa to walk through it.
If I could have gotten off of work, I would have. Years ago, The Horseshoe and The Filly were connected, but they’d boarded it up in the seventies to class The Filly up. What I wouldn’t have given to look in on the big dinner where Jessa was. The thought of her sitting next to that pretty, preppy punkass made my blood simmer. But soon enough, she’d be where I could see her. That was really all I wanted.
Okay, that was a lie. There were many things I wanted, and watching her was probably the least of them. Unless you counted watching her fucking herself. I wasn’t picky either—she could use her hand or a toy or whatever she wanted, so long as I got to watch her do it.
I didn’t just have it bad. I had it brutally. The wanting was eating me up from the inside like a sweet, sweet poison, and I was so obsessed with her I didn’t even care. I’d die happy.
Getting inside of her had not helped. Her hands on my dick hadn’t done me any favors. Our little fuckaround this afternoon was the dumbest thing I could have done. Because now I knew. And the knowing was close to killing me.
I liked looking up from practice and seeing her in the stands. I loved looking up from home plate and finding her in the crowd. As different as she was from anyone I’d ever met, she fit here. It didn’t make any sense, but I think Roseville made her better, and I think she made Roseville better too. I could say with all honesty that I didn’t want her to go. I had one week left with her before she hopped a plane and flew thousands of miles away. And I wasn’t done with her yet.
I couldn’t picture her in a stuffy ballroom with gray skies outside the window, drinking tea. She was sunshine on a pair of the prettiest legs I’d ever seen, and Roseville agreed with her. But she had no reason to stay. Cass would leave again and there’d be nothing to keep her here but me. That order was so tall, there was no ladder that could top it. I had nothing to offer her but a busted house and a bartender’s tips. My charming smile might get me a long way, but convincing a fucking Duchess to hang around was too much to ask.
All the more reason to enjoy the time I had with her while I had it.
If today was any indication, she wouldn’t hold out much longer. If she did, I was fucked because I wasn’t going to hold out much longer either. And if Henry made a move on her before then, I just might have to kill him and tell God he died.
My replacement, Leo, was tying on his apron when the door opened, and my gaze snapped to the motion, heart in my throat. But it wasn’t Jessa—it was a woman about my age who looked like a goddamn J. Crew model. Blonde, windswept hair. Crisp blue eyes. No makeup, tan, freckles on her nose and cheeks. Effortlessly cool, definitely rich, but a little sporty, like she belonged just as easily on a boat or a soccer field. Every set of eyes in the place looked at her. She didn’t seem to notice as she sauntered up to the bar and smiled at me.
“Hi, I’m looking for the Winfield-McGrath wedding party. I think they were supposed to come here tonight?”
