Before I could second-guess myself any further, I knocked softly on the door.
The sound of Mike’s chair scraping against the floor carried through the house, followed by his footsteps approaching the front door. When he opened it, his face went through a series of expressions. There was relief, concern, and something that might have been quiet fury.
“Cash,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t sure you were coming back.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, suddenly finding it hard to meet his eyes. “Neither was I.”
He stepped back to let me in, and I followed him into the living room where we stood facing each other awkwardly. The silence stretched between us, heavy with all the things we weren’t saying.
“I’m sorry,” I said finally, the words coming out rougher than I’d intended. “About this afternoon. About stormin’ off like that after your sermon.”
Mike’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “You don’t have to apologize. I know it was... a lot. I should have warned you that I was going to get personal up there.”
“No,” I shook my head, pulling the crumpled letter from my pocket. “You were right. About all of it.”
Mike’s eyes widened slightly as he looked at the letter in my hands. “What’s that?”
“A letter from my father,” I said, smoothing out the creases. “Found it in my truck. Been carryin’ it around for weeks without openin’ it.” I held it out to him. “Turns out the old bastard had some things to say after all.”
Mike took the letter carefully, like it might crumble at his touch. His eyes moved across the page, and I watched his expression change as he read. When he got to the part about my mother’s ring, his breath caught audibly.
“Cash,” he said softly, looking up at me. “This is...”
“An apology ten years too late?” I suggested, but there wasn’t as much bite in my voice as there usually was.
“A letter full of love,” Mike corrected, folding the paper carefully. “From a father who was too proud and too scared to say these things while he was alive.”
I felt my throat tighten at his words. “Don’t make it into somethin’ it’s not, Mike. He still kicked me out. He still chose his reputation over his son.”
“And he regretted it every day after,” Mike said, stepping closer. “You can see it in every word he wrote. The man was broken, Cash. Broken and sorry and hoping against hope that you’d come home so he could make it right.”
I turned away from him, running my hands through my hair. “Well, he waited too long, didn’t he? Can’t make amends with a dead man.”
“No,” Mike agreed quietly. “But you can forgive one.”
I spun back to face him, anger flaring hot in my chest. “Forgive him? After what he put me through? After the things he said?”
“Not for him,” Mike said, his voice steady and calm in the face of my fury. “For you. Because carrying all that anger around is eating you alive, and we both know it.”
I wanted to argue with him, to tell him he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. But the words stuck in my throat because he was right. The anger I’d been carrying for ten years was like acid in my veins, poisoning everything it touched. Including whatever this thing was between us.
“I don’t know how,” I admitted, the fight going out of me as suddenly as it had come. “I don’t know how to let it go. It’s… It’s all I’ve got.”
Mike set the letter down on the coffee table and moved closer, his hands coming up to frame my face. “You start small,” he said, his thumbs brushing across my cheekbones. “You start by admitting that maybe, just maybe, there’s a part of you that wants to stay here. That wants to give this place another chance.Because I see that in you, Cash. I’ve caught glimpses of it here and there.”
My heart hammered against my ribs as I looked into his eyes, seeing nothing but patience and understanding there. No judgment, no pressure. Just quiet acceptance of whatever I decided.
“I’m scared,” I admitted so quietly I barely heard it myself.
“Everyone is scared,” Mike replied just as softly. “That’s just part of being alive.”
“I know,” I whispered back, my voice barely audible. “But what if I stay and it all goes to shit again? What if this town hasn’t changed as much as everyone says it has?”
Mike’s hands were still cupping my face, his thumbs tracing gentle patterns across my skin. “Then we’ll deal with it. Together.”
The word ‘together’ hit me like a punch to the gut. We’d established boundaries, said this was just sex, nothing more. But standing here in his living room with his hands on my face and my father’s letter between us, those boundaries felt as flimsy as tissue paper. And we both knew it.
“Mike,” I started, but he shook his head.
