On impulse, because she looks like she really needs one, I give her a hug. She holds on to me tightly.
When we part, those tears have spilled down her cheeks.
“I know that feeling,” I tell her. “I spent years trying to be what my family needed me to be. The version of me they wanted. The day I stopped doing that was the scariest day of my life. But it was also the first day I felt like myself. It’s been a tough road, and a lonely one, I won’t lie to you. But I’ve never regretted forging my own path.”
She gives me a watery smile. “Worked out for you, obviously. Your dream career. A husband who loves you for exactly who you are. You have the perfect life,” she sighs.
If only she knew.
A husband who loves you.
Does he? He’s never said the words.
But I think about the way he shows up to my office with lunch and stays to fix whatever’s broken, because he noticed before I mentioned it. The way he’s carved out Sunday mornings as ours — no ranch, no phone, just coffee and me and whatever I feel like talking about. The way he pulled me onto his lap at the latest Rhodes family dinner last week for no reason at all and just held me there, talking to his brothers like that was just where I lived now. On him. Against him.His.
And still.Still.
He’s on his path and I’m on mine. Love isn’t always enough to bridge the gap between two people’s lives.
Maybe Slade does love me, the only way he knows how to anymore. And I love him more than I’ve loved anything.
We’re still on a collision course with goodbye.
I swallow past the tightness in my throat. He and I were strangers not long ago. We’ll be strangers again, all too soon.
Maybe it will be easier someday.
When it feels like my voice will come out steady, I speak.
“Don’t settle,” I say to Cassidy. “That’s all I know. Don’t settle for someone who makes you feel less than. You deserve someone who loves you for exactly who you are. Who’s proud of you. Who lifts you up instead of tearing you down.” I give her a small smile. “Marry the man who thinks you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to him and treats you like it. Don’t take anything less than that.”
It’s a reminder to myself as much as her. Because the man I married treats me like that every single day. But he lost someone he loved more than anything once, and it broke something in him.
I wish I could fix it for him. I wish I could do what I do with every neglected space I walk into: see past the damage to what it was before and what it could be again, strip it back and start over and make it something that feels like home.
But Slade isn’t a project. And love isn’t a renovation. You can’t just decide a person is going to be okay and make it so. He has to find his way there himself.
All I can do is hope he hurries.
Cassidy looks back at the parking lot and blinks rapidly, refusing to let more tears spill over. Then her eyes focus on something behind me, and I turn to see.
Tanner has found us.
He’s still in his chaps, cutting through the crowd with his eyes fixed on Cassidy with an expression I’ve never seen on his face before, but with eyes I do recognize. Those Rhodes greeneyes, intense and tender and deeply protective. Walker looks at Sadie that way. My husband looks at me that way.
And Tanner’s looking at Cassidy that way right now.
When he reaches us, his focus is all on her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” The palm of her hand dashes to her eyes to catch the tears there.
“Cass,” he murmurs tenderly. With the pad of his thumb, he wipes away a streak of her tears. “C’mon now.”
“Derek and I had a fight, that’s all.”
Tanner’s eyes darken. “He made you cry?”
When she says nothing, the look darkens further. He’s already turning back toward the arena.
