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“He’ll go fucking pro!” my mother added.
Thatch grinned.
Sean rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything else. He knew better. When Momma Diane says you’re going to fucking do something, you’ll do it.
My brother would have been drafted into the NFL had he not gotten injured at the end of his junior year. But he had been training his ass off for the past year, and I was more than confident he’d get there. His talent wasn’t something you could teach. It was ingrained in him. And one day soon, he’d achieve his dream of playing professional football.
“All right, let’s get a move on it,” my brother said as he grabbed his keys, wallet, and cell phone from the kitchen counter. “It’s leg day, and I’ve gotta get at least two hours of weights in before cardio.”
Thatch pressed a soft kiss to my lips. “Be fucking good while I’m gone, Crazy,” he whispered into my ear before heading upstairs to my bedroom to change his clothes.
My mother’s gaze met mine—after I’d thoroughly exhausted the watch on Thatch’s retreat—and she held up her watering can and gestured for me to follow her out onto the back deck.
While she watered her potted plants, I stared at the breathtaking view of clear skies and mountains. I would never get tired of this view or the fresh Oregon air. It all felt worlds away from the cluttered, noisy streets of New York.
“I really like Thatch,” my mother announced as she moved from her roses to her lilies. “I think he’s good for you.”
“But what if I’m not good for him?”
She turned toward me and searched my eyes. “What do you mean not good for him?”
“I don’t know.” I plopped down onto one of the deck chairs and let out a long sigh. “It’s just that I’ve never been very good at committing to things. Have I always been this way?”
“You’ve always been pretty spontaneous,” she answered. “But I wouldn’t say you’re bad at commitment.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Mom,” I scoffed. “Don’t blow smoke up my ass. Remember fifth grade when I wanted to try the piano?”
She smiled and nodded. “Yes. You only lasted one month.”
“And then gymnastics? How long did I last with that?”
“Three weeks,” she answered.
“There’s at least ten more hobbies we could add to that list, and we haven’t even started on my lack of relationship history. I’m starting to think there’s something wrong with me. Like maybe I’m lacking some kind of gene.”
“Sweetheart, there is nothing wrong with you,” she disagreed.
“Yes, there is. I’m flighty and flaky.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re a little flighty when it comes to things you’re not really into, but I think you’re selling yourself short, Cassie. I’ve seen you when you really want something, really love something, and there’s no stopping you. You commit yourself one hundred and ten percent.”
“Like when?”
“Photography,” she responded without a second thought. “You wanted it, and look at you now,” she pointed out. “You have a highly successful photography career that most people would kill for.”
“Yeah, but I think photography is different, Mom. That’s my career, not my love life.”
“I don’t think it’s different, baby. I think when you meet the man you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with, it’ll be like photography all over again, but more intense, more all-consuming. You’ll want to spend more time with him. You won’t be able to stop yourself from picturing a future with him.”
“Is that how it was with Dad?”
She set her watering can down and leaned her hip against the deck railing. “I just knew with him. To my fucking soul, I knew I didn’t want to live a life without him in it,” she said with a wistful smile. “So don’t be so hard on yourself. Thatch will be one lucky bastard if he ends up being that person for you. You’re beautiful, kind, funny, and have one of the biggest hearts I’ve ever seen. Don’t ever forget that.”
I want to be good for Thatch, and I want him to be that person for me.
In that moment, I was really hoping Momma Diane was right.
Sirens rang out loud and shrill as fire trucks forced their way through jam-packed Midtown traffic.
On the way to Wes’s office to go over some of the players he was hoping to draft and the kind of money he’d have to put into their contracts, I looked down a 7th Avenue that seemed to have no end.
Cars and people and streetlights as far as the eye could see cluttered the space between the two rows of buildings. My height afforded me better vision than most, though, and as a shorter woman swam her way upstream through the crowd in front of me, I found myself picturing how different the city might look from Cassie’s perspective. She wasn’t short, so to speak, but she still came in nearly a foot below me and certainly wouldn’t be taller than most New York men.
I really couldn’t imagine it. I’d been tall since the end of high school, all of my childhood fluff disappearing in one distinct vertical burst. I’d never walked these streets as anything other than huge, and as I passed one of the many people of “questionable sanity” peppering the way through the city, my reverie took on an entirely different angle.
Did Cass ever feel unsafe here, or with her rough and tough exterior did she feel some kind of false sense of exemption? And more importantly, was she always responsible with her personal safety, or did she take it lightly?
As I approached the front of Wes’s office building just up the block from his restaurant, BAD, I nearly came out of my skin over the fact that I didn’t know the answer.
Me: Rule #55: You start carrying Mace with you every-fucking-where you go.
Cassie: Is this some kind of new fetish where I spray you in the face and lick your balls at the same time? I’ve heard of spicing things up, but most couples don’t need it this early.
Me: Don’t be cute.
Cassie: Fuck, Thatcher. That’s like telling me not to breathe or eat nachos. I just can’t stop doing any of it.
I shook my head and smiled. I’d have to remember to pick up nachos on the way home tonight.
Me: Just…I was just thinking about how vulnerable a woman can be in the city.
Cassie: I carry a switchblade between my tits.
Me: Now, I know that’s not true. It’d never stay put.
Cassie: Actually, my tits are pretty hospitable.
Me: I fucking bet they are. Are they going to offer me a drink later? ;)
Cassie: Gross. And don’t ever use a wink emoji again. Text messages are the only place I know I can escape your fucking wink.
Me: Is that an official rule?
Cassie: YES. Consider it #56.
Me: So you accept #55?
Cassie: Sure. I’ve always wanted to pepper spray somebody anyway.
Me: Jesus. Don’t just go spraying random people.
Cassie: They won’t be completely random. Just people that piss me off.
Me: Fuck. The Mace is just gonna get you in even more trouble, isn’t it?
Cassie: Only time will tell, Thatcher.
Only when someone bumped me from behind did I remember I wasn’t alone with her. All the sounds of the city came back immediately, finally penetrating the barrier her witty comebacks had formed around me. After getting back from Vegas and her parents’ house a couple of days ago, it was starting to happen all the time.
I shook my head and dropped my phone back into the front pocket of my slacks before stepping up to the door of Wes’s building and holding it open for a woman on her way out. Hair slicked back in a sleek ponytail and wearing skintight head to knee black, she smiled up at me from under her lashes and did a spin as she stepped past me so she could keep eye contact.
On more than one occasion that kind of move had led to dinner and horizontal dancing, but today, all I cared to exchange was a friendly smile. She raised a brow as if to ask me if I was sure, but it didn’t slow her down. All in one move, she kept up her momentum, circling right back to her path and catwalking directly away from me.
I didn’t even wait to watch her go.
“Hey, Mr. Kelly,” one of the security guards greeted me. I wasn’t at Mavericks headquarters a ton, but I’d definitely been there before, and Sam and I had a running commentary on Yankees baseball.
“Hey, Sam. You see the game two nights ago?”
“Nah, man. I had to work the night shift at my other job. I heard Rodriguez nailed that shit in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, though. Saved our asses.”
I just nodded as I strolled past him, past the elevators, and straight to the stairwell door.
The Mavericks were only on the fourth floor, so I didn’t mind making the climb in my suit. And with the amount that I’d been sitting around my apartment with Cassie and eating, I needed to get in a little exercise.
The receptionist’s head jerked up as I pushed open the stairwell door into the entry in front of the Mavericks offices, but the surprise on her face melted into a smile when she saw it was me.
She looked at me like she knew the dimensions of my cock, but I’d always been careful to keep that shit separate. I never slept with anyone my circle of friends worked with. I flirted with them, which was probably what had Susie’s toothy smile making a bid to eat up her entire face, but I never actually messed around.
