Page 109 of Cash

No, I hadn’t thought about that.

“The right time?”

“Yeah, the right time. Just because he’s a growly egomaniac doesn’t mean sex isn’t special to him.”

“I know,” I snapped.

“Don’t get all snippy with me. I’m only pointing it out because apparently you being dick deprived kills your brain cells. He’s just giving you both time to settle in. When the time’s right, it’ll happen. Until then, take your orgasms and shut up.”

My eyes narrowed on my friend. “Just so you know, you suck at peptalks. I don’t think they’re supposed to come with insults.”

“I wouldn’t know. Charlie Michaels raised me and his idea of a peptalk was to give me ballistics data before he pointed me in the direction of my target.”

That had my lips twitching.

“You were always good behind a scope.”

“As were you,” she returned.

“Think we’ll miss it?”

She huffed a humorless laugh. “Nope. You?”

“Not even a little bit.”

My one-time frenemy, The Dove, smiled.

I smiled back.

It was one of nostalgia, a shared past that both of us were happy to leave behind. Taking with us the good parts and keeping those close.

“Good talk,” I told her.

“Yeah.” She turned to leave but glanced back over her shoulder. “Love you, sister.”

That was not the first time she’s said those words to me in the last month. And just as they did the first time, hearing them now helped close another wound.

“Backatcha, sister.”

She winked and that was from my friend, my sister, Nebraska.

I knew she took no offense that I didn’t give her back the words. It wasn’t because I didn’t feel them. It just didn’t seem right to say them to her when Cash should be the first person besides Cara to get them from me.

And I did.

I loved him.

I just hadn’t found the right time to tell him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Stella was jumpier than a virgin at a prison rodeo. We’d been back at our rental house for nearly an hour and she’d yet to stop moving.

“You know Leo and Olivia would never let anything happen to Cara, right?”

“Of course,” Stella said, not looking up from the dish she was obsessively rinsing.

This was the first night we’d been away from Cara. She was spending the night with her besties as she called them, Frankie and Gia. I wanted time alone with Stella but not if the cost was her looking like she was going to jump out of her skin.