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“What game? You’re being ridiculous.” She pokes me in the arm.
I slide off the hood of the car. “It’s getting late. I need to drive you back home before they start to worry.”
“I’m nineteen, you know. If I’m going to be out exceptionally late, all I need to do is call. And really? It’d just be to tell them I’m okay and they shouldn’t worry. And I don’t know what I have to do to convince you this really isn’t me trying to tell my parents to stick it, Carter.”
I get into the driver’s seat and start the engine. She scowls before climbing into the passenger’s side.
The atmosphere of our date just took a total one-eighty. As I drive back to Burly, we barely say anything at all.
I don’t know what to think. To say that what I’m feeling is complicated is a massive understatement. I want her. So damn bad. I want to believe her too. That she wants me for me.
And part of me does believe her. But damn, I have so many doubts. Dad always told me to step back and take a breath if everything is smelling too rosy. That’s when you’ll catch a whiff of the bullshit.
I pull up to her home. Her mother is looking out the window and smiles toward us. Cadence opens the door and slides out.
“I’ll give you a call soon, Cadence.”
She laughs, and it’s not the wonderful, genuine laugh that I’m used to. “Sure you will, Carter.”
“What makes you think I won’t? I’m not gonna start lying to you.”
She lets out a sigh of resignation. “I’m not sure what to think anymore, Carter. I thought you knew what you wanted. And that made me pretty sure of what I wanted. But you accused me of playing games, and that got me thinking — maybe this is just a game to you. The virgin and the bad boy. And I’m not into playing games like that. I’d like something more honest and straightforward.”
Cadence walks away from me, a bit of frustration in her step.
I run my hand over my hair before dropping it back on the steering wheel.
She’s so fucking good. So fucking perfect. I want her badly. She has that spice that makes me want her as a lover, and she’s got that wholesome goodness and softness that makes me yearn for her to be my wife.
Did I just think about her as my wife? I did. It’s so sudden, but so real. She’s the girl I want to spend my life with. The kind of girl my mother would want for me. Someone who can both take care of me and slap some sense into me.
Like Cadence just did.
If I don’t think I’m a good enough guy for her?
Then I guess I’ll become the guy who is good enough for her.
Show her my heart. My intentions.
How real and pure they truly are.
6
CADENCE
Carter doesn’t call me the next day.
It’s about what I expect, really.
I’d like to pretend it hasn’t completely drained the wind from my sails. By the end of Saturday I’m feeling pretty depressed, and not even my mother making apple cinnamon muffins is enough to raise my spirits.
Sunday morning, though, I have to get up and get ready for church. I dress in my Sunday best. Sometimes I really don’t feel like going, but as a preacher’s daughter, I’m expected to show up unless I have a good reason not to. Something like being on the other side of the country like one of my sisters, for instance.
I guess Carter’s suggestion that I’m interested in him as a method of rebellion wasn’t entirely untrue. I do want to be more than the pretty and perfect preacher’s daughter. But not out of spite for my parents. I just want to be my own woman. With a man who loves me for who I am, and who I love just as hard.
Carter really felt like he could be that man.
But maybe I was wrong. I’m young. These are the kind of mistakes I’m expected to make.
