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I did promise Daphne I'd stay clean. I meant it. I'm trying, really. There's no whiskey under the bed. There's no gin in the freezer. There's no rum in the toilet tank.
"You can search the house if you want," I offer. It's the wrong move. Too defensive. Too obvious. I might as well scream this is a big deal. Everything is different. I can't handle any of it.
"No thanks." Cassie smiles as she shifts to a joke. "I don't want to find your porn collection."
I'm not sure if it means she trusts me or she doesn't care, but I take the win. I latch on to the opportunity to move to any other subject.
Really, I'd rather list the times I had whiskey dick. Though that's not exactly a different subject. Sex and booze are all tangled for me. The whiskey dick and the whiskey dicking someone I barely knew.
Fuck. What were we saying?
Porn jokes. Right. I find my typical I don't give a fuck smile and my best troublemaking tone. "Oh, that's all out in the open."
"Ew." Daphne's nose scrunches. The disgust distracts her. Or maybe she's as happy to change the subject as I am.
She must be tired of discussing Damon Webb, alcoholic fuckup too. She's been doing it for as long as I have.
Cassie cuts a slice of her lasagna, oblivious to the Webb family drama. "He watches videos of himself."
"Only self-love," I say.
"Self-flagellation." Cassie's laugh nearly breaks the tension in the air. She's in her element here, teasing me.
And I'm in my element teasing her back. But not in front of my sister. I owe her that much. "We won't torture you with details though, Daph."
"I swear, you are as annoying as a real couple." Daphne doesn't say please don't fuck her again, but it fills the air anyway.
Or maybe that's me.
Maybe I'm unable to sit three feet from Cassie without thinking of her body tangled up in mine.
Or at the very least, hearing her groan. The one she makes over coffee, dinner, music. The one that means yes, exactly like this, always, forever.
Chapter Nine
Damon
After dinner, I retire to my room, try to slip into my usual routine of reading before bed. Only the mystery doesn't grab my attention. My thoughts keep going back to Cassie.
For the first time in a long time, I want to spend time with someone.
I didn't know any of my old friends. Not really. Alcohol bridged the gap between us. Without the warm chemical numb, we don't have anything to say to each other.
Cassie may not like me, but she knows me. And I know her. All this time, I found her annoying as fuck, and all because I know her so well.
At least, I thought I did.
She's not nearly as pompous and phony as she is in my head.
She's passionate and authentic and way too sexy. But I can ignore that part. I think.
I look out my bedroom window. See Cassie in the clear blue water of the pool. She looks right there, surrounded by the tiny dots of stars in the indigo sky, lit from the aquamarine below her.
She's glowing.
From the pool lights, yeah, but from something inside her too. I want that light. I need it.
I want to fuck her, yeah.
But the really scary thing is how much I want to talk to her.
Cassie is standing in the middle of the pool in a skimpy black bikini. The kind with thin straps barely holding the fabric together. The tough yet sexy outfit suits her. And the skin on display.
Fuck me.
Sculpted shoulders, perky tits, curvy legs, the lyrics tattooed to her ribs—
I would have cursed her as a cliché last month.
Now, I want to trace the lines. And, yeah, I still want to tease her about it, but I want to follow it up with a whole lot of teasing.
Nope. Not going there. Cassie is gorgeous. That doesn't mean I need to indulge my fantasies of untying her swimsuit top and tasting her nipples.
Cassie shoots me a curious look as I set my towel and water bottle on a lounge chair. She turns away from me and dives under the surface, making shapes under water, exploring every inch of the space.
After a few minutes, she surfaces and moves to the edge, the one that looks out on the ocean. It's not an infinity pool. We're not pretending we're on the verge of falling into the ocean.
I ditch my t-shirt and slip into the water.
Cassie stares at the ocean for a long time. It's too dark for me to make out her expression, but I can sense something inside her, that same need for calm, peace, distraction.
Maybe she hates me because she sees herself in me.
Or maybe I'm an egotistical jackass.
Probably that.
As if on cue, she looks to me, and she speaks in a soft voice, "Daph wanted to do a slumber party, but she fell asleep."
