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A thumb digs into my shoulder blades as I’m ushered towards the table. “Sit. Eat.”
“Bark? Roll over?”
Husky chuckle brushing the back of my head, Cass pushes down until my ass meets a cushioned seat. “Put a pin in the second one.”
I choke, mouth opening but nothing coming out, unable to protest as he sets a loaded plate down in front of me. Hooking a foot around the leg of the chair beside me, he yanks it closer before sitting down, his casual slouch a harsh contrast to the hard set of his jaw. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’ve been busy.” Not a whole lie; I forgot how all-consuming pregnancy is. Granted, this time I’m not working twelve-hour days or getting my GED or finding new, creative ways to avoid an entire town. But I am working. I am raising an eleven-year-old. I am finding new, creative ways to avoid a lot of people, including anyone toting an expensive camera.
Knees brushing my thigh and an arm thrown across the back of my chair, Cass leaves no room for escape. “I’m sorry about the other night. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
Uncomfortable. Funny word for it. “You didn’t.”
The crook of his brow calls bullshit.
“You didn’t,” I insist. “I just… freaked myself out.”
“Why?” Cass ducks his head, his elbows falling to his thighs as he fights to be in my line of sight. “Because you didn’t want me to stop?”
The truth—“pretty much”—tickles the back of my throat. I swallow it. “Let’s not go there.”
Another sigh. A minor retreat à la hands on kneecaps and an intense stare burning my skin. “Is this gonna be your parenting style?” Cass throws my own words back at me. “Running away from me every time something freaks you out?”
“I didn’trun away.” I jogged, at most. And it’s not like I went very far. “I was just giving you some space.”
“I didn’t ask for space.” I decline to mention if he knew the kind of thoughts running rampant in my head lately, he probably would. “That’s not fair, Sunday. Can’t fix something I don’t know is broken.”
I hunch over like a freaking scolded child. “I’m not used to…” When words fail me, I gesture between us.
Cass doesn’t share my verbal difficulties. “Relying on someone? Trusting someone? Someone other than August depending on you?” He leans closer, voice soft and gentle and really enforcing that scolded child sensation. God, he’s gonna be a good parent. “Having someone to run away from?”
More like having someone to chase after me. “This is a very deep conversation for 6AM.”
“I’m gonna take that as an ‘all of the above’.” His lips quirk with self-satisfaction as he retreats. “Me neither. And I have a habit of running away too but I’m really trying not to do that with you. I’d like it if you did the same for me.”
I think I hate him. Like genuinely hate him. It’s not fair that he’s so good at this so quickly. We’re supposed to be struggling together—that’s what coparenting is, right?
When Cass holds a fork out towards me, I relent with a weary noise. Cutlery in hand, I dig into the French toast I will never,everadmit is better than mine. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be.” Cass hides his relief behind a smile and a pointed look aimed at my belly. “I missed you guys.”
How hard I have to work to suppress a swoon is really, truly pathetic. God, it’s like he’s constantly trying to fluster me. Or turn me on. Or, as is happening right now, both. “Really?”
“Uh-huh.” As if he can’t help himself, Cass reaches out and tugs on a strand of my damp hair. “You’ve grown on me. It’s very annoying.”
I can swat his hand away, but I can’t do anything about my smile. “Is that why you’re here? To be annoyed?”
The tiniest wince ceases Cass’ face, imperceptible if I wasn’t six only inches from his face. “You looked out the window yet this morning?”
* * *
“Your ass looks good in those shorts,” is how Luna greets me as she takes her regular seat on the bleachers beside me, offering coffee as a follow-up.
Accepting my much savored one cup a day, I swap it for a cinnamon roll. Cass side-eyed the hell out of me when, after demolishing at least half a loaf’s worth of French toast, I snagged half a dozen on the way out of the apartment. But he is not growing a person. Therefore, he can suck it. “Oh yeah?”
Luna hums. “You’re lucky. I got papped at one of Cass’ games once and I made Jackson pay some tech guru to scrub it from the Internet.”
“She’s not exaggerating.” Perched on my other side, Amelia watches her daughters race off with Winona to harass the boys before practice starts. “They got one of me when I was, like, two weeks postpartum with Reese. I cried for three hours.”
