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“Don’t get pissy. I just worry for my niece, okay? I just want to make sure she’s being taken care of in the best humanly way possible.”
“Again, I don’t need you to tell me this.”
Iris sighs again. “Okay. I’m sorry I even called. It’s just been weighing on me. I know from watching them that SophielovesCassie, it’s clear to anyone that’s around them for more than a minute, and I just hope that you consider the consequences of Sophie suddenly losing Cassie’s presence in her life if you two were to start something up and it goes sour.”
This makes me pause. Admittedly, it’s something I haven’t had time to consider. Mostly because I don’t want to imagine a possibility of a future where things between Cassie and me go sour.
“I appreciate your concern,” I say tightly, trying to remain civil, “but I can promise you that Sophie has been and will always be my number one priority.”
“All right,” Iris says. “That’s all I wanted to say.”
“Okay, well then, if you’re done—”
“For what it’s worth,” she cuts in, and I feel myself tense in waiting. “I really do think she loves Sophie very much. I think she’s good for her.”
I keep quiet for several seconds, considering that.
“So do I,” I answer finally.
Iris hangs up to leave me in the silence of the car, left with all the things she’s said and the new possibilities that I hadn’t considered. I absolutelyhaven’tthought about what it might mean for Sophie if Cassie and I were to suddenly fall apart, knowing deep down that it would devastate Sophie if that were to happen, just as much as I’m realizing it would me.
I grip the steering wheel tighter.
All the more reason to make sure that doesn’t happen.
—
The house is quiet when I step through the door; Cassie’s room is dark and it’s well past Sophie’s bedtime, so my first assumption is that I’m the only one up. I’m still a little rattled by Iris’s call,and that might be why I bypass Cassie’s room and clod up the stairs wearily in search of the fridge. Maybe a beer will help calm my thoughts.
So it’s a surprise when I step onto the landing to be met with the soft light glowing over the oven—Cassie leaning over the sink with a spoon in hand as she eats directly out of an ice cream carton. I’ve caught her in midbite, the spoon perched at the tip of her tongue as she licks the last of the sweet treat away, and it’s like a Pavlovian response, the way my cock twitches at the sight of it.
She smiles around her spoon. “We have gotta stop meeting like this.”
“It is becoming a habit,” I murmur back, distracted by her mouth.
“How was the rest of your night?”
“Long.” I move toward the counter, closing the distance between us. “Exhausting.”
“Poor baby,” she teases.
If you two were to start something up and it goes sour.
I hate that I’m still thinking about it. This thing between Cassie and me has barely had enough space to breathe, and I’m already worrying about how it might end. Who does that?
“Everything okay?” Cassie sets her spoon in the sink, stowing the carton back into the freezer while I circle the counter to go to her. “You look tense.”
I pull her against me, breathing in the scent of her shampoo and letting it calm my errant thoughts. “Just a really long night.”
“Oh?” She pushes away, smiling up at me coyly as her fingers tease a path down my sternum. “Anything I can do to help with that?”
I reach to cup her face in my hands, my thumbs brushing against her cheeks. How have I only known her for such a shorttime? Why does it feel like it would be something unsurvivable if she were to suddenly walk away?
I try to push this ridiculous train of thought far away. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well, I happen to know for a fact that you have a preferred method of being comforted.”
I grin against her mouth when she pushes up on her toes to meet me, and the thought of making her scream on my tonguedoesimmediately ease some of the tension in my shoulders. “I’d be happy to indulge if you want to hop up on the counter,” I murmur against her mouth.
