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He swallowed.“You’d come pick me up at the airport?”
“Yes,” she said with a giggle.“Thank you, Harrison.It’ll be so fun, you’ll see.”
“Yeah?”He closed his eyes now.“What will we do?Walk on the beach?”
“Sure,” she said.
“I’ll have to meet Jane.”
“She says she wants to meet you.”Cass had told him all about her daughters and their resistance to her selling their childhood home.He thought it was more than that, but he hadn’t pressed her on the issue.She’d said nothing about him, though he knew Conrad and Sariah hadn’t taken to him easily for whatever reason.
“And we can go get one of those caramel apples you’re always bragging about?”
She trilled out a light, quiet giggle.“Yes.”
“Go out to dinner at your favorite place?”
She didn’t answer, and Harrison opened his eyes.“I’m sorry, Cass.”
“I need some new favorites,” she said, and it sounded like an admission.“But we can go to this great place in Corpus Christi.That’s where you fly in.”
“Corpus Christi,” he repeated.“Okay.”
Neither of them said anything else, but it sure was nice just breathing with her and imagining she was in the room with him.“Cass,” he whispered, about to blow things wide open.Maybe.He wasn’t sure about that, actually, and he had to be sure.
“Yeah?”she whispered back.
“I’m lying in bed,” he said.“And listening to you breathe with me, and it’s so nice.It’s like you’re here with me, and I can just reach over and touch you.”He did that, but the other side of the bed sat empty and cold.“I wish you…I want you…” He didn’t know how to finish, and maybe that was the end of what he needed to say.
I want you.
She didn’t respond, but Harrison could still hear her breathing.It came in spurts, actually, which made her pinched, nasally voice which said, “I miss you, Harrison,” make so much more sense.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“It was a nice vision,” she said.“I haven’t had someone breathing in the room next to me in a long time, and I’d forgotten how comforting that is.”
He remained silent this time, and they breathed in and out together again.His eyes drifted closed, and she was right.What a comfort it was to have another human being who cared about him—who cared if he kept breathing—in the same room as him.
He woke sometime later, his arm aching from how he held it up near his head.He wasn’t clutching his phone anymore, and he sat straight up when he realized he’d fallen asleep while on the phone with Cass.
A groan pulled through his chest and throat, because his arm had fallen asleep.He searched for his phone while shaking out his hand, and he found it beneath his extra pillow.
The call had ended, and the clock read just after two.So he’d been asleep for a couple of hours, and Cass had likely hung up on him before she’d fallen asleep.He could hope, at least.
He got up and plugged in his phone, padded into the bathroom, and then stripped off his shirt as he went back to bed.He fell asleep again with thoughts of Cass in his head, and that was exactly how he wanted to end every single day.
Harrison shoulderedhis backpack and waited for the flight attendant to open the door.He wasn’t sitting in the first row, but close enough to the front to see the two women up front still getting things ready.Of course, the moment the seatbelt sign had gone off, everyone had jumped to their feet like they’d plow through the narrow aisle to the door first.
He didn’t understand that, other than his back hadn’t liked the length of the flight.He’d gotten up for that, then took a few moments to fold up his headphones and make sure he had everything stowed in his pack.He hadn’t checked a bag—or even brought a carryon.
He’d be in Texas for less than forty-eight hours, and all he needed was a single change of clothing, a pair of swimming trunks, and some pajamas.Along with his few toiletries, everything had fit in his backpack—and that was with the fancy-pants headphones that came in a case the size of Harrison’s head.
Spence had given them to him for his birthday, and he did love traveling with them.They blocked out so much noise from the plane, and Harrison hadn’t had a headache after a flight since he’d gotten them.
The doors opened, and Harrison’s heart jumped.Because of the long taxi along the tarmac, he knew Cass was here with both of her daughters.He told himself he didn’t need to act any different than normal.He wouldn’t be able to maintain such a façade anyway, and they’d either like him or they wouldn’t.
It’s not that Sariah doesn’t like you, he thought.
