Chapter 18
eighteen
Georgia
The scent of herbal tea and bacon pulls me from sleep, and I’m greeted by the sight of tiny, gently swirling snowflakes beyond the blue lace curtains of my room.
For a minute, it’s pure bliss, and I roll over under my warm nest of blankets to enjoy a bit more sleep—until I roll onto something lumpy.
I reach down to pull it out and find Cash’s T-shirt in my hand.
The night flashes back to me in a heady rush: Cash and his bare skin on mine and the most beautiful words on earth falling from his lips.
My body seizes up. He really said that, and we really did that, right here in the Hartnells’ guest room, with Maisy down the hall and his parents who knows where…feet below us possibly? I yank the blankets over my head and squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t recognize myself right now.
Thirty minutes of freaking out later, I venture out of my bedroom dressed in loose jeans and a baby-pink sweater, my hair twisted into a prim braid.
A peek into Maisy’s room tells me she’s still asleep, and I hesitate in the hallway, dreading an encounter with Amy or John and wondering if I should go back to my room.
Instead, striving to be a grown-up and hoping to find Cash, I head for the stairs.
Halfway down the steps, I spot Cash’s shirtless torso before anything else.
He’s seated at the kitchen counter in nothing but baggy sweatpants, his big hand curled around a blue coffee mug, the beautiful maze of tattoos that stretch over his shoulder and down to his wrist on full display in the sunlight.
My fingertips prickle at the sight of the candle flame tattoo over his right pec, remembering how it felt to slide over the hot, sweat-dampened skin.
Knowing that if the counter wasn’t in the way and his pants were pulled low enough, I could see the words written between his hip bones.
Not Done Yet. So very Cash. Bravado and yet-unfulfilled promises made devastatingly sexy.
By the time his face comes into view, the prickle has spread to my entire body.
He lifts his gaze to me, and I’m inundated by the delicious feeling of knowing that, just for this instant, nothing but me exists in his world.
“Morning,” I say shyly when my feet hit the tiled floor.
Cash sips his coffee without looking away from me. “Morning, Georgia. How was your night?”
Heat floods my cheeks when I say, “Pretty great.” As electricity crackles in the air, I have to look away, but my eyes find his hand, and the memory of his practiced fingers exploring my body turns the kitchen uncomfortably warm.
“Music to my ears,” Cash says, and when I risk a glance at him, he offers up a devastating wink.
“Son.” John’s voice sounds, and he appears out of nowhere—or maybe he was there all along and I couldn’t see anything but Cash—dressed in black chinos and a gray sweater and looking like he’s been awake for hours.
It’s a single word that carries the message of a dozen more, and Cash’s trance breaks as he nods at his father. “Morning, Dad.”
Does John know? Can he read the way Cash is staring at me? Could he possibly have—oh shit—heard us last night? I want to run upstairs and dive under the covers. I’m never going to be invited back again.
John grabs Cash’s white Shafer Football sweatshirt off the kitchen stool and hands it to him. “It’s freezing out.”
A rare guilty look crosses Cash’s face. “Thanks,” he says and yanks the sweatshirt over his head.
“Georgia.” John’s voice has brightened by the time he turns my way. “Can I interest you in some breakfast? I make a mean omelet.”
Flustered, I accept the offer, even though I’m not hungry, and settle at the kitchen island with Cash out of my line of sight.
Then Amy waltzes in the back door with a box of donuts, and she and John squabble good-naturedly over why she’d bring donuts into the house when he’s making eggs—not to mention there are two boxes of Pop-Tarts in the pantry—and the awkwardness fades amid all the noise.
I’m halfway through my mushroom and Swiss omelet, which is indeed delicious, when Maisy stumbles down the stairs in slippers and a fluffy blue robe. She greets her parents, ruffles her brother’s hair, pours herself a cup of coffee, and sits next to me with a yawn. “You sleep okay last night?”
I chew deliberately slow, delaying my answer so I can make a quick study of her expression.
Her sleepy gaze is serene and focused on the window that overlooks the backyard.
Did she hear anything? We were quiet…at least I think we were, but then again, I was utterly out of my head.
I could have screamed my throat raw and not even known it.
Or what if she noticed Cash’s bedroom was empty?
Shit. Of course we have to tell her we want to be together, but overhearing us in bed wouldn’t be the ideal way to break the news.
“I did,” I assure her. “Comfy bed.”
“Good.” She slides the donuts my way and turns to look at me, and I can’t help freezing, expecting her to tell me I’ve been caught.
Over her shoulder, Cash is watching us with his coffee mug suspended in midair.
Maisy leans close and whispers, “Don’t tell him I said this, but Dad’s omelets aren’t half as good as he thinks they are. ”
“Oh.” I laugh in relief. “I’m enjoying it, actually. Donuts are all yours.”
“You sure you don’t want to come with me to brunch? You’ll like my friends. There’s no Avery in the group.”
“No, you go ahead. I’m happy to stay here and enjoy the snow from the living room couch.”
After Maisy heads out, Cash finds me curled up in the den, leafing through a coffee-table book about space exploration.
He leans in the doorway, hands in his pockets. “We’ve got the house to ourselves.”
Why am I giggling?
“You want to take a walk?”
I pause. “I’m not up on our generation’s dirty slang. Is there another meaning I should know?”
Cash smiles and, for a passing second, has the nerve to look a bit shy. “No, but I can invent one if you’d like.”
“Let’s take a walk.”
The Hartnells’ house is set on an expansive wooded lot, and as soon as we step out into the backyard, memories trickle in.
Hot, humid days, green all around from the wild shrubs and grasses and the canopy of leaves overhead, sunlight stretching down onto my bare arms as Cash led me through the forest all those summers ago.
Feeling uncertain about everything except the fact Cash knew what he was doing.
“These woods sure look different since the last time I was here.”
The sky is a limp gray, the only color the browns of the bare branches that stretch up and out from the surrounding trees.
But instead of gloomy, it’s peaceful and beautiful.
The leaves under our feet are mottled with white from the morning’s dusting of snow.
Here and there, the silence is broken by camouflaged animals—usually squirrels, once a small clan of deer—bolting into the trees.
“Oh yeah. Feels like a jungle in the summer. I like it in winter, though. It’s quiet.”
“Who’d have thought Cash Hartnell values quiet?”
He wraps his arm around me. “Nothing I love more than quiet. So. How are you feeling about everything?”
“I feel…good?” I laugh at the inadequacy of the word. “Still a little in disbelief, but I’m happy.”
“Me too.” He looks at me exactly the way I want to be looked at. “What part are you in disbelief about?”
“All of it. That we had sex in your parents’ guest room, that I’m in a secret relationship with my friend’s brother, that I’m back here at your house after all these years. It’s pretty surreal. I never imagined I’d come back.”
“I know it’s hard on you.”
I shrug. “I wouldn’t say that. I’m happy here.
And you know, it’s not just your family that makes this a happy place for me.
Those weeks I spent here with you guys after my parents died?
I know it sounds weird that I could have experienced any joy days after losing them, but in my memory, I was happy.
Maybe it hadn’t hit me yet. But other than the time I spent with Aunt Julie, this was my last happy memory for a long, long time. ”
“This place?”
I nod. “This yard, this house. Maisy and your parents.” I look at him, trying to call up an image of the way he looked back then. “You.” The truth of it sinks in: Finding Cash again is the first truly wonderful thing that’s happened to me since before I lost my parents.
“Me? I can’t imagine I was anything but loud and obnoxious and probably whining about having to share the TV with my sister while you were going through a tragedy.”
“Not true. You don’t remember how sweet you were to me?”
“Sweet,” he says doubtfully. “I don’t get that often.”
“You should. You walked me through these woods for hours. You showed me your favorite spots and told me stories about little adventures you and your friends had back here. You bragged about being the fastest kid in your class.”
“Sounds about right.”
“I don’t remember half of what we said to each other, but I liked being near you. I felt safe with you.”
Cash makes a fist and thumps it against his heart. “You get me right here, you know that?”
I smile.
“I mean it, Georgia. If I ever made you feel safe, then at least I know I’ve done one worthwhile thing with my life. I hope you’ll always feel that way with me. I don’t want to see you cry like you did last night.”
“Yeah. There were some weird emotions going through me last night. I’m not usually—”
“But you can. You can cry like that to me every night if you need to, and I’ll be here. I’ll take care of you. I’ll fix whatever it is that’s hurting. And if I can’t, I’ll be here to hold you until you don’t want to cry anymore.”
A shuddery sigh racks my chest. “Shit, here I go again,” I whisper through tears that have appeared out of nowhere. I swipe at them with the backs of my hands, wishing them away, unnerved by how easily my emotions keep ripping free from my grip since I’ve been here.