Chapter 27
twenty-seven
Georgia
“Ship, captain, crew!” Ruby announces, holding up a cup of dice in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other.
Cash pounds his fists on the kitchen table with a hearty “Finally!”
I groan, only half serious. “Why didn’t anyone warn me? I wouldn’t have drank an entire glass of wine if I knew this was coming.”
Reeve slides into the chair next to me. “A few weeks with this animal, and you’re still a lightweight? You really are one in a million.”
Across from me, Cash leans back and puts his hands behind his head. “If you want to get technical, she’s been official with this animal for a month. Best month of my life, though.”
“Save it for the wedding,” Reeve says dismissively.
Lorenzo raises his glass of water. “Best month of all our lives—you haven’t torn your shirt off in public since you met this girl.”
“Amen,” Reeve says, then grabs a beer from the end of the table, twists off the cap, and hands it to me. “Don’t worry, you’re among friends. Get sloppy-ass drunk and enjoy it.”
I won’t get sloppy-ass drunk, but I will enjoy a little buzz.
Funny to think of my first game night and how nervous I was, sure I wouldn’t fit in among Cash’s friends, and now it’s the night I most look forward to every week.
Ruby, a far better cook than me, always brings homemade snacks, and with the boys recently deciding that if they can’t drink, they can at least gamble, there’s a heightened spirit of competition every time the deck of cards or set of dice comes out.
Ruby gets her wish, and we play girls versus boys, a fortuitous choice because every girl in the house has luck on her side. Even Mr. Jangles, who usually naps close to Cash, chooses the empty chair between Lenni and Ruby and watches us in between cleaning herself and dozing off.
After a beer and a few rounds, we girls are divvying up our not-insubstantial pile of dollar bills and quarters when a noise rings out from the front of the house.
“Cash?” a voice calls, and the sound instantly sobers me. By the time Maisy appears in the kitchen doorway, my cozy little alcohol haze has abandoned me.
“Mais,” Cash says as his sister surveys the table with a look of irritation. “Where’d you come from?”
“Home. We’re supposed to do dinner together.”
“Tonight?”
“We switched it because I’m tutoring tomorrow, remember?”
“Uh. Now I do.”
Maisy rolls her eyes. “Okay, so let’s go.”
“We’re in the middle of a game. Come on, join us for a round. We got chips, drinks, this froufrou little French dessert Ruby made. I hate to think what I look like eating it, but it’s damn tasty.”
“Sounds nice, but I need real food.” She nods impatiently toward the front of the house. “Come on, let’s go.”
“I’m not just gonna up and leave. We got a game going here, and it just got interesting. Tell you what, if I win this round, I’ll treat you to two dinners this week.”
Unsure where to look or what to do with my hands, I keep sipping my beer and watching it inch closer to empty.
“Maisy, get in here,” Ruby insists, patting the empty seat next to her. Across from me, Jade catches my gaze, and her eyes flare, acknowledging Ruby’s drunkenness and the invitation hanging in the air.
“I’m not in the mood for games.”
“Then sit down and chill for a minute,” Ruby says. “You could use it.”
In the face of Maisy’s silence, I set my empty beer down and gather the dice for my turn, but my body warns me she’s looking my way.
“Know what?” Maisy finally says. “You’re having a good time, you stay. We can miss dinner for a week. I’m gonna head out.”
Relief trickles over me at the calm tone of her voice, but Cash must detect something entirely different in it because he mutters “Shit” and pops up out of his chair. “Sit tight, I’ll be right back,” he tells me with a quick squeeze of my shoulders, and then he’s trailing Maisy.
There’s no sound except their footsteps and the creak of the front door opening and closing.
Then there’s none at all. I pretend to study the dice, but the weight of the glances that pass over me is unbearably heavy.
When I can’t stand it any longer, I prepare a smile and force myself to look up at everyone.
“Should we wait for him?” I ask too cheerfully. “Or…?”
Lorenzo gives me a kind smile across the table. “Don’t bother. You walk out in the middle of a game, you lose your spot.”
“I don’t mind,” I insist. “Maybe he’ll convince Maisy to join us.”
There’s a pregnant pause before Reeve finally winks and says, “We don’t want that any more than you do, Georgia.” That’s all it takes to break the tension, and everyone relaxes into a laugh while gratitude to Reeve—to the entire table, actually—surges inside me.
“Seriously. We all love Maisy, but the girl’s a hard-ass, and when she’s in a mood like that, you best shut your mouth, or she’ll shut it for you,” Cam says, taking me by surprise. It’s the most opinionated thing—and maybe the most words—he’s said all night.
“Exactly,” Ruby says. “If you scared her off, we all owe you.”
Protests and laughter go up around the room, and Lorenzo hoots. “Look who’s gonna act like she didn’t just invite the girl to sit down and make herself comfortable.”
Then Ruby’s laughingly trying to defend herself while a few people pile on her, and someone else points out how she was only trying to stay out of the line of fire.
The attention has mercifully shifted away from me, and I relax.
It’s probably only the effect of too much alcohol, but it wouldn’t take much for tears to spring to my eyes.
Knowing Cash’s friends—my friends—want me here instead of Maisy and want nothing more than to sweep away my discomfort soothes the ache inside me.
And for the first time, the standoff with Maisy doesn’t fill me with despair.
She’ll forgive me or she won’t. But I haven’t lost my only friend.
When Cash returns sometime later, Jade’s topping off my drink while Lenni makes a dice tower and the boys discuss travel arrangements for the Combine.
His expression is strained, but it eases when he locks eyes with me.
Instead of reclaiming his seat, he chooses the empty chair next to me, and his hand finds mine under the table.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“She was a little pissed, but what else is new? I promised to make it up to her, and I will. Tonight I’m here.” He kisses my cheek.
“Good. Get up again and your ass is outta the game,” Lorenzo declares.
“Tonight was fun,” I say a few hours later in Cash’s bedroom. “Your friends are the best.”
“My friends?” He hands me a pair of his sweatpants and a T-shirt, neatly folded and fresh from his closet.
“Our friends.” I flush with pleasure. God, I’m such a dork.
“Yeah, they are. You complete the circle, know that?”
“I do fit in pretty well,” I admit, stepping out of my jeans and pulling on his sweatpants.
I can’t resist bringing his T-shirt to my nose and inhaling the clean, familiar scent before tugging it over my head.
But as I kick my discarded clothes into the corner, the nagging feeling returns.
“Can I ask you something and not get a sugarcoated answer?”
“Shoot.” Cash tugs his sweatshirt and T-shirt over his head, leaving his hair adorably messy.
“Did I take Maisy’s place in the group? Because she was clearly surprised—and pissed—to see me around the table.”
“It’s not like that. She’s good with my friends, but it’s not like she was the eighth member of the crew. She’s not cool enough.”
“Oh, but I am?”
He glances in the mirror, sliding a hand over his abs like he’s making sure they’re still as ripped as they were the last time he checked. They are. “Yes.” His gaze shifts to me in the reflection. “Your passion for classical music put you right over the top.”
I chuckle.
“Maisy’s going through her own shit right now.” He hesitates. “And if you want the non-sugarcoated version, she was a little jealous you’re the reason I decided I want to play football next year.”
“I’m the reason?”
“You’re the reason for everything good in my life.” He pushes his curls back into place and turns to face me. “You gave me the courage to do what I really want instead of following orders. You’re a gift, darling.”
I move for him, my emotions still a little loose and his words doing nothing to fix that. “Thank you,” I whisper, pressing myself to the warm wall of his chest.
“You quit worrying about Maisy. That’s not your problem.” His hand slips under my waistband and squeezes my butt. “Now get your ass in bed, baby.”
“Wait, I still need to email a few electricians about fixing the deck lighting.”
“It’s almost two a.m.”
“It won’t take long.”
“Hold on.” He adds another hand to the gropefest happening inside my pants. “Let me taste you first. Then I promise to help you.”
“You will not, you’ll sleep like the dead.” I smile but pull away. “I mean it, I need to do this first if I want everything in good shape for the reunion. Then we can have fun.”
“This reunion is pretty important to you, isn’t it?”
The words hang between us while I hesitate. Why do I find myself wanting to deny it? “I guess it is.”
“Reconnecting with your family? Is that what it’s about?”
“Well…not exactly. You can’t reconnect with someone you were never connected to.” It sounds sad spoken out loud, but it’s true. The people I’ve invited are essentially strangers.
“So what makes it such a big deal?”
“I guess I want to connect with them for the first time, honor what I can only guess my parents and my great-aunt would have wanted me to do. That way I can move on.”
His eyes narrow, studying me. “Move on to what?”
By the time I open my mouth to answer the seemingly simple question, I realize it’s not simple at all.
“My plan was always to go back home, find a job, and return to the life I had before.” Dread rises inside me.
“But…” Tell him. Everything is safe with him.
“A lot’s changed since I made that plan. ”
He nods. “What happens with us and what happens with your life—what you move on to—are the same. You’re talking about moving on from connecting with your family, moving on from a place I know means something to you.
And maybe I’m wrong, but it sounds like you’re talking about going back to how you were before.
When you were alone. Is that still what you want? ”
“No, of course not.”
“Then maybe it’s time you stop thinking about all the ways you can move on,” he says with a patient smile.
“I think it is,” I agree. “But things have changed so quickly. I haven’t even had time to rethink my plans.”
“Things have moved fast. But when you know, you know. I, for example, know I want you at the center of my life.” He crooks his arm around my neck. “So what do you want your future to look like?”
Suddenly I feel shy. “I know I want to be with you.”
“You should warn a man before you give him the best news of his life.”
A smile tugs at my lips. “But what would that look like? You could end up anywhere.”
“That doesn’t scare me. We’ll make it work no matter what.
If we have to do long distance for a while, so what?
It won’t be forever. I promise you, Georgia, I’ll make it work.
” There he goes again, thinking everything is as simple as saying it out loud.
But his confidence in the words warms my heart and makes it impossible not to believe them.
I place a kiss on his collarbone. “I believe you.”
“And what about your family? And your house?”
“I love that house, but I have to be practical. I have to let it go.”
“And your family?”
I shake my head, sighing. “Okay, you’ve worn me down. I admit it: I want to know my family. But I need to meet these people before I can say whether I want them in my life for the next fifty years.”
“And there’s nothing I’d enjoy more than screening these folks and judging for myself whether they’re worthy of being in your life.”
“I appreciate your services.”
“Just know that laughing at my jokes and enjoying my swagger are gonna be requirements for anyone who wants access to you. Might wanna put that right on the invitations.”