Chapter 10
Chapter ten
Cece
The last three weeks are out of a dream I never allowed myself to have.
After the morning at the quarry, Cash and I have seen each other nearly every day.
He texts me in the morning to find out my plans, which usually involve baking while the sun rises to fill Betsy’s order, then a bike ride or a drive with Cash out to what’s become our spot.
And I always get a goodnight text. Last week, instead of going to the quarry or for a ride, he took me to a furniture store.
“What are we doing here?” I’d asked and his grin made my chest tighten.
“I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with the house once it’s finished, but I figured in the meantime, it needs a couch and a kitchen table. Somewhere comfortable for us to sit. Maybe we’ll even find a couple rocking chairs for the porch.”
“And I’m here because…” I asked, looking around the giant showroom.
“You spend just about as much time there as I do. I want you to be comfortable. Plus, picking out furniture and shit isn’t my strong suit.”
I chuckle and look around the sea of couches we’re standing in front of. “And you think it’s mine?”
“Sweetheart, between the two of us, I think we have a good shot at finding something nice.”
So we did, and the pieces were delivered yesterday.
Now the living room has an oversized plush leather couch with a couple fancy throw pillows, and the kitchen contains a light oak dining table and chairs.
We found a set of two cushioned rocking chairs.
I was right. Dusk is a beautiful time of day on his front porch, especially in the most comfortable rocking chairs I’ve ever sat in.
He hasn’t tried for anything other than a few sweet kisses. He never pushes for more, saying we have all the time in the world, and I’ve never been wooed. The man actually used that word.
Cash has no idea that the day he kissed me at the quarry was my first real kiss.
I’ve had men smash their mouths against mine, but none were ever gentle like Cash, and none were ever consensual.
The way he lights me up to my very core is something I didn’t know I could feel.
There’s a perfect intimacy in the way his lips move against mine, and for the first time, I want to take things further, want to know what it feels like to let someone in my body on my terms. The thought of taking things to a new level with Cash doesn’t scare me in the least. It never could.
A few times, he’s shown up at the house after I’ve already been there for a couple hours. He sets a vase of flowers on the kitchen table he purchased, gives me a sweet kiss, then we pack up his truck and take the pastries to Cool Beans.
I like that Cash wants to take it slowly.
He’s building trust between us, and that makes me feel important.
Not that I thought I wasn’t, but this is an entirely new layer to our relationship, and I’m not exactly well versed in starting something with someone who I actually care about.
My marriage, if you can even call it that, certainly wasn’t in the realm of consensual.
But those thoughts have no place in what’s developing between me and Cash.
I save all of that anger for when I’m training with Roman. He wasn’t kidding when he said they weren’t going to take it easy on me. I’ve come home with a lot more bruises than the one Cash saw the first day we delivered to Cool Beans.
I didn’t know how to answer him when he asked me about the bruises since I haven’t yet clued him in that I’ve taken the self-defense thing to an entirely new level. I know it’s a lie. I’m not stupid. Maybe not outright, but a lie by omission is still a lie.
When I leave the house in the evenings, he thinks I'm going to self-defense class, and I let him. I’m still not ready to tell him.
Maybe I’m afraid he’ll try to talk me out of it.
Maybe I’m afraid he’ll think I’m crazy for even attempting it.
Or maybe I still don’t one-hundred-percent trust that he won’t run to Lucy and Jude with the information.
Trust takes time to build. I just hope it doesn’t blow up in my face before I’m ready for that conversation.
But even that thought isn’t enough to stop me from making the drive into Ayre every night.
“It’s really something,” Roman says after we’ve finished a round of sparring at his makeshift apartment gym.
We’re sitting on the mats, and I’m guzzling water like I’ve been deprived for days.
“How far you’ve come. I don’t think I ever worked with someone who was so attuned to their own body and aware of where the other person is, as well as being able to anticipate nearly every move. ”
“I’ve had plenty of practice. I had to get good at it. If I wasn’t aware of Otto at every moment, I never would have been able to brace myself and probably would’ve been hurt much worse.”
“Your weapons knowledge isn’t too shabby either,” he says with a tilt to his lips.
I may have let him think I wasn’t as handy with a pistol as I actually am. The first time he took me to a range, the way his eyes widened was comical. Thank God he had a good sense of humor as he mumbled, “Been awhile, huh?”
“I’m not quite as good as my sister, but I can hold my own,” I admitted to him.
“I can see that,” he’d said when he looked at the paper target with the outline of a body that had two shots to the chest and one to the head.
I smile at the memory and set my water bottle to the side. “When do you think I’ll be ready?”
“You have some more work to do, but it’ll be soon. Don’t rush it,” he answers.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I need to be patient.” His entire team has been pounding that into my head since the start.
“It’s important you understand that, Cece. I don’t want you getting hurt. You still struggle with disarming someone, and Jimmy can incapacitate you too easily if you’re not focused enough.”
“Only if I’m not focused, though.”
“What do you think it’s like out there?” Roman pins me with his stare.
“There is no controlled setting where you’re going to be able to call it quits, or the guy stops at simply getting you on the ground.
So yeah, I’m going to make damn sure that when you go after someone, they won’t get the upper hand.
The fact that you’re a woman taking on a man possibly twice your size will stun them, sure.
But only for a few seconds at most. Then they won’t care.
And that’s when they become unpredictable. ”
I have plenty of experience dealing with unpredictable men. Actually, they’ve all been pretty damn predictable. They enjoy hurting women. All of them.
Now it’s finally my turn to hurt them back.
Grabbing my phone, I check the time. “I should go. I have to be up early,” I say, noting the late hour.
Roman shakes his head and releases a light chuckle. “Baker by day, vigilante-in-training by night.”
“What can I say?” My lips curl up at the corners. “I’m a multifaceted woman.”
“That you are.”
Roman hops up and offers me his hand, pulling me from the mat.
I walk over to the kitchen counter and grab my bag. “See you later,” I say, waving at him on my way out the door.
Instead of going to Roman’s the next evening, I head to my self-defense class. The training I get with Roman is a far cry above what we learn here, but I’ve become attached to these women. Maybe even close to being friends. That’s not something I’ve ever had outside of my sister and her friends.
Leandra is here tonight, but I still haven’t seen Thea. It’s been a few weeks since her surgery, so I’d imagine she needs more time to heal.
“Hey,” I say, having a seat on the mat next to Leandra.
“Hey, girl. It’s been a minute since I’ve seen you. Your man keeping you busy?” she says with a knowing grin.
I return her smile and feel the blush creeping up my neck. “A little.”
“I have to say, he wasn’t what I was expecting. Not that I expected anything, since you’ve never talked about him.” Leandra quirks her brow.
“It’s still new. And we’re taking things slow.”
“Slow is good,” she says, nodding.
“It is. But sometimes I want to…” I try to think about how to describe exactly how I’m feeling about the place our relationship is in.
“Climb him like a tree?”
I bark out a laugh. “Yeah, something like that.”
“I don’t blame you,” she says, laughing along with me.
“How is Thea doing, by the way? You haven’t said much since letting me know her surgery went well.”
Leandra blows out a long breath as she stretches her arms over her head.
“Physically, she’s much better. Mentally, she’s afraid of her own shadow.
She’s been staying with me since she got out of the hospital, and every time she hears someone walking up the staircase outside of my apartment, she freezes and listens to make sure they keep walking.
She’s terrified he’s going to find her. I don’t necessarily want her to, but I think she should move home with her parents.
He’s a lot less likely to show up out of state than he is to see her again when I live so close. ”
“I thought that was the plan. Did she change her mind?”
“She’s still embarrassed. It’s crazy that her asshole ex is running around town without a care in the world, and she feels shame for what he did to her.” Leandra shakes her head. “It fucking pisses me off. Danny’s still out there living his life as though he didn’t nearly destroy hers.”
“That’s her ex’s name?”
“Yup, Danny Crispin. Upstanding correctional officer for the state of Massachusetts.” Her nose scrunches with a look of disgust covering her face. “God, I wish she would have called that guy.”
Leandra is referring to Roman. Honestly, I wish she would have called him, too. Sounds like Danny could use a taste of his own foul medicine.
“A girlfriend of ours says she sees him out at that bar a few blocks from here. Lottie’s something or other.”
“Lottie’s Tavern?” I ask.