Chapter 7 #2
“I’m sorry,” I said. I hated when Cash was sad and there was nothing I could do about it. At least it wasn’t so bad he was hiding in the closet, though. It had been a while since he’d done that.
He hummed and tugged the edges of his blanket burrito free so we could cuddle. It was nice for a little while, and then he said, “You smell like jizz.”
See, people thought Cash was all sweet and shy because of the not-talking thing, but he was actually sometimes kind of a dick.
“I fucked the boss,” I said, and Cash jolted hard.
“The fuck?” he demanded. “He must be fifty!”
“Not Bobby! Jesus fucking Christ. The baker. Lee.”
“Oh.” Cash relaxed again, and then, his brows tugging together, he said, “Why?”
“What do you mean why? Because he’s hot and I wanted to.”
He hummed again, like he didn’t quite believe me.
Which wasn’t fair, because Lee was hot, and I had wanted it.
Just that wasn’t the only reason, but I wasn’t sure Cash would be able to wrap his head around the idea of hate fucking.
We might have looked exactly the same, but we had very different natures.
He’d gotten all the good stuff, his occasional comments about jizz notwithstanding.
He’d gotten the kindness, the empathy, and the crazy belief that most people in the world were actually decent human beings if you gave them a chance to prove it—and I’d gotten all the shitty stuff from whatever had been left over floating in the dregs at the bottom of the personality barrel.
Cash wouldn’t have been annoyed by Lee and all the shit he’d done, like leave me instructions on how to make different types of coffees, or show me how to open the walk-in door from the inside, or tell me I could have free quiches, because Cash didn’t get that it was patronizing.
I’d never asked for Lee’s help, so fuck him for giving it to me like he thought I needed it or whatever.
Because I didn’t. I didn’t need anyone’s help.
I pressed my fingers to the place on my collarbone where he’d bitten me, just to feel the bruise. It throbbed a little with my heartbeat. So did the ache in my ass. And here I was wondering why the hell Lee Torres got under my skin so bad, when this afternoon I’d invited him there.
My dad had always said I was a useless fuck-up who didn’t know what was good for me, and hell, maybe he’d been right about that.
Everything else he’d ever said had been total bullshit, so going by the law of averages he had to have gotten at least something right once in his life, I guessed.
But it was easier to hate Lee than to like him and then have to be grateful to him, and I wasn’t going to lose any sleep over it.
“Do we have any Lucky Charms left?” I asked.
Cash shrugged. “I ate them.”
“Seriously?”
“You snooze, you lose.”
I elbowed him, and then, to apologize, I said, “Tell me about Mr. McIntyre?”
“He had photos of all the dogs he ever owned on his bookshelf,” Cash said, snuggling closer. “He told me all their names.”
Cash loved animals. We’d never had any pets when we were kids, for obvious reasons, but Cash had always tried to feed any animals he found lurking around the place.
Maybe that was why he hadn’t been as suspicious as me when Danny had offered to bring us home and feed us that time he’d found us digging through the dumpster behind Goose Run Gas—in Cash’s world, that was what people did with strays.
We didn’t have any pets now either, because we couldn’t afford them, though Gracie was still campaigning on and off for a kitten.
I bet that if she finally wore Wilder down, Cash would be right there doing whatever it was people did with kittens.
Dangled pieces of yarn for them? Cleaned their shit out of a box?
I wasn’t sure of the details apart from that, but it didn’t sound like much fun.
Cash told me about Mr. McIntyre’s dogs, and I listened while my gaze slid around the living room.
The couch was the newest thing in it. It was folded up now, but later on tonight it would be Wilder’s bed, unless he was staying over next door at Avery’s.
The floors were a little scuffed and worn, and the rug had a weird stain on it, but it was nicer than any other place we’d ever lived.
More than that, this house, with its creaking boards and rusted gutters and the lawn that was constantly losing the battle with weeds, was home.
Cash talked about Mr. McIntyre’s dogs for a while longer, and his hand slid into mine, our fingers curling together. Then he let out a long breath and said, “Sorry I ate the Lucky Charms. Want me to make you a sandwich?”
“Nah. I’m not hungry.” I’d had that quiche for lunch, and it had been so fucking tasty.
And free. Maybe I could eat at least two meals a day at work, and I’d be able to save up more quickly for that new jacket I needed while still keeping up with our Lucky Charms addiction.
When we were little kids, Lucky Charms had been the cereal that occasionally appeared in the kitchen and you knew shit was going great.
Like, either Mom or Dad had gotten their hands on some money and for once they’d held on to it long enough to buy us a treat, and we’d all be riding that high for the next few days.
As we got older, the good days slowed first to a trickle and then stopped coming altogether, but Cash and I never really stopped associating Lucky Charms with happy times.
So now we bought them ourselves, as often as we could, even though, real talk, they were kind of gross.
I heard the rumble of Wilder’s truck in the driveway and then the engine cutting out. A few moments later, the front door opened, and a tiny wailing tornado darted past the living room.
Cash sat up and looked at me.
“Gracie?” I called. “You okay?”
Her door slammed.
Wilder’s footsteps sounded on the porch, and then he walked into the living room.
“Hey, guys.” He sat on the couch with a groan.
“Is Gracie okay?” I asked, wondering if it was some more shit with her grandparents.
The Moores rode Wilder hard. They’d pulled their heads in now Miller had told them that their grandparents’ rights idea was bullshit, but they still hated Wilder.
Firstly because he’d knocked their daughter up and hadn’t married her, and their brand of Jesus didn’t approve, and most recently because Wilder was dating Avery.
Their brand of Jesus approved of that even less than the unmarried thing.
Wilder groaned again. “She was moving pretty fast when she got in here, huh?”
Cash nodded.
“She gave herself a haircut at school today,” Wilder said.
I couldn’t stop the laugh that burst out of me, and Cash elbowed me.
“It’s pretty bad,” Wilder said. He rubbed his forehead. “She looks like the crazy Barbie from the movie. You know the one.”
“Weird Barbie,” Cash whispered to me.
“Weird Barbie,” I told Wilder, then said to Cash, “Wait, when did you see that movie?”
“At work,” he whispered.
“He watched it with his old ladies,” I said. “It’s not that bad, is it?”
“Fu—udge.” Wilder sagged back against the couch. “It’s bad bad. And she’s meant to go to the Moores’ tomorrow.”
That made it a lot less funny.
I climbed out of the recliner, half dragging Cash with me since we were tangled in the same blanket, and set off across the hall to Gracie’s room. I knocked on the door and didn’t get an answer. So I knocked again and opened it a crack.
“Hey. Gracie? It’s Uncle Chase. You okay in there?”
“Go away!”
“I’m not coming in unless you want,” I said. “Uncle Cash is here too. You wanna talk to him instead?”
“M-my hair is ugly!” she sobbed, wrenching the door open and staring up at us through tear-filled eyes.
And oh.
Oh shit.
It was pretty fucking bad.
This wasn’t a single slip of the scissors. There were chunks of hair cut out of the front, and it looked like she was missing an entire pigtail. She really did look like that Barbie. Like, there was no fixing this with a couple of hairpins and a side part.
Gracie blinked up at me, and her bottom lip wobbled. “I just wanted to try Avery’s special grown-up scissors!” she wailed.
Cash crouched down and held the blanket open silently, and Gracie launched herself into his arms, clinging tightly and burying her face in his shoulder, her body shaking as she sobbed.
Cash sent me a worried glance before he stood and carried Gracie to his armchair.
The front door opened and Avery hurried in, and shit, he looked almost as upset as Gracie.
“I’m so sorry!” he said to Wilder. “I only turned my back for a minute, I swear! Mia had a new haircut today and everyone was admiring it, and I guess Gracie wanted to get in on the action.”
Wilder shook his head. “It’s not your fault. The main thing is that we get it fixed before tomorrow, because she can’t go to the Moores’ like that. Her grandma will probably take her and get her some bullshit cut. Like a bob.”
“Oh god, no,” Avery said. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve watched my mom cut my sister’s bangs before. I guess I can try and—”
“Nooooo!” Gracie’s wail cut through whatever he’d been going to say.
It was Cash who whispered, “Hairdresser?”
Wilder shook his head, his expression grim. “I called around already. They’re booked out.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Shit. If she goes to her grandparents looking like this, they’ll probably claim I’m an unfit parent.”
“Could we be in Richmond by four thirty?” Avery asked, looking at his phone.
Wilder rubbed his forehead again. “No.”
Avery winced and then said, his tone upbeat, “What cool hats do you have, Gracie?”
She wailed even louder.
“What was the name of that girl from high school who wanted to be a hairdresser?” Wilder asked the room at large.
“Didn’t go to high school with you, babe,” Avery said, still relentlessly—and obviously fakely—upbeat. “So I don’t know.”
“Everyone will laugh at me!” Gracie sobbed against Cash’s chest.
“Come on,” Wilder said, his desperation obvious. “We must know someone.”
Normally I would have kept my mouth shut, because it was going to mean swallowing my pride and asking for a favor, two things I never, ever wanted to do, but it was for Gracie.
She was just a little kid, and the thought of the other kids making fun of her made my chest ache.
And they would, because kids were kids, you know?
“Um,” I said, “so, uh, I think I might know someone.”
Wilder seized on my words as eagerly as a drowning man grabbing for a rope.
“You do?”
This was gonna bite me in the ass in all sorts of horrible ways, but what else could I do?
“I think so,” I said. “Let me make a call.”