Chapter 72 Cass
***Cass***
Hayes shot me a look. “Stay quiet. You did nothing wrong here.”
One of the cops put his hand on my shoulder to push me towards the house but I brushed his hand off to continue glaring at Hayes. “Don’t tell me to stay quiet. Just because that’s how you handle things doesn’t mean it’s the right way. Sometimes staying quiet is an admission of guilt!”
West sidestepped the cop trying to corral him and grabbed my hand. “And sometimes it’s a sign of ignorance and a failed attempt to give you the space we thought you needed.”
“Alright! That’s enough! Get over there right now or I’ll handcuff you!” An older cop with a thick mustache raised his voice at me and shoved West away. “No one is going to collude and align their stories!”
“Don’t put your hands on those kids! What is wrong with you?” Aunt Jolene stomped her foot and lifted her whip again. “That mustache makes me think you’d be into getting whipped. Come over here to me, big guy.”
Elvis grabbed the whip and tossed it away before pulling Aunt Jolene into his arms. “You’re not whipping anyone unless it’s me, baby.”
“We fucked up, Strawberry. We didn’t mean any of that shit we said.
I think we were just jealous and being assholes and it came out without us-” Hayes was cut short by another officer pulling his arms behind his back to cuff him.
“Hey, what the hell? You just ripped out half of the hair on my arm. Damn. And could you wait? I’m trying to get my girl back. ”
“You forgive me for cutting your crotches out, Elvie?” Aunt Jolene ignored more cops and wrapped her arms around Elvis. “I missed you.”
“These people are insane! Let me go!” Jay Kong walked towards his truck and dragged the cop who was trying to grab his arm. “I knew I should’ve never gotten involved with a woman who won’t show me her real hair.”
“Sir! You need to stop! I will tase you!”
“We should’ve called. We should’ve come here and broken in.” Cash shot a look at the cop closest to him. “You know, metaphorically.”
“Break them up already! Jesus!” The mustache cop was yelling and pointing at where Aunt Jolene and Elvis were making out.
“I miss you so fucking much, Cassidy. I should’ve told you before. And now may not be the best time but I love you. I want to be with you.” Finding himself being cuffed, too, Cash shot the cop a dirty look before refocusing on me. “I love you. Do you hear me?”
“Taser! Taser! Taser!” Jay Kong fell sideways into the grass and groaned when the officer who’d tased him put him in cuffs.
“Separate them, goddammit!” Mustache was so focused on Aunt Jolene and Elvis making out that he didn’t notice West coming close to me again.
“I love you, Cassidy. I fucking love you so much and I’ve never felt this way before so I fucked up.
I fucked up and I’ll never forgive myself for hurting you or making you think I’m like the assholes who came before us.
I’m not like them. I know how much you’re worth and how fucking lucky I am that you looked twice at me.
” He cupped my face in his hands and searched my eyes. “Don’t leave us.”
“Alright, lover boy! Get away from her.” Mustache pulled me away from West and pushed my shoulder so I’d sit down on the front step. “If this is a fucking gang, I’m the goddamn muffin man. Who called this shit in?”
I looked around at the chaos going on around us and my breath caught in my throat.
Neighbors were lining the street to watch what was happening.
Jay Kong was rolling around on the ground like a swollen snake, crying about the taser.
Aunt Jolene and Elvis were almost humping each other while an exasperated female cop tried to make them stop.
Hayes and Cash were in handcuffs and kept popping up from wherever the cops put them to try to get to me.
There were flowers everywhere and the sweet floral scent made the fight that had just happened feel surreal.
And there I was, sat on our front step, wondering what the hell dimension I’d stumbled into.
“I love you, too, Cassidy! Probably more than my brothers! Say you’ll forgive us!” Hayes was stopped by another exasperated cop and forced to his butt on the grass.
As soon as the cop focused on Hayes, Cash popped up and rushed over to me. “Say we aren’t too late.”
“What the fuck is going on here?! Are you all on drugs! This is a real police investigation and you’re all about to be charged with interfering with an active investigation!
Everyone needs to sit down and shut the fuck up!
” Mustache grabbed Cash by the back of his shirt and dragged him towards one of the police cars.
My heart was pounding and I shot to my feet, unsure of what to do.
I couldn’t comprehend everything. I couldn’t make sense of their words or if they really meant them.
Did they really love me? Where had they been?
Why had they said what we had was fake? “You don’t mean it, do you? Is this about the PR plan?”
The cop who put Cash in the backseat of their patrol car didn’t shut the door all the way before turning to assist their partner in gaining control over Jay Kong and the second he stepped away Cash was out of the car and back at my side.
“Fuck the PR plan. This is real. What we have is real, Cassidy. You know that. You feel it, too. I know you do.”
“I thought it was real but you hurt me. You guys said it was fake when I needed your support the most. You left me. You didn’t try to come see me at all.”
“We came that night, Cassidy!” West struggled to his feet after having been cuffed and pushed into the grass. “We came straight here and we wanted to talk to you but Jolene threatened to castrate us.”
Aunt Jolene came up for air and glared at West. “It didn’t take you long to snitch, did it?”
“You came that night?” I turned on Aunt Jolene. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“They needed to spend a few days understanding how amazing you are. They needed to miss you and I knew if they didn’t come back to fix it, you were better off.” She smiled up at Elvis. “The good ones come back.”
“You know what?! Is anyone here pressing charges?” Mustache was fed up. He’d gone bright red and there was a vein pulsing in his forehead that screamed for a break.
“I… I don’t know.” I wrapped my arms around myself and shook my head. I couldn’t handle another let down.
“You don’t know if you’re pressing charges?”
“What? No, I’m not talking to you.” I looked at the three men I loved, all standing still, ignoring police orders, and watching me with so much hope in their eyes that I lost my ability to form words for a few seconds. They loved me.
“Go for it, honey!” Aunt Jolene had finally been peeled away from Elvis and he was currently being pushed towards a patrol car. “Hey! Where are you taking him? He didn’t do anything wrong! Elvis would never hurt anyone!”
“Elvis is dead!” One of the neighbors thought they’d get involved, it seemed.
“You’re dead if you don’t shut the hell up! Why are you even out here? Get a life! You act like you’ve never seen a brawl in someone’s yard before! You’re the worst kind of Texans!”
“Cassidy!” Cash was being taken back to the car he’d escaped. “Give us one more chance. Please!”
West appeared at my side with one of the cuffs gone. He grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me close. “You’re not going to chicken out of taking a chance on us, are you?”
“Dammit, West! Do not goad her right now!” Hayes was stomping towards us but got stopped by two cops. “Come on, y’all! Nothing happened here. No one’s pressing charges and no crimes were committed. Let us go. We’re trying to win back our girl and you’re killing us.”
“Everyone who looks like they were fighting is going in to cool off. We’re not leaving y’all out here to start another fucking fight.
” Mustache grabbed West and pulled him away.
“And we’re real happy you’re figuring out your love life because you’ve sucked in practice lately, but now’s not the time! ”
“Hey! It’s been a shitty week. And those are closed practices.” West pouted back at me. “The only thing that’s going to make me feel better about how this guy just crushed my ego is if you say you’ll take a chance on us.”
Jay Kong had calmed down slightly but when he heard the practice talk he must’ve clued in on who he’d been fighting. “The Ford brothers?! I can’t wait to tell everyone I kicked all three of your asses at once!”
“Tell ‘em you gave us swirlies and atomic wedgies for all I fucking care, dickhead. You’re the size of an SUV! Of course, you kicked our asses! But this isn’t about you!
It’s about that woman forgiving us.” Cash was yelling over the head of the cop trying to shove him into the car. “What do you say, sweetheart?”
Mustache looked back at me and groaned. “Just say you forgive them so we can go already. I’ve got a headache and this is pissing me off.”
I looked down at the ground but my lips gave me away.
The smile stretching them wide couldn’t be hidden.
The sound of my men cheering made me laugh and when I looked back up at each of them I couldn’t miss the way they looked at me with so much care.
And love. I’d never been looked at the way they were looking at me and I was glad for the first time that Cole had never loved me.
Nothing I’d ever had or felt with Cole could compare to the feeling of them staring at me with their hearts on their sleeves.
“I forgive you.” Before I could gather the courage to tell them that I loved them, too, the cops finally got tired of our shit and hauled all the men off to jail.