Chapter 12 Bryce
Bryce
Dizzy shot a sly smile and a wink toward my parents as Casey Joe and I leaned against the porch railing after dinner. “You boys sure you don’t want more dessert?”
Casey’s arm around me was a comforting and confusing weight.
Warm and protective, but I had to remember it was all a farce.
“I’m gonna pass but thank you. Everything was delicious.
” A quiet thrill shot through me when he spoke.
Casey Joe was a study in contrasts. Gruff and full of piss and vinegar on one hand, but quick to soften his words and answer Aunt Dizzy politely when needed.
I liked that I got to see both sides of him.
And for a while, I got to call him mine.
Danger! Danger! Abort! Abort!
There was no reason to let myself savor the fake dating. The more I enjoyed it and allowed myself to let it feel real, the worse it would hurt when we stopped pretending.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t lean into Casey’s warm body.
Dizzy sighed and pressed a hand to her chest. “You boys just warm my heart.”
Guilt washed over me. Maybe I’d be the one who ended up getting hurt, but it really wasn’t fair to my family to lie.
Mom, Dad, and Dizzy had all loved Casey Joe right from the start. How easy it would have been to bring him home for real. Except for the whole part about him not being into guys.
Flashes of Casey’s eyes sparking with heat, his nostrils flaring when I teased with innuendo, and the soft feather of his breath against my ear when he’d whispered, “That’s what I thought,” the other night all fought for space in my head.
Okay, so I wasn’t one hundred percent sure he wasn’t into guys.
Or wasn’t into me specifically.
But that didn’t mean I could assume.
We’d started this thing—no, Casey Joe had started this thing—only to get Dizzy off my back. That’s all it was. If he wanted it to be something more, he’d have to be the one to make the next move.
We each finished one last cup of coffee—I’d noticed Casey relied a lot on coffee when the rubber band and suckers just weren’t cutting it—and enjoyed small talk with my family. When we finally walked our mugs to the sink and said goodbye, it hurt my heart to see how easily hugs were given.
Damn.
How could something so fake feel so right and real?
Maybe it isn’t as fake as you think it is.
Or maybe it was just stupid wishful thinking that was going to end up hurting like a bitch when it was all over.
As we walked down the steps and toward Casey’s truck, I shifted to move from under the weight of his arm. But Casey turned to nuzzle my cheek and whispered, “They’re all still watching. Just give it a bit.”
Butterflies fluttered in my chest even as my stomach soured.
Casey Joe was the realest person I’d ever met, and he fit into my family seamlessly—and I with his, if I was being honest. But instead of having something real and good, we were just playing games.
I didn’t like lying. Didn’t like faking a relationship.
The sooner we let everyone know we’d opted to just be friends, the better.
Or maybe…
My mind drifted back to my earlier thoughts.
With the heady, citrusy-fresh scent of Casey’s warm body drifting around me, and the memory of his soft coffee-scented breath tickling my cheek, I couldn’t help but think maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to at least let him know—for real this time, no messing around—I was ready and willing in case he wanted to make the next move.
If he wasn’t on the same page, we’d navigate it swiftly. I maybe hadn’t known the man for long, but I was confident Casey Joe wasn’t the type to let a little awkwardness derail the friendship we’d been building.
So, it wasn’t a hem-hawing around situation. The decision was solid in my head. I was going to let Casey know—upfront and without any teasing innuendo—that I was interested. I just had to find the right time.
And hope like crazy I wasn’t ruining the most real friendship I’d had in my entire life. Maybe it was risky behavior—maybe I needed to just be happy I’d found a place in Haven Grove—but the tug in my heart every time I was around Casey Joe was too much to ignore.
If he wasn’t into me—or worse, I offended him with my admission—I’d have some damage control to take care of. But I hadn’t lived nearly half a century to let something potentially amazing slip through my fingers because I was worried he didn’t feel the same.
Fuck that.
I didn’t want to get to the end of my life fifty some years from now and regret I hadn’t been true to myself. If Casey Joe didn’t feel the same, we had a pretty decent friendship to fall back on.
If everything went to complete shit…well, it was something I was willing to risk.
“God damn, mother fuckin’ piece of shit,” Casey Joe howled about a week later.
We’d been working long-ass days on the gym, running in the mornings, lifting weights in the evenings, and cementing our friendship with each passing moment.
He was brash and had a foul mouth.
He was grumpy and shit at subtlety.
But Casey Joe Riggs was the friend I’d been searching for my entire life.
I didn’t understand the how or why of it, but we just clicked.
Don’t get me wrong, I adored Henry, Jack, Hudson, and Lance.
They were great guys, and I was lucky to call them friends.
But spending time with Casey—laughing with him, giving him a hard time, watching him fight his demons, just getting to know him—was what had been missing in my life all this time.
And all it took was nearly fifty years of loneliness, digging myself out of a hole I’d made for myself with all the fake glitz, glamour, and social media buzz, and coming back home to Small Town, USA, to find my soul mate.
I truly did believe that was what Casey Joe was to me.
And I still hadn’t found the time to let him know how I felt. It was going to happen, I had no doubt about that, but I just wasn’t sure how to bring it up.
Or how to deal with the potential fall-out.
Or exactly what I was offering.
Sex?
Dating?
Shit. Everything had seemed so sure and clear a week ago.
Now it was all fuzzy. My head and my heart had a lot of the same feelings and thoughts, but it was hard as hell to figure out when the right time was to tell the guy who was basically your only friend in your whole life that you found him attractive and wanted to…
Fuck.
I truly was stuck. I wanted more than anything to offer to act on the hints I was pretty sure I’d been getting from him all this time.
But I also didn’t want to assume just because I caught him staring a few times, and his cheeks burned bright when I made suggestive jokes, that he was into me the way I was into him.
Double fuck.
I returned my attention to Casey Joe’s hootin’ and hollerin’ as he hobbled around cussing up a storm.
“What happened?” I asked, putting down the spackling I’d been using to fill holes in the new drywall.
Casey heaved himself down on a weight bench. We didn’t have anywhere close to all the equipment ordered or placed in the gym, but we’d set up a sparse weightlifting area for our personal use. Approaching him from behind, I caught a glimpse of him in the mirror.
He took my damn breath away. Not just because he was gorgeous—he was, don’t get me wrong—but because he was a good person who’d been dealt a shit hand. He’d also quickly become my closest friend.
Casey Joe still needed to pack on a few pounds, but all the running we’d been doing—despite his griping about each and every step—had given him a healthy glow, and the weights had bulked him up.
I knew from looking at him, and some comments he’d made, he wasn’t at his former weight, but he was making a lot of progress.
And I was so damn proud of him.
“Dropped that mother fuckin’ damn hammer on my toe,” he growled as he held his flip-flop clad foot and studied his bleeding big toe.
I cleared my throat, but before I could even speak Casey pointed a finger my way.
“And I don’t wanna hear a single fuckin’ word about my boots.”
Biting the inside of my jaw, I tried my best not to laugh while I just nodded.
“You were right, okay?” Casey grumbled. “Shoulda put my boots on.”
He’d slipped the flip-flops on after a quick shower when we finished our weights earlier.
We’d eaten dinner—a healthy one cooked by me and barely a single complaint made by Casey—and debated calling it a day, but Casey had wanted to get a few more things done when we’d walked down to the gym to take inventory of what we needed to do the next day.
Casey had argued going back upstairs to get his boots would take longer than the tasks he had planned.
“Fuckin-A’, god damn mother fucker has its own heartbeat,” Casey whined.
“If you didn’t want to go for our morning run, all you had to do was say so,” I quipped, catching his eye in the mirror.
Casey scowled, then his eyes went wide before disappointment washed over his face. “Fuck. Not gonna be able to go for a run. Damn it. Been doin’ good.” He ran a hand over his face with a sigh.
With my heart in my throat, I placed a hand on his shoulder and kept my eyes connected with his in the mirror.
“You’ve been doing amazing. We’ll increase the weights for a while.
Give it a day or so, and we’ll wrap the toe.
Might hurt, but you’ll survive a short run.
” I paused, feeling like I was the one with heart issues, but gave Casey a wink.
“Plus, I can offer my services for keeping your cardio going.”
Casey’s eyes narrowed for a brief moment before his nostrils flared. “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
Shit.
Laugh it off and pretend it meant nothing?
Or go for it?
I shrugged, my eyes never leaving his. “Just saying I’m not against making this fake dating thing a little more real.”
Casey snorted. “Yeah, right. Figured you’d be ready to kick my ass to the curb by now.” He stared at me for a moment longer before glancing away.
I swallowed, my spit as thick as tar. “I’m not joking around,” I croaked. “If you ever thought about being with a guy, I’m ready, willing, and able.”
Casey’s face lit up with a mix of shock, anger, and question. Instead of the blow up I thought might have been fixing to detonate, he stood, gave me a nod, and grumbled, “Noted,” before hobbling from the gym.
I heard the limping tread of his feet on the stairs up to our apartment.
Trying to fool myself into thinking everything was okay, I finished the spackling.
It was fine.
I was fine.
Everything was fine.
Casey’s bedroom was closed up tight when I got upstairs.
And the next morning, he was up and gone before sunrise.
Casey Joe: Lance needs help with shit today. Be back later.
Tossing my phone to the mattress, I sighed and ran a hand over my face.
Thinking back to those risks I was willing to take, I pulled the pillow over my head and began planning my damage control.
Fuck.