18. Casey #3
We sit quietly for a while, the grilled cheese cooling on my plate because I suddenly can’t think about eating.
Then he asks, “What happened with Jasper?”
My fingers tighten around the plate. I look down at it, at the perfect diagonal half I haven’t finished, at the buttery crumbs scattered near my thumb.
“I found out he had a baby behind my back.”
Adriano doesn’t move.
Doesn’t speak.
That makes it easier to continue somehow. “I was supposed to be in New York for the week. I flew back early to surprise him because I missed him and because things had been…” I breathe out, hating how stupid it sounds now. “Off. I thought we needed to reconnect.”
His attention stays on me, steady and quiet.
“I stopped at the Farmer’s Market because I wanted to get strawberries. He loved them.” I laugh once, but there’s no humor in it. “God, that sounds pathetic.”
“It doesn’t.”
“It does.”
“It doesn’t. It sounds like care,” he repeats, and there’s enough firmness in it that I don’t argue.
I stare into the fire instead. “I saw him there. Holding her. The baby.” My throat tightens, but I keep going because I’ve started now, and stopping feels worse.
“And there was a woman with him. She kissed the baby, then kissed him, and it was just so normal. So domestic. Like I’d walked into someone else’s life by mistake. ”
The memory still has teeth, not as sharp as before, but enough to wound me. “He saw me,” I say. “He looked guilty as hell but also annoyed. Like I was the problem because I’d appeared where I wasn’t supposed to be.”
Adriano’s hand tightens slowly around his glass.
“He came to my place later. Told me it was one night. That she didn’t matter, that he loved me. All the usual nonsense men say when they want forgiveness without consequence.”
Adriano’s voice is low when he speaks. “How long had he known?”
“Months. They were living together in this perfect little alternate life.”
His expression changes, turns dangerous.
“And what was worse was that other people knew,” I add, quieter now. “His partners. Friends. People I’d had dinner with. People I’d smiled at. My old boss knew, too. She let me stand there like an idiot while everyone else knew I was being lied to.”
That’s the part that still burns.
Not Jasper cheating on me, though God knows that was shitty, but the lies and the humiliation.
The room was full of people who chose his comfort over kindness to me.
“I think that was worse,” I admit. “Realizing how many people were willing to let me be humiliated because telling the truth would have been inconvenient for them all.”
Adriano sets the glass down very carefully and turns to me. “No one who respected you would have allowed that,” he says.
I swallow. “I know.”
“No,” he says, turning toward me now, his voice still quiet but carrying something fierce beneath it. “You know it logically. That’s different from believing it. He’s a disgusting piece of shit who never deserved you, and anyone who protected him is as bad.”
I look at him.
He’s angry. Angry in a way that sits under his skin and makes him look almost frightening.
But it isn’t directed at me, and that undoes me.
Having someone furious on my behalf makes me feel seen.
“You didn’t deserve that,” he says. “Not the lies. Not the humiliation. Not being made to feel foolish for trusting the wrong person.”
My eyes sting, which is deeply inconvenient and absolutely not what I intended for this conversation. “I don’t want to talk about him anymore,” I say, because my voice is starting to betray me.
“Then we won’t.”
Just like that, he drops the conversation. No pushing, no demand for more.
I breathe out slowly, trying to steady myself.
For a while, we just sit there, close enough that his knee almost touches mine, the fire throwing light over his face, the year ending somewhere around us while neither of us moves to acknowledge it.
Eventually, I set the plate on the table and stand. “I should go to bed.”
He rises too. “I’ll walk you.”
“It’s literally down the hall.”
“I know.”
I don’t argue.
The hallway is dim, the sounds from outside muffled now, the lodge wrapped in that strange New Year’s hush where everyone else seems to be somewhere brighter, louder, drunker.
Neither of us speaks as we walk to my door.
I stop with my hand on the handle, suddenly too aware of him beside me. “Thank you,” I say.
“For the sandwich?”
“For being there for me.”
His gaze holds mine.
There’s something in it that makes my pulse change, something I don’t have time to identify before the first distant cheer rises outside.
Then another.
And another.
Midnight.
I turn slightly toward the sound, and when I look back, he’s closer.
Close enough that I can see the firelight still caught in his eyes, close enough that I can feel the warmth of him.
“Casey,” he says, and there’s something rough in the way he says my name that I feel everywhere.
I don’t move away.
His hand lifts slowly, giving me every chance to stop him, and when I don’t, his fingers curve around the side of my neck, thumb resting just beneath my jaw.
The touch is warm and steady, sending tingles of awareness through my body. His breath is sweet from the whiskey as his lips hover over mine.
Then he kisses me.
Not gently.
Not carefully.
Like his restraint has finally snapped, and this devastating passion is what was simmering underneath it the whole time.
My hand lands against his chest before I know I’ve moved, fingers curling into the soft fabric of his shirt as his mouth moves over mine, deep and sure and so unbearably good that every sensible thought in my head disappears.
He tastes like whiskey and warmth and something that’s just him, and when his other hand comes to my waist, drawing me closer to his firm body, I melt into his touch.
Because for one suspended, reckless second, I don’t want to be careful.
I don’t want to think.
I just want him.
The moan that leaves me is small, embarrassingly loud, and it changes the kiss.
Makes it hotter. Hungrier. His fingers flex at my waist, his thumb stroking once against my jaw as he tilts my head so he can deepen the kiss.
I feel the answering shiver move through him before he pulls back with a groan.
We’re both breathing hard.
His forehead almost touches mine, his hand still at my neck, his control visibly dragging itself back into place one piece at a time as his eyes close.
“Goodnight,” he says, voice low and rough.
I blink at him, dazed. “That’s all you’re saying?”
His mouth curves, but there’s nothing easy about it. “For now.”
Before I can answer, he lowers his head and presses a second kiss to my forehead.
Soft.
Lingering.
Almost more devastating than the first.
Then he steps back.
I stand there with my hand still half-curled near my chest, my lips tingling, my entire body suddenly awake in a way it absolutely should not be.
He waits until I open the door.
Only then does he turn away.
And I have no idea what the hell just happened.
Only that I want it to happen again.