Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CASS
For once, Cass would arrive on time. Her morning errands took half the time she’d planned. She knew what to wear without looking in her closet. There was an open parking spot right in front of the coffee shop that she didn’t even have to parallel park to get into.
It was like the universe wanted her to see him.
A muddle of voices and acoustic guitar washed over her when she opened the door, letting the bitter, flowery scent of fresh roasted coffee flow past her and into the snowy afternoon. Thin grey slush collected between the cracks of the exposed concrete floor, and she scuffed her feet on the entrance rug to add to the mess. She unwrapped her blue silk scarf from around her shoulders and scanned the busy café.
It didn’t take her long to find him. His brilliant smile widened when she entered, and he stood from the end of a communal table to fold her into a leather-and-musk infused half hug.
Hot, dark hair, and a where-did-my-panties-go smile. I really do have a type . Cass stifled a laugh and leaned into his chest a second longer, inhaling the memory of all the nights she gone to sleep with that scent on her skin .
Almost every one of those nights, she’d still ended up sleeping alone.
“What’s so funny?” Nick asked, his voice rumbling against her cheek.
“I’m just thinking about patterns.” She disengaged from his embrace to sit opposite him, inching her chair a centimetre away from the couple sitting beside them.
He looked great, but then again, he always did. A man in well-tailored clothes had always been a weakness of hers. Today, a long camel trench was layered over a thick cream cable-knit sweater and windowpane wool pants. It was mid-afternoon, and his beard was already showing up against his olive skin. She’d only ever seen it either freshly shaven or several hours older.
“Your hair looks good like that,” she said. It was longer than she had ever seen before, just starting to curl around his ears. If she took one of the thick locks between her fingers, it would have the lightest feel of the styling cream she’d seen on his bathroom counter. She folded her hands in front of her. “It suits you.”
“Thought I should try something new.”
Isn’t that interesting timing? She twiddled with the end of her scarf.“I’m surprised you agreed to meet me during the day.”
He cocked a brow at her with a curious look on his face. “All the better to see that beautiful face of yours,” he said, lip half-curled in a teasing grin.
“Then why do you only text me at night?”
One of the people sitting beside her choked into their coffee. If Nick didn’t look so surprised, Cass would have sworn he had the audacity to look offended.
“Uh, do you want a coffee?” he stammered, breaking the silence. “They have an excellent in-house roasted Sulawesi blend.”
She wasn’t surprised he didn’t remember that she didn’t drink dark roast. “No, thank you. You said you wanted to see me?”
“I did. I wanted to see you.” The brilliance of his smile faded a tick as he shifted in his seat. He reached across the table, thumb rubbing over the tips of her fingers, and she swallowed a chuckle that he was finally—almost—holding her hand.
“Life has been crazy. Really crazy. I had to go back to Montreal for a while.”
Like cell phones don’t work there ? she thought, but stayed silent.
He continued, “And I think I’m staying this time. And now that I’m back, I want to see you. I missed you.”
“What did you miss about me, Nick?”
The smile faded another watt. “You. The time we spend together. We don’t do enough of that.” He stared down at his thumb brushing hers. For all the places his hands had been on her body, he’d almost never touched her in public before. “Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see where things would go between us?”
A quiet huff escaped her lips. Cass withdrew her hands and tucked them under her arms. “Only after every time you didn’t call me back after we’d hooked up,” she said, and this time, he had the decency to look guilty. “Why now?”
“When I saw those photos last night of you out with another man, I realized I’d be a goddamn fool to let someone else be where I should be.”
“Never once have you ever made me feel like you wanted to be with me.”
“I-I’m sorry if you feel that way.”
“But not for acting in a way that made me feel that way? That’s not an apology.”
A hint of remorse flickered in his eyes. Finally. She’d spent hours staring into those eyes. Rich, espresso brown, with lashes so thick and curly she’d once been tempted to ask if he curled them. She’d bet anything he didn’t know the colour of her eyes.
“But we keep coming back together. We have something here,” he tried again. “Don’t you think we should give it a shot?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?” he said, sitting up straighter. “Does that?— ”
“What’s my best friend’s name?”
Nick hoisted up his smile a fraction. “What?”
“I’ve been friends with her since elementary school,” Cass prompted. “I talk about her all the time. What’s her name?”
“Um …”
“What am I allergic to?”
He pressed his lips together.
“What kind of movies do I like?”
“Cass …”
“Your best friend is Alex. Was Alex, before whatever went down,” she said. “You don’t have any allergies, but I know you’re lactose intolerant, even though you refuse to admit it. I don’t know what kind of movies you like, because you never asked me to see any with you. I love movies.”
“I didn’t?—”
“No. You didn’t.”
He knew how to make her come. He knew the sounds she made when he put his mouth on her. He knew she answered his texts, even after a year of silence.
And what did she know?
That none of that was good enough anymore.
“You never took the time to get to know me. You only ever texted me when you wanted to get laid.”
“That’s not …” True , she could see on the tip of his tongue, but he said, “If that’s what you think, I’m sorry?—”
“That’s still not an apology.”
“Then let me fix that.”
“I think that time has passed.”
A lost look sat in the place of his usual smile. The couple sitting beside them had gone quiet, each looking down into their respective coffees with fascinated expressions.
It was kind of nice to have witnesses to hear her say goodbye to Nick.
He pushed the still-full cup away, sloshing the presumably excellent in -house roasted Sulawesi blend onto the wooden table, all traces of bravado vanished. “What are you saying?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to see each other again.”
“You don’t mean that. I’ve been a mess for a couple years, and you saw the worst of that, but I’ve changed. We could be so good together if you give us a chance.”
“You’ve had so many chances.” Cass tipped her head to the side to shake a loose curl from her eyes. Dry, no traces of tears, her heart beating a sedate cadence. “There was a time I would have loved to hear you say that, but you treated me like something you could ignore until it was convenient. I’m worth more than being someone’s second choice, and I don’t want to ever have to guess if I am again.”
Nick’s eyes searched the room, like someone in the coffee shop would hold up a sign with the correct response to help him change her mind. When no epiphany dawned, he blew out a breath. “I didn’t think this would go this way,” he said finally.
“I know.” Cass pushed back from the table and felt the weight of the attention of the people around her. “If you text me again, I’m not responding.”
For once, he didn’t smile. “That’s not the first time you’ve said that.”
“But it will be the last.” She reached over to squeeze his arm. “If you’ve changed, I’m glad. Really. And I hope the next person you claim to care about gets a better version of you than what you gave me. Goodbye, Nick.”
The winter air pinked her cheeks when she stepped outside. In her still-warm truck, she blocked his number and deleted their text thread.
If there had been any pictures of the two of them, she would have deleted those, too, but they had never made any memories outside the bedroom worth capturing. Even those memories had lost their shine.
Cass was finally over Nicholas Martin. For real, this time.
A physical connection was one thing, but that had been the only thing t hey’d ever had. No emotion. No shared creative vision.
Josh said he would help her get over him. If only she’d known he would break her heart to do it.
She looked through the coffee shop’s windows. Nick was bent over his phone with a hand covering his mouth. There would be no more responding. No more late-night texts. No more wondering if she’d hear from him. She half expected to feel her fingers revolting and undo the changes, but the only thing she felt was relief.
Her own phone buzzed in her hand, and she half wondered if she’d blocked him wrong. Then it buzzed again, and again. She grinned at her favourite, no-chill, triple-texting friend’s stream of consciousness messaging.
Are we still meeting?
It was 3 right?
Everything okay?
On my way :)
Better late than never . Cass threw her truck into gear and drove to spill the beans.
Jill clutched her elbows across her torso and trapped her bouncing foot around her ankle. If she wrapped herself any further, she’d be airtight.
They sat alone in the living room, Jill curled up on one end with her giant pit bull glued to her side, and Cass on the other side with relief chasing the guilt from her stomach.
“When did he get back in town?”
“The fall.”
Jill’s head popped up in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me? ”
So many reasons. She didn’t want to upset her friend. She didn’t want to admit she couldn’t control herself around someone her friend hated. “I didn’t want you to think I was weak for going back to him.” Cass ducked her head. “And now that it’s been so long, I don’t want you to think I’m a bad friend, even though I am, and I should have told you as soon as he was in town and?—”
“I don’t think you’re a bad friend. Or weak.” Jill huffed a thin laugh. “I know how hard it can be getting away from someone. You could have trusted me.”
“I know. It was never like what you went through with your ex?—”
“And let’s be grateful for that,” Jill finished. “But now, I’m just glad you figured it out.”
Cass nodded. It took years, wasted time, a date with a sweetheart, and one broken heart, but she got there.
Jill focussed her attention on scritching her dog’s floppy ears. “Have you talked to him?”
She didn’t need to ask which him Jill meant. Cass shook her head. It had been over a month since the last time he’d tried to contact her. The one message she received for a follow up on post-production had come through Stephen. He hadn’t mentioned Josh at all.
“I think he’s let me go,” she said softly. She tipped her head back to blink at the ceiling, hoping the tears would slide neatly back into their ducts and leave her cheeks dry. “He knew what I needed and couldn’t give it to me. I’m not going to settle for less anymore.”
Jill’s lip wobbled. “I’m so glad,” she said in a wavering voice and leaned over for a hug. “You deserve to be a priority.”
Cass squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped her arms around her friend. “I really do.”