Chapter 11 #2
And then, from my bedroom at the end of the hallway, my phone started to ring.
It was almost dawn when I left Paul Dawson’s farm.
I was tired, aching, splattered in mud and shit, but feeling pretty fucking fantastic despite all that.
I had not been killed by a cow and given that I hadn’t treated one since I was a fourth-year extern, and that had been under supervision, it deserved mentioning.
Because cows were big, okay? And sometimes you didn’t realize exactly how big until it was just it and you, and you were trying to move it into a position it very much didn’t want to be in.
So I had not been killed by a cow, but more importantly, I hadn’t killed a cow either. In fact, there was one more cow now than when I’d started.
I was flagging by the time I pulled into the driveway, but even being bone-weary couldn’t stop the sense of satisfaction that was wrapped around me snugly.
The front door opened as I climbed out of Uncle Jim’s old truck, and Cash leaned in the doorway with Dog in his arms. For a moment I was struck by just how right he looked there, before I remembered that this wasn’t my life.
Cash might have looked like he perfectly fit the fantasy of the rural vet’s boyfriend, as easy and comfortable as an old sweater, but I didn’t even know if I wanted to be a vet anymore.
And what Cash and I had wasn’t easy or comfortable, at least not yet.
It was so new we hadn’t even put a label on it, and he had no right to lean there looking like the gorgeous, sleepy answer to the dreams I didn’t even have.
Didn’t I, though? I could still feel the weight of the calf in my hands, pink-nosed and knobby kneed, as I’d wiped it down.
And it had felt beautiful. I wanted to hold onto the fragile feeling as long as I could, before a new day full of the same old bullshit ground it down into nothing.
Same as the feeling that made my heart skip a beat when I saw Cash was waiting for me.
If I could bottle that, I’d be set for life.
“Hey,” he said quietly as I climbed the porch steps. Dog wriggled excitedly in his arms. “How’d it go?”
“Great.” I couldn’t stop my smile. “You didn’t have to wait up.”
He shrugged. “Wanted to.”
I thought about kissing him again, except I stank, so I grimaced and said, “I need to take a shower.”
He nodded and followed me back inside.
The hot shower brought out more than a couple of bruises I hadn’t felt before now, but it also eased the ache in my muscles. By the time I got out and got dry, dawn was starting to creep in. The workday was almost here, so I dressed in my scrubs, tied my hair back, and went downstairs.
The kitchen smelled of frying bacon and eggs.
Cash was standing in front of the stovetop, poking at the contents of the pan with a spatula. “Hope you’re hungry.”
I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn’t, not at this hour, but my stomach knew better. It growled. That middle-of-the-night wrestling match with Paul Dawson’s cow had apparently built up an appetite.
We ate, Cash picking at his early breakfast and me digging into mine like I hadn’t seen food in months.
Dog sat hopefully at our feet while outside the dawn slowly shifted into daylight.
When I was finished, Cash asked me in a soft voice if I wanted more, and I shook my head.
He stood up to collect my plate and stilled when I reached out and touched the back of his wrist.
My fingertips brushed against his soft skin, and his danced briefly against the rim of my plate before he relaxed.
“Sorry,” I said. “I should have asked.”
Cash gazed down at where I was touching him. “It’s okay.” He blinked. “It’s nice.”
I dragged my fingers across the bump of his ulnar styloid. He turned his arm as I did, and my fingertips came to rest against the blue veins on the pale underside of his wrist. His pulse fluttered.
“Still okay?” I asked, and he nodded, wide-eyed.
My gaze traveled to the crook of his elbow, and my fingertips followed it. Cash was breathing deeply, his shirt rising and falling over the ridges of his collarbones. His fingers shook a little, but he didn’t tense or try to pull away.
This moment felt as profound as the kiss we’d shared earlier. Cash was made up of quiet moments, of stillness and depth, and to be allowed to share one with him was a privilege. I could barely tear my gaze away from where my fingertips slid gently across his skin.
“You know I’m not going to be in Goose Run for long,” I said.
He nodded. “I know.”
“I like this,” I said, drawing my fingertips back down his forearm to his wrist again. “I like being close with you. I liked kissing you last night. But I’m not here forever.”
“I know,” he repeated, his dark gaze solemn. And then he stepped closer. “That’s okay.”
I shifted in my chair, circling the fingers of one hand around his wrist and raising my other hand to put it on his hip.
He moved into the space between my knees and just stood and allowed himself to be touched, to be held.
He could have pulled away easily, but he didn’t.
He trusted me enough to allow this, and I didn’t know Cash well, but I knew that was a huge deal for him.
He drew a breath. “I…”
I rubbed a circle on his hip with my thumb, the fabric of his shirt whispering, while he found the words he was searching for.
“I never wanted anyone before,” he said at last. He swallowed. “But I want you, for as long as you’re here.”
My chest ached. I’d never been as vulnerable to anyone in my life as Cash was being now. Wouldn’t have had half the courage required to do it. Cash was brave as hell.
“I want that too,” I said.
Maybe something else could have happened then.
With any other guy, it probably would have.
But with Cash, this soft, sustained moment of physical contact between us already felt so charged, so weighty despite its gentleness, that I struggled to articulate it, let alone understand it.
If I’d ever felt like this before with anyone, I didn’t remember it now.
The moment seemed like a hundred different strands coming together at just the right point in time—some wildly random and some tediously ordinary—but like wires touching, they sparked.
Cash was just a guy in a kitchen, and I was touching his arm, and how the fuck did it feel so miraculous?
And why did that slight twitch of Cash’s mouth, the one that was barely the shadow of an actual smile, seem to light up the room as much as the dawn?
I didn’t want the moment to end.
When Cash finally stepped away, it was with a regretful smile. He took my plate and set it down in the sink.
“Leave it,” I said. “I’ll rinse it and load the dishwater later. There are probably a few coffee mugs up in my room.”
“Okay.” He turned and leaned against the sink, then lifted his hand to cover a yawn.
“Did you get any sleep last night?” I asked him, pushing my chair back as I stood. “It can be hard going to sleep again after a nightmare.”
He chewed his lip for a second. “Do you have them?”
“Used to,” I said. “When I was a kid. Now I just have those stress dreams where you’re running around looking for something you can’t find, or all your teeth fall out.”
“Mine aren’t like that,” he said but didn’t elaborate. He rolled his shoulders. “I probably could have gone back to sleep, but I was watching the kittens.”
“You don’t need to watch them. They’re okay.”
He ducked his head, smiling. “I know, but they’re cute, and they like it when I talk to them.”
I liked it too. I liked that Cash trusted me enough to share his words with me. I knew what a privilege that was. And I had no intention of taking it lightly. If Cash was willing to let me inside the very small circle of people he trusted, I was going to do my best to deserve that place.
I turned toward him and he stepped toward me at the same time, like there was a magnetic pull between us. I paused when there was barely an inch between us, and then Cash pushed up on his toes and closed the gap, kissing me tentatively.
I kissed him back and felt the curve of his mouth against mine as he smiled.
My hands settled on his hips and he kissed me again, with more certainty this time.
I forgot my tiredness and my aches and bruises, all my attention on how good this felt and how well Cash fit against me.
I closed my eyes and pressed my tongue against his lips—and pulled back when I felt a steady vibration running through me.
It was coming from the pocket of Cash’s pajama pants. His brow furrowed before he pulled his phone out. He read the screen, then let out a frustrated huff. “Chase,” he said, his thumbs flying over the screen. “Checking on me.”
“Making sure I haven’t locked you in the basement, huh?”
“He’s just looking out for me,” he said. “It’s what we do.”
Having met Chase, I was honestly surprised he hadn’t shown up on the doorstep already.
The twins weren’t physically imposing, but Chase had a personality that was seven feet tall and a glare that could snap you in half with the power of his mind.
But I was glad Cash had someone so fierce in his corner.
“Sounds nice.” I wondered what my life would have looked like if I’d had a Chase in it.
Not that different, maybe, but I’d bet my parents wouldn’t have been blowing up my phone as much.
Maybe I needed to borrow a leaf out of the book of Cash’s twin and come out swinging when it came to them.
Metaphorically, of course, though the temptation was there…
Cash lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Yeah, it is.” He shoved his phone back in his pocket. “When he’s not annoying the shit out of me.”
There were two Cashes. The quiet one, that could only be drawn out slowly. But even farther back than him was the one who shared his twin’s sass and sarcasm, although it was toned down some. I liked both of them a hell of a lot.
Cash rested his forehead against my shoulder for a moment, and I soaked up the contact. Then he sighed and said, “I gotta go to work.”
“Will I see you tonight?” I asked. Then, remembering that he hadn’t slept, I added, “Unless you’re too tired. You don’t have to be here.”
Cash lifted his head and raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Mason, you have kittens. And Dog.” And then, just when I was reeling from the sarcasm—I could handle it just fine, it was just unexpected from Cash—he added, “And I guess you’re pretty okay too.”
And I would have thought that was sarcasm too, except for the way the words lost their sharpness as he said them, swallowed up by his sudden breathy tone, and his cheeks turned pink. Somewhere in his sarcastic delivery, he’d forgotten to sound like he didn’t give a shit.
“Then I’d love it if you stayed over again,” I said. “And tomorrow it’s my turn to make breakfast.”
Cash’s smile lit up the whole kitchen.
Lit up the whole rest of the day too.