Chapter 9
LEO
“Morning.” I yawned.
Cass looked up from her seat at the dining room table, her fingers hovering over the keys of her laptop. “Afternoon.”
I glanced at the microwave. It was after noon. “Guess it is.”
Last night had been a late one. I’d rolled in around six this morning and crashed hard.
After work yesterday, I’d gone to The Betsy for a beer.
I’d got caught up at the pool table, playing and bullshitting with a group of guys who were in town for a weekend of snowmobiling in the mountains.
They’d rented a house, and after the bar had closed at two, they’d invited me over to check out their machines.
I’d slept on a couch, woken up sober and called a cab to drive me back to my truck at The Betsy.
When I’d gotten home, still tired, I’d planned to rest for a couple hours. Guess I’d been more tired than I’d thought.
I took a chair beside Cass, rubbing a hand over my face to clear the fog of sleep.
In the past two weeks, I hadn’t actually seen her much. Mostly, our paths would cross whatever time I climbed out of bed, usually in this exact spot, then we wouldn’t see each other until the next day.
It was working for us. I stayed out of her way. She stayed out of mine. Whatever worries I’d had that living together might be awkward were pointless. This was easy coexistence. We could do this. No sweat.
Other than the fact that I wanted to kiss her every time I saw her, this was easy.
Don’t kiss her. If I did, I doubted I’d ever stop.
“How’s it going?” I motioned to her computer, forcing my thoughts away from her mouth.
“Fine.” Her eyes darted to my bare chest before she looked to her screen.
I’d climbed out of bed and only bothered tugging on a pair of sweatpants. “How’s your work going?”
“Fine.”
Fine. I’d been around Presley long enough to know that fine didn’t mean fine.
“Sorry if I woke you up when I got home.” I’d tried to be quiet but the keypad on the alarm was loud and maybe she’d heard it when I’d disarmed it.
“It’s fine.” She waved it off, then closed the lid on her laptop. “I’m going to take off. I’ve got a couple of meetings this afternoon.”
“What meetings? Are you going alone?”
“I have a showing with a landlord in fifteen minutes. My mom is meeting me there. Then I have a doctor’s appointment at one thirty. I’ll be going there alone.”
Landlord. “What landlord?”
She sighed. “Leo, this isn’t working.”
“What do you mean?” This was working exactly like it should. She was living here to save some money.
Cass leaned her forearms on the table. “I moved in here because I’d hoped we’d get to know each other. And I thought . . . never mind what I thought. It’s difficult to get to know someone when you spend five minutes a day with them.”
“Just trying to stay out of your way.”
“No, you’re just living your own life.” Her nostrils flared for a moment before she shook her head and plastered on a tight smile. “It was always going to be temporary. The baby is coming soon, and I want to get settled. For good.”
“And you can’t get settled here?”
She stood from the table, having to use the armrest to shove herself to her feet. “No, I can’t. We tested it out. And failed. Now we know.”
Without another word, she gathered up her laptop, phone and earbuds, then disappeared to her bedroom while I sat stuck in my chair.
What the fuck? How was this not working? I stayed clear. I did my own thing. She had the run of the house. Hadn’t I told her she could do whatever she wanted? To make herself at home?
Before I could catch up, the front door opened and closed. I shoved off my chair and raced for the door, but she was already backing out of the driveway and easing down the street.
Alone.
My fists clenched at my sides. She wasn’t supposed to be going anywhere alone. And whatever place she was seeing wasn’t going to be as safe as here. I had a state-of-the-art security system and lived in a safe neighborhood.
“Fuck.” I shoved away from the living room window and hurried to my bedroom, taking a shower to wash off the beer-and-bar smell from last night.
Dressed in a pair of jeans, my boots and a long-sleeved T-shirt under my lined flannel coat, I swiped a granola bar from the pantry—Cass must have bought them, because I hadn’t.
My truck was in the driveway, the windows frosted.
One of these days, I’d get a newer truck with remote start like Cass’s car, but today was not that day, so while my breath billowed around me, I ran the ice scraper across the glass.
Then I got inside, shivering at the cold air that didn’t warm until I was five blocks away from the garage.
There’d be no bikes in the parking lot for the foreseeable future. We’d gotten a heavy snow a few days ago and it didn’t look to be leaving until spring. The roads were for shit. And Cass was out driving alone.
“Son of a bitch.” How had we gotten here? What was wrong with my house? I parked and marched inside the office, wanting some coffee.
Presley was behind her desk and she raised an eyebrow as I walked inside. “Afternoon.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d even make it in today.”
“Don’t start, Pres.” I disappeared into the waiting room. It was Draven’s old office that had been converted into a common area for customers because neither Dash nor Presley could bring themselves to take up his old space.
Not that I would have been able to either. Hell, it was hard enough coming in here and getting coffee without remembering how it used to be. How it should have been if not for the fucking Warriors.
I filled up a mug and turned, ready to escape into the paint booth for a while, but a pregnant woman was blocking my escape.
“What?” I snapped at Presley.
She crossed her arms over her chest, her forearms resting on her belly. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Is it Cass?”
“Yeah. She’s moving out.” And I wasn’t exactly sure why that made me so goddamn mad. Two weeks. Why had she moved in at all if she was just going to leave after two weeks? Why bother?
“Do you want her to move out?”
“No. I wanted her to save some money. Not have to worry about shit on her own.” And if she needed something, I’d be there. Or . . . I could be there. Cass was right, it was hard to get to know someone when you rarely saw them. Maybe I’d been spending too much time away.
“Then ask her to stay.” Presley shoved off the doorway and waddled to the office, resettling in her chair and forcing me to follow. “Put some effort in, Leo. Stop going to the bar every night and get to know the woman who is having your baby.”
I frowned. Not this shit about The Betsy again. “I’m trying to stay out of her way.”
“No, you’re doing you. Cass moved in to give you a chance that, let’s be honest, you didn’t deserve.
Then she sits there alone, in a stranger’s house, when she could have been with her parents or in her own space.
While you, what, go out and party all night?
I’m guessing that’s the reason you’re rolling in after noon.
Because you found something, or someone, to entertain you last night. ”
“I wasn’t with a woman.” I hadn’t been with a woman for fucking months. Not since Cass.
Presley gave me that look, one that I hadn’t missed for the past two weeks. The look of sheer disappointment. She was pissed at me again.
But I needed her. So I swallowed my pride, gritted my teeth and asked, “What do I do?”
“You have to figure it out on your own.”
Christ. Why wouldn’t she just tell me? “I don’t want her to move out. It’s safer at my place, and I’m there if she needs me.”
“Don’t tell me. Tell Cass.”
Unless it was already too late. “Do you know what doctor she goes to?”
“Dr. Tan,” Presley said. “She’s my OB too. Her office is in the hospital annex.”
“I’ll be back later.” I set my mug down on the corner of her desk, then strode for the door. As I backed out of the lot in my truck, Presley stood at the window in the office with a shit-eating grin on her face.
I ignored it and drove away.
It was almost one, so instead of attempting to hunt down Cass at whatever rental place she’d been scoping, I drove to the hospital.
It took me a minute to navigate the maze that was their hallways, but I finally found the right door and scanned the small waiting room.
There was another couple in the back corner, both of them on their phones. No Cass.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked.
“Cassandra Cline. She—we—have an appointment at one thirty.”
“She hasn’t checked in yet. You’re welcome to wait.”
“Thanks.” I strode over to a chair, sitting down and bracing my forearms on my thighs. Then I counted the minutes until the door opened and a brilliant flash of beauty walked inside.
Cass didn’t notice me. She went to the window, a smile on her face, and greeted the receptionist. “Hi. Cassandra Cline to see Dr. Tan.”
The receptionist rattled off a list of questions and took Cass’s insurance card, then motioned to me.
Cass followed the woman’s gaze and when she spotted me, her eyes widened.
“Hi.” I stood and met her by the desk.
“H-hi.”
“Here you go, Ms. Cline.” The receptionist slid a clipboard across the counter, a pen attached to the top with a thin chain. “Fill that out and give it to the nurse when they call you back.”
“Sure.” Cass gave her a quick smile, collected the paperwork and walked to the chairs. “How’d you know this was my doctor?”
“Presley.”
She nodded and stripped off her parka before taking a chair, shifting and twisting, trying to find a place to set the clipboard down to fill out the answers.
She couldn’t reach the side table, so she reclined deep into the chair and tried to use her belly.
“I should have done this at the counter,” she muttered, her pen strokes shaky.
“Here.” I took the board and the pen, setting them on my thighs. “I’ll write.”
Cass studied my profile as the pen hovered above the page.
“What?”
“Why are you here, Leo?”
“I don’t want you to move out.”