Chapter 6 – Jace
Holding Cassie as she cried tonight was not on my bingo card, but before I knew it, I was standing in her coffee shop, pulling her into my chest as she started crying for what was at least the second time in the span of thirty minutes.
I didn’t remember the last time I held a woman while she cried.
Actually, I didn’t think I ever had, which was why this was painfully awkward for me.
Not because I didn’t want to comfort Cassie—shit, having her this close to me was something that only happened in my dreams—but because I didn’t know what made her upset in the first place.
And in true Cassie fashion, she didn’t want to talk about it.
“You don’t have to tell me the specifics, but did a guy do this to you? Because I will go hunt him down and kick his ass right now.” I meant it too.
“No, it’s just family drama. That’s all,” she said, her voice muffled against my chest.
I tilted her face so she was looking up at me now.
“Please stop crying. I can’t take it,” I begged, placing my hands on either side of her face. I wiped away the next set of tears as they trickled down her cheeks.
She backed up, trying to stand tall as if she hadn’t just been melting on the floor five minutes beforehand.
“I’m fine, everything’s fine,” she said as if she was trying to convince herself everything really was.
“Doesn’t seem like it’s fine to me.”
“Please don’t tell anyone about this, okay?” she asked, almost begging.
“I won’t if you tell me what happened so I can make it better,” I bargained.
She just stared at me, trying to decide if I was serious or not.
I was.
Cassie didn’t know it, but I would do anything for her. She hadn’t so much as given me a hug before tonight, but I’d been obsessed with this girl from the moment I met her six years ago.
She was fire and sunshine all wrapped into one. Without realizing it, she lit up every room she walked into. She was perfect in every way, except for the fact that she wasn’t mine.
“Unless you can reverse my mom’s decade-long drug addiction and build a time machine to stop my dad from bailing on us when I was six, you can’t fix any of this,” she said, holding her arms out as if to say here’s the truth bomb, take it or leave it.
“Damn, Cass. I’m sorry.” It was all I could come up with, because she was right. I couldn’t fix it for her no matter how badly I wanted to.
Knowing this made a lot of the Cassie puzzle pieces fit together though.
Like why she was such a man-hater. She wouldn’t give me, or any other man, the time of day. Probably because the one she cared about the most had up and left her without looking back.
Or why no one in town knew much about her backstory. People in Silver Creek are nosey. Whenever a newcomer moves here, Maggie knows their entire life story before the six o’clock news airs. Either she didn’t know Cassie’s story, or she did and cared enough about her to keep it private.
I’d bet the latter.
“You want to know what I do when I’m sad?” I asked, hoping to lighten the mood, because another minute of watching Cassie cry would break me.
“I’m scared to ask,” she said, looking me up and down cautiously through red, puffy eyes. “Wait, I bet I know—you hang out with buckle bunnies at the bar until they’re drunk, then drown your sorrows between their tits?”
A laugh erupted from deep inside my chest, because honestly, Cassie was right. The old Jace would have done that.
“I don’t know why you’re laughing. I’ve heard stories about you. I know you have a roster a mile long.”
“You keeping tabs on me, darlin’?” I shot her a cocky grin, knowing I was getting under her skin.
“No, that’s just what I’ve heard in passing. Don’t let your already inflated ego get any bigger,” she scoffed.
“Your name can be next on my list if you want it to be. It’d be my honor.” I winked, closing the space between us.
“In your fucking dreams, McKinley.” She shoved my shoulder and walked away.
You got that right.
I followed her as she made her way behind the counter, looking for something.
“Let me rephrase my question. I meant, do you want to know what the new Jace does when he’s sad?”
“I’m still scared to ask,” she said as she continued to search for something.
“I like to go for a drive in my truck down the back roads, park somewhere, and stare at the stars.”
That stopped her dead in her tracks.
“What? Not what you thought I was going to say?”
“No, I guess not,” she replied honestly.
“Do you want to go for a drive in my truck? I know a good spot to see the stars this time of night,” I offered.
“I’m sure this trick has worked on lots of girls before, but I’m not that easy or dumb, Jace.
What? You get me in your truck, drive somewhere far and dark, then somehow magically end up with your lips on mine?
I’m not some buckle bunny you can have a one-night stand with, but I give you an A for effort,” she deadpanned.
Little did Cassie know, I’d never taken anyone out to Crowley’s Ridge with me. That was the spot I did some of my best thinking—and healing. I would never take someone out there if I thought they might jeopardize that peace for me.
Where most of the girls I had dated in the past were drama and toxic, Cassie was sunshine and positivity. Before tonight, I’d never seen the girl shed a tear. She was one of the strongest-willed, most independent women I knew, and that was my favorite thing about her.
Cassie didn’t need me, but I wanted her to.
“I promise I wasn’t trying to make a move on you.
I just thought a breath of fresh fall air under the stars would help make your clearly shitty night better.
I get it though. My reputation definitely precedes me,” I said.
“Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. I won’t tell anyone about tonight.”
Her shoulders relaxed as a large amount of the anxiety she’d been carrying melted away. Maintaining her I’ll-kick-your-ass-and-laugh-while-doing-it image was important to Cassie. Maybe that was how she coped with all the bullshit she had to deal with. Who was I to judge?
“Do you want a ride home at least?” I offered helplessly. I really didn’t want to leave Cassie alone, knowing she’d been crying earlier.
“I’m fine, Jace. I promise. I just needed a good cry. I got it all out, and I’m fine now.”
I wasn’t fully convinced.
Grabbing a napkin off the counter, I took a pen from a cup Cassie had sitting near the register and wrote my phone number down.
“Promise me you’ll call if you need anything. Even just someone to talk to. I won’t even care if you call me names,” I joked, trying to let her know I was serious while still cheering her up.
“If I take it, can this be the IOU for breaking your foot?”
“Not a chance, sugar.”
I could tell she wanted to argue with me about the pet name, but she probably didn’t have the energy.
“Just take the napkin, Cassie. No strings attached. Just trying to be a good guy.”
She stared at me for a moment, contemplating as the gears turned in her head.
“Fine,” she said, taking the napkin from my grip.
I left the coffee shop and walked back to my truck, which was parked one block down, just off the main road, pointed toward the Daily Grind.
But instead of going home, I sat there incognito for two hours, watching Cassie paint on the front windows of her coffee shop.
When she finally left for the night and went home, I did too.