25. Chapter 25
Chapter twenty-five
O f course, Cade, I think. Of course, I wouldn’t invite a man to a gathering where I’m silently praying a different man gives in and has his way with me.
Sometimes, I think he says stupid things purely to annoy me.
“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” he whispers into my ear. His breath is warm, sending shivers down my spine.
“I ended it,” I lie. “Not my type.”
“That’s not very hopeless romantic of you, Gigi,” Cade warns. “He might have been husband material.”
“I’m not looking for husband material.” Cade moves my hair away from my neck, the sudden chill of the breeze on my skin.
“Good,” Cade growls into my ear. “Because that’s not what I am.”
My breath catches in my chest. I’m nearly gasping. “Good,” I reply. “That’s not what I want.”
Suddenly, the fireworks begin, the sound resounding. Color lights up the sky, lines of sparkle dotting the dark. I’ve been so focused on Cade since we got to the beach, I didn’t realize the sky had darkened completely. I crane my neck, wanting to look, and Cade lightly tugs at my hair. “Focus on me, princess.”
“The fireworks,” I whine.
“Do you want to watch fireworks?” he asks. I nod. I need a distraction before it’s too late. Before I make a grave mistake and willingly hand my heart to someone who has every intention of not keeping it whole.
“You’ve never done this,” Cade realizes, chuckling softly into my hair.
I turn to look at him. “I’m not a virgin , Cade.”
“You don’t understand that by spending your night in bed with me, you’ll be my own personal firework show. Now come here and give me a kiss.”
When Cade pulls me down into him and takes my mouth, I don’t fight him. It’s the best kiss I’ve ever experienced, and when he pulls back from me, we’re both breathing hard. He can take whatever he wants from me and break me into tiny, unrecognizable pieces when he’s done.
I don’t care.
I love him and that mouth too much to care.
“When’s your birthday?” I blurt. My breath is quick, ragged. We’re in the dark of his room, and going solely by my sense of touch and sound isn’t doing my mind any favors.
He groans with want, frustration, probably a little agony. “Gigi. What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Your birthday,” I squeak. “When is it?”
He pulls me into his lap so I’m straddling him. He kisses my jaw, up, up, up, toward the birthmark behind my ear. “August fourth,” he breathes. Goosebumps cascade down every inch of me. “My birthday… It’s August fourth. But why,” he pulls his face away from me, wincing, taking his bottom lip between his teeth like a casualty of circumstance, setting it free but not without marks, “in the hell do you—”
“I need to feel close to you,” I tell him quietly, pulling him into my chest, “before we do this.”
Fireworks pop outside. Pop, fizzle, pop, pop, fizzle . Routinely. Until the finale, when there’s going to be nothing but the booming rain of fireworks sounding off. I can’t wait for it. “Isn’t this close enough?” he whimpers. He traces his calloused thumb along my bottom lip. “Tell me this is close enough for you, princess. Please.”
Jesus fucking—
I know what he means when he says this. The grueling push-and-pull game we’ve been playing since we got here. I hate nicknames, and I let princess roll off his tongue all summer long, without consequence. He doesn’t like to be challenged, and he let me push him to become a gentleman.
Maybe just for me.
My own product of effort and love, loving me back tenfold. Being in love with me.
“I need this,” I tell him. My tongue softly toys with his thumb, still caressing my lip.
“Fuck.” Cade abruptly winds that hand into my hair, tightening his grasp as his lips hover painfully over mine. “Promise me you won’t get your feelings hurt, princess.” He uses his other arm to pull me in, push our bodies into each other.
“What feelings?” I moan. “There aren’t any to hurt to begin with.”
“That’s my girl,” he whispers, so quietly that I’m positive he thinks I didn’t hear it.
I’m a terrible liar. But I’d say anything if his response was that. Forever.
Later, when we’re both ragged, our skin sticky with sweat and everything else about us basking in post-sex bliss, I say, “I don’t have a boyfriend. I mean, so you don’t think I used you as a side piece or something.”
Cade’s laughter reverberates through my skull as he presses his face into my hair. “Gigi, baby, I know.”
I sit up, feeling cold already from where he once kept me close and warm. “How? I didn’t tell anyone.”
He laughs. “You told—”
“Belinda,” I realize. My eyes go wide. “Cade. When did she tell you? How? At work?”
“Roy’s Grocery,” he explains through chuckles. “But she also told me that now would be a good time to swoop in on you, since you’re freshly single.”
“I am freshly single.” I nod, smirking.
Cade reaches for me, smiling coyly. “Too bad I’m not looking for anything, then. Someone else is gonna take you from me, aren’t they?”
“Sure will,” I lie as I allow him to pull me back down into the sheets.
Into the mess that we’re created together. That I don’t know if I can free myself from now that I’ve gotten myself immersed in it.
“It should be illegal to work today,” EJ says the next morning. “Actually,” he rubs a hand over his face, “it should be illegal to make anyone work a morning shift today.”
Cade and I are traipsing into Beach Brew later than we wanted, and I’ll admit I’m as tired as EJ.
Cade dropped me off at Belinda’s late last night. I knew he would. Once he sobered himself and we both showered off sand and sweat, he was ready to take me back to where I belonged and get me out of his room.
Ultimately, we decide on two options:
If no one asks, great! Cade and I know. No one else knows. All is well.
If someone asks, or hints that they know, we fess up, but tell them we were drunk. So, so inebriated that sleeping together was the only logical choice for us at that moment. Who knows how it happened—we sure don’t remember!
The latter was Cade’s idea. It slipped from his mouth too quickly for comfort, to erase last night if need be and chalk it up to alcohol.
It’s fine. That’s what a casual fling does. Casually forgets about it.
“I had fun last night,” Cade says. We’re seated in a corner, as far away as we can get from EJ. “We should make that a thing.”
“Regularly?” I ask. “Really?”
“I enjoy fucking you, Gigi,” he says. Simple and to the point. So very Cade Deans.
“I enjoy… spending time with you, too,” I say.
Cade smirks. Those dimples… They’re weapons. And they’re capable of hurting me.
I enjoy the occasional pin prick of pain. The tattoo on my collarbone is evidence of that.
“You’re allowed to say we fuck, Gigi,” Cade whispers, a smirk pulling at his lips. “You’re allowed to tell me, Hey Cade, I enjoy fucking you .”
“I know.” I’m enamored with my coffee. I run my thumb carefully around the rim of the cup.
“So, why don’t you?”
“It’s weird to me,” I admit. “Very out there, vulgar.”
“Is there something you’d prefer?”
Making love. Sleeping together.
I meet his gaze, dark and stormy. And worth the risk.
“Fucking is fine,” I mutter, heat rising, white hot, to my hair.
When he asks me to say it louder, I glare.
“I just wanted to check in. Because I know I’m usually there with you a lot. So—”
“Gigi Nicole,” my mom says. “I promise you, I’m doing okay. No casting for an antidepressant commercial here. Besides, my sadness is much more sad dog in a shelter than antidepressant commercial.”
I sigh. “Mom.”
“Gigi. You called yesterday, the day before that, probably the day before that, too. I have nothing more to update you on. I cleaned the cat’s litter box. Maybe that’s an update?”
“But you swear you’re fine?”
“You’re home in a month,” Mom says. “I’ll be just fine. I’m baffled that Mollie would tell you I was wallowing.”
“Eating ice cream and watching The Bachelor without me counts.”
“Well, then.” A pause, too long. “Maybe I’ve wallowed a little. But then Mollie has, too. I don’t watch alone.”
“Home in a month,” I say.
“I’ll try to save a few episodes,” Mom says with a nervous laugh. “The ice cream is replenish-able. I love you.”
She hangs up before I can say it back. She doesn’t need to hear me say I love her to know that I do.
I love that about her. I could never say that about Belinda. Which makes me love Mom all the more.
I decided to call on my break during an evening shift at the diner. Cade isn’t working tonight, but I don’t need him here physically to feel him everywhere I go. It’s like I can feel the storm clouds of his eyes looming over me every second of the day. And now that I don’t have avoiding him and his sex appeal on my list of priorities, I need something else.
Cue worrying about my mom and her apparent sadness at my absence.
Drinking coffee in the kitchen before work, Cade’s texting me.
Good morning, my girl.
At work, he’s sneaking handfuls of my ass in his palm during the moments I wander into the kitchen, pretending to need clean glasses. Then texting me:
I wish I could touch you.
In the rare circumstance that we aren’t together after work, I’m craving him. Itching to feel his touch on my skin.
And that’s dangerous.
I’m connecting with Cade every time we sleep together, no matter how much I try to fight it off. And if he does what he’s doing to me with all of his flings, then I’m absolutely fucked. This is routine for a guy like Cade—I need to keep that in the forefront of my mind. I’m not special.
I’m fine with not being special.
As if he knows—and with his impeccable timing in the past week, I have a feeling he does—when I look up after taking down an order, Cade Deans is walking in, two coffees in hand.
“For you,” he says, holding a cup out to me. “The Cade Deans Special.”
I smile gratefully, taking the cup. “Thank you. How’d you know?”
Cade scratches the back of his neck, his gray eyes flashing. “I had a hunch. I might go stare longingly at the shop and pray until you get out of work.”
He’s been stressed about the shop ever since that night weeks ago, when he drunkenly told me about it. His jaw flexes every time it comes up, just like it does whenever he’s presented with something that annoys him or pisses him off. The thought of not getting his shop is certainly on that list.
I smile at him, touching his arm. “You’re stressed for nothing.”
“I’m not stressed.” He takes a sip from his coffee. “It would be nice if Eddy could call back soon. That’s all.”
He’s stressed. “Maybe go home,” I offer. “Rory can bring me to the apartment. You don’t need to come back for me.”
Another thing that has been a common occurrence ever since July fourth: Cade picking me up for work on the days we work the same shift and picking me up after my shift every night, regardless of whether we work together. Usually, it’s so we can get time alone in the apartment. I’ve gotten used to the lumpy guest bedroom mattress and Uber soft sheets. But Cade always takes me back home before I can get too comfortable.
And that’s fine. That’s what not-special, casual girls do. Go home without complaint.
“No,” Cade says. “I don’t mind.”
I wave a hand at him, dismissive. “Go home. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
His jaw pulses. “Fine. I’ll see you at home.”
When I’m done ogling, watching Cade saunter out of the diner, I’m met with Rory.
“And you say EJ and I are in love,” she exclaims. “Have you seen yourselves recently?”
“It’s nothing,” I say. “Really.”
“We know you guys are hooking up.”
I whip around to face her. “You do?”
“Duh. Cade doesn’t get coffee for just anyone, Gigi.” To emphasize, she motions with the coffeepot she’s holding to the to-go cup, still in my grip. “And he’s brought you coffee to work every day this week.”
I flush. “He’s just being nice.”
“EJ changes my tires and takes my car for an oil change every time it needs it,” Rory tells me. “You think he’s just being nice, too?”
I chew on the inside of my cheek in indecision, release it. She’s got a damn good point, but EJ and Cade aren’t exactly the same. “I see what you mean. But Cade and I are hooking up. That’s all. When the summer ends, we do, too.”
“And EJ does my mechanic work because he likes it,” Rory says, emotionless. “Give me a break.”
“He does it because he’s in love with you,” I say as she wanders away to greet a table. When I look at her again, she flips me off.