Chapter 15
A few weeks later, on a Tuesday evening, I’m finishing up in my bedroom with a customer named Billy.
He’s a farmer on a communal homestead about an hour away. He’s around my age with curly brown hair and a dimple on his chin.
He’s been sitting in my section of the Pub every Tuesday for a month, and I’ve taken him upstairs at closing each time. I’m pretty sure he’s catching feelings.
I might have to do something about it.
When he fucks me, he’s gentle and careful, and there’s something swoony in his gaze as he gazes at me in and out of bed. It’s not the first time I’ve had a guy fall for me, but it’s making me more uncomfortable than it used to.
I wish he would wise up.
I wish he would stop coming.
Billy is a sweet guy, and he doesn’t deserve to get his heart broken.
By me.
“Thanks for tonight,” he says as he yanks up his jeans and fastens the zipper and button. “I sure had a good time.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” I’ve put my dress back on but not my boots. In the past, for a good customer, I might have stayed naked until he left, but I don’t like to do that now with anyone but Cade.
It’s a hard, twisty tangle of feelings—like I’m cheating on Cade even though I’m not.
I have no other choice here.
I’ll never have another choice unless the world changes. Or Cade does.
So far he won’t budge about keeping me safe, so there’s no possibility of a real relationship between us. And he’s never mentioned the fact that last month I slipped and said, Love you.
He must not have heard, which was initially a huge relief. But now I sometimes wish he had heard. It feels like something’s forever left unfinished, words hanging in the air unheard, and it nags at me constantly.
So I walk the line as best as I can and try not to daydream of life being different.
“I got something for you,” Billy says, reaching into the old canvas bag he brought with him.
He pulls out something loaf-shaped and wrapped in a worn cloth.
I gasp. “What is it?”
“My grandma baked it. Apple cake.” He offers it toward me with shy hesitance. “It’s real tasty.”
I accept it with care and raise it to my nose to breathe in the scent. “Yum. It smells so good. Thank you. This is way too generous.”
“Wanted to do something nice for you.” He’s dropped his eyes, but he flicks them up a few times toward my face. He clears his throat.
I’m suddenly scared he’s going to ask for something I can’t give him.
Instead, he says, “Walk me downstairs?”
It’s not my typical practice, and under normal circumstances I’d refuse. But I’m so relieved he didn’t ask me to be his woman or his wife that I nod and pull on my boots quickly.
We walk downstairs and into the barroom.
It’s mostly empty now with Pete still cleaning up behind the bar and Danny and a couple of regular customers having a casual conversation at a table across the room.
Billy looks like he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t.
“Okay.” I smile at him. “Thank you for the cake. I hope you have a good week.”
“You too.” He opens his mouth, closes it again, and then sighs and turns toward the main exit.
As soon as he’s moving in the right direction, I lean against the bar in relief, catching Pete’s eyes.
He gives an amused twitch of his mouth, understanding the situation perfectly with no further explanation.
Just as I’ve relaxed, Billy turns back around abruptly and moves to stand right in front of me.
“I just wanted to say,” he bursts out, like he’s forcing the words. “If you want… I mean, if you want something different from… from this, I got a place of my own and could support you real good. You could have a real home. You could be safe and treated real good. If you want.”
I stare at him, slammed with the strangest combination of feelings. Awkward self-consciousness. Real sympathy. The oddest recognition of how six months ago I would have accepted the offer with no hesitation.
And guilt.
Like once again I’m cheating when I know—I know—I’m not.
“Thank you,” I manage to choke out. “I… I…”
He waits a minute to see if I’ll finish. When I don’t, he says, “You don’t have to tell me now. You can think about it. I just wanted to… to… ask.”
“Thank you,” I mumble again, searching desperately for a way to say no without hurting his feelings.
I’m still trying when Billy’s eyes move from my face to something over my shoulder. His expression changes into a confused frown.
A few seconds later, I know why. I don’t even have to turn.
I feel it.
A familiar bristling behind me.
A glance over my shoulder reveals Cade, looming behind me and glowering at Billy. He’s intimidating both in bulk and in expression, and he’s obviously using that intentionally right now.
It’s working on Billy. He’s shrunk back slightly, although he hasn’t done a single thing wrong.
And it’s also working on me.
I feel guiltier than ever.
I hate it. So much.
My temper flares up unexpectedly. “Back off, Cade,” I say before smiling at Billy. “I’ll think about it. I promise. Be safe traveling home.”
Billy doesn’t object to the dismissal. “Sure thing. Think about it, and we can talk next week.”
He smiles at me before shooting a quick, suspicious glance toward Cade as he walks to the exit.
When he’s gone, I whirl around to face Cade, who’s only backed off a couple of inches. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I—?” He scowls toward the door. “What was that all about?”
“It doesn’t matter what it was all about. He’s a customer, and this is my job. And I asked you what you’re doing here?”
I’m not normally quick to anger, but he’s put me on the defensive. I’ve done nothing wrong, but Cade is making me feel like I have.
“I was close by. In the area.” He glances toward Pete, who is pretending to polish a glass as he eavesdrops. “I thought I’d stop by to… to…”
“To get a quick fuck?”
“No! To… to see you. I miss you every night I’m not here.”
Shit, my poor heart is responding to the sheepish mumble.
I take a long breath and blow it out, grappling for my normal matter-of-fact calm. “Whatever the reason,” I say in a milder tone, “you can’t come in here and scare away my customers. You can’t do that, Cade.”
“I’ve never done it before. You know I haven’t. And I wouldn’t’ve done it now, but it looked like… he looked like…”
“Like what?” I ask the question even though I already know what he’s trying to say.
And Billy was definitely looking like that.
“What was he askin’ you when I walked in?”
“How is that your business?”
“You know fuckin’ well why it’s my business. Why are you actin’ this way?”
“I’m acting this way because you’re not being fair to me.
You can’t have it both ways. I get we can’t…
we can’t go further because you’re—” I shift to a whisper so no one overhears.
“—you’re scared I’ll be put in danger, but that means I’m still here doing this job.
You can’t have me to yourself. You can’t interfere with my job, especially since it’s this job that’s keeping me alive.
You can’t get all bristly and possessive this way. You can’t.”
An internal struggle twists on his face until he finally lets out a low groan. “I know I can’t.”
“Do you? Because you came in here like some sort of macho, possessive asshole and—”
“I know. I know I did. I’m sorry. It’s just that… that… I knew you had customers, but I didn’t think they were like…”
“Like what? Someone who could give me a secure life? Someone who wants to take the next step with me?”
“Is that what he was askin’?” A fierce anger transforms his expression until he controls it.
I stare at him coolly.
“Damn it,” he mutters. “I know you’re right. But I can’t help it. I don’t want anyone else touchin’ you. Havin’ you. Offerin’ you the life I can’t.”
Part of me recognizes he’s admitting a lot more than he normally does, and that same part of me loves it. Wants more of it.
But I don’t get to indulge in such things.
Not in this shitty world.
“Believe it or not, fucking strangers isn’t what I’d choose if I had better options, but I don’t, so I have to do this anyway. So this—” I make a gesture toward his body to indicate him and his gruff, intimidating possessiveness. “This can’t happen again.”
He reaches out to touch me, but I brush off his hand and step away from him.
I add, “Trevor never should’ve let you in tonight.”
A few minutes later, I’m back in my room, sinking under a bleak weight of coming doom.
In an effort to fight it, I crawl out my window to sit on the roof. There aren’t many stars visible between the clouds tonight, but I don’t care.
I need to draw them anyway.
I need to somehow find a measure of peace so I can sleep and wake up to another day of this life tomorrow.
I’ve been sketching for only a few minutes when a noise from below makes me peer over the edge of the roofline.
Cade. Standing down there behind the house. Staring up.
“I’m sorry, angel,” he calls up. “I get it. I do. It won’t happen again.”
The hard clench in my chest relaxes, although the weight in my gut remains. “Okay.”
“You forgive me?”
“Of course.”
I do understand how he feels because I feel the same.
Like I’m his. And like he’s mine.
I’d get just as riled if I saw him with another woman, no matter what the circumstances were.
Even though we can’t be together all the way, it’s hard not to feel like we are.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“I’ll do better.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
We’re smiling at each other across the distance when someone opens another window on the back of the building and calls out, “Some of us are trying to sleep in here!”
I giggle, and Cade calls, “Sorry!”
We wave at each other, and then he walks away.
I feel better afterwards. So much better that I’m able to once again ignore that sense of doom lurking farther down the road.