Chapter 39
The entire month of March was heaven, all spent with Cassie.
Saturday morning bike rides, with her pressed up against me, lazy Sundays in bed, stolen evenings together when we aren’t working.
Cassie’s spending less and less nights in the apartment, but if I had my way, I’d move her in completely.
She’s all but living with me at this point anyway.
Her toothbrush rests alongside mine, the sleeves of her shirts brush against mine in the closet.
We’ve gradually shifted parts of our lives to make more and more room for each other.
We’ve memorized the shape of one another in every square inch of my house and I couldn’t be happier.
I still have my days where the shadows make their appearance.
I welcome them, refusing to push Julie out, and Cassie is right there with me when it happens.
I truly feel like life is on the up and up.
Take right now, for instance. I’m sitting in my dad’s bushhog on a beautiful April day, clearing some brush behind my house with the goofiest grin plastered on my face.
Cassie is somewhere inside my house puttering around or watching one of her true crime shows, and my dog is probably curled up happily next to her.
I’d forgotten what it feels like to fall in love. This obsessive, overwhelming feeling where all I want to do is be near her.
Like I said. On the up and up. And as soon as I get this chore finished, I can join her. Maybe she’ll even shower with me. The thought has me wanting to kick this piece of machinery into high gear. But it’s old and needs a little tender loving care, so I keep it in the same gear I’ve been in.
My phone vibrates against my thigh from my pocket, and I slow to check who it is.
Rhonda Pierce
Just checking in. It’s been a while. Think you’ll be in town anytime soon? I’d love for you to see some of the changes here at the foundation.
With one hand, I fumble out a quick response.
Not too sure. Tell the kids I said hi.
It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. That last interaction with Rhonda wasn’t my best moment, so I’ve avoided any more trips to help out. I miss the kids like crazy, but I’m sure they’re doing fine without me. Slipping my phone in my pocket, I focus on the yard.
Thirty minutes later I’m done. I can cut the engine, hop down, and join my woman inside. I step up onto my porch but what I see through the window stops me dead in my tracks.
Cassie, wearing skin-tight leggings and a sports bra, round ass up, bent in a position that looks painful. Well, fuck me sideways and call me Sally. Not wanting to interrupt the show, I watch from the window.
At this point I’ve seen my girl naked more times than I can count, but seeing her toned arms holding her torso upright makes my mouth go dry all the same.
She sinks down, one leg folded beneath her, the other stretched out behind, and slowly lowers her chest toward the floor.
Her arms slide forward on the mat, fingers spread wide, forehead nearly touching the ground.
All that dark hair falls over her shoulder, exposing her profile and dammit if she’s not the most exquisite thing.
How in the hell did I get so lucky?
Slowly she rises, our eyes connecting through the paned glass. I feel like a kid getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and I’m not one bit ashamed.
I step inside and greet her with a kiss and smack on the ass.
“You’re sweaty,” she says against my lips.
“And you’re hot.”
I head to the kitchen and fill a cup with ice water. “Care to join me in the shower?”
Showering with Cassie has become one of my favorite things to do. We might as well be the water preservation society for all the times we shower together.
“Sure. But first…” She retrieves a covered dish from the refrigerator, sets it on the counter and opens a box of Ritz crackers. “Try this.”
She scoops something out of the bowl and pops it into my open mouth.
“Mmm,” I say around the bite. “You made this? What the hell is it?”
“A family recipe. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” She scoops out another dollop on a cracker and feeds it to me. “That’s all you can have though. It’s for poker night at Josie’s.”
“Shit, that’s tonight, isn’t it?” I almost let that slip past me. A group of us try to get together regularly to play and tonight is Tyler’s turn to host. It’s usually just the guys, but when Cassie asked to join us, I thought it sounded great. Any chance to have her near me.
Her reasoning made sense. With Penny pretty far along now, Austin freaks out if they’re apart for too long. But there was something in her tone of voice that makes me wonder if she’s a little sneak.
“Shower time,” Cassie says, flattening a palm to my chest. “You coming?”
“Angel, if it’s up to me we both will.”
I follow her laughs all the way to my bathroom.
“Liam.” Josie taps her lime green poker hat, unlit cigar perched between her lips.
Leave it to her to turn poker night into a fiasco. When we arrived, she handed each of us a ridiculous poker visor and a cigar, instructing us to wear them. Even Tyler, completely straight faced, has a bright blue one sitting on his head.
“And if you want to light your cigar, do it on the porch.”
I will admit the food is better with the women here, though. Josie always outdoes herself when it comes to cooking.
An arm drapes across my shoulders as Cassie settles in my lap and plops my hot pink visor onto my head. “You look so cute in it. Wear it for me.” She juts out her bottom lip in the cutest fucking gesture and it looks like this visor won’t be leaving my head tonight.
“Gimme a kiss.” I pucker up and Cassie presses her lips to mine.
“Aww,” Josie squeals. “You guys are so cute. I just wanna pinch both your cheeks.”
In response, I reach around to pinch the side of Cassie’s ass, making her yelp.
“Are we playing poker or are the happy couples just making out all night?” Jackson grumbles.
“Aww, hon.” Penny pats his cheek and rests her head on his shoulder. “You know we love you.”
Tyler shuffles the cards, interrupting Jackson’s pity party, and the game is on.
We start low, twenty dollars in the small blind and forty in the big blind.
Jackson picks up his cards, glances at them once while his face gives away absolutely nothing.
Austin, on the other hand, might as well hold his cards up to a mirror for us all to see.
His eyebrows do the talking for him. I take a peek at the two cards in front of me, schooling my face so it reveals nothing.
Shit. A two and seven.
“Fold,” I say, slapping my cards down. Tyler can take this one. It’s a small pot anyway.
Josie loses interest around the third hand and Penny curls up on the couch with a throw blanket and Josie’s dog under her arm.
Within minutes we all hear her soft little snores.
But Cassie stays perched on my lap, watching the whole thing.
My next hand is a good one. A king and a ten.
I keep my face neutral and match Tyler’s raise.
Austin folds, standing to check on Penny.
She cracks one eye open, mumbles something that sounds a lot like “Not Conrad. Team Rob” and slaps Austin’s hand away.
“Who is Rob?” I ask the room.
“Reality star,” Cassie explains. “Penny binged every episode the other day. Everyone is obsessed with him.”
Josie’s phone appears in front of my face to show me a tatted guy straddling a crotch rocket. Fuck that guy, making Cassie’s voice go all dreamy and shit. I look that good on my bike.
Austin comes around to look over my shoulder at the screen and lets out a huff. Even Tyler cranes his neck to see. I know we’re all thinking the same.
I shove the phone away to focus.
I win the next hand with a king and ten, while Jackson grumbles and Cassie plays with my hair. Tyler just shakes his head as I rake the pot my way.
Cassie straightens on my lap, tapping her nails on the table.
“I think I’ve caught on. Can I give it a try?” She gives a shrug, looking at me with doe eyes.
“Yeah, baby. You can try.”
She shifts off my lap to pull up a chair, and Tyler deals her in.
I should have paid closer attention to the way she arranged her chips or the way she took one glance at her cards, and set them down with a face of stone.
Tyler and I both call, but when it comes to Cassie, she raises without hesitation.
The flop comes out, a jack, a four, and a jack.
Austin folds first, then Jackson. But I’m holding two queens, and if the board cooperates with me, I could have a full house.
I raise, Tyler calls, and Cassie raises, with a lift of her chin.
The turn drops a four, and I raise again.
Tyler’s eyes narrow while he studies the board, then his cards. “I’m out.”
Now it’s just Cassie and me. She meets my raise, unflinching.
The river falls and I can kiss that full house goodbye.
It’s another four. I study Cassie’s face for any tells that might reveal what she’s holding, but her expression is completely blank.
Then I think back to when she asked if the women could join us, how something about her tone raised suspicion.
I call anyway, because I have to know.
Slowly, she lays her cards down one by one. A four and a jack. I stare at her cards and then at her. My girl was holding a fucking four of a kind and knew it. Color me impressed.
Jackson stands to give Cassie a round of applause while Austin tips his head back, laughing. A grinning Cassie drags my chips her way and starts counting.
“Twenty. Forty. Eighty.” She pauses to stack them neatly. “One forty. Two hundred.” Another pause, eyes flicking up to mine, lit up and dancing. “Three twenty. Four hundred and sixty.”
Dusting her hands together, she looks at me and shrugs. “I catch on quickly.”
The drive home is quiet all of thirty seconds before I cut a look her way. “All right, spill it. Tonight wasn’t your first poker night, was it?”
Cassie tucks one leg beneath her in the passenger seat. “College. A group played in the common room. I mostly watched at first.” She looks at her nails, the picture of innocence. “And paid attention.”
“Paid attention,” I repeat.
“Mm-hmm,” she hums all sweetly.
I tap the steering wheel, letting this new information land. “Cassie.”
“Liam.”
“You hustled me.”
Cassie tips her head back and laughs, this unguarded sound that fills the whole cabin of my truck. She sounds so happy; I can’t help but laugh with her.
“You had it coming. Someone needed to knock you down a peg or two.”
“Well, see, now we have a problem,” I say, a brilliant idea already forming.
“What’s the problem?”
I suck in a breath through my teeth, like it pains me to say it. “I need a chance to win that back.”
“Is that so?”
Nodding slowly, I cluck my tongue. “This time though, you’ll wear a lot less clothes when I win.”