Chapter 9 #2
Wednesday comes in a blink, and soon Kasey and I are back in Pastor Brown’s office. It’s been raining all morning, and the air inside the church is musty and stale. I try my best to not let it affect me, but I have to breathe slowly so I don’t start gagging.
“You plan on living here?” the pastor asks. “In Saddlebrook Falls.”
“Of course,” I say. “Kasey’s family’s ranch is here. We wouldn’t dream of leaving.”
He eyes me curiously. “You left once. You’d be content with a life on the ranch?”
“I left to go to school. To become a lawyer.”
“A lawyer,” he hums. “Just like your mother.”
Kasey is quiet next to me, but I feel him go still.
“She was a lawyer too,” I agree. “But I’m nothing like her.”
Pastor Brown looks at me a moment longer before his eyes flick to Kasey. “What about you?”
“What about me?” Kasey asks, voice low and rich.
“How does your family feel about bringing Miss Jones back into the fold? Are they happy to know of your reunion, or are they just as in the dark as the sheriff is?”
It takes everything in me not to scoff.
Kasey seems unperturbed. “They know,” he says. “They support it.”
“Were they supportive of your relationship when you were younger?”
This has Kasey hesitating. “My parents were . . . concerned, at times.”
“About what?”
He swallows. “Who her father is.”
“Ah.” Pastor Brown angles his head. “I see. And is that still something they still hold concern for?”
“No.” The finality in his tone is obvious.
I can’t help but wonder, if this were real, would his parents still worry?
Kasey struggled with it back then, carrying the weight of their apprehension alongside his own feelings.
It was why we kept our relationship private, even from all our friends.
I’d convinced myself I was doing him a favor by asking to keep the depth of our feelings a secret from everyone else—I thought it might help keep him unshackled from any expectation or disappointment.
I never wanted to stir up more drama where he was concerned.
But the truth was a little more layered than that, and deep down I knew—even then—that all I was really looking to salvage was my own freedom.
My whole life I’ve found it easy to keep the power in my relationships.
As long as I liked a guy less than he liked me, I’d come out on top when things ended—because they always ended.
Most of them crashed and burned. I never even imagined the possibility of something lasting longer than a few months because I’d been a part of so many versions of the same damn story: the burst of an initial spark that would eventually ignite into passionate chemistry.
And then, the first signs of trouble, usually jealousy or an attempt at control, would lead to the inevitable dismantling of the whole shebang.
I’d dated dozens of guys who followed that exact trajectory all throughout high school, as if the blueprint had been etched in stone.
Something about the familiarity of it felt safe.
There was no pain or loss in knowing love was temporary, like an itch that needed scratching, until the itch went away and the scratching became a nuisance.
But with Kasey . . . From the very first time he kissed me, I knew things were different.
All the rules I’d grown accustomed to changed even before I understood what was happening.
His smile was a warm and steady glow inside my heart, his eyes a free fall with no rope to save me, and it was a fool’s chance in hell to think I’d ever hold the power over him.
He was the first boy I liked far beyond the bounds of my control, and I knew that whatever impending doom was pointed our way, the fallout would wreck me.
“What about children?” Pastor Brown asks, eyes flitting back and forth between the two of us.
My stomach clenches painfully as a heavy wave of nausea rolls through me. I try my best not to let it affect me, but I have to breathe slowly so I don’t start gagging. I press the back of my knuckles against my lips and inhale deep through my nose. “What about them?”
“Have you discussed it? If you plan on having any? How many?”
Kasey doesn’t skip a beat. “As many as Ava wants to give me.”
“So there’s no goal in mind?”
“The goal, Pastor, is to support her as best as I know how. If she wants children, we’ll have them. If she doesn’t, well, then we’ll have each other.”
My eyes snap to his face, finding his expression calm. Steady.
Pastor Brown frowns. “Surely you’re allowed an opinion on the matter?”
Kasey nods. “Of course.” His expression is sharp, gleaming like the edge of a knife. “My opinion is I’d rather not create any expectations over what my wife chooses to do with her body.”
The words hit me like a freight train.
“Bathroom?” I ask, standing abruptly from my chair. The legs whine against the hardwood floor.
Pastor Brown’s brows bunch. “Down the hall, to the left.”
I race across the room, pushing through the office door so hard it nearly slams against the wall. Covering a hand over my mouth, I will my stomach to hold it in, to give me just a few more seconds to get to the toilet.
“Ava?” Kasey’s raised voice comes from somewhere behind me.
I find the sign for a bathroom hung on a wooden door with a brass knob and crash through it. Inside is a single toilet and sink, and I make it just in time.
“Ava!” Kasey shouts again over the sounds of my retching.
I have a distant awareness of him coming through the door.
“Shit,” he says, voice laced with panic.
Warm fingers skate gently around the curve of my neck, pulling my hair back and away from my face as the contents of my stomach begin to spill out of me.
It feels like it goes on forever, but hardly anything comes out. I haven’t eaten since dinner last night—a mistake, I know—so it’s just bile and acid working their way through me. My throat burns raw by the time things seem to settle down.
“Hang tight,” Kasey says, and then his hands slip away, and I feel the loss of him like an old, festering wound.
I close my eyes, letting the darkness take root as I heave into the toilet again, but nothing comes out.
There’s just the sound of the sink faucet turning on and off again, of shuffling boots against the linoleum floor.
And then he’s back.
One hand wraps around my shoulder, coaxing me back to lean against the broad expanse of his chest. Kasey reaches to push the lever on the toilet and flush away my sick, and then he’s pressing a cool, wet paper towel to my forehead, to my lips. “You all right?” he murmurs softly in my ear.
He’s warm and solid and smells like wind, like pine and grass and Texas skies. I close my eyes again, basking in the feel of him, in the feel of this. “I think so,” I say back. “Sorry . . . I must have eaten something—”
“Don’t apologize,” he counters, voice stern. But his hands . . . his hands are so gentle as they soothe over me, running up and down the length of my arms, dragging across my collarbone and the top of my shoulder. I sink deeper into him, letting him hold my weight.
“Thank you,” I say. It comes out in a whisper.
His cheek presses lightly against the top of my head as he lets out a slow breath. It’s only now I realize his heart is flying, pounding through the front of his chest against my spine. “What do you need?” he asks. I feel his rough swallow, the tension in his fingers.
“I need to eat something,” I admit. “I’m starving.”
His hand stills in the crook of my elbow. “Your stomach is upset, and you want to eat?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Yeah . . . sometimes this happens though. When I’m hungry.” I pray he doesn’t question it further.
“Okay.” He shifts to get his feet under him. “Maybe some crackers and soup? Something gentle?”
“That’s perfect.” I smile. “But . . . I don’t think we’re done with our session.”
“Fuck the session,” he mutters. He helps me stand, keeping his arms around me for support. “That guy’s pissing me off.”
“At least go tell him I’m not feeling well. Maybe we can reschedule.” I bite my lip. “We need this ceremony.”
I turn to face him, finding his expression still tinged with worry.
He’s quick to shutter his emotions. “Yeah, okay,” he agrees.
His thumb swipes against the inside of my wrist before letting me go.
He fishes his keys out of his pocket, handing them to me.
“You okay to get to the truck on your own?”
I nod. “Yeah. Definitely”
“I’ll go talk to Pastor Brown. Meet you there soon.”