5. Chapter 5
Cassie
Caroline has texted me fourteen times since Thursday.
I know because I counted.
Caroline: So are we going to talk about it?
Me: Talk about what?
Caroline: The KISS, Cassie.
Me: It was a one-time event.
Caroline: You sound like an insurance claim.
Friday, 9:14 PM.
Caroline: Have you stopped thinking about it yet?
Me: I was never thinking about it.
Caroline: Liar.
Me: I’m reorganizing my colored pencils.
Caroline: BY UNDERTONE?
Me: Obviously.
Caroline: That’s what you do when you’re avoiding something.
Me: I’m not avoiding. I’m just organizing.
Caroline: Same thing.
Saturday, 2:17 PM.
Caroline: Scale of 1-10, how good was it?
Me: I’m not answering that.
Caroline: That means it was above a 7.
Me: Goodbye.
Sunday, 10:42 PM.
Caroline: You go back tomorrow.
Me: It’s my job. I babysit his daughter. That’s what I do on Mondays.
Caroline: Sure. And the kiss?
Me: What kiss?
Caroline: Cassie.
Me: It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine. I’m going to show up, be professional, watch his kid, and absolutely not think about the fact that I grabbed his shirt like a lunatic.
Caroline: You grabbed his shirt?
Me: GOODNIGHT CAROLINE.
It’s Monday. I’m in my car. I am going to be professional.
My phone buzzes before I’m out of town, but it’s not Caroline. It’s an email. From my editor, Lisa. I read it at a red light, which is irresponsible but Wylde Mountain only has two stoplights and this one lasts ninety seconds.
She wants to talk about an opportunity. The Rocky Mountain Children’s Literary Festival in Bozeman.
Three days in September. They want me as a featured author.
A panel on illustration, a keynote reading, a signing booth, and a meet-and-greet with young readers.
The Barnaby books have been on their radar since Book Two went through a second printing.
They think I’d be “a wonderful addition to the festival lineup.”
My first instinct is to close the email.
My second instinct is to list reasons why I can’t do it.
I have the bookstore. I have my babysitting shifts.
September is busy. Bozeman is hours away.
I’d have to stand on a stage. I’d have to talk to crowds.
I’d have to be Cassie Benton, Children’s Author, in public, in front of people, with a microphone.
My third instinct is to notice that every reason on my list is actually an excuse.
I close the email. I’ll think about it later. Thinking about it later is what I do with things that scare me.
The ranch road curves through the valley and I can see the barn and the cabin and Cash’s truck. I park in my spot. 12:55. Lola is at the screen door. Both hands waving.
Cash opens the door as I come up the steps. He’s in a work shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his hair is tied back and he’s been outside because his forearms are tanned and there’s dirt on his boots.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
We look at each other. Two adults who kissed on this porch four days ago and are now pretending that the porch is just a porch and not a place where a significant event occurred.
“Cassie!” Lola breaks the standoff by running into my legs. I pick her up. She grabs my face with both hands. “Barnaby?”
“After lunch.”
Cash grabs his hat from the hook by the door. “I’m on the north fence with Beckett. Back by four thirty.”
“Got it.”
He pauses in the doorway. Close enough that I can smell whatever soap he uses. “About Thursday,” he says.
“We don’t have to talk about it.”
“I wasn’t going to talk about it. I was going to say I’m not sorry about it.”
He puts on his hat and walks to his truck. I stand in the doorway holding his daughter and watching him drive away and I am going to be very professional today.
Very, very professional.
Lola and I have our routine. Lunch first. She eats a sandwich I cut into triangles because circles are unacceptable and squares are “boring, Cassie.” Then Barnaby. Two chapters. She’s asleep by page four.
I set up my laptop at the kitchen table. I open the Barnaby file and stare at the illustration I’m working on. Barnaby standing at a gate, looking out at a wide field. It’s supposed to represent possibility. Right now it just looks like a horse standing at a gate.
I open Lisa’s email again.
Featured author. Keynote reading. Signing booth. Meet-and-greet.
The words are exciting in the abstract. But they make my palms sweat.
I have never done a public appearance. I’ve done phone interviews.
I’ve answered email questions from school librarians.
I’ve signed books that Harper mailed to readers.
But I’ve never stood in a room full of strangers and been the reason they came.
Harper would tell me to do it. Caroline would tell me to do it. My editor obviously wants me to do it.
I close the email again. I work on Barnaby. Lola sleeps. The cabin is quiet.
Cash comes back at four twenty. Early. He comes through the door smelling like fence posts and sunshine and he looks at Lola, still napping, and then at me.
“She go down easy?”
“Page four.”
He gets water from the kitchen. Leans against the counter. I’m packing up my laptop but slower than I need to.
“You okay?” he asks. “You look like you’re thinking about something.”
“I’m always thinking about something.”
“You’re thinking about something specific. You’ve got the face.”
“I don’t have a face.”
“You have a face for when you’re avoiding something. Your jaw does this thing.”
“My jaw does not do—”
“Cassie.”
I close the laptop. “My editor sent me an opportunity. A literary festival in Bozeman. They want me as a featured author. Keynote reading. Panel. Signing.”
“That sounds incredible.”
“It sounds terrifying.”
“Same thing sometimes.” He sets his water down. “What’s the problem?”
“I’d have to stand on a stage. In front of people. With a microphone.”
“And?”
“And I’m a person who writes books alone in her apartment and organizes her colored pencils. I’m not a stage person.”
“You read Barnaby to my daughter with full voices and sound effects. You made a horse whinny so convincing that Birdie answered from the barn.”
“That’s different. That’s one child.”
“It’s a room full of children. Same audience. More of them.”
I stare at him. He stares back. He’s not pushing. He’s not telling me what to do. He’s just standing in his kitchen with his sleeves rolled up, quietly dismantling every excuse I have.
“You wrote three books that kids sleep with under their arms,” he says. “Maybe they’d like to meet the person who made them.”
“Maybe I’m not ready.”
“Maybe nobody ever is.”
The cabin is quiet. Lola is still sleeping. Cash is looking at me the way he looked at me on the porch. Steady. Direct. Like he sees something I haven’t admitted to yet.
“I’ll think about it,” I say.
“I know you will. You’ll think about it for three weeks and make a spreadsheet and a pros-and-cons list and then you’ll decide exactly what you already know right now.”
“That’s my process.”
“Your process is a stalling tactic.”
“You’re very annoying.”
“I’ve been told.”
I should leave. I’m standing in his kitchen having a conversation that is making me uncomfortable because he’s right and I don’t like being seen that clearly by someone I kissed on a porch four days ago.
Over the last few weeks, Cash has told me more about Lola’s mother. How they tried to make it work. How she left when Lola was six months old because this life wasn’t one she could live. He never says it bitterly. If anything, he seems determined not to make her the villain.
I think that tells me almost as much about Cash as the story itself.
“Stay for dinner,” he says.
“I shouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because last time I stayed for dinner, you kissed me.”
“And that was terrible?”
“It was a one-time event.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I keep meaning it.”
He takes a step toward me. Not fast. Not aggressive. Just closing the distance between the counter and the table. The kitchen is small. One step is enough.
“Cassie.”
“What?”
“You’re holding your laptop like a shield.”
I look down. I am, in fact, clutching the laptop to my chest. “That’s because it is one.”
“Put it down.”
“No.”
“Put the laptop down.”
“If I put the laptop down, you’re going to kiss me again.”
“Is that a prediction or a request?”
My face is hot. My hands are gripping the laptop. He’s standing a foot away with his sleeves rolled up and his hair tied back and I want to kiss him so badly that my teeth ache.
I put the laptop on the table.
He’s on me in two seconds. His hands on my waist, his mouth on mine, and the kiss is not like Thursday. Thursday was careful. This is not careful. This is the kiss that happens when two people have been thinking about each other for several days and pretending they haven’t.
His hands slide up my sides. My fingers grip the front of his shirt. He backs me into the counter and his hips pin me there and I make a sound against his mouth that is not professional.
“This is the second time,” he says against my lips. “So much for one-time event.”
“Shut up.”
He grins against my mouth. Then his hand slides into my hair and he tilts my head and kisses me deeper and I stop thinking about events and categories and start thinking about his body against mine.
He lifts me onto the counter. My legs wrap around him and his hands grip my thighs and we are fully making out in his kitchen while his daughter sleeps ten feet away.
“Lola,” I whisper.
“Sleeps like a rock after Barnaby.” He drags his mouth down my neck. “We have time.”
“Time for what?”
He pulls back. Looks at me. Dark eyes. No grin now. Just want.
“Let me show you.”
He drops to his knees.
His hands slide up my thighs, pushing my skirt with them. His fingers hook into my panties and pull them down and the air hits my skin and I grip the edge of the counter.
“Cash. We’re in the kitchen.”
“I know where we are.” He presses his mouth to my inner thigh. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No.” The word comes out fast. Embarrassingly fast.
“Good.”
His mouth finds me and I stop thinking.
He is thorough. Patient. Adjusting pressure, following instinct, finding exactly what works and staying there. His hands grip my thighs and hold me open and his tongue is slow and deliberate and I am gripping the counter so hard my knuckles ache.
“Cash.” His name falls out of me. “Oh God.”
“Let me hear you,” he says against me. The vibration of his voice sends a shudder through my entire body.
Being quiet is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. He’s relentless and focused and every sound I make is bitten off and swallowed and the effort of staying silent makes everything more intense. My hand finds his hair. I grip it. He groans against me and the sound pushes me to the edge.
I come with his name on my breath and my thighs shaking and my back arched against the kitchen cabinets. The orgasm rolls through me in waves and he stays with me through every one, gentle now, easing me down.
He stands. His mouth is wet. His eyes are dark. He braces his hands on the counter on either side of me and looks at me like I’m the most important thing he’s ever seen.
“That wasn’t a one-time event either,” he says.
I press my forehead to his chest. My breathing is ragged. My hands are still shaking.
“This isn’t casual for me,” I say. Into his shirt. Because it’s easier to say difficult things when you’re not looking at someone. “I need you to know that. I don’t do this. I don’t sit on kitchen counters. I don’t let people see me like this. This is not how I operate.”
“I know.” His hand is in my hair. Gentle. “It’s not casual for me either.”
“So what is it?”
He’s quiet for a moment. His thumb traces circles behind my ear.
“I don’t know yet,” he says. Honest. Not evasive. Just honest. “But I know I’m standing in my kitchen with a woman I think about when she’s not here. I know Lola asks for you every morning. And I’m not stupid enough to pretend that doesn’t matter.”
I lift my head. Look at him.
“That’s a lot of knowing for a man who doesn’t know what this is.”
“I’m working on it.”
A sound from the bedroom. Small. A rustling. Lola is waking up.
I slide off the counter. Cash hands me my panties from his back pocket. I take them. Our fingers brush. Neither of us pulls away.
“So the festival?”
I look at him. He’s not pushing. He’s just asking.
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Think faster.”
“You’re very annoying.”
“Second time you’ve said that today.”
“Because it’s still true.”
“Daddy?” Lola’s voice from the bedroom. “Cassie?”
“Right here, sweet girl,” I call back.