Chapter 22
THAD
Wood sliding against wood over and over pulled me to consciousness.
I opened my eyes to an empty bed and cold sheets where Cash should’ve been. Had been. All damn night.
For one disoriented second, I didn’t recognize the room. But then the soreness of my body…of my dick…holy fuck…brought everything rushing back.
His hand around the back of my neck.
Cash kissing me.
Pushing him against the wall.
“You’re fired.”
The bedroom door closing between us before I finally stopped letting fear make my decisions.
Another drawer opened.
I rolled toward the sound.
Cash stood in front of the dresser, wearing a T-shirt and gray sweats, folding clothes into an open duffel bag sitting on the dresser. His hair was damp from a shower. He’d dressed while I slept less than ten feet away.
“What are you doing?”
He glanced over his shoulder with a smile. “Good morning to you too.”
The closet door stood open. An empty hanger rod that had once been packed with his clothes and the few of mine he’d swiped. Even the shoes he usually left outside the door were gone.
My stomach dropped.
“Cash.”
“What?”
“What the fuck are you doing?”
He looked down at the shirt in his hands, then back at me as if the answer should’ve been obvious. “Packing.”
I sat up too fast, the sheet falling away from my chest. “Why?”
“Usually makes moving shit easier.”
Moving.
The word punched straight through me.
Sometime between falling asleep in my arms, sated and boneless, last night and waking up this morning, Cash had decided to leave.
Maybe he regretted firing me. Maybe he regretted kissing me. Maybe he regretted that we fucked. Maybe he’d woken up beside me and realized the reality of having me hadn’t lived up to the months of wanting me.
Or maybe I’d given him exactly what he wanted and proven every fear he’d ever had about accepting something from me.
I shoved the sheet aside and stood. “If last night was too much—”
Cash stopped folding, his eyes raking over my naked body. “What?”
“We should talk about it before you decide anything.”
“Decide what?”
“To leave.”
His eyebrows pulled together. “What the fuck, Doc? Who said I was leaving?”
“You said you’re moving.”
“I am.”
He zipped the duffel bag, grabbed the handles, and lifted it from the floor.
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
He walked past me and out of the bedroom.
I stood there naked, staring after him.
Upstairs.
Not out.
Relief weakened my knees before irritation replaced it, and I chased after him, my dick bouncing between my legs. “You couldn’t have led with that?” I called out as he headed through the house.
Cash’s laugh drifted down the hall. “You didn’t ask where. You have a penchant for assuming shit, Doc. We need to work on that.”
Cash had already reached the stairs. He carried the bag in one hand and used the railing with the other, taking each step carefully. I stayed behind him, close enough to catch him if something happened and far enough back that he couldn’t accuse me of hovering.
He glanced down at me after the fourth step. “If you stare at my ass any harder, you’re going to burn a hole through my sweats.”
“I’m watching your knee.”
“Bullshit.”
It was mostly bullshit. He had a gorgeous, bitable ass. I should know. I did know. And if I succeeded in burning a hole in those damnable sweats, I’d be able to see the marks I’d left on it last night.
He continued up the stairs without asking for help. His steps were slower than they had been before surgery, but they were steady. No brace. No crutch. No white-knuckled grip on the railing.
By the time we reached the landing, the urge to take the bag from him had me nearly crawling out of my skin.
Cash carried it down the hall and into the guest suite.
A stack of folded clothes sat on the bed. His laptop and chargers were on the nightstand. Three pairs of shoes lined the wall beside another bag I hadn’t noticed him carry up.
He had been moving while I slept.
Cash dropped the duffel onto the bed and unzipped it.
“What are you doing in here?”
He gave me a sideways look. “I thought we established this. Moving.”
“Into the guest suite?”
“That’s generally what happens when you put your shit in a room.”
“Why?”
He pulled a sweatshirt from the bag. “Because I can do the stairs now.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“The room downstairs was because I couldn’t get up here. Now I can.”
He placed the sweatshirt on top of the stack without looking at me.
Something about the careful way he lined up the edges stopped me from responding.
This wasn’t only about the stairs.
I crossed the room and picked up the folded clothes.
Cash finally looked at me. “What are you doing?”
“Moving you.”
“I’m already moving.”
“To the wrong room.”
His mouth opened, but I walked out before he could stop me.
“Thad.”
I kept going.
“Where the hell are you taking my shit?”
I carried the clothes into the primary suite and set them on the bed.
Cash stopped in the doorway.
His gaze moved from me to the clothes, then around the room.
He’d never been in here. He’d never slept in this bed.
But he’d likely thought about it every time he slid into bed downstairs.
Every time he walked past the stairs. Now, he stood at the threshold, gazing at a room that belonged to a part of the house he probably thought he needed permission to enter.
“Thad.”
“This is our room.”
He didn’t move.
The silence stretched long enough for doubt to creep beneath my skin.
“Unless you don’t want it to be,” I added.
Cash looked at me then. “You don’t have to do this…”
“Yeah, I do.”
“We had sex, and it was—” His lips twitched. “It was really fucking good, but that doesn’t mean… It doesn’t mean…”
I waved my hand around the space. “No. You being the man I want to share it with means you’re moving into my bedroom. If it’s what—”
His expression changed, the humor disappearing so quickly as he scowled at me, his brow furrowing. I wanted to reach for him and joke about his aversion to ifs.
I didn’t.
Cash had spent months having his body handled, moved, supported, and restrained by other people. If he crossed the space between us, it needed to be because he chose to.
“You never said anything about sharing it,” he said.
“I’m saying it now.”
“Because I started moving upstairs.”
“Because you started moving into a guest suite in the house where you already live.”
His eyes narrowed. “I am a guest.”
“You haven’t been a guest since the day you first stepped through the door.”
“Then what have I been?”
Mine.
The answer came too fast. Too possessive. Too close to everything Cash feared about people who gave him something and thought it bought them a claim.
“The first person I look for when I come home,” I said instead. “The reason I started coming home at all.”
His throat moved.
“I wake up and listen for you. I walk into the kitchen and expect to find you arguing with the coffee maker. I buy food I don’t eat because you like it. Half the shit in my living room is yours, and when you spend the day at Halo House, this place feels wrong until you walk back through the door.”
Cash glanced down.
“I don’t want you upstairs because we had sex,” I continued. “I want you here because I’m in love with you.”
His head snapped up.
There it was.
The thing I’d nearly said a dozen times. The truth I’d swallowed every time Cash looked at me like he was waiting for something I’d been too afraid to give him.
I couldn’t take it back.
Didn’t want to.
Cash stared at me. “You’re in love with me.”
“Yes.”
“You waited until I was standing in your bedroom holding half my closet to mention that?”
“I didn’t plan this well.”
“No shit.”
A laugh escaped me, but Cash didn’t join in. His eyes had gone bright.
“What does this mean?” he asked.
The question had nothing to do with bedrooms.
“It means I want you here tonight. Tomorrow. After you finish rehabilitation. After you know what happens with hockey. After you don’t need anything from me.”
His face tightened at the last part.
I stepped closer but stopped before touching him.
“It means your place here isn’t tied to your knee,” I said.
“You don’t have to leave because you can climb the stairs or drive yourself somewhere or earn your own money.
If you ever walk out of this house, I want it to be because you chose somewhere else.
Not because you decided I was getting ready to ask you to go. ”
Cash dragged a hand over his mouth.
“I don’t want somewhere else.”
The words barely reached me.
“What do you want?”
His gaze lifted to mine. “You.”
I held out my hand.
Cash closed his eyes and took my hand.
I pulled him against me, and his arms locked around my waist. He buried his face against my chest. Last night had been hunger and months of frustration finally breaking loose. This was different. Quiet. Terrifying in ways stripping naked had never been.
“I love you too,” he muttered against my skin.
I tightened my arms around him. “Good.”
“Good?”
“It would be awkward sharing a bedroom if you didn’t love me.”
His teeth sank into my pec.
“Ow.”
“Say something stupid again, and I’ll bite harder.”
I caught his jaw and tipped his face up. “You love me.”
“Questioning my judgment already.”
“You’re moving into my room.”
“Our room,” he corrected.
The words settled somewhere deep inside me.
I kissed him slowly. No desperation. No reason to rush before one of us stopped it.
When Cash pulled back, he looked toward the clothes on the bed. “You know that’s not half my closet.”
“I assumed.”
“There are four more bags downstairs.”
“Of course there are.”
“And my goalie jerseys.”
“They can stay in the guest room.”
Cash shoved me away.
I laughed and followed him into the hall.
Cash came home from physical therapy three days later, carrying a black binder.
He dropped it on the kitchen island, then stood on the other side of it without removing his coat.
I looked from him to the binder. “What happened?”
“Why do you assume something happened?”
“Because you’ve been standing there for thirty seconds waiting for me to notice that,” I said, waving a hand at the binder.