7. Cash #2
She’s out in the field, a hundred yards from the barn, when I finally find her.
Her long floral skirt moves with the breeze, the slit riding high on her thigh and showing off the delicate moth tattoo just below her knee.
I try not to stare, but my eyes keep dragging back to it.
Her face is tilted up to the moon, a bottle of whiskey loose in her hand, and she’s just … standing there.
I stand at the gate for a long moment, watching her. The image burns itself into my brain. Then I open the gate and walk out until I’m about ten feet away.
“I’m fine,” she says, without turning around.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
I stop beside her and look up at the same moon she’s staring at. It’s full and low and glowing.
“Nice night,” I say lightly.
“Cash.”
“Halle.”
She exhales, takes a long pull from the bottle, and holds it out without looking at me. I take it, drink, and hand it back.
Up close, she’s definitely not fine. Her eyes are glassy and too bright. Her jaw is locked tight like she’s physically holding herself together. She’s been crying … or fighting hard not to.
“You don’t have to be out here,” she says.
“I know.”
“I’m not going to talk about it.”
“Okay … To be honest, I don’t really want to hear about it.”
She shoves me. “You’re a real class act. You know that, Thornwood?”
I grin, but it softens when I look at her again. “Yeah, I’ve been told. Comes with the face.”
Then she takes another drink and stumbles a half-step toward me. She’s had too much.
“He thinks I’m running,” she says finally, staring out at the dark field.
“Are you?”
She laughs, short and a little broken. “No. I’m standing in a field, in the dark, drinking whiskey, alone. That’s not running. That’s … I don’t even know what the fuck that is.”
I step closer, carefully, and gently take the bottle from her hand before she drops it. “Right now, it looks like you’re standing in a field, probably about to puke, with a very charming man who’s extremely concerned about your well-being.”
She looks at me then. The moonlight catches the tear tracks on her cheeks and something in my chest twists, hard.
I want to pull her against me. I want to tell her that whoever made her feel like this is an idiot who never deserved her. I want to fix it.
Then she steps into me.
She closes the distance and her free hand fists the front of my shirt. She tips her face up and kisses me.
Sloppy with whiskey—warm, desperate, and wanting—and I kiss her back like a man who’s been starving for it. She’s been living rent-free in my head for three months, and she tastes like bad decisions and something sweeter underneath that I want to chase for hours with my tongue.
And yeah, I have a fucking boner. I’m twenty-two with a pulse and working hands, and the woman I’ve been quietly obsessed with is kissing me in a dark field like she needs it. I’m not a saint; I’ve never claimed to be.
My hand finds her waist, fingers pressing into the thin fabric of her skirt.
I can feel the heat of her skin underneath and when she makes this small, broken sound against my mouth, it shoots straight down my spine.
I pull her closer, greedy, one hand sliding lower to the curve of her ass, because for one second, she’s mine.
I’m an idiot for how badly I want this. For how much I don’t care that she’s drunk or hurting or probably going to regret it. I just want her.
It lasts maybe five seconds.
Then she pulls back.
Then she slaps me.
The sound of it sharp in the open field, swallowed immediately by the dark.
It’s the second time she’s slapped me. The thought flickers through my head, almost funny if it wasn’t so fucking hot.
I don’t move, don’t even reach for my face.
She kissed me. I know that. She knows that. The slap isn’t for me—not really. It’s for herself, for the whiskey, for whatever crack just opened in her and let loose something she wasn’t planning to let out tonight.
“Don’t,” she says, voice low and cracked at the edges. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say quietly, the corner of my mouth twitching despite the sting in my cheek.
She shoves the whiskey bottle into my chest, and I catch it. Then she turns and walks back toward the barn, floral skirt swaying around her legs, pink hair catching the moonlight once before she disappears through the gate.
I stand in the field with her whiskey bottle and watch the barn door close behind her.
I stay there for a long time.
She kissed me.
I kissed her back.
She slapped me and told me never to touch her again.
She was the one who kissed me first.
I’ve been kissed before. A lot. I know exactly how that usually goes—how it starts, where it leads, and how it feels the next morning, when it’s done. I have never once stood in a dark field afterward, holding a woman’s whiskey bottle, thinking about it this hard.
The problem is that she kissed me first.
She wanted me—even if it was just for five sloppy, whiskey-soaked seconds—and it scared the hell out of her.
She’s going to walk back into The Bar tomorrow, call me “kid,” hand me my beer without letting our fingers touch, and act like none of this happened.
And for now … I’m going to let her.
I take a long drink from her bottle and look up at the same moon she was staring at earlier. I’ve never been a man who holds on to things. I reach for what I want, take it, and move on. That’s always been enough.
But I want her.
I want to peel back every layer of armor she wears like a second skin and find out what’s underneath. I want my hands back on her waist. I want to hear that small broken sound she made against my mouth again.
I am so completely fucked.