Catching Cassidy

by Melissa Foster

  He opens the car door for me, and my stomach gets nervous after I settle into the seat and he crouches beside me.

  “Cass, thank you for coming out tonight. I really appreciate your help, given this whole thing between us.”

  I swallow hard and stare straight ahead to keep from chickening out of giving him the answer I want to.

  “Don’t you mean the whole thing that’s not between us?” I steal a glance at him. He nods and rises to his feet before closing the door. I watch him walk around the front of the car, run his hand through his hair, and pace for a minute. I try to imagine what he’s thinking and hope it has something to do with the look in his eyes when he asked if I wanted the kind of screaming orgasms that came in a glass. He looked like he wanted me again, like if I had said that I wanted the kind that only he could provide, he might have considered lifting the getting-too-close ban.

  The truth is, I’ve never had a screaming orgasm, or a quiet orgasm for that matter, and just the idea of anything like that with Wyatt makes my whole body ripe with desire. When he slides into the driver’s seat, he stares straight ahead as he starts the car, then pulls out onto the main drag. We drive home in silence—that is, if you don’t count the grinding of Wyatt’s teeth.

  He parks in front of the house, and I notice Tristan’s car isn’t there, but Brandon’s motorcycle is. I have no idea how many vehicles Brandon has, but so far he’s driven a van, a motorcycle, and a beat-up old car. At least we won’t be alone in the house. I don’t know why that makes me feel better, but it does. It’s like having a chaperone on a date. If I know there are other people in the house, I know I won’t get out of my bed and climb into Wyatt’s, which, embarrassingly, I’ve contemplated for the last few nights.

  We sit in front of the house in silence, and before I can stop them, words fly from my lips.

  “Why can’t we be like normal twenty-two-year-olds and just go upstairs and sleep together and worry about the ramifications later?” Holy shit. I can’t believe I said that. I curl my hands into fists and tuck them under my thighs.

  Wyatt stares straight ahead, his jaw working double time. “Is that what you want?”

  His voice is calm and cold. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him sound so cold when he wasn’t pissed off. I turn to look at him, and his hands are splayed flat on his thighs.

  “Sort of,” I admit.

  He turns to look at me, and his face is a blank slate. “You don’t fuck someone because you sort of want to.”

  The way he says fuck someone feels like a slap. Now I’m clenching my teeth together. I want to say, Why not? You did. More times than you probably remember. But I rein in that anger and respond from my heart.

  “I don’t want to fuck you, Wyatt.”

  “Well, that’s what you’re talking about, Cassidy. Do you think I cared about any of those girls I slept with? Do you think I cared if we remained friends or not? Do you think I was even friends with them? I was a stupid kid. I didn’t give a shit about any of them.”

  “That was only a month ago, Wyatt, not ten years ago.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. The last time I fucked a girl was three months ago. And if you think I’m the same kid I was before my parents died, you’re wrong.”

  He opens his door and steps out of the car. I scramble out and grab his arm.

  “You can’t tell me that part of you doesn’t want to do this.”

  “Do what?” He doesn’t even look at me. His eyes drift around the yard like he’s bored, and it pisses me off. I have no idea why he’s acting this way.

  I step closer to him. Our thighs touch, and his eyes darken. I steel myself against the feel of him and force myself to speak with as much confidence as I can muster, which isn’t much at all. “Sleep together and see where we end up.”

  He backs me up until my butt hits the car. Then he leans over me, pressing his hips to mine, and buries his hands in my hair. I’m turned-on and a little frightened, because he’s looking at me like he’s angry.

  “Is this what you really want, Cassidy? To be one of the girls I fuck? You want me to take you and not care if it ruins our friendship? Because I’ve had a hell of a night, and if that’s what you want, who am I to turn you away?”

  My body trembles, and I hate myself for wanting to tell him yes. Yes, I want this. Yes, I want to be close to him, because I fully believe that once we’re in each other’s arms with nothing between us, everything else will fall into place. I open my mouth, but no words come.

  “Tell me, Cassidy.” He presses his hard cock against me. “You know I want you. Come on. Give me permission.”

  He tugs my hair and brings his lips so close they brush against my cheek. His warm breath slithers over me, making me shudder with need. He settles a hot, openmouthed kiss on my neck, then sucks my skin into his mouth and strokes it with his tongue. My lower belly tightens, spreading heat through my body like wildfire. I close my eyes and feel his hand between my legs, rubbing me through my jeans until I’m wet and my knees go weak. I shouldn’t be turned-on when he’s acting cold and hot at the same time, but I can’t think straight. And as quickly as he pinned me to the car, he releases me, breathing as heavily as I am.

  “Tell me if that’s what you want, Cassidy. ’Cause I can fuck you better than any other guy can, and if that’s all you’re looking for…”

  I push him away, angry at him for being such an ass and furious with myself for getting so turned-on.

  “You think this is easy?” His eyes are dark, his words scathing. “You think I don’t think about what it would be like to be inside you? To have your hands all over me? To wake up to you tomorrow, and the next day, and the next?” He searches my eyes, and I feel stupid for challenging him in the first place.

  “God!” I’m shaking all over, and when he steps impossibly closer, I somehow convince myself to speak. “Grow up, Wyatt.” I regret the words as soon as they leave my lips.

  A slow grin spreads across his face. “Maybe that’s the problem. I am growing up. Faster than I ever wanted to. I don’t have a choice, Cassidy. My life is fucked. It’s sink-or-swim time for me and Delilah, and maybe that’s too hard for you to handle.” He takes a step back. “If I’d known you wanted to be a notch on my belt, I would have fucked you years ago. Stupid me. My parents died and I see things differently now. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought there was a difference between making love to someone you love and fucking a girl. Funny how life changes us, isn’t it?”

  I wish I had something to throw at him as he saunters inside.

  The minute the door closes I realize it’s not him I want to throw something at. It’s myself.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ~Wyatt~

  I’M UP BEFORE dawn the next morning after an agitated night’s sleep. I take a cold shower to try to freeze some energy into my exhausted body, throw on a pair of running shorts, grab my sneakers, and then head downstairs. Tristan is lying on the couch asleep, fully dressed. There’s a leather duffel bag beside the couch. I wonder what’s going on with him and Ian, and part of me hopes he’s finally left him for good. The house is silent, and the sun is pushing its way into the morning. I open the back door as quietly as I can and walk out onto the deck. Inhaling a lungful of chilly air, I sit on the steps and put on my sneakers.

  I walk down to the water’s edge, trying to leave thoughts of last night behind. I haven’t gone for a run in weeks, and I know that no matter how much I need this, it’s gonna suck. I head down the beach at a steady pace, hoping it’s going to clear my head. I felt guilty all night about how I handled things with Cassidy, but I have no idea how else to handle any of this. For once in my life I’m paying attention to what comes next. I’m growing up like I’m supposed to. Aren’t I? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when your parents die? I feel like it is. I mean, if not now, then when? I’m not going to be one of those losers who sits around drinking their life away and working at a shitty-ass job. I don’t know if
I want to work at the Taproom, but Delilah feels bound to it, so I’ll figure out how to run it and make it work for her. She deserves that after the way my parents messed with her mind. I know that once she gets past all of this, she’ll be able to run the bar and hire the right people. I just need to get to the point of understanding it all so Jesse can take care of his own business. The last thing I want is to be a burden to the guy after all he’s done for my family. No one wants to be the reason someone else isn’t doing what they want. I imagine Jesse telling people he’s helping out at the Taproom because our parents died, and it leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.

  Like last night when I threw my parents’ deaths at Cassidy like a weapon. It was a crappy thing to do, but she freaked me out. Most guys would sleep with her the minute she showed interest. But what I said is true. When I was in the thick of partying and dorm life, then later, apartment life, surrounded by girls who wanted nothing more than a few hours of pleasure, I took full advantage and had a lot of meaningless sex and never thought anything of it. I had Cassidy to talk with about things that mattered, like what we wanted to do after college or when I was worried about Delilah. I know she never talked to Kyle about her parents. She told me that. It was like we had other people to fill those physical voids in our lives, but we had each other for the real stuff. I don’t want to have meaningless sex with Cassidy. Now I want her to fill all of my voids, to share my life. I want to be the one loving her at night and talking about everything that matters.

  I run past a couple heading in the opposite direction and wave. There are more houses at this end of the beach. I look up as I jog past, wondering what the people inside are doing. Are their lives changing at breakneck speed like mine? Did they wake up this morning wanting to walk down the hall and climb into bed with their best friend? My mind drifts back to Cassidy.

  Cassidy, Cassidy, Cassidy.

  Who am I kidding? I’ve been consumed with thoughts of her for weeks. My mind doesn’t have to drift far. She’s always right there. She shocked me in the bar when she made the comment about screaming orgasms, but that was nothing compared to what she said about us sleeping together. I had to jerk off twice last night just to get past the urge to walk down the hall and give her what she wants—what I want. The problem is, I know she doesn’t want to fuck and see where we end up. That’s not Cassidy, which means she’s as frustrated as I am.

  I force those thoughts away and run for another mile, then turn back toward the house. The sun beats down on my shoulders. I love the heat of the sun. I want to touch Cassidy’s skin when it’s hot from being baked in the sun. We’ve been so busy with the bar that we’ve had almost no time to just hang out and chill. I keep thinking that we’ll have time for that, but then my mind shifts down a dark path that splits like a fork. One side is Cassidy moving to New York, and the other is darker. The unknown. The possibility that our time will never come. That it’ll be stolen from us, like my parents’ lives were stolen from them.

  I see a man walking hand in hand with a little boy down the steps of his deck. They sit on the beach and the little boy fills a bucket with sand. It makes me think of my father and the way we used to build dribble castles in the sand. He’d get wet sand and cup it between his big hands, then dribble it into pointy mounds, and together we’d create a world of dribble castles. Delilah would draw in the sand by the blanket where my mom was usually reading, and every once in a while we’d call each other over to see what we’d made.

  I slow my pace and walk for a while, thinking of my parents. I can’t help but wonder, if they had known they were going to die, what would they have said to me and Dee? Would they have told us what they expected us to do? How to live our lives? What to expect? Parents prepare you for your first day of school. They teach you how to drive and help you learn right from wrong. But no one ever sits you down and says, Hey, son. One day I’m going to die, and when that happens, I want you to…If my father ever had, I probably would have rolled my eyes and blown him off.

  I’m starting to forget certain details about my parents, and that scares me. I can no longer remember their voices. For the first week or so I was able to hear their voices by thinking about them. That was one reason I left Connecticut. It was too painful to walk into a room in our house and hear my father calling out to my mother about when dinner would be ready or some other mundane thing I’d heard a million times. I wonder if one day I’ll forget the way they looked or the way they smelled. It’s a strange thing to know your parents your whole lives and then suddenly the people who loved you unconditionally are buried six feet under.

  A memory.

  A fading memory.

  I think of Delilah and I remember that their love wasn’t unconditional after all.

  Our house comes into focus, and I see movement on the deck upstairs. Cassidy. I watch her walk sleepily along the deck. She’s wearing my T-shirt again, which makes me smile. The railing of the deck blocks most of her from my view, but I can see her from the waist up. She shields her eyes and presses her face to the glass doors leading to my bedroom. When my parents were alive, Mom never knocked on my bedroom door, and it used to piss me off that she’d barge in. Watching Cassidy peer into my room reminds me of how she always thinks of me before herself. I never had to ask Cassidy not to wake me in the mornings. Delilah would knock on my door and holler, Wy? Even when Cassidy stayed at my place after parties, she never woke me up. Sometimes I’d wake up and find her reading at the foot of my bed. When I’d have a bad game, my father would tell me it didn’t matter anyway. At least you didn’t fail a test, he’d say. Cassidy knew how seriously I took football. She’d ask me what I thought went wrong and listen while I bitched. She’d smile and ask, So what are you going to do different next time? She knows me better than my parents did. I think they knew how to guide me toward what they thought was best, but Cassidy has always supported what I thought was best.

  Until now.

  She’s going along with it, but I know it’s killing her as much as it’s killing me.

  I walk up the stairs on the side of the house to the second level and around the corner of the house toward my bedroom. Cassidy’s butt is sticking out from beneath the shirt, which is hitched on her panties, as she peeks into my room.

  “Why don’t you open the door?”

  She jumps back and covers her mouth. “I’m sorry.” Her face is beet-red. “I just wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t want to wake you up.”

  I pull out a chair and sit down, enjoying the way her cheeks pink up. She looks so innocent standing there bare-legged, with the T-shirt hitched on her panties, and fidgeting with the edges of her shirt. God, I love her so much. I can’t help but tease her.

  “It’s okay. I’m used to girls trying to sneak a peek. Not many girls can resist me.”

  She swats my arm, then fixes her T-shirt. Damn.

  “Yeah, about that…” She sits across from me and puts her foot on my chair between my legs. She seems a lot more comfortable than she was when she was challenging me last night.

  She sighs and rests her head back. Her hair falls behind the chair and nearly touches the deck. The shirt slides up her thighs and stops short of her panties. That’s a dangerous shirt. Every time she wears it, I get myself in trouble.

  “Do you know how much I love it here?” She’s staring up at the sky as she asks.

  Do you know how much I love you? “I know how much you love it here. That’s why I was so surprised when you said you wanted to move to New York so badly.”

  She rights herself in her seat and tilts her head. “You were surprised, weren’t you?”

  I nod and watch her eyes slide south and linger on my mouth, then slip lower to my bare chest, where they remain. She licks her lips. I pick up her foot and rub my thumbs along her instep the way I know she likes when her feet are sore. I know I shouldn’t do it, but I can’t help it. I want to touch her. Need to touch her.

  “You might want to lift your eyes.” I smile when s
he blushes.

  “See? Things have gotten really weird between us. I used to be able to ogle your chest without feeling funny about it.”

  The spark of mischief I see in her eyes cuts right to my heart. The sensuous sound of her voice strokes over my skin, stirring my desire to be inside her. I’m in way too deep, and there’s no lifeboat in sight. I don’t know exactly what’s changed, but I can’t fight the current running between us, and I have no desire to. I want to fall into it.

  “And I used to be able to look at you without wanting to be inside you.” Her jaw drops open, and I laugh. “What?” I’ve hit a wall. I was fooling myself, thinking I could resist Cassidy. We’re too close. She means too much to me, and I want her like I’ve never wanted another woman in my life. There isn’t a chance in hell that I can ignore what I feel anymore. Yes, it’s risky. Yes, it’s probably unfair, but it’s only unfair if she determines it to be, too. This isn’t a matter of trying to be with her. There is no trying. My emotions are bigger than me. Sometime between my run and climbing those stairs, my emotions took any control I had and shredded it.

  “You can’t say things like that.” She says it all breathy and has no idea how hot she looks sitting there in my T-shirt, with no bra on, flashing an eyeful of pink panties.

  She kicks me, and I shake myself out of my own stupor, but the need to be close to her, to continue stroking the fire is too strong.

  “You may want to lift your eyes,” she says, her voice laden with sarcasm.

  “Why?” I hold her stare and tell myself that I’m playing a dangerous game, but I know this is no game. I’m completely powerless to resist her. I bring her foot to my mouth and press a kiss to the tips of her toes. The muscles in her leg flex. “Babe, the view of your eyes is just as hot as the view of your chest or those pink panties peeking out from under my T-shirt you’ve confiscated. I’ll set my eyes wherever you want me to.”