Getting Rough

by Parker, C. L.

  Abby smiled down at him. “Your secret’s safe with me. Now, hold still. This is going to sting a little.”

  Shaw winced with a hiss when she dabbed at the cut. The big baby.

  “Sorry, sweetie. Probably takes you back to a time when your mother used to clean your boo-boos, huh? You’d think as you get older it wouldn’t sting so much, but it does.”

  “Actually, no. The lady who gave birth to me wasn’t really a mother, you know? If we’d had a first aid kit in the first place, she just would’ve told me to do it myself.” Shaw’s uncomfortable chuckle was a failed attempt to make light of a very sad situation.

  I wanted to hug him. I also wanted to add his piece-of-crap mother to the list of people I wanted to punch in the throat.

  Abby put the cotton ball down and sat on the stool facing him. “A boy needs a mother, darlin’. I can’t imagine why any woman wouldn’t want to be yours, but some simply aren’t equipped to do the job in the first place. Lucky for you, I’ve got plenty of love and attention to go around. So how about if I unofficially adopt you?”

  Shaw looked stunned, his expression morphing into childlike wonderment. “I think I’d like that very much,” he said. For the first time ever, I heard some genuine warmth in his voice.

  Abby took the hug I’d wanted to give him, and I wasn’t even jealous about it. I was glad she was there for him. Though I wasn’t sure how Casey would feel about it once he found out.

  “Wow,” Shaw said when she pulled away. “That almost made the sucker punch from your other son worth it.”

  “He sucker punched you?!” Abby and I said at the same time.

  Shaw and Abby turned to see me there. I probably looked like Carrie at the prom, my Irish skin flaming as red as pig’s blood with my anger. A sucker punch? That wasn’t how we did things around here. We faced our opponents and let them know what was coming because that was the only fair, non-pussy way to do it. I was outraged that Casey, of all people, would pull a stunt like that. And he was going to face my ire.

  “Cassidy, calm down,” Abby said, knowing full well what was about to go down.

  “Abbs, don’t even try to defend him,” I warned.

  “I’m not,” she assured me. “I just want you to calm down. Everyone is okay, and that’s what’s important.”

  “Really? Everyone’s okay? Shaw fell overboard!”

  “That wasn’t from the sucker punch, though,” he said, actually defending Casey.

  My hand went to my hip. “No? Well then how about you tell me how that part happened?”

  Shaw started to say something but then stopped. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, I can take care of myself, Cassidy. I don’t need you to fight my battles.”

  “It does matter. And if you won’t tell me, I’ll just ask Casey,” I said and then turned on my heel to go find the big jerk for myself.

  “Cassidy!” he called after me, no doubt jumping off his stool to give chase.

  “Let her go,” I heard Abby tell Shaw as I climbed the stairs. “Listen to your mother on this one, sweetie.”

  Yes, Shaw. Listen to your mother. Despite my anger at Casey, my heart warmed for Shaw.

  I knew exactly where Casey would be, and I was right. But I was surprised to find he wasn’t alone in our crow’s nest. I guessed I’d found the answer to my earlier wonderings; Casey had indeed had other women there. It pissed me off even more that he would violate our sacred place. Our place. Not his and Mia’s. Yet when I opened the door to the staircase that ended in our place, I distinctly heard her voice.

  Casey had some nerve. We’d see if he still had it by the time I was through with him. But first, a little more eavesdropping. Hey, Mia had done it earlier. Why couldn’t I?

  “You’re still in love with her,” Mia was saying. “It’s perfectly normal for you to be upset about the situation.”

  “I lost my temper. I shouldn’t have. I swear I didn’t mean to knock him overboard.”

  “But you’re the one who rescued him, Casey. You put your own life at risk to save his. That makes you the hero, not the bad guy.”

  I could just imagine her batting those long, fake lashes at him. Okay, so I couldn’t prove they were fake. But come on, they had to be. Either way, the vision nauseated me. She probably thought she was going to play Lois Lane to Casey’s Superman.

  “She won’t see it that way, though. It’s probably only a matter of seconds before she comes up here to rip me a new one.”

  “I think maybe you’re making more of it than what it really is.”

  No, Miss Morgan, he isn’t. And you should probably mind your own business before I make you victim number two.

  Casey’s guffaw was low. “You don’t know Cassidy like I do. When that woman gets mad, whew!”

  “So she’ll yell at you. Big deal.”

  “No, she won’t yell. I wish she’d yell. She’ll hold a grudge.”

  I grinned a little to myself, remembering some of the spats we’d had as teenagers. This one time I’d gone a whole month of giving him only one-word responses and never even looking him in the eye when I did that much. All because he’d avoided my phone calls for an entire day, and I’d found out that it was because he’d gotten a call from Brittnie, who’d told him her car had broken down and her father was out fishing, and she didn’t know who else to call. Well, she could’ve called anyone except my boyfriend. But the point I was mad about was that he could take her phone call but he couldn’t take mine, nor could he pick up the stupid phone before he left the house to let me know what was going on. It looked shady as all get out, and I figured if he couldn’t talk to me, I wouldn’t talk to him. Yes, I’d taken it a little too far, but again, we were teenagers. And Casey had never let something like that happen again, so I’d say it was a lesson well taught.

  “Oh. The silence routine again?” Mia asked.

  What? She knew about that? Good God! Did he give her every single detail of our life together?

  “You got it,” Casey answered, and I was pretty sure it was the correct answer not only to her question, but to mine also.

  “Well, if I were her…” Mia began.

  Ha! You wish.

  “I’d want you to tell me the truth about what really happened, what really set you off. She needs to know how you feel. And if she doesn’t feel the same way, at least you’ll know and you can finally move on.”

  Apparently, being a romance novelist qualified her as a couples therapist. Not.

  That seemed like just about as perfect a time as any to interrupt. I made my presence known by the sound of my footsteps on the stairs. Casey and Mia got quiet, and when I reached the top, they were both staring right at me.

  Well, didn’t they look cozy in their mirrored positions, sitting knee-to-knee with one leg crossed under the other? At least they weren’t naked, though I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d changed out of their wet clothes together.

  The lantern was on, casting a romantic glow around the room that was amplified by its reflection on the glass behind the two lovebirds. It would’ve been the perfect setting for one of Mia Morgan’s sappy love scenes had it not been for the rain pelting the windows – which sounded more like someone throwing handfuls of pebbles at them – and the ferocious wind that was shaking them in their frames. Hurricane Ayla was barreling into town, and she was on her period.

  But I was more concerned about the storm inside than outside. Inside my head, inside my heart, and inside this room.

  “I’d like a word with you,” I told Casey, crossing my arms over my chest. “In private, if you don’t mind. And even if you do, I don’t care.”

  Mia put her hand on Casey’s knee like it was the most natural thing in the world. I wanted to smack it off, but I pushed back the urge. “I’ll see you later?” she asked him.

  He nodded, the corners of his eyes crinkling with the reassuring smile he gave her. It wasn’t my smile, but it was unlike any smile I’d ever seen him give to anyone before. And then she
took her cue and stood to leave, smart despite all her whimsy.

  I didn’t budge as she maneuvered her way past me, which was rude, but I didn’t feel like being polite at the moment. She’d obviously done enough research to write a book about me, so she should’ve understood my mood and not taken it personally. Fine, I’d apologize later. I honestly had no reason to be mad at her. I was just jealous, unreasonably so. It was the age-old “I don’t want you, but I don’t want you to want anyone else” thing. Maybe men were right. Maybe women really were crazy. I knew I was certainly borderline at the moment.

  Casey was on his feet, his hands tucked into his pockets and his shoulders sagging as he cautiously came toward me. He had the same look in his eyes that he’d had the last time we’d said goodbye. The same look he’d had every time we’d said goodbye. It was always as if he’d thought that this time might be our last. And though I wanted to rage at him for what he’d done to Shaw, my instinct was to make sure he was okay.

  There were no lumps or bruises, no cuts or scrapes to his face or anywhere else that I could see. He didn’t walk with a limp, and he didn’t grimace in his movements. He looked perfectly fine. If I hadn’t known better, I’d say the fight had all been nothing more than a nasty rumor. It was nasty, all right, but not a rumor.

  Meeting him in the center of the room, I took Casey’s chin between my fingers and turned it from side to side to be sure the shadows hadn’t been hiding any marks. “Did he even get a punch in?”

  He pulled back, finally showing a modicum of discomfort. “Yeah. One hell of an uppercut to my chin that jarred my teeth. I think I might have chipped a molar.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” I said, not entirely meaning it. “Do you want me to take a look, or did your little girlfriend already do that?”

  Casey rolled his eyes and turned his back on me. “Cass…”

  “What?”

  When he faced me again, he hung his head and shook it. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “No? Because the two of you sure seem pretty inseparable to me. Since I’ve been here you’ve spent all your time with her, time you’d normally spend with me. Jeez, you were practically finishing each other’s sentences at dinner, Casey. And then she ran down to the pier tonight, so worried about her big, strapping lobsterman, that she felt the need to give you a personal escort back… snuggled into your side like she’s your girl.”

  He finally looked up at me. “Yeah? What do you care? You were more concerned about that asshole than me!”

  I don’t know what it was about what he said, but it really set me off. “Because you sucker punched him in the face, Casey! Really? Why? Why would you do something like that?”

  Casey tried to answer, but I was so pissed, I wouldn’t let him get a word in over my rant.

  “It wasn’t bad enough that you and Da had him out there in the middle of hell’s soup, you had to go and start a brawl with him on top of that! You didn’t even fight fair!”

  Again, he tried to defend himself, “I didn’t mean to —”

  “And then you both ended up overboard! You could’ve died, Casey! Shaw could’ve died! It was so stupid! And for what? I know Shaw has a mouth on him, and believe you me, there have been a lot of times that I’ve wanted to punch him in the face – and well, I did once, but he’d earned that one – but you? You’re better than that. You’re better than a fucking sucker punch, Casey Michaels. So you tell me… what could’ve possibly made you stoop so low?”

  Casey didn’t say anything. He just stood there, grinding his teeth with his jaw ticking and head shaking, not even looking me in the eye. I could tell there was something on the tip of his tongue, but he was fighting hard not to say it. And the more he hemmed and hawed over it, the madder I got.

  “Spit it out!”

  Jesus, he pinned me with a wild glare then. “Fine! I saw you, Cassidy! I saw you with him on the playground. Fucking.”

  I was stunned, shocked into silence. Casey’s face was twisted up in pain, the hurt in his eyes like a cannon that shot through my chest and into my heart. I felt it break for him then. No, not break. Shatter.

  “Oh, my God, Casey. I’m so sorry.” I tried to go to him, but stopped short when he backed away.

  “Don’t.”

  What had I done? “I never meant to —” This time, I was the one unable to finish.

  “Do you have any idea how goddamned much it killed me to know I’ve been waiting for you all this time only to see you with another man? I’m right fucking here!” Casey pounded on his chest with each word, the ferocity like the rumbling of an earthquake that made me flinch in tandem, but it was the aftershock that shook me to the core. “I’ve always been right fucking here. Waiting. Like the biggest dumbass in the world.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I don’t think I ever thought Casey had been waiting for me. Though really, how could I not have seen that? He’d always been available to me when I’d called, had always been available when I’d come into town. There was never another woman around, he’d never talked about any relationships, and we’d had sex during each visit. I knew Casey well enough to know that he wouldn’t have done that if someone else had been in the picture.

  “I thought you hated him. So I’m confused. How do you go from hating the guy to fucking him on a playground?” They were valid questions. His words held venom, but I knew he was just hurt.

  “I don’t know,” I said with a shake of my head. “But I don’t hate him anymore.”

  “Well, that’s great,” he said, throwing his hands up. “Glad the two of you could work it out. Hope you didn’t get any splinters during the mediation.”

  That was unnecessary. “Casey, don’t be a jerk.”

  “Don’t be a jerk? Did you not hear me? I’ve been waiting on you, Cassidy. Wasting all these years on something that was nothing.”

  Waiting for me? Well, I was sure that was a romantic gesture his new friend could appreciate and maybe even swoon over. But me? I was a mover and a shaker. I didn’t wait on anything. If there was something I wanted, really wanted, I did something about it. So it was hard for me to make sense of his words when his actions spoke something different.

  “That was a choice you made, Casey,” I reminded him. “You stayed here in Stonington and you let me go across the country to live another life. A life separate from yours.”

  “I gave you what you wanted, Cassidy. Like I always did. Like I continue to do even to this day. What was I supposed to do? Move to San Diego and be a good little wifey waiting for you at home?”

  “No. You were supposed to love me enough to ask me to stay.” The words just fell out of my mouth. I didn’t even know I’d felt that way. Maybe in all my effort to be independent and in control, I’d convinced myself I’d been fine with his decision all along.

  “Oh, Cass…” He sighed. “Don’t you get it? I loved you enough to let you go.”

  “That’s right. You did. You let me go, Casey, and you waited.” I paused. “But Shaw came after me.”

  That last part looked like it stung. I hated hurting him, but it was the truth.

  Though his voice was low, I still heard every syllable of every word he said next. “He doesn’t love you. I love you.”

  “I know you do.”

  “So what do you want now? Who do you want?”

  I ran my hands over my face, frustrated with myself, frustrated by the situation, frustrated by the question. “I don’t know. I’m really confused right now.”

  Shaw could be a real egotistical ass most of the time, but he’d shown me something different the last few days. Casey had consistently been that man that other men aspire to be, good to the core, and that wasn’t likely to ever change. Choosing Casey was exactly what every other woman in my position would do, but I wasn’t like every other woman.

  I needed a man who would let me stand on my own two feet, make my own decisions, and clean up my own messes. And at the same time, someone who instinctively knew when to rescue me from
myself, when to step in and say, “Enough. I’ve got you.” I needed to be in control of my own life… outside the bedroom. But inside, I wanted to be dominated, devoured, and devastated. But would the walls of that bedroom adequately confine the devastation to my sexual needs and not infiltrate my emotional sense?

  Casey was the safe choice. But he wasn’t Shaw.

  “Well, I’m not confused. I want the same thing, the same person I’ve always wanted. You.” He moved closer, encircling me in his arms and pulling me against his chest as he dipped at the knee so he could look me in the eyes. “I’ve missed you, darlin’. The way you smell, the way you feel… the way you taste.” Casey’s breath was warm and sweet, like Abby’s fresh baked cookies being pulled from the oven, the enticing aroma teasing my senses and confusing me even more.