And, damn her, she was lovable.
“What I’ve done to Eleanor isn’t better than what you did to me. The difference is that my reasons were one-hundred-percent selfish. Yours weren’t.”
I felt like I was finally getting out of rehab. Or maybe Josh had joined me there. Or maybe we were both roasting in hell on the devil’s own skewers.
Whatever the answer, this was a step forward. Wasn’t it?
Josh’s eyes were glued to me, his forehead creased. “You don’t usually stay silent for so long.”
True. I was more like the talk-first-think-second kind of girl. But, right then, my tongue weighed a ton. It remained that way until Josh came and sat on the edge of the coffee table next to me.
I forced myself to speak, praying it wouldn’t sound like a croak. “What are you going to do about Lucas?”
Josh leaned forward and I mirrored his move. His knees encased mine. I waited for his answer, my fingers entwined with each other as if I were begging.
When he talked, his breath brushed my face. “I can’t let him down.” My chest caved in and my shoulders slumped. “In an ideal world, Lucas deserves parents who love each other like Chris and Jenna did.” My heart sank. “But having parents is better than no parents at all, and I want to believe we can be good parents even if we aren’t perfect people.”
“Thank you,” I whispered and I allowed myself to look up at him. I saw the boy I’d loved so long ago, my teddy bear. He’d been my hero then, my compass, my family, that package nicely wrapped in decency and loyalty.
Josh didn’t want to be that for me anymore; but for Lucas, maybe.
I had to look forward. “So what’s next?”
Josh straightened up and I almost tripped into the void. He rolled his eyes upward. “I have to stay in England for a couple more weeks. I’ll also have to find another job. I doubt my current position will still be open.”
Daddy’s job offer…
“Will you still be in D.C.?” And what I meant was: “Will we be in D.C.?”
“That’s the plan.”
I wondered what social services would say about us living outside Kansas. But one hurdle at a time. We’d cross that bridge when we came to it.
The sound of a key inserted in a lock cut off my thoughts. A door opened and shut, steps on the wooden floor… Stiletto-steps.
“Darling, I’m here.”
Eleanor.
Josh’s face froze.
“What’s going on here?”
Josh jumped to his feet and circled round the coffee table.
“Why is she here?” Eleanor wasn’t her usual chirpy self.
“I thought you were staying with your parents in London tonight.” Josh, nooooo. That so wasn’t the right answer. Now, we looked as if we’d been making out all over her beige cushions.
Judging by the fire in Eleanor’s eyes, that was her conclusion too. “I wanted to surprise you, and it looks like I did just that.”
“It’s not what you think.” Now, we looked as if we’d been screwing each other on the sofa and in their bed. And maybe on the wooden floor and the kitchen counter.
Eleanor turned all Ice Queen on us. “Enlighten me then.”
Josh took a couple of tentative steps towards her and stopped. He ran his hand through his hair and let out a heavy breath. “It’s even worse than you think.”
I saw Eleanor swallow hard. Her designer bag landed on the floor, next to her endless and perfectly shaped legs. Time to take my cue.
“I should go.” In seconds, I was midway to the door.
“I think you should stay,” Eleanor said. That wasn’t a request. “Time to face the music, lady.”
I pulled on the hem of my skirt to cover some of my not-that-endless legs.
“Now I want you to cut the BS.” Eleanor’s gaze hunted for Josh across my shoulder. “After how you freaked out last night when she was on stage and pretty much each time you’ve seen this girl, am I right to assume you were childhood sweethearts?”
“We are more than that. Cassie is my wife.”
Shock rippled through Eleanor’s body. “You’re shitting me.”
Holy shit, the girl just swore.
“She got pregnant, so we got married in our senior year.”
That was short-cutting most of our backstory, and I hadn’t got pregnant on my own for crying out loud.
“You never wore a wedding ring.” Eleanor’s hands curled into fists. “And you’ve never, ever mentioned her name during the four years we’ve dated.”
“That’s because I completely cut myself off from my past, from her.”
“She,” “her” had a name and was still in the room. I moved sideways to free the line between these two, and to protect myself.
“Where is the baby?” Her question dripped with the pain I saw in her eyes.
Josh narrowed the distance with Eleanor so that we were now at about the same level.
“At the time, Cassie told me she had an abortion.” I saw relief on Eleanor’s face followed by shame. “In fact, as I’ve only recently learned, she’d put the baby up for adoption.”
“So what is she doing here? What does she want?” Eleanor pointed at me as if I were the Wicked Witch of the West.
Maybe I was. I stole a look at the door. I so wanted to get out of here.
Josh continued using the same soothing tone, as if the girl had just thrown a tantrum. “Lucas lost his adoptive parents last month.” He seemed to struggle to deliver the rest of his answer. “Cassie wants to adopt him. I…I can’t let him down either. He’s my son.”
Eleanor shook her head. “I don’t believe you. You’re lying. If you had severed all ties with her, then how did she even know where we lived?”
“Because I started the divorce proceedings the week before I proposed. I should never have proposed to you until Cassie was legally out of my life.”
I couldn’t stay for any more of this. I had my hand on the door handle when Eleanor’s words shot at my back. “You’re ruining his life. Do you know that?”
Granted, the girl had reasons to be devastated right now. Pissed off as hell. I looked at Josh, but he was only focusing on Eleanor.
“I put our baby up for adoption so that Josh could get his ass out of Steep Hill and go to Georgetown… so that he could have the bright future he deserved and, maybe, some day marry someone just like you.” The mask of hate on Eleanor’s face fizzled. “I’d have given him a divorce if my son hadn’t become an orphan. I still would, if that’s what he wants. I just had to tell him the truth. He deserved that much. And now I have to do whatever it takes to care for…for our son. I don’t want to hurt you, Eleanor. You’re a decent girl. But I won’t let Lucas grow up in foster care.”
“Cassie, I’d like you to leave now. Eleanor and I need to be on our own.”
I pushed on the door handle and cracked the door open.
“There’s nothing else to discuss.” Eleanor had inserted herself in the space between me and the door and pushed it wide open. Her handbag was over her shoulder. “I don’t want to have anything else to do with the two of you.”
She was already on the porch when Josh caught up with her, leaving me behind holding the door like the fucking maid. Outside it was past twilight and the only light came from the streetlights. I smelled the dampness of rain in the air.
“Please, Lenor, don’t go.” His voice cracked but punched me in the stomach. “There’s so much I want to explain.”
“What is there to explain?” She reminded me of a cobra ready to strike. “That you got down and dirty with that trash at seventeen and didn’t have the common sense to use a condom.”
The only part of Josh’s body I could see was his back. It stiffened. “If you want to lash out, I’m the one you should go after. But leave Cassie out of this.”
If Josh had used that tone on me, I’d have shrunk. Kudos to Eleanor, she didn’t.
“Nice to see how prompt you are to defend her. Anyway, now I
understand why you’ve been so diligent with me on the condom front. Once bitten, twice shy.”
Josh’s shoulders slumped. He didn’t sound flippant anymore when he said, “I’ll have moved my stuff out of the house by tomorrow night. I’ll make sure you don’t have to deal with me until you’re ready. If you ever are.”
Eleanor flinched. Defeat stirred the fire in her eyes. Not for long. She was back in no time. “Get your speech ready for my father in the meantime. But whatever you say to him, don’t count on that job offer anymore. If you’re eloquent enough, he might spare your future on the Hill.”
And on that note, she turned her back on us and crossed the road. I heard the beeping of an electronic car lock. She climbed into her car and we watched her drive away. When Josh reached the doorstep, our eyes locked. Not for long but enough for me to read the guilt in them.
A gust of wind caught my hair and stuck the material of my tank top to my skin. I shivered. In reflex his hand flew to the bare skin of my arm and stroked it. His touch opened up a gaping hole inside me, one empty with the need of him. I wanted to bend forward and fall against his chest, bury my face in the lemony scent of his shirt, and never, never, let him go.
But Josh took back ownership of his hand and walked inside.
Should I stay? Or should I leave him alone?
I stayed and shut the door behind me. He was already sitting on the couch, in the same place I’d been minutes before. He hunched forward, his head in his hands. I took a few steps towards him.
I wanted to thank him for not letting the “trash” attack pass by. Instead I said, “I’m sorry.”
We kept apologizing to each other. What did that say about our relationship? Better not to think too much about it. His head popped up and I saw how drained he looked. The dark circles under his eyes made them look feverish.
“Sorry for what, Cassie? For me breaking Lenor’s heart? For me trampling all over her trust?”
“You trampled over her trust well before I even got here.” He had the decency to nod. “But I’m sorry for destroying your well-laid plans, your career…”
Josh shrugged. “I’ll find another job. Lobbying wasn’t what I wanted to do anyway. I accepted the job to please Lenor and her father.”
I wasn’t sure what kind of job “lobbying” was anyway. Whatever rocked his boat. Josh would do well whatever he applied himself to.
“I hope we’re doing the right thing,” he whispered, his gaze lost somewhere in the room but not on me.
Blood froze in my veins and I bit my lip. “Is saving Lucas the right thing to do?”
“What do we have to offer that a good foster family won’t?”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. But I have to try. We have to try…”
Josh shot to his feet. His jaw was tight, his head bowed, like when he was on the field back in high school. When he talked, his voice vibrated. “Don’t I know that? I’m ready to risk everything. I’m ready to risk Lenor. I love her and she loves me. It’s just not the type of family I’d dreamed of for my kid.”
After Eleanor’s words and how these two had made me feel invisible, his family dreams double-slapped me. “The family or the mother?” I threw at him.
A crease between his eyebrows and a shake of the head were his only answers.
I should have shut up then. My insecurities took over. “Am I too trashy for the likes of you now?”
Josh was already moving toward me, his hands open with a peace offering. But the buzz in my ears covered his words. I stepped back. He rushed forward, trying to catch my arms, but I shook him away.
“I think we said enough for tonight.” All my brain could manage now was to order my legs to get out of that house and break into a sprint. They did exactly that. In a snap, I was in the street and heading into the night.
Right, left? I didn’t care.
twenty-two
I took the opposite direction from where I’d come earlier, away from the town center, the only part of Oxford I was familiar with. It was still the same street but the houses became more sparse. And so did the streetlights.
As I started down some steps, the wet touch of a raindrop fell on my cheek. And another. I stared up, but the night sky couldn’t tell me if it would stop at one or if I was in for some torrential weather. Like the other day outside the museum.
I shrugged. Whatever… I didn’t care. A natural shower was what I needed. While the drip-drop of the rain intensified, I took notice of where I was. I stood on one side of a canal with riverboats anchored along the bank. Not Venice quite, but not the Oxford I’d seen so far.
I started along the bank, bordered on my left by a wall. I squinted because the only lights around were those filtering through the small windows of the boats. The rain got serious, ran through my eyelashes, down my cheeks, my throat and through the line between my breasts.
Finding somewhere to hide would be the smart idea right now. Instead, I extended my bare arms, opened up the palms of my hands, and let the drops bounce back on them. When we were kids, Josh and I used to run out wild under the summer rain. We lost it then, dancing and clowning around. More than once, it ended with a runny nose and a chesty cough.
I lifted my head, glanced at the sky again, then shut my eyes. I let myself travel back to those days when I’d been so happy, before Josh became more than a brother, before things became so complicated.
But “before” was also before Lucas, and I didn’t want a life without him.
“Cassie.” His voice came from behind me. Even through the curtain of rain surrounding me, I felt him. Still I didn’t turn. I didn’t want to face him. I didn’t want to face what he thought of me.
The touch of his fingers through my soaked top shook me. They tightened around my shoulder. Against my will, his pressure made me turn around. Slowly. Gently. Until I faced him.
With one single step, he filled the void between us. I couldn’t look at him in the eyes. Instead I stared at his shirt, stuck against his chest, his chest that rose in sync with his breathing, in rhythm with his heartbeat.
His hand slid from my shoulder to the nape of my neck and buried into the wet mass of my hair. I knew his next move before it even happened. His other hand grasped my hip, settled on the small of my back. He drew me toward him so that my breasts molded against his chest. Only then did I find the courage to look up. Still my eyes didn’t meet his. They settled on his lips and the drops of water tipping on their edge.
His lips came closer. Closer and closer… until they reached mine. The sensation echoed what I’d felt the night before, only this time his mouth didn’t just brush, it stroked mine. His tongue teased my upper lip, then moved to the bottom one. I shivered not because of the cold of the rain against my skin, but because of the lust Josh unearthed from deep in my body.
The storm awaking inside me made me dizzy. My hands reached for his waist as if it were my anchor. The hand on the small of my back moved down to cup my bottom. He pulled me closer against him and I shuddered, feeling the hard length of him against me. The material of his jeans and of my skirt provided no barrier. I could feel him against me.
This fed my courage and my hands ventured away from his belt, underneath his shirt, along his ribcage, then settled on his hard chest. His heartbeat pulsed under my palm. He released a guttural noise, all man and completely wanton.
And when he groaned, his tongue entered my mouth, fingers tightened around my neck, and the hand that rested on my butt journeyed under the hem of my skirt to land on the curve of my upper thigh. I let him rediscover my mouth, and his moves inspired my own. My tongue and my whole body started undulating against his.
Without warning, he grasped my butt and lifted me up. I shut my eyes, and, in seconds, my back was against a hard surface. The wall bordering the path? His mouth left mine and together we gasped for air and our eyes buried in each other’s.
I wanted to talk but my throat was dry and I only managed a rasp which should have been his name. Hi
s head lowered to my breasts. Tiny bites on my nipples shot electricity through the material of my top and rippled across my body. The jolt settled between my legs with an ache.
This wasn’t enough. I wanted… I needed so much more. And I felt his fingers graze the inside of my thighs. He massaged them until his palm slid to the top, between my legs. I thrusted myself against his touch.
It had never been like that before. The memory of our first time under the cotton tree at Sweet Angel Point shot in front of me. The sweetness of it shone a harsh light on our bodies, all wet and lusty.
Was that what we had become? What I was for Josh? A girl he could fuck outside, against a wall.
I opened my mouth desperate for air, but a scream burst out of me. He looked up and his glazed eyes switched to fear. He searched my face for an answer but I’d gone mute. I wriggled to unwrap myself from him. I stumbled away and tugged at my dress to make sure it was back below my panty line. My heartbeat stopped pounding loudly between my ears and the sound of the rain hitting the path got me back to reality.
A hand took hold of my arm. “Don’t go, Cassie. Please, don’t go.”
I shook Josh away and turned to face him. This time I didn’t avoid his eyes. “I’m not a slut… not even yours.”
A frown appeared between his eyebrows. “Don’t you think I know that?”
With no warm hands over my body, the dampness of my clothes hit home. Goosebumps broke and waves of shivers traveled though me. It was like having escaped a plane crash, and I only kept standing through the rush of adrenaline pumping through me, while I watched down at what we used to be.
“I haven’t… I haven’t had anyone since you.” My confession ended in a muffled sob. “I’ve kept reliving every time we’d made love. I’ve dreamt those moments so many times that I don’t know the truth from the fantasy. But each one of them made me feel special.”
I let Josh bridge the space I’d just forced between us. I also let him pull away the wet hair that stuck to the sides of my face. But he didn’t push further and his hands soon hung back at his sides.
“You’re not a slut, Cassie, but I am.” I felt my eyebrows reaching my hairline. “Or I was. Until I met Lenor…”
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