Flagger

by Laramie Briscoe

  Grabbing a duffel bag and a suitcase that held all her clothes (she’d never been too much of a girlie-girl), she tried to carry them up the steps on her own.

  “Hey, wait a second,” she heard Cash’s voice. “I’ll help you with that.”

  She tried not to get excited that he’d wanted to help her, tried to tell her stupid heart that they had been stuck together because of circumstance not because of any true feeling. But her heart didn’t listen. It beat even faster as she looked up, taking in the hair that was tousled from his fingers running through it and the beginnings of a beard that told her he hadn’t shaved in a few days. Her stupid heart was gone.

  “Thanks,” she told him, hoping her voice sounded moderately normal. That was the last thing she needed, for him to know he affected her so strongly. Hell, she hadn’t even known it until he’d asked her to move in with him.

  “Not a problem.” He grunted as he grabbed the suitcase and hefted it up in front of him. As they got to the landing, he took a look at her and noted she carried a sack from the catering company she worked for. “What’s that?”

  “Oh.” She looked at her hand, having forgotten she was carrying it. “It’s leftovers from the catering job we had this afternoon. Usually they let us bring a few things home. I figured we wouldn’t have much food just yet, so I thought it could be a meal.”

  Saying that out loud made her feel stupid. Chances were he already had this completely worked out and she’d completely stepped on his toes. She hoped that wasn’t the case. She wanted this to work in the worst way. Failing at standing on her own two feet was not an option she was prepared to deal with—it was one she wouldn’t deal with.

  “Thank God, there is no food in there. Jagger and B left a few things, but they were waiting to see what was going to happen with the house, and I hadn’t planned on having to have anything to eat. I know that’s bad, but it’s just something that never crossed my mind.” His face was red as he admitted that.

  “No problem, I got it covered tonight, but we’re going to have to make some sort of a plan. I can’t get leftovers every time we cater, and we will need to eat.”

  He nodded. “Maybe we can make a meal plan and run to the grocery tomorrow. The only way this is going to work is if we split stuff and share in the responsibility.”

  She agreed and was happy he had said that. It amazed her how grown-up they were being about this, but she had to remind herself…she hadn’t really known this man before they’d been thrown into this situation. “Sounds good.” She glanced in the door and saw that the TV was on. “Is your brother here?”

  “Yeah. I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

  He opened the door, holding it for her as he scrunched his body up as small as possible. The doorway was still so small that they brushed together, his front to her front, as she turned sideways to make it through. Their eyes met, and the rush of heat that enveloped her should have been illegal.

  Moving into the living room, she felt awkward and had to remind herself this was her apartment too; it would just take some time before she was comfortable.

  “Before I bring my brother out here—I told him not to ambush you as soon as you got here—I wanted to let you know something. I gave him the small room. He’s a kid who needs his own space.”

  Harper’s heart again accelerated; maybe she would have a heart attack tonight, who knew? “I agree.” She nodded. “We’re both adults.”

  “We are.” He scratched the back of his neck. “And that relationship can be whatever you want it to be, Harper, but I liked being with you. I like being with you.”

  Her smile was wide. “I like being with you too.”

  *

  Shit. He hadn’t meant to get into this right here and right now, but he knew he had to be honest with her. “I don’t want to make promises to you I can’t keep, Harper.”

  “I know,” she was quick to reassure him. “Neither one of us knows how this is going to go, where we’re going to be in six months. I understand that. No pressure. Swear to God. We’re going to do this and see what happens. I promise, I have no expectations of you.”

  Setting his bags on the kitchen table, he took hers and did the same before enveloping her in his arms. His dark eyes roamed her face, looking for one tiny bit of hesitancy. When he didn’t see any, he dipped his head and let his lips claim hers. He needed this. It was grounding in a world that was constantly moving. His world had never been stable, and he hoped to God he could somehow forge something stable out of this situation they had been thrust into. He needed it, Remy needed it, and if he wasn’t mistaken—she needed it too.

  “You wanna meet Remy?” he asked, pulling his lips back from hers, holding her hands in his.

  “Yeah.” She grinned, nodding. “I would love to.”

  Turning towards the small bedroom, he dragged her behind him. “Then let’s go.”

  ‡

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Rem, do you like Fruit Loops?” Harper asked the youngest of their trio, as she glanced at the rows of cereal. Their budget was bare bones, and she was trying to find things they all liked.

  “How much do we have?” Cash asked as he dumped his change jar on the table.

  Harper quickly began counting, adding up the dollar bills she’d gotten as tips at her catering job along with what was left of the money Cash had won on the Trail. “Eighty-five dollars. This is more than I thought we would have.” She smiled at them, hoping it reassured all of them. “We’ll make this work.”

  “For two weeks?” Cash raised an eyebrow. His tone and the look said that he didn’t believe her.

  “This will work out,” she told him again, pocketing the money and going to work on a meal plan.

  Cash was not a cereal fan, but both she and Remy were.

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “The one with the marshmallows though.”

  “Compromise made.” She grinned before reaching up to grab the box and stuck it into their shopping cart. Quickly, she input the price into the calculator on her phone and tapped her finger on her cheek. “Where’s your brother?” she asked, not catching sight of Cash.

  “He went to go grab some milk.”

  Just then, he came up behind her, putting the milk in the cart, trapping her body in between his hard one and the cool metal of the cart. “That’s $1.99,” he whispered in her ear. Hearing a man tell her the price of milk should not be so damn sexy.

  “Thanks.” She turned back, grinning at him.

  “What else do we need, and how much more money do we have?” he asked, sticking his hands in his pockets.

  “I have to make a cake for a friend of mine. She’s paying me, but she won’t pay me until it’s done.” She turned the cart down the baking ingredients aisle. “I’m gonna take that out of my gas budget so that it doesn’t affect what we eat,” she told him as she began perusing ingredients.

  “Do you make cakes for a lot of people?” Remy asked, taking the question out of Cash’s mouth.

  “Sometimes.” She nodded. “It’s kind of what I want to do when I grow up. I’m taking business classes for the sole purpose of opening up my own bakery or a baking business out of whatever home I’m in.”

  “Really?” Cash asked, his eyebrows rose.

  “Yeah. Isn’t that why you’re taking automotive classes?”

  “Not to open my own shop.” He shrugged, moving their cart back and forth while he waited for her to get what she needed. “I just hope to go full-time at Walker’s Wheels and maybe do a little work on the side. I’ll probably keep up at the Trail.”

  “Cash, don’t take this the wrong way,” she started.

  “Oh, that sounds like it has ‘judgment’ written all over it,” he teased her.

  “How long do you really think the Trail will run? At some point, you’re all gonna be grown-ass men, have families, and realize you aren’t invisible.”

  He knew she had a point, but it was his reality right now. “Hopefully for at least six more m
onths.” His response was flippant, and to make his point clear, he landed a hard smack on her ass.

  “Cash!”

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “You’re too much.”

  Standing on her tiptoes, she reached for a bottle of vanilla, but it was just out of her reach. Again, Cash came up behind her, boxing her in as he grabbed it for her. “Here ya go.”

  “Thanks.” She took a steadying breath. He was going to have to stop being so hands-on all the time if she hoped to survive living with him.

  “What else do we need?” Cash asked, rocking back on his heels as he ruffled Remy’s hair.

  “Remy, do you like vegetables?” she asked.

  “I’ll eat corn and green beans,” he told her. “The rest of it, no.”

  “What about you, Cash?” She raised her eyebrow at him and tilted her head.

  He opened his mouth to answer, but the voice they all heard was not his.

  “The only thing he likes to eat is pussy.”

  Cash whipped around and took a good look at his mom. “What the fuck, Mom?”

  “Isn’t this cute?” she slurred as she looked at the three of them. “You’re all one big happy family, huh? What did he tell you, honey?” She looked Harper up and down, the judgment apparent in her eyes. “That he’d put a ring on it?”

  Harper didn’t know what to say. She’d never had someone be so ugly in front of others before, especially her own sons.

  “You don’t have to answer that question,” Cash told her. “Why don’t you take Remy and go ahead and start to check out? I’ll meet you up there in a few minutes.”

  Harper grabbed Remy’s hand, but Remy seemed reluctant to go with her.

  “I promise I’ll be up there in a few minutes. You’ll be safe with Harper.” He smiled at his brother. True happiness was an emotion he didn’t feel, hadn’t felt in a very long time. He was a professional at faking it though; he always pretended everything was fine. That’s all anyone wanted to hear from him—how awesome his life was, how fast he drove his car, how many women he banged out behind Donna’s Country Store. Nobody wanted the truth, so he’d become a pro at hiding it. He was done hiding it. Sick of pretending things he didn’t feel.

  Turning to face his mother, he wore everything he felt on his face. Cash didn’t bother to hide anything. He wanted her to know just how badly she disgusted him, just how badly he couldn’t stand her anymore.

  “Honey, that look is ugly,” she chastised her son. “Why would such a good-lookin’ boy want to look like that?”

  “Stop.” He was not amused by her and didn’t care to play her games today. “Do you even hear yourself? Did you look into a mirror before you left the house?” Her hair was greasy, and it looked like she hadn’t brushed her teeth for days. She was definitely back on the drugs.

  “You’re so fucking sanctimonious, Cash. You think you’re so superior and so much better than me. I gave you life, remember that.”

  “I hope to God I’m better than you,” he told her. “Because you are a selfish bitch who deserves everything she gets. Take those drugs, stick that needle in your vein, and fuck anything you have to in order to get high. I might be hungry, I might be broke, and I might have to do a little law-breaking to make things work, but I am a million times fucking better than you.”

  He turned and walked away from her, shaking as he did so. That had been ugly, but it had been a long time coming. He was no longer holding back his feelings from her; he would no longer be shaped by where he came from. He could shape his own destiny, and he knew it would be hard, but he would do whatever he had to in order to get out from under her shadow.

  He was good. He was tough. He could survive this. He would survive this.

  ‡

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Something smells really good in here.” Cash sniffed the air as he made his way into the apartment.

  The trio had been living together for almost two weeks, and they’d gotten into a routine. On nights he ran the Trail, Harper watched Remy and did things around the house. On nights when he was home, he entertained his brother while she studied or picked up extra shifts at her job.

  “Thanks.” Harper grinned as she stood at the kitchen sink, her hands in soapy water. “I’m making another cake for my friend and some cupcakes for you and Remy.”

  There was one thing about the girl he was coming to refer to in his mind as “his Harper”. She could cook like no one’s business. She was gifted in a way he’d never seen anyone else gifted. It could be the plainest meal in the world, and she made it gourmet. He wasn’t sure how she did it, but his stomach approved.

  “I can’t remember the last time someone cooked dessert for me,” he admitted as he had a seat at the kitchen table.

  “I’m probably gonna make you fat,” she teased. “Dessert is my favorite thing to make.”

  “How has Remy been tonight?” he asked, rolling his head around on his shoulders and emptying his pockets of the money he’d won.

  “Good.” She didn’t bother to turn around. “We did homework after I did my couple of hours at work tonight. I made dinner; there’s food in the fridge, if you’re hungry. Then he went to his room and played video games while I started on this. He’s probably asleep by now though,” she told him as she glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was going on eleven o’clock. “How did the Trail go?”

  He tapped the table, causing her to turn around. “I won.”

  Her eyes bugged at the amount of money lying there. It was more than what she normally saw. “How many races?”

  “Just one,” he answered. “There were three more people than normal there tonight. It helped sweeten the pot,” he explained as he counted it out. It was his biggest win to date, more than a thousand dollars. He counted out a couple of hundred dollars and pushed it towards Harper. “Here.”

  “What?” she questioned, shaking her head.

  “No, take it. You’ve bought most of the groceries around this place, you’ve cooked all the meals—I mean, let’s be honest, I make a fucking mean bowl of cereal, but I’m talented like that,” he teased. “And you’ve watched Remy without ever complaining about it. Please take it.”

  She finished washing the dishes and wiped her hands on a towel before taking the cake and cupcakes out of the oven and setting them on the cooling rack. Once she was done, she had a seat at the table beside him. She turned in the seat so that she sat sideways, facing him, forcing him to do the same to her. “I don’t do that stuff because I want you to pay me, or I want you to say thank you, Cash. He’s a good kid. I like him a lot.”

  Those words hit him hard. She really cared for his brother, in a way that his mom should have, in a way that other people should have. She saw him. “He likes you a lot too.” He reached out and grabbed a lock of her hair, twisting it around his finger.

  Her breath caught in her throat. The two of them had purposely kept their distance from each other since they’d moved in. It wasn’t like they had a discussion about it, but they were careful around one another, in a way that said they were scared to get to too close. Even though they slept in the same bed every night, they hadn’t touched yet.

  “Are you happy here, Harper?” Cash asked, his voice low. For some reason he needed to know the answer to this question. He was trying hard to make this work, and he had to know if he was succeeding.

  She nodded, gifting him with a wide smile. “I am. It’s not easy, but I didn’t figure it would be.”

  *

  Tonight, of all nights, Cash was feeling vulnerable, and it was because she’d admitted she liked his brother. Running his hand down her arm, he clasped their fingers together. He needed her, needed to feel they were a team, that they were in this together. Tonight, while he’d been at the Trail, he’d looked over at the spectators and wanted to see her there. That had never happened to him before. Their eyes met. His dark, hers light, and he knew he had to have her tonight. He could no longer tiptoe around the c
hemistry that sparked between the two of them every time they were alone together.

  Leaning in, he crowded into her personal space, placing his lips next to her ear. He took a moment to compose himself, to make sure this was what he definitely wanted, before he let the words fall from his mouth. “I want you.”

  He felt her body tremble, and he knew he had her. Harper Stillwell wasn’t easy. Most of the time when he looked at her he couldn’t even begin to know what she was thinking, but in this moment, he could tell just by her elevated breathing exactly what she wanted. “C’mon.”

  It took nothing for him to get her out of the kitchen chair after he grabbed her hand. Pulling her behind him through the apartment, he quietly stopped at Remy’s door and peeked in, along with her. “He’s out,” he whispered, shutting the door back and moving them along to the room that had become theirs. Once inside, he shut that door and locked it. She opened her mouth to speak, but he placed his finger over it. He didn’t need to talk right now; he didn’t need to explore the emotional side of things with her in this moment. Right now, all he needed to do was feel.

  ‡

  Chapter Twenty

  Harper could feel her heart beating against her chest, harder than it had in a long time. Living with Cash for the past couple of weeks, being close to him but not being with him, had given her a new understanding of the man behind the myth. She now no longer believed all the rumors she’d heard. She’d seen him in a much different light than anyone else ever had. Now, instead of only knowing the cocky, good-looking guy who loved to have a good time—she knew he was different. He liked being home at night, he enjoyed a home-cooked meal, he didn’t mind helping his brother with his homework when he needed to, and she had learned he was a procrastinator. As much as he was on Remy about finishing his school work on time, Cash waited until the very last minute to do his own.