What He Wants

by Jessie Gussman

  A weight she didn’t even know she’d been carrying lifted off her chest. “The only thing this way is a few old houses, an abandoned warehouse, and the rail line that only has coal trains once a week. I’m not playing chicken, even if this was the train night, which I don’t think it is.”

  “There’s a creek down here.”

  “You already said we weren’t swimming. It’s not that warm.” A soft breeze riffled through the leaves of the maples above them, making a sandpaper sound and causing several leaves to drift down through the last streetlight by the gas station before they left the town limits.

  “Not swimming. But there used to be a rope down here, under the railroad bridge that goes over the creek.”

  “There was?”

  “Rich ticks swam in their backyard pools. Us poor boys used the creek.”

  Her chest constricted. “I’m sorry.”

  “Shut up. Smile.” His words were blunt, but he said them in the same tone of voice he might have said “I love you, Cassidy” in, and her chest loosened, but her heart flipped a little crazily. He brought her hand to his mouth and touched his lips to it softly.

  “There was a rope under the bridge. We used to swing on it and do flips into the water. We’d try to make it the whole way across the creek, too. It’s not that deep, so you couldn’t dive in.” They came to a gate in the fence, and he pushed against the chain while she bent and slipped through. “It’s a good thing I picked a skinny girl.”

  “Humph.” She put her hands on her hips and regarded him through the fence. “And you’ve brought how many girls through here?”

  He stopped in the act of bending down. His face lifted, and his smile faded. “I’ve never taken another girl anywhere.”

  They stared at one another. Cassidy’s neck tingled, and her heart thumped. Of course he hadn’t. He’d only been seventeen when he was arrested. But his eyes were deep and dark and seemed to say it was so much more than just having the opportunity.

  He shook his head and grinned, like he had remembered that they were going to have fun. Because things had definitely felt like they were getting serious.

  “Are we trespassing here?”

  “Yep.” Torque groaned as he tried to slide his chest through the gap in the gate. It stuck. “I didn’t have this much trouble ten years ago.”

  “I don’t think you’re going to make it.”

  “I think you’re right,” he said as he stood.

  She moved back to the gate, intending to slide back through. “I guess I should have brought a skinny guy.”

  He laughed. “I deserved that.” He put a hand up. “Hold it.”

  She stopped.

  He backed up three steps then rushed the gate, taking two giant steps up, gripping with his hands, before kicking his legs to the side and swinging over. He landed with a thump, sinking down into a crouch before standing up in front of her. It was an impressive display.

  “So, you’re coming down here to show off?” she asked with a jaunty tilt to her head. No point in letting him know her heart had just kicked up three gears.

  “You know how many times I sat and stared at the prison fence and wished I could just jump over it and walk away?”

  Her face felt like it was melting.

  He saw it immediately. He reached out and bumped her shoulder with his hand. “Pretty spectacular, wasn’t it?” His teeth flashed in the moonlight.

  Forcing herself to grin, she said, “Bet you can’t do it again.”

  He laughed, grabbing her hand and walking to the railroad tracks.

  “So, now I suppose you’re going to show off on the rope, too?” She pushed aside the weights and the old feelings of guilt and duty that threatened to ruin their time and instead concentrated on just enjoying the banter and friendship of the man beside her.

  “Nah. I’m not buying you ice cream unless you make it across.”

  “Seriously? I have to earn my ice cream?”

  “Yep. You’ve freeloaded long enough.”

  He was making fun of her. She laughed. The lawyer in her wanted to take the opposite side, which was the side that he’d been arguing—that she wasn’t a freeloader and didn’t have to “earn” anything.

  “That was good,” she finally said, with more than a little admiration at his ability to see what she was doing and turn it on its head.

  “Hey, being a mechanic is a lot of hard work, but your mind is often free to wander. Occasionally I come up with something good.” His hand tightened on hers. “The bridge is right there. That’s what those metal rails are.”

  The moonlight glinted off the place where he pointed.

  “The trail is over here.” He pulled her to his side and stepped off the railroad track. “I’ll go first.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  He snorted. “Put a hand on my shoulder to balance.”

  She obeyed, his shoulder hard and strong under her hand, and followed him carefully down the steep bank. Her eyes were adjusted to the dark, and the moon gave enough light to make out shapes. The gurgle of the stream and the rattle of the leaves overhead gave the impression of cheerfulness despite the darkness. Cassidy’s heart felt light. She hummed softly to herself.

  “Good song.” Torque stopped at the bottom of the bank and turned left toward the underside of the bridge.

  She stopped humming, realizing she’d been singing an old hymn in her head.

  “Don’t quit,” he said low.

  She used to sing to the radio. Sometimes Torque would join in, his bass blending with her alto. She’d forgotten.

  “It’s still there,” Torque said. “Or someone hung a new one.”

  “How will we know?”

  “I’ll test it out first.”

  She reached in her pocket for her phone and pulled up the flashlight app, handing it to Torque.

  “Yeah, definitely a new one,” he said as he looked up. He handed her phone back. “You might want to put that on the ground somewhere, just in case.”

  “I’m not getting wet.”

  “So, if I fall in, you’re not coming in to rescue me?”

  “You can’t swim?”

  His teeth flashed. “Maybe.”

  “How are you getting it?” The rope looked to be just out of arm’s reach.

  He looked around before picking up a good-sized stick, using it to hook the rope and bring it to him. “Like that.”

  He climbed up on a big rock that she hadn’t noticed. “The trick to getting the whole way across is getting up high and back as far as you can.”

  “Okay.” She was not going to swing on the rope but figured now wasn’t the time to argue.

  “Here I go.” He jumped back and kicked his feet up, flying across the creek. Cassidy’s body tensed. Maybe they should have checked to make sure the other side was safe.

  With a crash, a thump, and a triumphant hoot, he landed. “Catch the rope,” he called.

  She stumbled but managed to grab it as it swung to her.

  “Now you.”

  “No way.”

  He put his hands on his hips. “Really?”

  “I might not be able to hold on the whole way.”

  “So you’ll drop into the creek. Not a big deal.”

  “It could hurt.”

  “Okay. Throw the rope over here.”

  She did, and he swung back. “It’s always easier to swing from that side to this one because it’s higher.”

  “I see.”

  “Okay, up you go.” He grabbed her hand and tugged. She pulled back.

  He gave her hand a slight jerk, and she fell into his chest. One arm came around her. The other held onto the rope.

  “Stop being a grown-up.”

  She choked out a laugh. His chest was solid and strong and warm under his soft tee. And his arm felt like steel, clamping her tight, making her feel anchored and secure. She really had promised to let go, to not be serious. He’d said even if she fell she wouldn’t get hurt...
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  “Don’t do it for me. Do it for ice cream.” His voice was light and teasing, despite the hard and fast thumping of his heart under her cheek.

  “Okay. For ice cream.”

  “Yes!” He did a slight fist pump with the hand that held the rope. “Up you go.” He lifted her up on the rock. “Hold on,” he said, climbing on behind her.

  He stood behind her, his arms around her holding onto the rope. “Grab ahold. I’m going to jump back, then my body will be under yours. Stick your feet straight out if you can, like you’re on a swing.”

  How many years had it been since she’d been on a swing? A long time. And never a swing like this, with Torque’s solid body behind her. The heat sizzled through the layers of clothes. His biceps bulged on either side of her face, and his strong hands held the rope just above hers.

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath. More to calm the attraction that made her want to push back into him than to calm any nerves. If there was one thing Torque had proven over the years, it was that Torque would protect her no matter what it cost him.

  “Counting to three...one...two...three!” He jumped, and Cassidy jumped back with him, picking her feet up and sticking them out.

  The freedom of flying, intensified by the darkness which heightened her other senses—the babbling of the creek, the wind on her face, Torque’s heat behind her, his breath in her ear, his heart thumping, strong and true, against her back—gave her a feeling of weightlessness and complete abandon. She screamed in pure joy.

  Suddenly the tension in the rope disappeared. Torque scrambled behind her. She panicked, stiffening.

  “Grab my neck!” Torque’s body shifted in midair, and she twisted, feeling for his neck and gripping it with her arms.

  An abrupt stop and a splash. Cold water splashed her face and arms, but Torque had his arms around her back and knees, holding her like a baby, and she stayed out of the water.

  He stumbled. “Uff.” His hands tightened. She gripped his neck, the rumbling water close enough to feel the cooler air at its surface.

  Torque’s breath blew on her face as he steadied himself on one knee, the other supported her back. A giggle bubbled just under her collarbone.

  “Are you okay?” His voice whispered across her face, and she shivered.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “You’re wet. Are you hurt?”

  “I’m glad I’m wet. I wouldn’t want you to think I planned this.” He stood to his feet, the water splashing around them. “Glad it’s been a little dry this year and the creek’s low. It would have softened the landing, but you’d have gotten wet if the water had been higher.” He splashed out of the creek and set her down. She didn’t let go of his neck right away, and they ended up pressed together, his hands on her hips.

  “Why would I have thought you planned it?” she asked, a little breathlessly. Neither of them was hurt, and it had been fun, even after the rope broke. For her at least. She wasn’t wet.

  “So I could hold you.” His hands tightened on her waist, and his head bent so his cheek rested against her temple so his words hit her ear then drove straight to her heart.

  “You don’t have to make up elaborate schemes with frayed ropes and water in order to hold me.”

  His body stiffened. His chest heaved in and out. It took him so long to answer that she wasn’t sure he was going to. “This was almost as good as driving with you.”

  They could have been teenagers again, with no worries and few cares, driving down the back roads, free and easy.

  “I miss your old pickup.”

  He stepped back, and she let her arms drop, missing his heat immediately. “I’d rather have gone driving, but I need to put a truck together first.”

  He grabbed her hand, and she laughed. “You’re the only person I’ve ever met that doesn’t ‘buy’ a truck, but ‘puts one together.’”

  His chuckle drifted back as he led her out from under the bridge. “I’d fall in that dang creek a hundred times to hear you laugh. You need to do it more often.”

  Her smile froze on her face. “It’s good to hear you laugh too. It’s actually good just to hear you at all.” She didn’t mean to slam him for not talking to her after he went to prison, but it had hurt. She’d thought she meant something to him, but he’d completely shut her out.

  He paused, one foot on the bank, ready to climb up. “I’m sorry.” He turned, searched her face.

  “Why?” she asked, even though it wasn’t the first time, and he’d refused to answer her.

  She could hardly contain her surprise when he put a hand in his pocket and shifted, opening his mouth.

  “I know you tried. And...just that one time you walked in, all the guys catcalling. You looked so good. And I...” He swallowed. “I couldn’t stand it.”

  “Couldn’t stand that I looked good?” Cassidy barely breathed. She’d wondered for so long why he’d treated her like a stranger, like she meant less than nothing to him. They hadn’t been a couple, exactly. They hadn’t dated. But they’d had something. Something real.

  He shook his head. “No. Couldn’t stand, first of all, that you were in that hellhole, around all those guys who weren’t good enough to even look at you, because of me. But more than that, couldn’t stand that I wasn’t able to work to be worthy of you.”

  “That’s crap,” she interrupted. But he held his hand up.

  “No. I was a poor boy with nothing. But at least I was able to be working to be something. To have something. Once I went up, it was gone, and I was less than nothing. It was selfish of me, but it was easier to not see you.” He rubbed his thumb over her cheek and rested it next to her mouth. “To smell you, touch you. The one time you visited... Knowing I was nothing... It was torture. I took the easy way out and turned my back on you.”

  She shivered.

  She didn’t realize she was crying until his thumb brushed the wetness on her cheek.

  “Serving the time, yeah, that was hard. But seeing you and not being able to have you? That was too hard.”

  “I would have waited. I did wait.”

  “I couldn’t ask that of you.”

  Her neck heated. Her fingernails bit into her palms. “You were in prison for me! What do you mean you couldn’t ask that of me?”

  “Wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t worth it.”

  Her chest was too full for her to form words. She didn’t even know what to say. Anger, sure, burnt up her throat. But he’d also admitted that he’d ignored her in prison, not because he hated her, which is what she’d thought, but because he wanted her so much. Her heart fluttered. Everything she’d done in the past ten years was with the thought of the man in front of her in mind. Everything. Which maybe made her a bad person, because she should do right because it was good. Not because she owed someone.

  He didn’t give her a chance to get her thoughts organized but grabbed her hand and pulled her up the bank.

  “Come on. It’s cold.”

  He was soaked from the waist down. Maybe he really was cold. Or maybe he was just done talking about it.

  She didn’t know what to say anyway, and he didn’t seem to want to hear it, even if she did figure something out.

  They walked in silence back to her apartment.

  Chapter 14

  “Thank you so much for meeting me at the park,” Cassidy said to Elizabeth, the woman who was applying for her nanny position, as she pushed the twins on the baby swings.

  Golden leaves overhead contrasted with an azure sky. The temperature was perfect autumn weather.

  “It’s not a problem. As a nanny, I’m familiar with parks.” Elizabeth wore gray sneakers with black leggings and a long-sleeved t-shirt. Maybe not the nicest clothes to wear to an interview, but clothes that would be perfect for watching children.

  “Great. Because I’ll want them to spend as much time outside as possible.” Cassidy went on, asking the questions she’d researched last night when she couldn’t sleep after Torque had left. Early this morning, s
he had called off work. Torque was right—she didn’t have anything to prove anymore. He was out.

  She’d decided last night that she was making some serious changes.

  She hadn’t been expecting to have a candidate to interview so quickly, but the agency she’d gone through was one of the best. She’d checked out Elizabeth’s references and read the agency’s report. Everything looked excellent.

  Elizabeth gave all the right answers. She also pushed one of the girls on the swing the whole time. Cassidy felt comfortable with her and optimistic when she left, after making arrangements for Elizabeth to watch the children that evening. Maybe finding a nanny wouldn’t be as hard as she feared. Although there was still a part of her that hadn’t accepted the fact that she couldn’t do it all.

  As the twins slept in the stroller, Cassidy made several phone calls, lining up her plans for tonight. A little excitement blinked inside of her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had an evening with the girls.

  “IT WAS HARDER TO LEAVE the kids with a new sitter than I thought it would be.” Cassidy wiggled her nose, trying to itch it without touching it with her hands, which were mostly covered in bright green paint.

  “They’re fine. You checked out her references. She came highly recommended.” Kelly stood on a ladder, rolling white paint on the old ceiling. This was her project, so she volunteered to do the hardest part. “I really appreciate you spending your girls’ night helping me. The activity center is scheduled to open next week, and there’s so much to do. But the ads have already gone out.”

  Harris’s curly red hair bounced in its ponytail as she leaned around the doorframe, brushing cheerful yellow into the corners. “I think if it were me, I wouldn’t let them with her for very long. In case something is wrong.”

  Cassidy dipped her roller in the paint tray. Harris was much more cautious than Kelly. Maybe to a fault. “I was thinking four hours. Do you think that’s too much?” Wiping her hand on her loose, old jeans, she dug her phone out of her pocket. Eight o’ clock. Two hours so far.

  “We’ll be done painting in fifteen minutes. You could go check then. We’ll clean up.” Kelly glanced at Harris who nodded.