He walked me to my door and we stood there for a moment, quiet, but not in an awkward way. He rested his forearm on my doorjamb and struck one of his usual poses, but this time I didn’t see it as a bit of corny posturing. He was just being Cash.
And I liked it.
He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder toward his door. “I’d invite you in, but I have a dog to walk.”
“No problem. I have…” What did I have? My brain was so full of Cash there wasn’t room for anything else. “Music. I have music to write.”
“I can’t wait to hear it. You’re really good.”
“How would you know? I’ve never played for you before.”
He knocked on the wall beside my door. “There isn’t a whole lot of insulation in these walls, in case you hadn’t noticed. I listen all the time when I’m coming and going.”
My cheeks warmed and something delicious tickled my stomach. “You’ve been spying on me?”
“I wouldn’t call it spying.”
I crossed my arms over my chest but couldn’t hide the smile forcing its way onto my lips. “What would you call it?”
“Marinating in the music.” He winked. “Thanks for coming tonight. That was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.”
“Yeah, me too.” My stomach was a churning mass of nerves. There wasn’t much small talk left to be said. Our date was coming to an end.
Would there be a kiss goodnight? Did Iwanta kiss goodnight?Shouldthere be a kiss goodnight? I couldn’t decide, but thankfully Cash had the answer.
He stuck his hand out… like a businessman, ready to shake on a deal.
I took it, telling myself that Cash had the right idea. Playing keep-away with my lips was for the best if I had any chance of keeping things casual. But before I could bat an eye, he’d brought my hand to his lips.
I sucked in a sharp breath and braced myself against my doorjamb, being careful to steer clear of my cactus. His lips lingered on the back of my hand long enough to permanently brand it with their impression. Then with the methodical precision of a trained lip athlete, he placed a feather-soft kiss on each one of my knuckles.
I counted each caress of his lips as he moved from one knuckle to the next. Why, oh why didn’t the Good Lord give us twenty fingers?On each hand?
My head swam in the sizzling air surrounding us. And then as quickly as it began, it was over. “I… uh… thanks.”
He released my hand and grinned down at me. “You’re welcome.”
It wasn’t until that moment that I realized the absurdity of my last words to him. Just as I thought I might actually die of embarrassment, he winked one last time and said, “This is going to be a summer to remember.” Then he disappeared into his apartment to a raucous welcome from Moose, leaving me standing in my doorway with a pounding heart, a racing mind, and wobbly knees.
Whenever Cash was around, my life was like an endless flower petal game.I want him. I want him not. I want him. I want him not.
I want him!
I had to get my act together right then and decide once and for all how I was going to approach this two-day-old relationship. My heart couldn’t take much more of the whiplash my mind was throwing at it.
And Cash’s certainly couldn’t. He’d already been hurt more deeply by someone he’d loved than I ever could have imagined.
I gnawed on the inside of my cheek when I realized I’d been worried about the wrong heart all along. He wasn’t the one who was likely to hurt me. I was the one who was in real danger of hurting him.
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
Aweek had passed since my first date with Cash, and I wasn’t any closer to figuring out how I felt about our arrangement. But my relational challenges were the farthest thing from my mind. At that particular moment in time, I was in survival mode, and I wasn’t too sure I was going to make it home in one piece.
“I wouldn’t pick that one if I were you,” Cash said, his voice echoing off the cinderblock walls of the dog shelter. Giving a pack of wild dogs their baths wasn’t my idea of a great way to celebrate the one-week anniversary of a new relationship.
But we were here.
And we were doing this.
