“Hey, uh, is Cassie here? She told me to stop by sometime,” he asked. He must have amnesia, because he clearly missed the part where I told everyone in the bar Cassie was my girlfriend. That wasn’t necessarily true, but he didn’t know that. So why the hell was he standing here right now?
“Did you forget she has a boyfriend?” I asked, eyeing him like he was an idiot.
“No, I heard that part loud and clear. Except I asked someone about her at the bar after you left and they said you are definitely not her boyfriend, so cut whatever show you’ve got going on and let her know I’m here, would you?”
Oh, hell no. He was not talking to me like that right now.
I stepped out onto the sidewalk, closing the door behind me so Cassie wouldn’t hear what I was about to tell this douchebag next.
“I don’t know who the fuck your source is, but you can rest assured Cassie is not interested in a date with you anytime soon. Why do you think I’m here after hours? Because she invited me here. She’s in the back waiting on me. So if we’re done here, I have business to tend to—if you catch my drift. Now run along and tell your source to go fuck themselves.”
I walked back into the coffee shop, locking the door behind me.
Maybe I’d stretched the truth a little, but I didn’t care—because if I had to watch that jackass put his hands on Cassie again, I wasn’t going to have enough control this time to keep myself out of jail.
Chapter 26 – Cassie
My stomach was doing somersaults the second I got in my car. This nervousness I felt was confusing me. I was about to sit and have dinner with people I had known for years—I practically considered them family. But there was one McKinley in particular who had me off-kilter.
Sometime in the last couple of weeks, Jace had gone from the cocky, chauvinistic younger McKinley brother with a life mission of getting under my skin, to someone who understood me on a deeper level than I had ever realized possible. He’d seen pieces of my life that I’d only shared with a select few people, the kind of trauma that usually made others uncomfortable and sent them running for the hills.
Now I was standing at Colt and Ellie’s front door with nerves wound so tight I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. The only thing keeping my hands steady was the Tupperware I held with the pumpkin roll inside—my ticket into this Thanksgiving dinner, according to Jace.
Pull it together, Cassie.You’re a badass bitch. Start acting like it.
I took a deep breath and knocked on the door—only to have it swing open to the one person I’d hoped wouldn’t answer.
Jace stood there in blue jeans that hugged his muscled thighs perfectly and a black T-shirt that clung to his inked biceps—the same tattooed biceps I’d often pretended not to stare at. He wasn’t wearing his usual cowboy hat, either. Instead, his hair was slicked back, making him look even more put together. Somuch for my badass-bitch mentality. It was about to fly right away.
He smiled down at me as he grabbed the Tupperware out of my hands. “You actually came.”
“What made you think I wouldn’t?” I asked, surprised that he thought I might stand him up.
“Because the last and only time you accepted my offer to hang out, it was after I made you feel bad for breaking my foot.” He stuck out his foot like a show-off. “Which, by the way, is completely healed now.”
I looked down. The black boot he’d been wearing for six weeks was gone. “Lesson learned—don’t walk downtown if Cassie Blake is behind the wheel of heavy machinery,” he joked with a cocky smile, way too pleased with himself.
“Leave me alone or I’ll stomp on it and break it again,” I said, pushing the Tupperware he carried into his chest.
“Hey now, take it easy. That’s precious cargo, sugar. I have plans for this pumpkin roll later.”
“Sharing is caring, Jace.”
“Fuck that.” He popped the lid open and took a long, dramatic whiff.
“On another note, you just missed the family Uno game. Molly got so mad at Colt for slapping her with a draw four that she pinned him to the floor and gave him a wet willy with Ellie’s help,” he laughed.
“That is horrifying and somehow exactly the kind of thing this family would do.”
Ellie appeared in the doorway behind him with her hands on her hips. “About time you got here, Cass. Don’t stand on the porch, come inside before Jace eats all the dessert.”
“Don’t worry, I brought enough for everyone,” I said, steadying my voice and hide the nervousness. “Even Jace.”
“We’ll see about that.” He waggled his eyebrows, then with a theatrical bow, he stepped aside and let me in.
The house was filled with the sound of laughter and clinking of dishes far off in the distance. The air swirled with the smell of turkey and stuffing. Music played in the distance, and Alice and Charlie talked to each other in the kitchen as they put the final touches on all the food.
Alice looked up from the potatoes she was mashing when I entered the kitchen, smiling when she recognized who I was.
