It’d only been a week since we’d brought Daisy home with us, and nothing about the adjustment had been easy. We had plenty of room, so that wasn’t the issue. No, the issue was me.
Because my anxiety was through the roof.
And there was little Cash could do about it.
With Daisy potentially always within hearing distance, Cash was reluctant to give me the very orders I needed so badly in order to cope with Daisy’s presence. It was the cruelest of double-edged swords.
In the privacy of our bedroom, Cash tried to make up for what he couldn’t provide me with otherwise, but it wasn’t enough.
Having Daisy so close and yet so far out of reach was making me crazy with guilt. I wanted her so badly, I could taste it. But my need for Cash hadn’t changed… if anything, it had grown exponentially with Daisy’s presence. I couldn’t make sense of any of it.
And that was what was dragging me into the darkness that had held me for so very long in its gripbefore I’d met Cash.
I can’t do it anymore, Sage.
I flinched and closed my eyes as the voice from my past filtered through my head.
“Sage?”
Cash’s voice broke through the darkness and I sucked in a breath. We were getting dinner ready. Daisy was still in her room getting her computer set up. Ronan had gotten all her stuff sent from her apartment that she’d need until she found her own place.
Wherever that ended up being.
Because I couldn’t allow myself to believe that she would stay.
“Sage.”
The firmness in Cash’s voice had me tearing my eyes from the vegetables I’d been cutting. I looked at him, but all I felt was pain when I did.
I was drowning.
He knew it.
I knew it.
There weren’t enough life preservers in the world to save me.
“Why don’t you set the table?” Cash suggested.
Suggested.
Not ordered.
“Can I help with something?” I heard Daisy ask as she entered the kitchen.
I couldn’t look at her, just like I couldn’t look at Cash anymore. I turned my attention back to the vegetables.
“You can set the table,” Cash said after a moment.
I felt a searing pain in my head, but ignored it. I ignored the darkness threatening the edges of my vision too.
I could do this.
We were three people temporarily sharing the same living space and having a meal together. All I had to do was make the fucking salad.
Easy.
So fucking easy.
