The pool room door half-open.
Nash shirtless, jeans hanging low on his hips.
Addison perched on the pool table, dress shoved up around her waist, legs wrapped tight around him.
Her eyes found Cassie in the doorway—
and then, smiling like she’d won something, she pulled Nash down for a kiss.
Cassie dragged in a breath.When she spoke again, her voice cracked.“And there…you were.”
Nash’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.The fury bled off his face fast, leaving him looking like she’d just ripped the rug out from under him.
“When did it start?”Cassie asked, clearing her throat, though her voice still shook.“Because I think I knew…I knew something was wrong when you wouldn’t come to New York for spring break.Or for my birthday.But I never”—she swallowed hard, before spitting out the rest—“I never thought it was…her.”
She’d come back.
Three stupid words knocking the breath clean out of him.
“Spring,” Nash rasped, gravel-rough.“Started that first spring you didn’t come home.”
He could barely stand to look at her, but he didn’t look away either.Couldn’t.Not when she stood in the entryway stubborn as mountain stone, even with cracks running clean through her.
Cassie stared at him.“Why?”
Nash dragged a hand through his beard.
“I was pissed,” he muttered.“Drinkin’ too much.And she was…there.”
Addison hadn’t wasted a second after Cassie left for New York.She’d slid right in—dropping off meals, hanging around the garage, passing him tools, planting herself at the clubhouse and pressing drinks into his hand.Doing the same shit Cassie used to—just poisoning the well while she was at it.
She’s in New York now, Nash.
Think she’s comin’ back to this two-bit town?
Pretty girl like her?Bet she’s already got them city boys linin’ up.
Why the hell would she want Clifton when she’s got Manhattan?
It hadn’t been subtle, and he hadn’t been blind.
He’d just…let it happen.
Because the truth—the one he’d never said aloud—was that things had started rolling downhill long before Addison.Hell, it had started back when Cassie was in Morgantown.She was growing; he was standing still.Even then, he’d felt her building a life bigger than these mountains, and he’d pretended it didn’t scare the shit out of him.
But New York…
New York was fucking different.
Most folks never made it out of these hills.Not the way Cassie had—handpicked, given chances people around here didn’t even dare to dream about.Conservatories, orchestras, brilliant composers, whole ass crowds of people who lived in a world Nash couldn’t imagine himself standing in.
Not with his grease-stained hands.
Not with a future that didn’t stretch past the county line.
So when her calls started slowing…
When holidays passed without her…
