Climbing inside, she shut the door and flipped the visor down, the keys dropping into her lap.
With shaking hands, she shoved the key into the ignition, threw the truck in reverse, and drove quickly away.
Chapter Twenty-One
“So,wait—y’allwerejuststraight up brawlin’ in the kitchen?Right in front of Junie?”Luanne shook her head like she couldn’t decide if she was horrified or impressed.“Not that I blame you—after what she said…” She shot Cassie a look from behind the wheel of her Jeep, one brow raised.“I’d’ve slapped her twice.”
Cassie scoffed.“Yeah, well, it was hardly a brawl.You know Addy—first thing she does is go for the hair.I was mostly just tryin’ not to lose a chunk.”She shifted in her seat.“And Junie was upstairs at that point.Thank you very much.”
She’d called Luanne late that afternoon after spending most of the day pacing Margie’s house, showering again like she could scrub the morning off her skin, then sitting at the kitchen table with Connor’s wallet dumped out in front of her—staring at the pile of crumpled, coffee-stained pawn shop receipts until she couldn’t sit still another second.
It was a long shot.The shops were probably cleaned out by now.But it was something to do.Something to keep her mind off everything else.
“You know what though,” Cassie went on after a second, quieter now, “I just don’t understand how I was ever friends with her.Fuck.Was she always this…awful?”
“Ain’t none of us had it easy here; we all got our own brand of damage.”Luanne flicked her blinker on.“But Addy’s always taken hers out sideways—smilin’ to your face while stabbin’ you in the damn back.”
“Only good thing I’ll say about her,” she added, easing through the turn, “is she loves that kid.Least she does when Nash ain’t around.”
That’s…something, Cassie thought, wincing each time the memory of Junie crying flashed through her head.And again when she thought about what Addison had revealed.
It wasn’t as if she’d simply gotten pregnant, gone to the clinic, and never thought about it again.There’d been nights—more than she cared to admit—where her mind drifted there without permission.Quiet what-ifs she never let herself linger on for long.
“So, Cas…” Luanne glanced at her with a crooked smile.“I gotta know.This thing with Nash—is it serious or…are you just gettin’ some old shit outta your system?”
Cassie’s head fell back against the headrest with a groan.“Can’t a girl just fuck an ex without it havin’ to mean something?”
“An ex?Girl, please.The two of you ain’t never been just any old thing.Everybody was jealous back in the day—well, probably not Becca, but Becca and Brady don’t count.”
“Jealous of what exactly?Our completely toxic dynamic?”
Luanne snorted.“No, of bein’ wanted like that.
“Hell, the way he looked at you.The way he talked about you,” she went on.“The whole town knew you were his from the get-go—you ever notice how nobody else even tried?And it ain’t ’cause you’re ugly.They all knew better.”
“His?”Cassie glanced over, unimpressed.
“Oh, don’t start.You know what I mean.”
“Okay, but we fought constantly.”
“Yeah,” Luanne said.“And then ten minutes later, he’d have his arms around you and you’d be lookin’ up at him like you didn’t even know anybody else was in the room.”
Cassie opened her mouth to argue, only to shut it again.
Maybe that was how it looked from the outside.
And maybe that’s how it had been…sometimes.
They fell quiet after that, the radio filling the space.Luanne sang softly along with the bluegrass tune drifting through the speakers while Cassie slouched lower in her seat, trying not to replay the morning frame by frame.
There hadn’t been time to know Nash’s true reaction to the revelation of her pregnancy; not that it would change anything now.If anything, time had only solidified that she’d made the right choice.At eighteen, she’d been no more ready to be a mother than Connor had been ready to parent her at the same age.He’d known that and wanted more for her.
"This is your life, kid.You’re only gettin’ one.You wanna spend it here, raisin’ babies and workin’ a register, or out in the world makin’ a name for yourself?"
She’d done the right thing.
The only real regret she had…was keeping it from Nash.
