He chewed his lip for a second. “Do you have them?”
“Used to,” I said. “When I was a kid. Now I just have those stress dreams where you’re running around looking for something you can’t find, or all your teeth fall out.”
“Mine aren’t like that,” he said but didn’t elaborate. He rolled his shoulders. “I probably could have gone back to sleep, but I was watching the kittens.”
“You don’t need to watch them. They’re okay.”
He ducked his head, smiling. “I know, but they’re cute, and they like it when I talk to them.”
I liked it too. I liked that Cash trusted me enough to share his words with me. I knew what a privilege that was. And I had no intention of taking it lightly. If Cash was willing to let me insidethe very small circle of people he trusted, I was going to do my best to deserve that place.
I turned toward him and he stepped toward me at the same time, like there was a magnetic pull between us. I paused when there was barely an inch between us, and then Cash pushed up on his toes and closed the gap, kissing me tentatively.
I kissed him back and felt the curve of his mouth against mine as he smiled. My hands settled on his hips and he kissed me again, with more certainty this time. I forgot my tiredness and my aches and bruises, all my attention on how good this felt and how well Cash fit against me. I closed my eyes and pressed my tongue against his lips—and pulled back when I felt a steady vibration running through me.
It was coming from the pocket of Cash’s pajama pants. His brow furrowed before he pulled his phone out. He read the screen, then let out a frustrated huff. “Chase,” he said, his thumbs flying over the screen. “Checking on me.”
“Making sure I haven’t locked you in the basement, huh?”
“He’s just looking out for me,” he said. “It’s what we do.”
Having met Chase, I was honestly surprised he hadn’t shown up on the doorstep already. The twins weren’t physically imposing, but Chase had a personality that was seven feet tall and a glare that could snap you in half with the power of his mind. But I was glad Cash had someone so fierce in his corner.
“Sounds nice.” I wondered what my life would have looked like if I’d had a Chase in it. Not that different, maybe, but I’d bet my parents wouldn’t have been blowing up my phone as much. Maybe I needed to borrow a leaf out of the book of Cash’s twin and come out swinging when it came to them. Metaphorically, of course, though the temptation was there…
Cash lifted one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Yeah, it is.” He shoved his phone back in his pocket. “When he’s not annoying the shit out of me.”
There were two Cashes. The quiet one, that could only be drawn out slowly. But even farther back than him was the one who shared his twin’s sass and sarcasm, although it was toned down some. I liked both of them a hell of a lot.
Cash rested his forehead against my shoulder for a moment, and I soaked up the contact. Then he sighed and said, “I gotta go to work.”
“Will I see you tonight?” I asked. Then, remembering that he hadn’t slept, I added, “Unless you’re too tired. You don’t have to be here.”
Cash lifted his head and raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Mason, you havekittens. And Dog.” And then, just when I was reeling from the sarcasm—I could handle it just fine, it was just unexpected from Cash—he added, “And I guess you’re pretty okay too.”
And I would have thought that was sarcasm too, except for the way the words lost their sharpness as he said them, swallowed up by his sudden breathy tone, and his cheeks turned pink. Somewhere in his sarcastic delivery, he’d forgotten to sound like he didn’t give a shit.
“Then I’d love it if you stayed over again,” I said. “And tomorrow it’s my turn to make breakfast.”
Cash’s smile lit up the whole kitchen.
Lit up the whole rest of the day too.
CHAPTER 12
CASH
My shifts at Sunny Fields were never especially exciting—I liked that about them—but over the next week they really dragged. Even seeing Grandma Jane and Mr. Conrad didn’t make them go much faster. Not when I had Mason and Dog and the kittens to get back to.
“Is that Alissa still giving you trouble?” Grandma Jane asked me on Thursday afternoon.
Alissa was one of the workers. She’d pulled my earbuds out by the cords one day because she didn’t like that I didn’t say hello to her, and she thought I was being rude. But the manager had told her to leave me alone, and Grandma Jane liked to talk loudly in her hearing about how the problem with some people was they just didn’t know how to not be dicks, and Alissa had apologized a bunch of times.
“She’s okay now,” I assured Grandma Jane as I restocked the toilet paper holders in the visitors’ bathroom by reception. Grandma Jane had sailed right past the yellow cone I’d put down outside to warn the ladies I was in here. I guessed since she’d caught me in her shower that time when we were having plumbing problems at home, she figured she had the right.
“You’ve been a little distracted is all,” she said. “And I’m a worrier.” She narrowed her eyes. “What’s that face for?”
“You’re not a worrier,” I said. “You’re a fighter.”
