Page 54 of Shattered Veil

“You really mean all that, don’t you?”

“I really do.”

My response came out raspy, and her grip tightened on me. Cassie looked up, her pretty brown eyes locking on me, and I knew that a quick tilt of our heads or a flex of my grip in her hair could pull her lips to mine. I could feel the heat of her face. Taste her breath on my tongue. The feel of her kiss from just hours ago had made me throw any concerns of my feelings for her into the wind, and I yearned for it once more, but because she had told me to forget, I ushered the thought away.

Her grasp on me loosened, and with a tiny tug on the front of my shirt, she said, “Come on,” tipping her head to the inside in a quiet invitation.

I followed her in, and the first step that I took onto her tile made my boots squeak and my feet slip out from underneath me. I spun to the right, the arm of the couch breaking my fall so I didn’t tumble ass-first onto the floor, and I cursed under my breath at the sensation of twinging muscles in my back.

I grunted, rotating gingerly to test my range of motion, and muttered, “Ouch.”

Cassie was watching me with her arms crossed, no more than three steps away, with high brows and a questioning expression.

“You alright?”

She retraced her path before me to the entrance, doing what I had planned and shutting the front door for me. Her wrist flicked as she quickly turned the deadbolt, and she glanced back at me with inquisitive eyes, for I had yet to answer her question.

I stretched my spine upward, twisted slowly to the left and then to the right, and replied, “All good.”

Cassie pointed to the floor. “Slippery when wet. Take your boots off unless you’re trying to throw out your back.”

“Right,” I grumbled.

She turned an about face, and I watched her with interest as I did as she asked, touching my toes to my heels one by one to remove my boots. Directly next to the door that she had just locked was one of her wicker kitchen chairs. Cassie gripped it by the seat, dragged it across the tile to be situated in front of the door, and angled it to force the back of it underneath the knob. She jammed it into place, tested its strength with a quick wiggle from side to side, and turned back to me when she appeared to think its placement was satisfactory.

I must have had a skeptical look on my face because she threw a thumb over her shoulder, explaining:

“Makeshift lock from the inside. I have to buy a chain for the door or something.” I nodded, somber that we had to even think of such things but thankful that she had the wherewithal to have done so. Cassie looked me up and down and asked, “Do you want to sit with me? I was trying to wind down when you got here.”

She tipped her head toward the fireplace in front of the couch. It was just barely lit—too little to crackle and have called my attention previously, but enough for me to feel its slight heat against my shoulder—and a small stack of wood sat to its left. The table in front of it, which looked as though it could have been made from a cross-section of a large tree trunk, held a short glass that I knew for a fact contained Jack Daniel’s.

“My, ah, brain wasn’t turning off,” she admitted. “Alcohol helps.”

“Well, if you’re gonna pour me a glass that big, we could use another log on the fire,” I remarked.

Her lips pulled up in the smallest of smiles. “I’ll be back, then.”

While she bustled to the kitchen, I took it upon myself to tend to the fire. Situated in front of the cast-iron to protect the room from any errant spitting embers stood a three-sided standing screen. Grabbing the black fire poker that rested against the wall by the wood, I nudged the screen aside that was sure to be white-hot. With a precise drop of my hand so as not to burn myself, I laid another piece of wood into the flames. I adjusted it just so with the fire poker, the heat caught up to it quickly, and just as I was pushing the screen back into place, it let out a satisfying pop!

As I was leaning the fire poker back against the logs, Cassie quipped from behind me:

“You’re gonna make me have to clean up more ash than normal, aren’t you? You chose the biggest log. That’s gonna burn for forever.”

I turned to find her already sitting on the couch, watching me with a small smirk on her face and her glass cradled in both of her hands that rested in her lap. My own drink sat on the table in waiting for me.

“I’ll stay up for a bit,” I told her. “And I’ll sweep up the ash in the morning.”

“Just giving you shit, Jay,” she spoke gently. Cassie gestured to the seat on her right with a tilt of her head. “Come sit.”

I did as she asked, settling myself on the center cushion with my whiskey in my palms, and took a sip. She did the same, and we were quiet for a bit, watching the flames flicker and occasionally taking another drink. I eventually noticed her fingers tracing the edges of her glass in what appeared to be a nervous manner, and I nudged my shoulder with hers.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Looking to her hands, she murmured, “Ah, my thoughts…there’s a lot goin’ on up there. Does the phrase this shit’s fucked cover it?”

“No.” I smiled a bittersweet smile. “It doesn’t.”

“I…” she hesitated, “learned a lot tonight.”

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