Page 77 of When We Met

“Having kids so young?”

“I think I did when she left, but then I realized what a gift she gave me. I was young, dumb, selfish…. They changed all that for me. So no, I don’t regret it.”

“And her?”

“I can’t say I regret her either. Not in the sense that I still love her, or any bullshit like that.” I reach forward and angle the heat away from my face. “But she taught me a valuable lesson on love, that’s for sure.” I’m sure my tone is bitter, and you know, I still am. I can’t hide that part as much as I try.

“What was the lesson?”

“A realization that you can love someone and not be right for them.”

Kacy turns her head and stares at me.

I meet her gaze. “What?”

“That’s… so true.”

Keeping her close, I press my lips to the side of her head. “What are you running from?” I whisper, sensing her leaving California has more to do with just needing a change of scenery.

“Everything.” Sighing, her body stiffens, her fingers mindlessly tracing circles on her thigh. “My whole life I’ve felt like that side character. The one never quite deserving of love, from my parents, lovers, anyone. I’ve never even had a best friend. My mom raised me as if I wasn’t good enough. Never pretty enough. Never skinny enough. And all that got me was befriending certain people in hopes I’d be a little closer to what she approved of.”

I hate her mom. “Do you think you’ll ever go back?”

Her gaze lingers on the ranch coming into view on our right. “No, I don’t think I will. There’s something about Texas that grabbed onto my heart. It’s like being hungry for something, and no one or no place can give you what you’re wanting.” I stop the truck at the entrance to the ranch and click the gate opener. Our eyes connect. “Until you stumble into it and find exactly what you’ve been looking for. And you’re afraid to lose what you’ve found, because every touch—” She pauses, reaching up to trace my jaw with her index finger. “—leaves you more hungry than the next because they’re just as eager for more as you are.”

I kiss her, unable to keep from touching her. That’s when you know you’re fucked. When slow isn’t an option. Desperation is your only reaction. With Tara, that wasn’t the case. If I’m being honest, I saw the end before the words, “I’m falling out of love with you,” were uttered. I knew it was the end. The bloody, wounded, battered end.

Now here I am, at the beginning of something I don’t understand, well aware that it might end just the same. I don’t believe it will because this girl beside me, I’d reach up and rip the stars from the sky if it meant she’d shine the way she does for me now forever.

Back at the house, the girls are not asleep, and I’m disappointed. I had every intention of locking Kacy in my room and exploring her pierced clit properly.

“I thought you were staying at a hotel,” Morgan says, smiling at us. When we don’t say anything, he waggles his eyebrows. “Have a nice time?”

“Shut up. She’s staying.” I push him away and reach for a beer in the fridge. “Why are the girls still up?”

“I got them bathed. And that was bullshit.” He gestures to his soaked shirt. “Bath time is like a water park for them.”

“Which is why there’s a drain in that floor,” I remind him, running my hand through my hair. When we were building this house, he thought I’d lost my mind by putting a drain in the kid’s bathroom. Best building decision I ever made.

“Ma’am,” Morgan whispers when Kacy walks by and into the kitchen, just to tease her. “Did you have a nice time?”

“Knock that ma’am shit off.” Kacy smiles at him and reaches for the whiskey she’s been drinking the last couple of days. I have to admit I find it incredibly sexy she chooses whiskey over anything else. “We had an amazing drive in the snow.”

“I bet.” Morgan rips the whiskey from her and takes a shot from the bottle. “Make any detours?”

Kacy keeps a smirk at bay. “We stopped so I could show Barron my jewelry.”

Morgan’s eyes drift from her face to her neckline. “You’re not wearing any.”

She winks at him, and I fight back laughter. “That you can see,” she says, taking the bottle back.

He looks at me with raised eyebrows, but I don’t say anything.

“Daddy!” Camdyn says, coming around the corner wearing her pajamas, with wet hair, and a brush in her hand. “You came back!” she says, excitement in her soft voice as she hugs Kacy.

My heart tugs in my chest, seeing her attached to Kacy as much as I am.

She climbs up on the stool next to Morgan and hands me the brush. “I don’t want to go to school anymore. I want to be a gangster.”

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