Page 85 of Sing Me Home
“We’re too young,” I said stupidly.
He didn’t counter with—‘Clearly we’re not. You were already married once,’—even if I deserved it. Because Cash hated acknowledging that I’d ever been another man’s wife.Ihated it. Wished every minute I could go back to that pool in Hawaii and make the right choice. No, back to Africa. Knowing what I knew now, I’d give Lorne a hand to the face the same way I had Brandon.
“Hmm,” Cash purred. “Granny and Gramps got married when she was eighteen and he was twenty—and they have a great marriage.”
“Different era,” I said.
“Anna and Blue were twenty-one and twenty-two.”
“Cash.” I tapped my forehead against his. “What’s the rush? Give us a little time to get used to the idea.”
“It’s not a rush,” he said, voice trembling just enough to tell me he meant it. “I’ve known my whole life I was going to marry you.”
I stared into his eyes, trying not to melt. “Yeah,” I said, on the edge of giving in. Thankfully, his phone dinged, saving me from myself.
With a small grunt, he adjusted me enough to grab it from the console. The text was from Theo, wondering where we were.
Cash barely glanced at the screen before tossing it aside and pulling me right back where I’d been—closer, tighter. The look in his eyes hadn’t cooled. If anything, it burned hotter, and my cheeks lit up accordingly. “You were saying?”
What was I saying? I couldn’t form a coherent thought with him looking at me like that.
“Stop that.” I grabbed his face, squishing his cheeks together until his lips puckered like a fish. He wriggled them dramatically, and I lost it, snorting. “This is your punishment.” I held his face like that, trying to put out the flames. But nope. Even fish-faced, the man smoldered. I groaned but continued on, “I was saying, I think I know what I want to do with my life… I never meant to write an entire notebook full of reply songs. But something about creating calmed me. Turning my feelings into a melody gave me a purpose.”
“I’m wiss-uh-nin,” his lips puckered. But I could see in his eyes that he understood. He’d experienced it too.
“I dunno.” I laughed. “Maybe it was just because I was writing those songs foryoubut…” I dropped his cheeks and pulled his forehead to mine. “It healed me. I mean, I still have healing to do but it did something for me that nothing else ever had and I think I want to be…a music therapist.”
He cupped my cheeks. “I love that. How can I help? Can you still tour with me? Wait…” He leaned back, forehead crunched. “You’re not moving for school, are you?”
“No. I’m never leaving you.”
“Oh, I already know that.” He pulled me back in, forehead to forehead. “I was planning to come with you is all.”
The difference between Cash and Lorne was insane. Where Lorne did whatever he wanted, never thinking of me, Cash was running next to me, cheering me on. I hoped I could always do the same for him.
No, not hoped. I would. I was determined about that.
My hands were back in his hair, needing to hold onto something before I disintegrated in his lap. “I found a couple of online programs but it’s too late to apply for this fall. I’ll have to try for winter semester.”
He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “I love this for you. You love helping people—you always have—and now you know how to use it.”
“School scares me though.” My shoulders fell. “I’m not a great test taker.”
He brushed my hair out of my eyes. “I’ll help you study. We can make notecards and I’ll quiz you. And if it’s a music class…” He held out his hands likeI got you. “And I’ll keep your glass filled with caffeine when you need to cram for a test. You’ve got this. You can do anything.”
“Yeah. As long as I have you.”
“You have me. Always.” Our fingers intertwined, making two bridges between us. “But seriously? Can we consider Dupree-Squared?”
I kissed his cheek. “No.”
twenty-nine
Cash
We were at James and Theo’s house getting ready for a Hand and Foot Tournament. Though, I wasn’t sure it actually qualified as a real house. It had four walls, mostly-working plumbing, and a roof—but scaffolding still covered one wall where they were fixing the ceiling. Hammers, paint cans, three kinds of saws, and random tools cluttered the room. They didn’t own any real furniture—just rusty folding chairs and a plastic card table they’d swiped from Silas and Lemon’s basement.
There were four of us shuffling from the sheer number of cards it took to play with nine people—one more deck than the number of people playing. Charlie was so dang adorable. Every time she shuffled, her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth. I rested my knee against hers as I tapped my stack of cards against the table top before letting them riffle together, the satisfyingch-ch-chkfilling the air.
