Page 13 of Moonshine Kiss
And yet it was Bowie who was being too rough with my delicate heart.
I’d always believed we’d end up together. When the time was right. When we were ready. How could I have been the only one with these feelings? How could I have been so wrong about his?
I turned away from him, something like a fever burning up my cheeks. But he grabbed my hand before I could race out of the building.
“Cass, it has to be enough,” he said earnestly. His eyes were telegraphing something that I didn’t understand. Did hurting me hurt him? Good. Then he should be on the floor in the fetal position with a pint of mint chocolate chip and a mountain of used tissues. Because that’s where I was planning to be.
“Tell me you’re okay,” he insisted, squeezing my hand.
I didn’t know what he was talking about. I was too busy trying not to hyperventilate or worse: cry. I hated that my whole body still reacted like wildfire at his touch.
“I’m fine,” I said flatly. I wrenched my hand free. Fine was not the f word I would have chosen. But my pride was at stake. “See you around.”
* * *
I ranuntil I couldn’t see straight. My wounded heart limped along with me as I slipped down Bathtub Gin Alley to avoid the summer crowds. I slunk and stumbled my way toward the woods. Gasping for breath, desperate for peace, for numbness, I skidded to a stop.
Of course I’d come here. It was a clearing half a mile out of town on the lakeside trail. I’d played here as a kid. Partied here as a teenager. Fell in love over and over again with Bowie.
Half-heartedly I kicked at a rotting log and then sat. Feeling my insides rot right along with this chunk of nature. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the air that was already thick with humidity. This was the spot where I discovered how important answers were.
Callie Kendall disappeared from Bootleg four years ago on a summer night. This was the last place anyone had ever seen her. I watched my father, my town, Callie’s family, ask the same questions over and over again. But there weren’t any answers. And I couldn’t accept that.
Now Bowie had given me the answer I dreaded. Now I knew. I was nothing but a nuisance to him. All my needing him to help me and Scarlett out of scrapes. All my depending on him to be there. All my dreams of shared pajamas. It was over.
I needed to be glad to have the answer. I wouldn’t waste any more time pining and plotting. I’d move on.
Just as soon as I mourned what I’d lost. What I’d never had.
7
Bowie
Present Day
The text message ruined my life. It wasn’t a surprise. Just confirmation that things in Bootleg were going to get rougher.
Scary Lawyer Jayme: DNA results are back. It’s Callie’s blood.
I swore and swung my legs over the side of the bed and let the family attorney ruin my day off. Snow fell pretty as a picture outside my bedroom window. It was a snow day. School was closed. I was going to catch up on a few hours of sleep then drink my body weight in coffee and fix some shit around the house I’d been ignoring until I noticed it all when my half-brother Jonah moved in.
Instead, I was waking up with a family crisis on my hands.
I’d been elected the Bodine point of contact for our attorney. Mainly because Gibson was an ass. Jameson “couldn’t people”—and was too busy loving up on Leah Mae to be of any real use. And Scarlett would only make a heap of trouble for everyone. I debated responding. But before I could formulate a response, the phone vibrated in my hand again.
Scary Lawyer Jayme: They’ve had the results for a few weeks. Just keeping a lid on them.
I glared holes in the wall across from my bed. Cassidy’s wall. Her bedroom was on the other side. We lived parallel lives in opposite sides of a duplex. We shared a wall, a backyard, a front porch. Given that Cassidy was my sister Scarlett’s age and best friend, we shared a good long history, too.
She had to have known. The dark thought had me dragging on a pair of sweats. I stopped in the hallway and stared at the door that connected my side to her side. We’d never used the door. We didn’t have a relationship like that. Not anymore.
Now, I was wondering what the hell kind of relationship we did have if she’d been sitting on the DNA results all this time without a word.
I took the stairs two at a time and yanked the front door open. In two steps I was standing at her front door, banging on it with the pent-up frustration that had been my constant companion for years. It was fucking cold, and I was barefoot, but my anger kept me warm.
Sometimes life just plain wasn’t fair. The thought stuck in my mind when the door swung open.
“If you’re fixin’ to break down the door, by all means, go right ahead,” she yawned.
