Page 122 of Moonshine Kiss
She smiled up at me, and I couldn’t help but gather her up and swing her around in the tight space.
I wondered if she’d known that she’d just given me my very happiest memory in this house.
“Is it weird to be here?” she asked, reading my damn mind.
I set her down on her feet and pulled my shirt over my head. She looked disappointed that I was getting dressed.
We had it bad. I doubted that I’d be able to hold off on popping the question much longer. Especially after I’d heard her confessions to Scarlett. She wanted me every Christmas morning. I wanted to give her time to get used to the idea, time to find the right solution at work. But all she had to do was look at me with those gorgeous green eyes, and I was already halfway to my knee.
It was right. We were right.
“It is,” I admitted. “It’s different now, but I still have all these memories popping out at me every room I step into.”
We picked up our coats off the floor and, loose-limbed and smiling, started down the stairs. “I feel like any minute now your mom is gonna poke her head in the front door and tell Scarlett and me we have to unload the groceries from the car—” She broke off in mid-sentence, freezing on the stairs.
“What is it?” I asked.Had she seen a bat? Did I have the chance to play hero again?
“Her car.”
“What car?”
“Your mom’s car.”
“What about it.”
“She never let your dad drive it.”
I recalled a few dozen arguments about my dad’s driving ability. My mom drove a beat-up Pontiac bought from a cousin for a grand. It only started half the time and overheated the other half. The speakers on the right side didn’t work, and the fabric on the ceiling had come loose. She kept it pinned up with sunflower safety pins. But it was her pride and joy.
I was surprised by the swift rush of memory.
“She hated the way Dad drove,” I recalled. “He was a terrible driver, even before the drinking.”
“Funny thing about memories,” she said, sounding kind of far away. “Like walking down these steps I remember your mom pulling up out front in your dad’s truck. Her honking the horn at us to come help unload. She was pissed because one of the bags fell over in the truck bed and the eggs were all broken.”
A vague recollection was beginning to take shape.
“She was really upset about the eggs. Upset enough, I figured it was about something more than broken eggs,” Cassidy continued quietly.
“She was upset about a lot of things,” I said, not sure what Cassidy was getting at.
“We should probably head home,” she said. But I got the feeling she wasn’t hearing or seeing me right now. She had that look in her eye that I usually only saw during game night when she was one strategic play away from a win.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
But she didn’t answer, she was already pushing her way out the front door.
* * *
I stareddown at the beer I was holding whileSportsCenterreplayed receiver GT Thompson’s injury play over and over again as they discussed his career options. After gritty, raw, incredible sex, Cassidy had given me a perfunctory kiss on the back porch and marched right on into her own house. No invitation. No apology. Just a single-minded focus on something that she didn’t feel like sharing.
I’d heard every damn word she and my sister exchanged the other night. And I thought Cass had taken it seriously. I had hope. But tonight was just another example of her shutting me out.
Jonah had tried to pry it out of me when I got home, but I’d brushed him off. I didn’t feel like talking about how much my girlfriend had let me down. It was worse, coming on the heels of willingly going out in town together. And then baring our souls in a house that held hardly anything but sadness for me.
“Fuck,” I swore. This wasn’t the relationship that either one of us wanted or deserved. I didn’t know what to do about it. I loved her. I belonged to her. We had a future together. But I couldn’t make her trust me. I couldn’t make her open up.
The knock was so soft I didn’t think I’d heard it. Then it was back. Three soft taps coming from the door between our kitchens.
