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“People in town can be judgmental. They all had something to say about her getting married again so fast.”
“I like Mitch. He adores your mom. I saw what you meant about him being handsy. He can’t keep his hands off of her. But I think it’s cute. I hope, one day, when I get married that my husband can’t keep his hands off of me.”
“You do, huh?” Cash asked.
It wasn’t the words that he spoke that had me breaking out in goosebumps, it was the way he said them. Almost like he’d be the man for that job.
I thought about all the little touches we’d shared over the past couple of days. His hand on my lower back. His thumb rubbing on my shoulder. His leg pressed against mine.
I felt my cheeks begin to flush and my breath was coming in shorter pants. It was the same thing I’d felt the night before when we were sitting on the bed before Jimmy called. I was sure we’d been about to kiss before my brother interrupted us.
Even though I did have a tendency to overthink things, I knew I wasn’t imagining this. The dynamic between us had definitely changed. I had no clue what the catalyst had been but there was something crackling just beneath the surface. It was desire, attraction, and more. Or at least it was on my side of things.
We had a ten hour drive ahead of us and I figured now was as good a time to finally say something. He wasn’t going anywhere, so even if it made things awkward, I’d have time to try and smooth things over before we got back home.
Or maybe it would be better to wait until we got closer, that way if things got awkward, I’d have an escape route.
Wait. This trip had started because I’d asked myself, What Would Reagan Do?
She would definitely lay her cards on the table. If she wanted something, she made it happen.
Filled with confidence I was borrowing from my SIL, I sat up straighter in the seat. My mind was searching for the perfect opening line to start the conversation about “us” when he cleared his throat.
“My mom and dad didn’t have that sort of marriage.”
My mind was trying to backtrack to figure out what he was talking about.
“I never saw them kiss or be affectionate at all.”
Oh, right. PDA. That’s what we were talking about.
Shifting mental gears, I asked, “Really?”
His right shoulder lifted in a shrug. “After what my mom told me, it makes sense.”
“What did your mom tell you?” I shifted in the seat toward, giving him my full attention.
Cash took a deep breath and his fingers opened and closed on the steering wheel. Over the months I’d watched him behind the bar and even hanging out with Billy, I’d noticed that Cash didn’t open up about himself that much. People felt close to him because they told him their troubles, successes, and complaints. It was part of what made him so good at his job as a bartender. But he never actually talked about himself.
Except with me, he did. I loved that he felt comfortable enough to talk to me about things. It made me feel special. It also made me nervous to lose that if I told him how I felt and he didn’t feel the same.
“You know how I told you that my dad cheated on my mom.”
I nodded. He’d mentioned it to me when we’d had one of our late-night talks at the bar when it was slow. It was when he’d told me that he didn’t just want to be married, he wanted to have a happy marriage and explained that his parents’ marriage wasn’t. He’d said that his dad would stay out all hours of the night and he’d hear his mom crying in the bathroom and he was sure that he’d cheated on her.
“Well, when you told me your dad wasn’t your dad, I started thinking about things and wondering if maybe your mom and my dad might have…”
This conversation had taken a turn that I hadn’t been expecting and my mind was trying to fill in the blanks of what he was saying from context clues.
His dad. My mom. Started wondering.
Wait!
Panic began to rise inside of me. If they had then was it possible that Cash’s father was my father. That would make me and Cash brother and sister.
I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate but I managed to ask, “Did they?!”
“No.” Cash shook his head.
