AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And you let that stop you?”
“I’m going to force her to date me,” I protested.
“But you want to.”
“Yes. I want a life with her. I want fucking forever with her, man.” The words were agonized, ripped from the depths of my stupid shattered soul.
Cash didn’t react the way I expected him to. He grinned. “Bring it in, brother.”
He gave me a one-armed hug and clapped me on the back. I returned the gesture, even though I had no fucking clue what was going on.
“I never would have guessed it. You and my sister,” he said, still smiling. “I wouldn’t trust her happiness to anyone else.”
The endorsement was amazing. I felt relieved both that he didn’t want to rip me apart limb to limb and that he thought I was a good fit for Faith. But he was missing the whole damn point.
“There is no me and her,” I pointed out. That felt very relevant to this conversation.
He scoffed. “She’ll come around. I saw the way she was looking at you. Y’all will be engaged by Christmas.”
“I think you’ve taken one too many hits to the head.”
“I’ve got a good feeling about this. You might want to call my father and ask his permission for Faith's hand.”
“You’re not listening,” I said, feeling frustrated with his determination to get my stupid hopes up. Because it was working. My hopes, which had been crushed beneath Faith’s heel, were perking up.
Cash punched me in the arm. He looked like he had too much adrenaline. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet. I thought he needed more sleep.
“What did you always tell me back in college when you’d go hit on girls at the bar?” he asked as he swung at my arm again.
I blocked his second punch. “Stop hitting me. Why the fuck are you doing that? Sixty percent of the time, it works every time. That’s what I used to say before I approached girls. And it was stupid.”
“Don’t let the odds stop you. It never did in football. Or when those damn doctors said you’d never be able to run again. Or when you were starting a brand new distillery out of nothing. Don’t let the odds stop you.”
It wasn’t a bad locker room talk.
But Faith wanted to call the shots in her life. That was her big fear. That she wasn’t forging her own path. The last thing in the world she wanted was me calling up her dad asking for her hand when she hadn’t even agreed to date me.
“Go to work,” I told him, ready for this conversation to be over. “Go play with balls.”
“Better than playing with myself,” he said.
I couldn’t exactly argue with that.
ChapterFourteen
Faith
After my dadpicked us up at the airport and we got to my parents’ house, Marigold ran straight to my mom and I went straight to Conway, who had been discharged from the hospital. He was just sitting on the couch, legs on the ottoman, looking tired, but no real worse for the wear.
“Can I hug you? Am I allowed to touch you?”
“I’m not going to electrocute you,” he said. “It’s not contagious.” He returned my hug, but a little gingerly.
I tried not to squeeze the stuffing out of him like I really wanted to. “You scared me half to death. I’m so glad you’re okay.” I pulled back. “You are okay, right? Y’all aren’t lying to me?”
“I’m fine. Though check out my eyebrows.” He pointed to his face with a grin. “I look like Grandpa Young.”
I started. “Holy crap.” It looked like his eyebrows had been hit with a torch and spiked up. Which I suppose they had. “It’s like you have two fried caterpillars above your eyes.”
