“Love you too, Cassi.”

GAGE

OH MY GOD, her dad died on her birthday? What else has happened to this girl? Okay, I’ll admit I left the bathroom door cracked for a few minutes before shutting it and starting my shower. But the way they’d both got so quiet there at the end, I knew I’d said something I shouldn’t have, and I figured Tyler would bring it up as soon as I was gone. I knew she’d be hooked as soon as I mentioned the horses, and she was; I just didn’t know telling her I’d teach her to ride would take them back down memory lane to her dad, who was obviously nothing like her mom or stepdad.

Sitting there talking to her before Tyler had come in was the best morning I think I’d ever had, and it didn’t even last ten minutes. She smiled so much it made my heart swell each time, and God, that laugh. I was right; it sounded just like freakin’ angels. I wanted to die every time she’d start to relax into the chair. Her eyes would go wide for a split second and she’d sit right back up like she’d forgotten about the bruises on her back for a minute. I didn’t have to ask her to know she was in pain; there was no way she could have been comfortable with what I’d seen last night. But even with that, her smile never faltered, and that may have killed me even more. She should have been depressed or crying or something. What kind of person goes through that kind of life, as recent as two days ago, and still finds reasons to smile?

When I walked out of the bathroom, she was still curled up on Tyler’s lap and I blew out a frustrated sigh. I needed to get over her soon, or living there with them was going to be a challenge.

“Hey, Gage?” Tyler called before I could shut my door.

“What?”

“You up to showing us around the city today?”

No. I want to show Cassidy the city, I want you to go the hell back to California. “Sure.”

I shut the door behind me and had just finished getting my jeans on when Tyler walked in.

“You okay, man? We don’t have to go out today, I was just asking. Or Cassi and I could go by ourselves. It’s not a big deal either way, I just figured since you knew the area . . .”

I never asked Cassidy why Tyler didn’t like her name. It was so perfect for her, and why would he even tell her he didn’t like it? Seriously, how were we related? “No, it’s fine, I just have a lot on my mind. I’ll be ready in a minute, we can go whenever.”

“All right, well I’m sure she wants to shower. So it’ll probably be a while,” he called as he walked back out of my room.

I grabbed a shirt and headed out to the living room. Tyler wasn’t there, but Cassidy was sitting at the kitchen table, staring intently at her hands. “You okay, Cassidy?”

She jumped and looked up at me, her brows pulled together in confusion and hurt. She didn’t say anything, just studied my face for a minute, before blowing out a deep sigh and standing up to walk toward their room.

“I’m sorry for reminding you about your dad. I didn’t know.” I still didn’t know. What did horses have to do with her dad?

Cassidy stopped walking and looked over her shoulder at me for a second, then continued to the door.

I stood there staring at the door, feeling like an ass, even after Tyler walked out of the room and started hooking a gaming system to the TV. Did telling Cassidy I’d teach her to ride really hurt her so much that the girl who asked why I didn’t dress like a cowboy just disappeared? Everything in me screamed to go to her and talk to her, but the shower started, so I turned back to the living room. I told Tyler I’d watch him play and flopped onto the couch. I tried not to picture Cassidy in the shower while I listened to the water running, but that was damn hard, so I focused as much of my attention as I could on Tyler shooting people and tried not to think about her and the hard-on I was trying to cover with a pillow.

When Cassidy came out less than an hour later, her hair was wild and slightly wavy, and she had less makeup on than last night too. She looked beautiful. Without all that dark stuff around her eyes and stuff on her face, her honey-colored eyes looked even brighter and you could see a splatter of very light freckles on her nose. Not saying she hadn’t looked gorgeous last night, because she did. She took my breath away. But I preferred this almost completely natural look. She was wearing green Chucks, jeans with the bottoms rolled up to her calves, and a worn black Boston concert shirt. Boston. This girl is perfect.

“Ty, I’m ready.”

She still had yet to look at me since she walked in the room, and though I wanted her to, I was enjoying being able to take her in. I noticed her bottom lip was a little too full for her top lip, and her nose couldn’t have been more perfect if she’d chosen it herself. Her eyes flitted over to me quickly, then right back to Tyler; her cheeks got red and I couldn’t help but grin. There’s no way she doesn’t feel this too. She started biting her bottom lip, and again I thought about what it would feel like to kiss those lips. I’d never wanted to kiss a girl this damn bad.

“Tyler!” She tapped his leg with her foot and he looked at her, then back at the screen.

“What’s up?”

“I’m ready, are we going or not?”

“Yeah, just let me finish this match and we can go. Like eight minutes.”

I had already sat up when she entered the room so she could sit on the couch with me, and she was eyeing it now, but instead turned and went into the bedroom. She stayed in there while Tyler played two more matches and didn’t come out until he went to get her.

I took them all over Austin that afternoon, and while she was polite and would respond whenever I asked her a question, she wouldn’t hold a conversation with me and made sure she was always by Tyler’s side, farthest away from me. Maybe I was wrong about her feeling whatever this connection was, because she definitely didn’t seem like she was having a hard time not touching me. It was all I could do to not grab her hand and keep her by my side.

When we were on the way back, she asked if we could stop by the grocery store, and we let her take over the shopping after her third eye-roll at our food choices.

“Don’t worry,” Tyler whispered as she compared packages of ground beef, “she’s been cooking for herself since she was six; she’s better than my mom.”

I hadn’t been worried, and now that added just one more thing I wished I could have protected her from. Because my dad and I worked from sunup to sundown most days, I was only ever in the kitchen to help with dishes. I thanked Mom and my sisters daily for making the food, but I couldn’t imagine having to do it on my own when I was just a little kid. I’d have to thank them again.

Other than letting us carry the groceries in for her, she wouldn’t let us help put them away and immediately started on cooking dinner for the three of us. I lay down on the couch just watching her move around the kitchen while Tyler played his game again. At one point it looked like she started dancing for a few seconds before she stopped herself, and God, if that wasn’t the cutest thing I’d ever seen. When Ty was fully engrossed in the game, I got up and wandered into the kitchen, stepping right up behind her.

“Do you need help with anything?”

Her body tensed for a moment, and once it relaxed she turned her head up to look at me. “No, I’m fine. Thanks though.”

“Could I help anyway?”

She continued to watch me with that same hurt and confused look from that morning. “Yeah, sure. You can make the salad.” She grabbed a few things out of the fridge and brought them over to me before grabbing a couple more items that she’d bought at the store out of a bowl on the counter. “Dice these, and—wait, do you even like avocados?”

“I’ll eat anything, darlin’.”

Her mouth tilted up at the corners and her cheeks got red; I smiled to myself and made a mental note to call her that more often. “Well, if you don’t like them, I can just put them in my bowl.”

I grabbed the avocado from her and looked at it, a little confused. “Like I said, I’ll eat anything. But how do you cut this thing?”

She laughed lightly and took it from my hand, sliding the cucumber and tomato in front of me. “Dice these first, then I’ll show you how to cut the avocado.” She handed me a knife and turned back to the stove.

I was flat-out awful at dicing those vegetables, but being in the kitchen with her had me smiling the entire time, and whatever she was cooking smelled damn good. “I think I did it right.”

“There’s really no way to mess up dicing veggies for a salad.” She turned and looked. “You did it just fine. Haven’t you ever diced something before?” I shook my head and she grinned at me. “Really? Well you did great. Let me show you how to do these.”

She grabbed both avocados and handed me one of them before picking up her own knife. I’m not gonna lie, I purposefully kept messing up getting the seed out so that she finally had to reach over and grab my hands to show me what to do. I heard her intake of breath as soon as our hands touched, and I had to look away so she wouldn’t see how wide I was smiling.

Hell. Yeah.

She finished showing me how to cut up the avocado and had me grab bowls and plates while she finished up whatever was on the stove. Every time I looked at it, she’d turn me away and say I wasn’t allowed to see her secrets. I didn’t know what was going on all day, but she was now acting just like she had that morning. Every smile and every touch had me falling for her that much more.

I touched her arm so she’d look up at me and I almost forgot what I was gonna ask as soon as her eyes met mine. “Uh, did I upset you this morning? I swear I didn’t mean to. I had no idea about your dad.”

She looked down, then back to the stove. “I didn’t expect you to know about him. And what were you thinking upset me?”

“When I told you I’d teach you how to ride.”

Cassidy huffed and shook her head once. “No, Gage, that didn’t upset me. I would really like to learn how to ride, if you ever want to show me.”