HAVE YOU EVER felt your heart find a steady rhythm, its beats almost melodic, that had you closing your eyes to hear their beautiful song?
No? Me neither.
Until now.
Breathing deeply, I rested my head on the sofa, closing my eyes as my hand continued its gentle strokes up and down the length of Cassi’s spine. She was curled into a tiny ball, her arms tucked between us and her head lying on my chest, her ear directly over my heart—his heart. Her breathing was shallow, and the shudders afflicting her petite frame had completely subsided.
It had taken a while, but she was finally asleep.
And while I knew I should have moved her, maneuvered myself from beneath her, I couldn’t bring myself to do either. Having her on top of me, her heart beating with mine in what seemed like perfect tune, well, it wasn’t a feeling I was ready to stop experiencing.
I'd never been one to believe in fate or destiny. There was too much awful shit that occurred in the world to make me believe everything was supposed to happen for a reason, so I tended to fall on the more rational side of the thinking spectrum. Things happened either out of pure or shit luck.
End of story.
Everything that had brought Cassi and me together had been a result of shit luck. But as I held her—listening and feeling both of our hearts—I couldn’t help but think maybe this, this, was pure.
Or perhaps it was something else entirely.
Could two hearts be meant to beat only for each other?
Hell, I didn’t know, but in that moment, I wanted to believe it was possible. And if it wasn’t, I wanted to believe we were the exception.
Lifting my head, I glanced at the blanket of brown hair sprawled across my torso, and my hand moved of its own accord, brushing it away so I could get a better glimpse of the beautiful face hidden beneath. It was wrong to look at this woman and want more from her, especially knowing she didn’t have it in her to give, yet I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t help but want to be around her, to see her smile, hear her laughter. When we were together, the world stopped spinning and time failed to exist. It was her and me, but regardless of how I felt, it was impossible to ignore the constant voice in my head, the questioning doubt. She might have been in my arms, but she’d fallen asleep listening to his heart, and a part of me wondered if she secretly wished I, too, were him.
If she did, could I blame her?
He had been her world. She’d loved him with every single part of herself, and I was just the person filling the void—the person who questioned if he’d ever add up, if he’d ever compare.
Buying myself a few more seconds with her, I closed my eyes and inhaled the sweet vanilla scent of her skin, desperate to capture a taste. When lying there became too much, I stood up, holding her tightly, one arm banded across her back, the other under her thighs. Her arms immediately circled my neck, and as she nuzzled herself deeper into the space between my collarbone and shoulder, she released a soft, barely audible murmur.
“Adam.”
A stab of pain sliced through me at the sound of his name, and my entire body flinched in response, reminding me that although I was slowly falling for her, she was still hopelessly in love with him.
“No, Cass.” Shaking my head, I corrected her. “It’s me. It’s Sam. Just Sam.”
She didn’t respond, and I suspected it was because she was still asleep. I continued the short journey to her bedroom, kicking the door open with my foot and walking straight to her bed where I laid her down in the center. I’d never been in her room before, and I wasn’t sure I had a right to be then, but it was nearly seven a.m., and since I had somewhere else to be, I refused to leave her alone on the couch.
Pulling the blankets up and tucking them in around her, I smoothed a knuckle down her cheek and stepped back. My gaze slowly moved over the room filled with memories of Adam, and I almost choked on the presence of it all. While the rest of her house bared no shred of evidence of him, this space was shrouded like a memorial. His clothing hung in the closet, his shoes scattered the floor, and bottles of cologne, empty and new, sat upon a dresser with the rest of his personal things.
My lungs tightened to the point of pain.
Feeling as though I was on the verge of suffocating, I took one more look at the woman who was becoming so much more than I’d ever expected her to be and then quietly made my way out of the room.
COME ON, SAM. Let’s get this over with.
With a cardboard carrier holding two Styrofoam cups of coffee in one hand, I breathed out through my nose and hesitated for the length of a few beats before rapping my knuckles against the hardwood. Being my father’s house, one might think I didn’t have to knock, but not knocking would send this visit in one of two directions, and with my lack of sleep the previous evening, I preferred to deal with the lesser of the two evils today.
I stood back and waited patiently—a ball of nerves in my stomach from not knowing what kind of state I’d find him in this time—and let my gaze survey the property that had been neglected even more so in the last couple of years. Before my transplant, I’d done what I could to help my father with the upkeep of this place, and now that I was finally in a state where I was physically fit to be doing such work again, it was time I got back to it.
Lord knew, if I didn’t, he wouldn’t bother.
Overgrown weeds and bushes covered the tile pathways. Decomposing leaves, which had long since fallen from their branches, littered the yard. The porch was in need of several new coats of paint, and the siding on the house could’ve used a good power wash. Frowning, I made a mental note of everything that needed to be done at the same time the door creaked open.
My father stood there, dressed in a pair of black sweats and a T-shirt that looked as if they hadn’t been washed in days. The wrinkles around his eyes seemed deeper than they had a week ago, and his gravelly, just-woken-up voice made me sigh in silent frustration.
“What are you doing here?”
I inhaled deeply, refraining from rolling my eyes, and moved to grab the mail overflowing from the mailbox. Stuffing it under my arm, I pulled the screen door open and let myself in, sidestepping around the man who rivaled me in height. “It’s Sunday, Dad,” I chided, reminding him as I made my way into the kitchen. “I’m always here on Sunday.”
“Is it?” Confusion filled the tired lines on his face, and I shook my head.
Why did I even bother?
“Yeah, it is. And here”—I thrust the container holding the coffees in his direction and nodded down at it, gesturing for him to take one—“I brought you coffee.”
Dragging a hand through his greasy gray hair, he grumbled under his breath, and his inability to show even an ounce of appreciation spiked my pulse. How I had managed to grow up and be the respectable human being I was, I didn’t know. Clearly, I hadn’t learned my manners from him.
“If you don’t want it, a simple “no, thank you” would suffice.”
We did this every Sunday. We had done this every Sunday for the past year, and at sixty-two years old, he needed to start taking responsibility. He was my father, and I loved him, but I couldn’t keep holding his hand. I had my own problems and my own life to figure out.
Huffing in annoyance, I set the drinks down on the small wooden table, ignoring the hot liquid sloshing from the small hole in the lid, and pushed away the stacks of old mail. “If you're not going to go through this stuff, you should really throw it away. It's collecting dust and your table looks like a paper factory exploded all over it.” I dropped onto the chair and sifted through the envelopes in front of me, tossing the junk mail into the trash can beside my feet and placing the new bills on a pile.
As I tore them open, marking on the calendar what was due and by when, I glanced up at my father who had sat in the seat adjacent to mine. “Did you remember to send the mortgage check on Tuesday like I asked you to?”
His white bushy brows narrowed in thought, and his lips twisted to the side of his cheek.
He didn’t answer me.
“Dad.” My tone grew firm, and this time, I met his eyes, repeating myself. “Did you remember to send the mortgage check?”
“Yeah.” He gave me an unconvincing look and turned his head, nodding. “Yeah, I did.”
“Are you sure?”
Nothing.
“Are. You. Sure?”
“For Christ’s sake, Samuel.” His heavy fist slammed down on the table, knocking over the stack of envelopes I was working my way through. “Yes. I told you I sent it. Stop speaking to me as if I’m some petulant child.”
My head reared back at his outburst—the harsh cut of his voice and the jagged edge of his glare. I bit my tongue, holding back the words desperate to lunge off its tip, and continued to write out the checks due that month. If there was anything Robert Copeland could take credit for, it was the ability to shift my mood in the fraction of a nanosecond. His audacity to snap at me while I was there, taking care of his house, his bills, his entire life, had my jaw clenched painfully tight and its muscle twitching.
Strained silence thickened the air, and I reached up, undoing the top button on my shirt. It was always so stiflingly hot in his presence, and it didn’t help that my skin was suddenly crawling with heat. Perhaps it was my body’s way of rebelling against my visits. My father remained rigid and unmoving, his gaze fixed on nothing in particular. It was useless trying to get him to help, which was why I’d stopped asking, aside from the odd mailing here and there.
“Why don’t you go take a shower, Dad. You look like hell.”
He chuckled dryly, his shoulders shaking as the bitter laughter erupted from his chest. “That’s something coming from the guy who looks as though he’s slept on a park bench all night.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t get much sleep.” Not that I ever did, but he’d never taken the time to notice or ask, and that was beside the point. Last night, my sleep deprivation was the result of an entirely different reason. It was about Cassi and making sure she was okay.
“You were with her again, weren’t you? The organ donor’s girlfriend.”
My stomach lurched at the way he turned a simple question into an accusation, especially where Cassi was concerned. Regret for telling him about her at all raced down my spine. I gritted my teeth, every muscle in my body pulled tight with irritation at the way he referred to her. “She has a name, Dad.”
There was a long, drawn-out moment of hesitation, and just when I thought he was going to drop the discussion, he pushed further. “Do you really think continuing to see that girl is a good idea?”
“I like her.”
It was that simple.
We’d grown close over the past few weeks, closer than I thought either of us were truly ready to admit, but I looked forward to the time we spent together. I loved her laughter and smiles—the way I felt when I was around her—and unlike him, I believed she was capable of being saved. She might have been lost in her grief, drowning in the remnants of her shattered world, but underneath the sorrow was a woman who was as alive as she was broken.
I wanted to be the one to remind her of that.
“I enjoy spending time with her.”
“What the hell are you doing, Sam? Involving yourself with her is asking for trouble.”
My hand stopped mid-stroke, and I lifted my chin, pinning my father with a glare. I shouldn’t have to explain myself, especially to him of all people. “I don't believe it's any of your concern who I see or what I do.”
“You're setting yourself up for disappointment, son. Have you ever stopped to think how it’s going to end? You have his heart, for crying out loud, but you’re not him, Samuel. You’ll never be him. And once she realizes that, where is that going to leave you?”
His words were like a stab to the gut, and I pressed back in my seat, folding my arms over my chest and shaking my head, ashamed to call this man my father. He didn’t deserve the title. “You're really something, you know that.”
His mouth hung open, but I didn't allow him a chance to speak. He’d said what he'd needed to say, and quite frankly, he had real nerve saying it at all.
“You want to talk about disappointment, we’ll talk about disappointment. What's disappointing is that I need to show up here every Sunday to ensure your bills are paid and there is food in your refrigerator, all because you can't pull yourself together enough to do it on your own. What's disappointing is growing up with a father who cared more about himself than his own goddamn son.”
He looked at me as if my words had physically punched him in the face. “Cared more about myself? Why in the hell would you ever think that?”
“Why wouldn’t I? You were so wrapped up in your own misery you didn't give a damn what happened to me. You still are. Yet, here I sit, the fucking fool I am, trying to keep your shit in order. So don't tell me how to live my life when you don't even know how to begin to live your own.”
Body nearly shaking from the rush of adrenaline my sudden anger caused, I tried to return my attention to the check, but to no avail. He had gotten under my skin. Deciding I’d had enough of being there, I collected the pile of bills and rose to my feet. I’d finish them at home. As I turned my head to take one more glance at my sorry excuse for a father, my gaze dropped to the white envelope tucked under a pile of junk mail beside his arm. Reaching over and picking it up—my blood now boiling—I slapped the envelope containing the mortgage check down in front of him.
“You mailed it, huh?”
His eyes screwed shut, hot shame spreading across his face, and for a mere second, I almost felt guilty—guilty for the way I’d spoken to him—but then reality hit, reminding me how I hated this: his inability to pull his shit together.
“And to think I actually wanted her to meet you.” Shaking my head in disappointment and looking at him in equal measure, I spat out my retort and headed for the door. “What an incredible embarrassment that would be.”
SHOWERED AND DRESSED in a pair of black silk shorts and a matching camisole—her wet brown hair piled messily on top of her head and face clean of any makeup—Cassi stood beyond the door, her eyes alight with surprise. “Sam.” A pleased smile curved her lips. “You’re back.”
“Yeah. I, uh …” I lifted a hand, running my fingers up the back of my neck and through my hair. “I know I left early this morning, I had somewhere to be, but I wanted to swing by and check on you. Make sure you’re okay.”
Splotches of red tinted the apples of her cheeks, and she dropped her head a little, watching her pink-painted toes as they wiggled themselves into the soft threads of the rug beneath her feet. “I’m okay, thank you.” Crossing her arms loosely over her chest, she returned her gaze to mine, those big brown eyes of hers pinning me and putting a chink in my resolve. “Did you want to come in? I have a pot of decaf going.”
Decaf. She didn’t drink decaf.
She'd done that for me.
After everything we’d been through, doing this in her doorway now seemed like the cowardly way out. I wasn’t sure how she’d react, so reluctantly, I said, “Yeah. Okay.”
Following her into the kitchen, I took a seat at the island.
Cassi moved to grab two clean mugs from the cabinet, and although I hadn’t said anything, and made every effort to keep my expression and body language void of any readable emotion, the tension in her movements told me she sensed something was wrong. Placing a mug down in front of me, she filled it to the brim before returning the pot to the machine and sitting on the stool beside me.
She was close—close enough for me to smell her femininity, the sweet fragrance of her vanilla perfume as it mixed with the faint scent of her skin and coconut body wash.
Taking a sip of my coffee, I swiveled on my seat to face her. As I did, she did the same, her legs stopping between mine. Concerned eyes stared at me, and the worried and forlorn look on her face had me reconsidering this entire plan. Not that it was well thought out to begin with, because nothing I did really was, but coming to her place with the intention of it being the last time I ever did was a spur of the moment decision. My father’s words—while said with the deliberate intention of hurting me—were right. I didn’t know what Cassi and I were, and I wasn’t sure I ever would, but continuing whatever relationship we had was like being on a train you knew was going to wreck. And I needed to get off—needed to save us both before we crashed and burned in the flames.
“Sam?”
Slender fingers stroked gently down my cheek, cutting through my confliction, and as I raised my chin to look at her, my decision faltered.
Fuck. I didn’t want to do this.
“Is everything okay?”
“I don't …” Closing my eyes and sighing, I curled my fingers around her tiny wrist and pulled it away from my face. She flinched at my blatant dismissal, and I winced at her reaction. I’d already hurt her, and I hadn’t even begun to say what needed to be said.
Smoothing my thumb over her hand, I glued my gaze to the imaginary circles I was creating on her skin.
Just say it, Sam. Get it over with.
“Sam. You’re beginning to scare me. Please tell me what is—”
“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
Her body stiffened beneath my grasp.
I lifted my lashes, risking another glance at her.
She stared at me, unblinking, her eyes open wide like windows providing a clear view straight into her mind. I saw the questions forming before they left her lips. “Did I do something wrong?”
I shook my head quickly, trying to figure out how to give my “This isn’t you, it’s me” speech, because it didn’t have anything to do with her.
Not really.
“No, you didn’t do anything. I … Listen, my life's a fucking mess right now. On the surface, I might appear like I have my shit together, but the truth is, I don’t. I don’t know what it is I'm doing, and I have no idea how to get back on track. A year and a half ago, I wasn’t sure I was even going to have a future, but I do now. And I need to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with it.”
“And we can’t be friends while you do?” Her voice sounded so small, hurt.
I looked at her, unsure what to say.
How did I tell her we couldn't be friends because I wanted more than that? I couldn’t continue to be around her and not hold her or touch her. I didn’t want to continue to wonder what her lips would feel like against mine or how incredibly sweet she tasted. I didn’t want to have to imagine what it sounded like when she moaned my name during a moment of ecstasy or how warm her breath felt against my neck as I buried myself between her thighs and brought her to the brink of orgasm. Because fuck, I wanted to do all those things to her and more. Sure, I might have been understanding, honorable, patient even, but I was also a man, a man who wanted to experience every inch of this beautiful woman.
“The point of meeting you, Cass, was to express my condolences, to meet the person who had the honor of knowing and loving someone as selfless as Adam.” I paused, swallowing around the thickness in my throat. “And I've done that. I’ve met this incredible woman who has unknowingly already started to change my life, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in finding out what other amazing things she's capable of achieving.”
“But? There is obviously an unspoken but there.”
“But … I think we both agree right now isn't exactly the perfect time.”
She pinched her lips together. “I see.”
The room slipped into silence, and everything in me begged and pleaded with her to say something. Anything. I wanted her to tell me I was being ridiculous. I wanted her to ask me not to go. She didn’t. Instead, she seemed all too eager and willing to get me out of her house.
“I guess you should be going then, huh? Get a start on figuring out that life.” She smiled tightly and rose from her chair, leaving her coffee mug on the counter. “I'll walk you out.”
Brushing past me, not bothering to glance over her shoulder to see if I was following, she dropped her gaze to the floor and folded her arms protectively across her chest.
I crossed the space of her kitchen and living room, my feet feeling as though they were weighted with lead, and joined her at the door.
We stood still in the same threshold we’d been caught in before. Neither of us speaking. Neither of us moving. Both of us clearly hesitating. I turned to look at her, a frown on my brow and my fingers stuffed in my jean pockets.
My heart pounded at an unprecedented pace. “Cassi ...”
Her chest rose on a steep inhale, and she flashed me another forced smile. It was amazing how quickly I’d learned her expressions, and the one she was giving me looked so misplaced on her delicate features.
“Goodbye, Sam.”
The door closed. A crack of thunder sounded in my ears. That was it. We were done. Over. I let my head loll back between my shoulders and stared up at the angry clouds in the sky, willing my feet to move. It wasn’t until I reached my car that I heard my heart silently whisper, “What the hell are you doing?”