She poked him in the side and let her hand linger there. A tiny but bold move, and something spiked in her blood, something hot and nearly forgotten. Nostalgic, a touch dark. Innately natural.
Do what you always did best, a mischievous voice whispered. And to heck with tomorrow.
• • •
Casey swallowed and glanced at the fire, trying to blame it for how hot the room seemed to have grown. It couldn’t be the contact, right? This was just friendly, innocent touching. Like friends might do, if they got along real good.
Like, real good, he thought, feeling the heat of Abilene’s palm through his tee, warming his ribs. He couldn’t seem to make sense of that hand.
“What do you want most, Casey?” She asked it quietly, but there was a strength in those words—a fierce and curious charge.
“What do I want?” He used to know the answer to that. He could’ve replied with a single word, without thought. Money. But things had changed since he’d moved back to Fortuity, and now the answer wasn’t so obvious. He’d come home after that long, frivolous absence to find his mother a decade deeper into her mental illness, a childhood friend dead, and his hometown in the grips of scandal and tragedy. He’d agreed to stay as a promise to his brother, but more was holding him here now—he could feel it. Something stronger than his word, stronger than guilt. Duty. Pride, even. Foreign sensations, both. “I want . . . I want the bar to succeed, first and foremost. And for you to find your way through this messy situation with your ex.”
“No, I mean, what do you want most in life? Like, some people want a family. Some people want to be successful. Some people want . . . I dunno, they want to be singers or actors, or to travel the world.”
I want to be somebody, to the people I care about. That was what came echoing back from his subconscious, though he couldn’t say if that was exactly true. He wanted to want that. He wanted to be capable of it. But he also felt lost half the time, and his future was foggy in ways he couldn’t begin to explain to her, and all of that made the wanting a dangerous luxury. The girl had enough worries. No need to burden her with the news that he was due to lose his marbles in five or ten years, like his mother.
“I guess I’m not sure anymore,” he said. “What about you? What do you want? Aside from a white house with a white fence, red shutters, and a red mailbox?”
A long pause. “I think what I used to want was security. I was on my own, from the time I was pretty young, and that was what I wanted. What I missed. But that’s more a need than a want. I think what I want most in the world now is to be a good mother.”
“You’re already that.”
“I dunno. I mess stuff up every single day.”
“So do all parents. You should meet mine.”
“Maybe . . . But whether I’m there or not, that’s what I want now. I want to be a good mama, and to make a safe, stable home for Mercy.”
“Did you have that yourself, when you were a kid?”
“I thought I did,” she said, sounding far away. “But it wasn’t quite what it seemed.”
“Sounds like life.”
“I guess. But anyhow, I want better for her. I want to be a better person, for her. Make better choices.”
And Casey wanted the same, he realized. To be better than he had been. He couldn’t say he had what Abilene did, though—a singular, solid reason to get there. He had Duncan and the bar to consider now, and his brother and mom. But nothing so real and monumental as a child. He only knew it felt good. Knew he’d begun feeling like a grown man for the first time, these past few months.
Freedom felt good, too, but in a fleeting, empty sort of way. Freedom felt like the rush and the relief of playing hooky to avoid a test you hadn’t studied for. But doing the work, making the grade . . . that felt way better, deep down, and it stuck with you way longer. Pride versus the brief, false pleasure of avoidance.
“I want to work hard,” Abilene went on, “and find us the nicest home I can. I want to save up my money and get some kind of education.”
“Oh yeah?”
She nodded. “I don’t even have a GED.”
“What do you want to study?”
“Nothing glamorous. Just a skill, so I can get a steady job. I mean, bartending is great. It’s perfect, right now, more than I could ask for.”
“But it’s not a career.”
“Career isn’t even the word. It’s just . . . I don’t want to be doing that in ten years. I want something flexible, like being a hairstylist, maybe. Something I could do out of my home, make my own hours. I can’t assume I’ll ever have any help in raising Mercy. You know, from a guy. A boyfriend or a husband. But something like that would be nice. Just something I control, that pays the bills, and that I enjoy.”
“Sure.” He wondered how much it would cost—beauty school or whatever modern term there probably was for it, and the cost to get some little storefront set up . . . Probably less than I’d make if I went in on one last job with Emily.
Abilene spoke quietly, the words sweet and sad, detached from the current thread. “I hope somebody’ll look at me again someday, the way you used to.”
He frowned, sad himself. “Course they will. Plenty of guys will. And still do.” Nightly, at the bar. In fact, Casey had fantasized about punching any number of those guys in the face.
“I’m just a mom now.”
“For one, you’re more than that. And guys’ll come into Benji’s, once you’re back to work—guys with no idea you have a kid—and you’ll see. Some guy might just fall for you, find out you’ve got a baby, and not even give a crap. Happens all the fucking time.”
“You think?”
“Well, bear in mind they’ll need to come in on nights when I’m not around; otherwise I’ll run them out on a rail.”
A pause. “Why would you?”
“Kinda hard to be charged with being somebody’s bodyguard and not getting a little protective,” he fudged.
“Am I like your little sister now or something?”
He shook his head. Far from it. I wish I could be so saintly. “Nah. You’re my friend, and my coworker and employee. You’re a lot of things, but sister’s not one of them. Then again, I’ve never had a sister, so what do I really . . .”
He trailed off, distracted by her hand. Her fingers were opening and closing, bunching the cotton of his shirt loosely, letting it go, again and again. It seemed wise to write it off as an absent, thoughtless sort of touch, but he couldn’t. Not quite. There was something else in the contact. Something mischievous, or curious. Something that got his blood moving quicker, pulsing lower. Heading in dangerous directions. He swallowed, and felt her attention on his mouth or his beard or his neck. Am I dreaming this? No, he couldn’t be. Everything was too real—the smell and the dry heat of the fire, the scent of her shampoo or lotion or whatever that was.
And in a breath, it became very real. Very bold.
Her restless hand slid lower, fingertips finding his belt. He sucked a breath. “What’re you doing, honey?”
“Something I want to.” Her fingers slipped under his shirt’s bottom hem, tracing his buckle.
His brain screamed, Stop her, but his cock screamed, Let her. Kiss her. Pull her onto your lap and show her what she does to you. The rest of him was paralyzed, trapped between the two instincts. All it seemed he could do was watch. Watch as her hand freed his buckle with an easy, knowing motion.
Fuck, I’m hard. Whatever words his brain managed to bully his mouth into speaking were going to look monumentally out of line with his body’s obvious vote.
He grunted as she slid his zipper down, then covered her hand. He’d meant to pull it away, but his fingers weren’t complying.