7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

T he somber reality of Cassie's childhood and subsequent teenage years hung over us like a dreary, overcast evening. It was dark, and though there wasn't a rainstorm present, our surroundings were still scented in petrichor. I didn't mind it while it lasted…on the contrary, I found myself sinking into it. Not in the way that a depressive episode can swallow someone whole, but in a way that almost felt bittersweet. Bitter with the recognition of what built her as a person…more than bitter—vile. Vile in that I wanted to scrub her past with disinfectant in the hopes that I could wash her pain away…and alternatively sweet with the realization that she had trusted me to be vulnerable, if only for a moment.

Thankfully, the metaphorical clouds inevitably cleared once Cassie made her way to retrieve a ladder from the shed at the backside of her house. We situated it where she wanted the bench to be—with respect to someone facing the house, on the far right-hand side, and perpendicular to the wall—and I climbed up to determine where it could be safely hung. The sun having quickly set, dusk was upon us, and Cassie watched me with a neon green drill in one hand and the other on her hip. Sliding a stud finder across the ceiling, I moved it toward the outer edge of the patio, searching for the joist beneath. It beeped loudly when I found it, and I reached into my pants pocket to grab the pencil Cassie had given me to mark the spot we intended to drill above.

I asked, "You got that string?" Cassie nodded, quickly handing me a blue piece of yarn and two thumbtacks. Because she didn't own a measuring tape—how she didn't ever have the need to buy one, I don't know—we had improvised to measure the width of the bench chains with some yarn that Cassie had in the depths of her closet. As she plopped both of them into my outstretched hand, I joked, "We are so lucky that you decided to pick up knitting on a whim."

I secured one end of the yarn right on the pencil mark with the thumb tack.

It was so quiet that I heard her blow an amused breath through her nose. "Yeah, I was shit at it…it's probably good for everyone's sake that hobby was short-lived. The Christmas sweaters would have been hideous."

I laughed. "I would've worn it with pride. "

As I began to slide the stud finder across the ceiling once more, Cassie scoffed, "Who said I would have made one for you?" I stopped what I was doing, turning my focus to her but keeping my hand on the ceiling, and mockingly dropped my jaw open. She continued with a playful shrug, "I certainly didn't say that."

"Y'know what?" I quipped, "I take it back. You can keep your lumpy sweater." I held up the piece of yarn pinched between my fingers. "If you made it with this, it'd be itchy anyway."

She chuckled. "Oh no, that was my practice yarn. I'd bust out the big bucks for Christmas sweater yarn. I'm not saying it'd be pretty, but it would be soft…and warm. Probably loose-fitting since I wouldn't be able to get the sizing right, so it would be cozy, too. You could wear it by a crackling fire, watching the snow fall while you drink whiskey…" Her picturesque description was vivid in my mind to the point that I could smell the essence of Christmas, and Cassie paused. "Not that you'd ever know. 'Cause I'm not knitting one for you."

"That's fucked up," I replied with a loud snicker. "Don't make me want a sweater I'm never gonna get!"

Cassie gave me a devious grin.

I knew that was exactly her intention, and I shook my head at her as I returned my attention to the ceiling. I ran the stud finder along the expected path of the joist toward the wall of the house, adjusting forward and back as the light and beeping signifying solid material beneath occasionally petered out. I stretched the yarn taut, pushed the thumb tack into the ceiling, and glanced from point A to point B thrice…because it just looked off.

"Uh…"

"What?" Cassie asked.

I moved to slide the stud finder once more, confirming my internal thoughts, and then noted, "The joist isn't straight."

Her head tilted to the side. "What do you mean?"

I held up a hand, gesturing toward the house and then away. "The joists run this way, right? Should be straight…perpendicular to the wall. It's not straight—look at the string."

"Yeah…" she replied, tracing her eyes over the yarn, "I don't want it hung like that. It'll look weird."

I glanced at it once more, and nodded vehemently. "This house is crooked as shit."

"Hey," she admonished me sharply, "don't diss the house. I like this house. I bought this house."

My head snapped to hers. "You own this place? How'd you afford that? "

"It's a one bed, one and a half bath cabin in the middle of the woods—it wasn't exactly prime real estate." Cassie added, "And did you forget that I make good money doing what I do? You strip for a few years, you manage to save up for a decent down payment."

"A few years?" I responded. "You're twenty-two, how long have you been—"

"Since legal age, you can do the math," she stated quickly. "Don't diss my house."

Surprise aside, I told her, "I'm not dissing your house. I'm stating a fact—it's built crooked." She narrowed her eyes at me, and I spoke a bit more gently, "In this exact spot, at the very least. You wanna say it adds to the charm of the place? Go ahead." I pointed to the ceiling. "Doesn't change the fact that this joist isn't at a ninety-degree angle on the overhang. If you want the bench here, it's gonna be angled like the yarn is."

"So, crooked," she deduced bluntly.

I smiled wide. "Just like the house."

She pursed her lips together for a moment and then griped, "I don't want it to look like that."

"Eh, it's not that crooked," I reassured her and then joked lightly, "It'll add to the feng shui of the place."

Cassie chuckled, albeit a bit reluctantly. "Feng shui? "

"Oh yeah, I'm all about Chinese harmony. Balance. This feels right," I sarcastically remarked.

She rolled her eyes, and her grin grew. "You're so full of shit."

"Yup."

Her soft laughter made my smile stretch further, and she sighed. "Fine. If it's gonna be crooked, can we just lean into it and have it be catacorner? Like…hang it from two different joists and have it be facing out," Cassie held out her forearm at what depicted a forty-five-degree angle, "like this?"

I shrugged, pulled the thumb tack closest to the wall out of the ceiling, and threw it in my slacks' pocket, allowing the string to hang free. I climbed my way back down, shimmied the ladder forward, and once I was back up, I quickly swiped the stud finder across the ceiling until the high-pitched beep occurred once more. I kept it held in place, reaching my other hand down and flicking my fingers toward me as I spoke to Cassie:

"Hand me the string again."

She stepped forward quickly to assist me, reaching out to give me the makeshift measuring tape, and her fingers brushed mine as she placed it in my hand. While still focused on the space above, mentally examining the length between the other end of the yarn and where I held the stud finder, I reflexively grabbed her hand. Not the string—her hand. And that would have been fine if it didn't linger there—if the sensation of it in mine didn't make time slow to a crawl. I whipped my gaze to her, finding her dark eyes set on our touching fingers. They remained there for the briefest of moments, I squeezed them, and her hand fell away as she left the string in my grasp. We looked at each other, and for just a beat, we were stuck. Locked in place.

The rational part of my brain screamed at me, ‘Cut it out and hang the goddamn bench!' and I inhaled sharply as I quickly brought my attention back to the stud finder. I moved it along with the string until it was pulled taut, and I saw Cassie take a few steps back in my peripheral vision.

I retrieved the thumb tack from my pocket, shoving it in the ceiling to hold the yarn, and she asked, "There?"

I looked to her again, swallowing to mentally push past our brief, tense moment, and nodded. "What do you think?"

She cocked her head, her eyes tracing the string along the ceiling and then out into the space before us. Cassie moved to stand below me, angling herself as if she were examining her potential view, and she glanced up at me, throwing me a beaming smile.

"Feng shui? "

I chuckled. "Feng shui as hell."

I exhaled in relief as I leaned my backside on Cassie's green and white checkered kitchen counter, biting into a slice of cold pepperoni pizza. The bench was finally hung, the clock to my right on the stove read 8:07 P.M., and we ate in a comfortable, relaxed silence. Cassie sat at her kitchen table, chewing through a bite of her own slice, and she threw me a tight-lipped smile as I caught her eye. She finally swallowed, set her pizza down with purpose, and interlaced her fingers on the counter in front of her.

"So—are we gonna talk about it?"

I felt my head tilt to the side. "About what?"

"Your feelings."

Her bluntness made me cough through the pizza I had in my mouth, I somehow swallowed without choking, and I gritted out, "Shit."

Cassie spoke, "Sorry—you know me. I'm not coy… and neither are you. So, now that you're here…let's chat."

"I thought you wanted to—to bypass all that?"

She chuckled bitterly. "Yeah, at the time. When I was hungover and felt like I couldn't completely process sentences, I figured it wasn't the best time to discuss it all. "

I opened my mouth, glancing to the front door and back, trying to figure out a way of escape because this morning was…different. This morning, when I had returned her text messages with a phone call, there was the distance of a speaker and several miles between us. If she had asked me to talk about my feelings then, I could have done so—that was my intention, at the very least. Despite the odd excitement I had felt upon receiving the messages, the plan was to pointedly tell her that I wasn't going to act on them. That the emotions I'd been stuffing down would dissipate over time, and ask her to, I dunno, give me some space. Now, however, with her beautiful brown eyes staring me down, I was struck with the sensation of fight or flight. Just as I began to question whether or not I should finagle my way out of this conversation, Cassie spoke again:

"If you try to leave right now, I will literally tackle you."

I had the urge to laugh— loudly —because I could picture her hitting me like a linebacker from behind. I couldn't find it in me to do so, though, because I felt as though the internal battle within myself was coming to a head.

I just murmured, "I'm not going anywhere." I silently placed my pizza on the paper plate that was waiting for me on her countertop, stepped to the seat beside her, and sank into it. I exhaled, nerves having crept up to the base of my throat, gathered my thoughts for the briefest moment, and began, "I…normally have an enormous amount of restraint. I'm a planner...with most things, I mean. I lay everything out in front of me and make calculated decisions—always have. Even when I'm doing something spontaneous, it's…not. Plan A changes, and I quickly think of options B through F, you know?"

Cassie's brow furrowed. "I don't understand, what does that have to do with—"

"But you," I interjected to continue to my point. "There's something about you that throws all my options—all my plans— out the window. You make me tick, and I…I don't have any plans for that, Cas. I'm a fuckin' blank sheet of paper when it comes to you, and I don't know how to deal with that."

Her head moved from side to side, a tinge of sadness reaching her eyes. "What does that mean?"

"Oh, fuck it," I said under my breath. My chest pounded as I confessed, "It means that I want you, but I can't do anything about it." Cassie's gaze widened. The beginning of the admission out of me, the remainder was poised to erupt—and I let it out. "This," I rubbed at my sternum with my palm, "has been going on for…a while. But you're," I considered how to phrase my qualms and decided on, "a friend's little sister, amongst many other things…which feels a little more than wrong. I tried to shut it all out of me a long, long time ago, but you're…you're always there, Cas." She remained silent, allowing me to speak further if I were so inclined, and I reiterated in a whisper, "You're always there. In my head…under my skin…in my dreams. And fuck, when I was at Gas Lamp, you asked me if I just disliked you? I don't dislike you. Hell, I never did. I've been trying to keep myself in check, and I think I'm fucking. Failing."

Our gazes locked on each other in the same intense fashion as they had in the past, and I glimpsed at her mouth as it just barely opened. It sent a thrill through me that felt forbidden, and my inhale trembled through my nostrils.

"My turn?" she offered in a breath.

I nodded, and she moved swiftly. Rapidly leaning across the table without a trace of hesitation, I barely had the chance to gasp before she kissed me. Her lips were soft. Plush. And the feel of them against mine made any thought of denying this moment immediately fall to the wayside. A low noise rumbled from my chest, and I reached my hands up to the sides of her face. Her mouth opened, our tongues touched, she sighed against me, a metaphorical checkered flag waved in the air before me, and we took off. Our grasps on each other were suddenly insistent. My grip was in her hair beneath her messy bun; she leaned forward enough to throw her arms around my neck. My touch grazed down to her waist and squeezed; she stood to situate herself between my legs. I rapidly scooted the chair back, and it scraped against the tile loudly; she took the step to close the distance between us, and I pulled her body flush to mine. She stretched across me, and it was only three smacks of our lips before I forced myself to break away. Her head angled down to me and mine up to her, and we were panting, our heavy breaths lingering in the air.

Her pull on me had historically been akin to quicksand, dragging me down into the depths the more that I fought it, threatening to drown me. It was only when she kissed me that the metaphor had come to fruition because the moment that I stopped fighting, it was as if the grit was forcibly pulled from my lungs. I could breathe… and it was so simple. All I had to do was stop fucking struggling.

At that realization, my will to maintain my distance from her was leached from my blood.

I brought a hand up to brush my thumb against the freckles on her cheek, and Cassie leaned into my touch. She glanced to my lips and back, I found myself doing the same, and I spoke in a voice that could barely be heard:

"Okay. "

Cassie crashed into me, I caught her with my lips, and the usual repetitive mantra within me was silenced. The typical internal reminder that Cassie should be a no-fly zone was…gone. It was lost in a haze of her. The vanilla in her hair. The weight of her as I pulled her to straddle my thighs and take a seat on my lap. Her soft gasps when I pulled away to kiss her neck. Her removing my glasses from the top of my head so she could run her hands through my hair and pull at the roots.

The only noises surrounding us were our respective delicate moans…until the sound of a rattling engine and squeaking brakes forced our actions to slow. Our lips quietly separated, we each turned our heads toward the front door, and what appeared to be headlights shined through the front windows and onto the living room tile.

I breathed, "Is someone here?"

"Fuck," Cassie hissed, pushing on my shoulders to separate us and leaving me cold. She sprinted out of the kitchen and to the entrance, peering through the window to the left of the door for all of two seconds before saying, "That's Liam's car; he just turned in."

A jolt of shock ran through me, and the feeling of being caught committing a crime seeped into my veins.

My stomach dropped, and I groaned, "I thought he said he had class? "

Cassie paced the space between where I sat and where my cold pizza remained. She reached into her jeans pocket as she walked, checking her phone with a quick glance, and threw her head back in exasperation.

"God dammit, he texted me that he was swinging by, but I missed it. Bad idea," she muttered. "This was a bad idea— this," she waggled her finger between us as she stepped my way, "didn't happen."

At those words, crime be damned, my intestines returned to where they belonged. My back straightened. I felt my head cock to the side, and my jaw hung open as I disbelievingly took in what she said because that— erasing what had just occurred from existence—was not on the expected roster for me.

"Didn't happen?" I repeated slowly.

"It's forgotten, okay?" she insisted. "Us making out? Rug. Swept under it."

"Oh, it's forgotten already?" I asked sardonically, feeling as though a rug had been pulled out from under me rather than having memories hidden beneath it. "That was quick."

"You know what I mean," she whined, moving away from me and then turning on her heel to spin right back around. She rushed out, "I just got…carried away. I am not explaining what just happened to Liam. "

"Cassie."

"If he gets weird about it, this could fuck the whole group dynamic up—"

"Cassie . "

"Oh my God, you dated Zoey!" she exclaimed in a whisper. "What the fuck was I—"

"Cassie, hold up," my voice turned deep, and her relentless pacing stopped. Once I was certain that I had her attention, I continued, "I wasn't gonna act on anything because of all of that shit, but when you point blank ask me about my feelings and then kiss the life out of me…" I paused and shook my head. "That shit feels damn near irrelevant to me after that, and now you want to forget it?" My tone rounded the corner from annoyed to frustrated, and her eyes widened as I asked, "You think that's possible?"

A car door shut from beyond Cassie's front door—Liam's car door, no doubt—and her head whipped from the entrance back to me. I eyed my glasses that she must have placed on the table in the midst of everything, and I placed them on my face.

Her shoulders sagged as she exhaled softly. "James."

I stood, and she watched me as I walked to her. I stopped once I knew that she could hear my hushed voice.

"Didn't happen," I repeated her words back, though mine held a sharp edge to them. "It's forgotten. "

The front door began to creak open, and Liam's heavy steps thudded on the tile. I reached around Cassie to grab my paper plate behind her and took a large bite of my pizza as I strolled to the other side of the kitchen. I leaned against the counter next to the sink, chewing slowly.

Liam spoke in an upbeat tone, "Cas! How'd you get that bench up? I texted you, but you must not have gotten it…you got company or wha—" He froze at the sight of us, eyebrows raised into his blonde fringe. "Oh…I, uh, thought I knew that car out front." His dark eyes were speculative as he asked me lightheartedly, "What are you doin' here?"

Pulling Cassie onto my lap.

Sucking on her lower lip.

Licking the pulse point on her neck.

I covered my mouth as I finished chewing and swallowed my food. "Bench."

"Aw, Cas." He redirected his attention to his sister, and I bent down to open the cabinet beneath the sink, throwing away my plate along with the remainder of my pizza in the small trash can there. Liam told her, "I could've helped—that's why I stopped by after class. I was gonna see where you wanted it, I," he paused, glancing at me. "Thanks, man."

"It's all good; I was paid in pizza. "

And the taste of your little sister's tongue that she requested to be redacted from my memory.

Liam smiled in the same lopsided way that Cassie occasionally does. "How hard was it to hang?"

An anxious lump formed in my throat, and I shrugged, lying, "Quick work. You just caught me on my way out, actually." Without looking her way, I threw Cassie a casual wave. "Later, Cas."

I felt her eyes boring into my back as I headed for the door, Liam gave me an appreciative quick pat on the shoulder as I sidled past him that carried an all-too-heavy guilty weight, and I was gone.