Fast Forward (24 page)

I missed Cassie. There was no fun away from her, and getting wasted with people I didn’t give a shit about was the lamest way of coping with her absence. I gave the sand a frustrated kick. I retreated farther up the beach and sat down on the damp sand. I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I wanted to hear her voice. Badly.

I checked my phone. No voicemail. No text. What was she doing? What time was it on the West Coast? Close to midnight. Was she in bed? I punched the sand and forced my hand downwards until my knuckles screamed in pain. I wasn’t going to think about her in bed with Dupret.

I decided to check my emails to keep my mind from wandering. Nothing there either except… When
Sweet Second
started climbing the charts, I’d set up a Google alert for Cassie’s name. I didn’t care if that made me a digital stalker. She didn’t have a publicist yet and I wanted to check whatever was said about her. I’d received one alert in the last hour though: a couple of hits.

It could have waited, but I clicked on the first link anyway. I focused on the illuminated screen of my smartphone and read through the lines from a gossip blog. I scrolled upward to check when the post had been published. Two hours ago.

I scrolled back down again to land on a vertical line of photos. Cassie with Dupret getting out of a limo. Strolling together arm-in-arm in what looked like L.A. Like L.A. yesterday. I had to squint to make sense of the comments under each photo.

“
Shawn Dupret in Love”. “Long-time girlfriend and duet singer back on the scene... and in his heart.”

WHAT.THE.FUCK?

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

The voice made it to me through my anger, the wind and the waves. I looked up. Megan stood there, tucked inside a fur coat. Her loose hair flew around her face. With only the silvery light of a half-moon, I could have mistaken her for Cass. “I had to clear my mind. Too much booze.”

Like a Belle at a summer party, Megan sat by my side on the wet, frozen sand. “I’ve a weakness for Tequila and now my head is spinning like a merry-go-round.”

“Where is Jack?”

My friend had been hanging on Megan’s every word and smile since we flew yesterday from Ronald Reagan Airport, but she kept treating him like an overeager puppy lapping at her heals.

She answered with a dismissive shrug. “He’s puking up beer. Just like a freshman.”

He’d never been able to hold his drink. “Some things never change.”

Megan turned sideways and tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ear. It was in vain as the wind blew it out again right away. For once, she didn’t look like her usual bitchy self.

“You’re right, Josh. Some things never change.” Even her voice had lost its steely edge.

“What do you mean?”

“I still feel the same way about you as I did back in our freshman year.” Her hand came to rest on my knee. “I never let it go.”

I stared at her hand. I kept staring at it when it snaked down my knee along my thigh and… there I stopped it. “I’m married.”

“I know.”

She snuggled her face in the hollow of my neck and soon her lips were tracing along my jawline. I shut my eyes. I wanted those lips to belong to someone else. But the scent of wild daisies wasn’t there to make the kiss what it should have been. What it always was with Cassie.

Mine.

Ours.

“Josh, please. Let yourself go.” Her mouth landed on my mouth this time.

I pushed her away— more roughly than I’d wanted to—and stood. She jumped to her feet too, this time looking nothing like a Southern Belle.

“Megan, I’m sorry if coming here misled you. I needed a break from D.C.—”

“—from her. Don’t fool yourself, Josh. I saw how you both were at the Langford. You need more than a break. You need a divorce.”

“Shut up!”

She stepped closer and her hand now cupped my jaw. “This marriage of yours is all wrong. It’s going to cost you your future. You already have Bruce Carrington on your back. You don’t need—”

My fingers gripped her wrist tightly. She flinched and I pushed her away from me. “My marriage and my career are two different things.”

She shook her head as if she was negotiating a business deal. “Not on the Hill and you’re smart enough to know that.”

“And I’m smart enough to know what makes me happy. My family does and it’ll always take priority over everything else.”

Megan threw her head backwards and broke into a cruel laugh that made me question her sanity. “Listen to yourself, Josh. If you don’t sound like a politician right now, I’ll be damned. You make family values sound sexy.”

My own voice came from the frozen depths. “You’re right. Some things never change. You were already a waste of space back in freshman year and you still are.”

Megan wasn’t used to being told it like it is. Her mouth gaped open like a fish at feeding time. She recovered quickly though, and when she spoke, her words dripped with acid. “You should be more careful. I know a lot of people and—”

“—Stop right there, Megan.” I stepped towards her so that I towered over her with my full height. “Behind that pretty face of yours, there’s actually a sharp brain. I’ve never doubted that. So think twice before threatening me. Then think ten years down the line and of how much damage I could do to
you
… and whoever you end up married to.”

She chuckled bitterly. “Don’t dream too big.”

“Don’t get in my way.”

That sealed the end of my weekend in the Hamptons. I turned back towards the house, but Megan wasn’t done yet.

“You’re not fooling me, Josh. The day that wife of yours becomes too much of a burden, you’ll get her a one-way ticket back to Kansas.”

I turned back to face her. “You mention my wife one more time and I’ll get you a one-way ticket to hell. She’s off-limits.”

I hurried back to my bedroom because I had to find my one-way ticket to D.C.

I managed to fly from New York early that morning, then spent the entire afternoon spread on the sofa of our living room. I hadn’t closed my eyes after my four-a.m-‘chat’ with Megan Alistair. Boarding a plane with a hangover was the lamest idea after going to Megan’s weekender.

The Advil I’d taken was just starting to kick in. My senses were operating again because I picked up on the sound of keys rattling by the entrance. I quickly closed my laptop. It was a relief not to watch the same picture again.

“Hi,” Cassie said with a bright smile.

“Hi.” My voice was flat.

I watched her dropping her duffel bag on the floor. That bag used to belong to Mrs. O’s husband when he was in the Marines. I wished Mrs. O. could be here to tell me how to handle her granddaughter. Or handle myself.

I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my thighs. Cassie was watching me and, for once, I couldn’t read her. For once I couldn’t find my words either. Her shoulders drooped and she headed to the kitchen. I heard the water running in the faucet. It stopped and she walked back into the living room, then sat in the chair directly across from me. The only thing between us was the large metal coffee table.

Her hands were linked together on her lap. Her back was stiff, her lips tight.

The scene was the perfect rendition of ‘awkward silence.’

With one hand, I opened the laptop again, and turned it around so that the screen faced her.

She stretched forward to get a closer look at the picture and started to bite her lower lip. Her hands flew to the keyboard and I guessed she was scrolling up or down the screen. The blogger hadn’t kept much to himself: There were at least ten photos of my wife with Dupret.

I saw her mouth shaping into a ‘oh’ then a ‘ha’, then she bit her lip again.

“Do you believe any of this?” I didn’t miss the strain in her voice. Whether it was because she was fighting back tears or anger, I didn’t know.

“I don’t want to believe it.”

Fire flicked through her eyes. “Yes or no?”

Some of the snapshots flashed in front of my eyes once again. I swept them aside. I decided to trust my heart not my head. “No, I don’t.”

Relief spread over Cassie’s face. “Absolutely nothing happened with Shawn or… but I saw Sam there.”

“You mean the guy who proposed to you last summer and graciously offered to adopt my son? That Sam?”

“Yes, Sam Blackhawk. I had no idea he’d be there. It was meant to be a surprise.”

“Sure.”

Cassie slowly pushed the laptop back to my side of the table. “It’s a bit rich coming from you anyway. You spent the last couple of days with one of your exes. Anything to share?”

Lies and half-truths had cost us too much before. I’d never go down that route again. “Yes.” Cassie startled. “Megan made a pass on me.”

“And?” Her voice trembled and all I wanted then was to take her in my arms.

“I’d just seen those pictures of you and Dupret. It was the perfect set-up for a revenge fuck. But that was what I did in high school with Clarissa… and pretty much all the girls in our grade. I’m not going to make that same stupid mistake again.”

“Glad to hear it.” Her gaze escaped mine.

I had to straighten things up now. “Cass, I want you to be happy here in D.C. but I want you to know that I’m ready to compromise. I’m ambitious and I love my job, but I love you and Lucas more.”

I shifted the laptop sideways so that it didn’t stand between the two of us anymore. I extended my hand, palm upwards. She stared down at it, shut her eyes, opened them again and placed her hand in mine. Feeling her skin against mine sent a jolt of energy through my arm and my entire body.

“I’m happy here in D.C. It’s more my scene than L.A. so don’t worry about that.”

“I think we let ourselves down again though. Not being with Lucas for Christmas freaked you out. You panicked, but instead of sharing your fears, you cut yourself from me.” She gave a tiny nod. “And me? I tip-toed around the issue until… I went all badass on my dad and almost killed him.”

“If I hadn’t got Gran’s rifle, you wouldn’t have been pushed to do that.”

“I was trying to prove something to you.”

“What?”

“That I was your man, that you could just once let me take care of you.”

“I want you to. I’m ready to let go…”

“Hallelujah! Then let’s start now.”

Cassie stood and walked around the coffee table. She sat on my lap and snuggled against me. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her closer. I whispered to her ear, “You’re my girl, you know. Let me make you happy.”

CHAPTER 24

Cassie

“That’s such a nice picture, Champ.” I hunched over Lucas’s shoulder to look at the drawing he’d been focusing on for the last half an hour.

“It’s our house in Wash—Wash—”

“Washington,” I helped him finish the word and brushed the brown curl away from his right eye. My heart squeezed in my chest because he looked so much like Josh.

Lucas nodded. “Yeah, there,” then he pointed at each of the three characters in the picture. “That’s me,” a little bluish shape with two distinctive arms and legs, “and that’s you and Josh.” My hair was messy and yellow, making me look like a member of one of those 80s rock bands. Next to me, Josh’s lookalike was more clean-cut—
of course
—with only a few streaks of black atop his round head.

A quick glance at the clock hanging on the wall in the Sorensons’s living room and I felt a lump blocking my throat. The five-minute countdown had started. I’d have to leave Lucas behind. I’d see him tomorrow and again on Sunday, but this would be the last time we’d need to see each other in someone else’s house. His foster family was leaving for Oregon at the end of the month. The date had been fixed, the Christmas crisis was now behind us, and Sawyer Curtis was taking care of the last bits of paperwork.

We
should
be fine.

“It’s time, guys.”

Josh knelt down between Lucas and me. He kissed our boy’s temple, ruffled his hair and stood up. “We’ll watch a movie tomorrow and start thinking about what you want to do on Sunday.”

Lucas answered with a half-smile. The lump in my throat thickened. How could Josh move in and out of Lucas’s life and not shatter? It broke me into a thousand pieces each time.

“Maybe, we can all have some marshmallows tomorrow… with some really chocolatey chocolate?” He gave me a smile, but not a full one again. A sugary treat wasn’t going to seal the deal today. Six months of goodbyes weighed on us.

“Cassie.” Josh put his hands on my shoulders and helped me stand. I leaned back against him. I had to channel his strength to keep myself together. Lucas needed parents, not over-emotional teenagers who couldn’t keep it together. .

From the corner of my eye I saw Sharon Sorenson leaning against the doorframe that led to the kitchen, her arms crossed over her chest: She wanted us on our way out and wasn’t making a mystery of it. She didn’t speak though and I was grateful of being spared the rough sound of her voice.