Page 18 of Hiding from Hope

But this new leaf is meant to be forgetting and moving on. If Casey is willing to give me the time of day, well, I’m holding onto it until she realizes that she is slumming it with the likes of me.

“What now?” I ask her from the stove. I’m stirring some kind of sauce mixture while the cakes bake in the oven. Casey is behind me at the kitchen island beating cream and she turns it off, leaning around me to look in the pot, she dips a finger in and my heart lurches in my chest, “Case, that’s hot!” I go to grip her hand, but she instead licks the sauce mixture from her finger and moans with her eyes closed.

Jesus Christ. A new kind of urgency wraps itself tightly around my chest.

I watch in silence, and when her eyes meet mine, there is mischief and joy floating in their depths. She smiles brightly, and the air leaves my lungs. She nods. “You’re good. Turn off the heat and set it aside. Once the cakes are ready, we can pour on the sauce and the cream and we’re good to go!” She claps and goes back to the cream mixture.

I do as instructed, and when I turn back to her, I want to give her a taste of her own medicine. All the teasing smiles, little puffs of breath and moans she throws out there, having no idea the number of men she could bring to her knees with just a look. This walking, talking temptation needs to understand that two can play this game.

I slowly stalk behind her, placing a hand on either side of her body, caging her into the bench. Her body goes rigid, and she turns her head to the side. “What are you doing?” Her breath is short, and she tries to eye me.

I reach a hand into her bowl of cream and drag my finger through it, bringing it to my mouth and licking it, moaning as she had done. Except I leave my eyes open so I can see her delicate neck work as she swallows and licks her lip, see the blush that races up her neck and hits her cheeks. “Just taste testing,” I tease her, dropping my voice. Satisfied the cream tastes sweet enough, I place my hand back to the counter and lean down. I test the waters even further, dragging my mouth past her ear and inhaling that intoxicating scent of flowers and soap. “Delicious.”

She gasps and turns so she now faces me, and fuck, I want to throw caution to the wind, throw her on this counter and really get it messy. The air between us pulls taut, the tension unprecedented as I watch her chest rise and fall to the rapid rate of my heart.

Backing up a few steps and leaning against the stove, I cut the tension as best I can. “Have you made these before or first time?” I place a bored expression on my face, one I’ve mastered over the years, and hope she can’t see through it.

She is far too good for me.

After a long pause, she shakes her head and goes along with my distraction. “Yes, this one is a favorite for Ads and Rosie. I make it often.” She is breathless, and it brings me a special kind of satisfaction to know she is as affected by our chemistry as I am, despite the fact we can’t act on it. Casey and I don’t make any sense and it’s best we don’t cross those lines.

“Can you tell me why you were crying earlier?” I lean forward, casually resting my forearms on the counter next to her, and assess her from this distance. She looks back into the whipped cream bowl and scrapes at the sides mindlessly.

“It was just needed,” she says quietly, and I crane my neck to get her attention.

She looks up at me and rolls her eyes, trying her best to smother a smile, but she fails and turns to the stove, her back now to me. “I try my best to keep everything under control. I don’t like to think I am someone who feels things on the surface because I’m stronger than that. But you know… sometimes it’s just hard. So, I give myself a scheduled time of the month to exist in my feelings. I stay home alone and I cry. I watch silly rom-coms, read sappy romance books, and I cry. Then I bake and eat my feelings. I sleep for nine hours and wake up fresh and ready for another month of being my best.” She says it all, rehearsed, practiced, and certain. She holds no shame at her emotions, and I admire her so deeply because of it.

“That’s…” I can’t find the word, but try, anyway.

“Lame?”

“Lonely.” I straighten as she turns back to me. Her head is tilted like she didn’t believe I’d say it. My chest tightens out of frustration. Frustrated that she has all these big feelings, and instead of feeling safe to embrace them in the moment, she holds on to them. Because she feels undeserving of them? Because she feels responsible for ensuring she doesn’t burden others? I get the feeling it’s both and I can’t work out why that makes me even angrier.

“You should stop that. Stop pretending like you have to be on all the time. You’re as entitled to feel shit as the next person. You can exist in your feelings when you get them.”

“But I can’t, not really. People rely on me. How can I be there for them if I’m too wrapped up in myself?”

“And who is there for you, then?”

“What do you—”

“Don’t bullshit me, Case. If you spend all this time looking out for others, who is looking out for you?”

“I don’t need to be looked out for. I’m a functioning adult. I can look out for myself.”

I nod, but I’m not convinced. “How do you feel right now?” I ask.

She tenses her shoulders and drops them, letting go of a breath, and I can see it. The way she is taming herself, calming and centering herself to react in a way that she believes she should. “Better, now that I baked.”

“Liar.”

She has the audacity to look shocked at me calling her out and her brows draw together. Something about it gets my heart racing, and I stand straighter as she fully turns from her position at the stove and stalks up to me.

“Okay then, hot shot, tell me. How am I supposed to feel right now?” she questions, anger I’ve never heard from her before laces her tone and it makes me smile, makes me want to coax more from her and have her unleash the real Casey, even if it is just for me.

“You’re just supposed to feel whatever it is that is actually in here.” I raise a finger and point to her chest, at the area holding her heart. “You’re not supposed to hide, not here in your home. Not here with me. Don’t hide. Just be you.”

“Rich coming from you, Mr. ‘I hate emotions’.”

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