Page 37 of Cold Foot Cash

Around the chewy bite, he said, “You must have a magical pussy.”

“Cash!” she yelped, appalled.

He ducked out of swatting range. “Compliment! If he’s after you so hard, it means he’s still got a little of that addiction to you. I don’t freaking blame him. If I fumbled you, I’d be pulling all the stops to get you back too. Fuck him though. Want me to go to mediation with you? I bet he won’t pull shit on you. Tell him to bring his mistress. We can make it a double date, and see who’s meaner.”

Well, that actually sounded kind of nice, not facing Lance alone. “You can’t just say vulgar things and say ‘compliment.’”

Cash shrugged. “I’ve done worse.”

She shook her head. “You were a delinquent when you were a kid, weren’t you?”

“Oh yeah. You’re lucky you met me now, when I’m old and calm and mind all the rules.”

“You almost got arrested last night.”

He scrunched up his face. “Almost, but I didn’t. I’m a walk in the park now.”

“Well, you’re probably never boring.”

“I don’t know,” he said, seriousness tainting his tone. “Lately I feel boring. Or bored, maybe.” He opened the passenger side door to his truck for her, and waited for her to get in.

“Nice windows,” she complimented. “So shiny and unbroken.”

He snorted and closed the door, shook his head, and jogged around the front. When he got in behind the wheel, he said, “It cost me six hundred bucks.”

“Oh geez. Insurance won’t help?”

He shook his head and pulled out of the parking spot. As he drove, she offered him another gummy worm, and he bit it out of her hand without looking, just smooth-as-you-like. It drew another smile from her lips. “Why do you feel bored?”

“Honest talk?”

She dipped her chin once. “Honest talk is my favorite.”

Cash turned onto the main drag, then rolled down his window, and draped his arm out into the wind. The breeze fluttered through his hair and he drove with one hand, and holy shit his arm muscles looked perfect. He was the picture of fit, masculine male, and she appreciated it so much.

“I was wild before I went to Cold Foot.”

“Cold Foot Prison?” she asked, trying to keep up.

“Yep. I was always into something, always up to something. Doctors said it was ADHD or something, and said it would probably go away as I got older, but it didn’t. If anything, I got more restless, more scattered. I couldn’t sit still for a single moment, you know? I was always looking to the next moment,and the next one. What could I get into? What could I give my mind to gobble up so I could stay steady for a minute, you know?”

“You have a busy mind?”

“Chhh. Busy, and it’s fuckin’ mean.”

“Mean to you?”

“Yeah. And I know, you don’t have to say it, I should be nice to myself and bla bla, but it’s just how I’m built. My brain just fuckin’ eats me alive over every little thing. If I stayed busy, the mind stayed tired and focused on the outside fires I created instead of turning on me.”

“Geez,” she murmured, feeling his words to her soul.

“The high was the trouble. If I was in trouble, it was a challenge to see if I could get out of it. And then the challenge became getting into bigger trouble, and trying to dig my way out of that. On and on that went in this awful snowball effect. I wasn’t the king of positive attention, you know what I mean? But I also didn’t know what positive attention was, so I didn’t crave it. I didn’t know what I was missing. My friends were trouble, the girls I dated liked me because I was a trouble-maker, and my dad liked that I fought. He was a fighter too and always in trouble. My mom put me on medicine when I was younger trying to fix the ADHD stuff, but it numbed me out so bad, I couldn’t feel happiness, and eventually I stopped taking it.” He ran his hand over the scruff of his jaw. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this stuff. I’ve never talked about it before.”

“With anyone?” she asked, surprised.

“No. I wasn’t exactly doing therapy sessions in prison. I just had a lot of time to think in there.”

“Between fights?”

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