Page 66 of Cold Foot Cash

She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“You got pretty jammed up yesterday, and it didn’t seem like a good time to talk about it when you had a few drinks in you.”

“Okay,” she drawled out. “What do you want me to talk about?”

“Whatever you want to say out loud to a non-judgmental person who will just sit here, and listen, and have your back no matter what.”

“Well…that actually sounds amazing, and also too good to be true.”

Cash shook his head. “I have only good intentions. None of what you vent to me will leave this room. I don’t want you getting to that point where you’re saying you’re alone and you won’t pick up your phone, or tell me where you are anymore. It scared me. I was thinking the worst.”

Harley swallowed audibly. “Why were you thinking the worst?”

Cash inhaled deep and told her, “Because I knew someone who ended their life because they felt alone. And I’m pretty sure that’s where the hole in me opened up, and when you texted me those words, I had all these memories, and I was scared for you. I couldn’t get to you fast enough. I just wanted to be with you.”

“Oooh,” she uttered weakly as she sank back into the loveseat cushion. “I’m so sorry.”

“Today isn’t about me. That’s just me explaining why I got worried yesterday.”

“I’m not anywhere close to that,” she said.

“Good.”

“Um, where do you want me to start?”

“You can start wherever you want,” he said, relaxing back into the couch. He took a sip of coffee. “I’ve taken time off work, and don’t have to go back until after Tuesday, and whatever happens with it. We can drag it out and have to keep having smaller talks until then, or you can say all the shit that’s made you angry and hurt today, and we can just have fun until I have to leave.”

“Are you like some kind of therapist?” she asked, impressed.

“Oh hell no. I’m listening to Raynah’s advice on listening. I’ve never done this in my life. I mostly just want you to tell me who to beat the shit out of and then I would just make them stop hurting you. Something tells me you don’t just unleash your junkyard dog on your enemies though, because you’re classy.”

“Is that what you see yourself as? My junkyard dog?”

“Woman, if you sent me after anyone, I would fix it the way I know how. You said I have to figure out what made the hole inside of me, and I’ve thought about it a lot. I’m going to do that. I have no idea how long that work will take, but I’ll put effort into it if it means I don’t have to feel the way I felt the night I got in the fight.”

“And how did you feel?”

“Like I wasn’t good enough for you. Like I was going to hurt you with the chaos of my life.”

There was a flock of butterflies flapping around in her chest right now.

Harley shrugged her shoulders up to her ears and admitted, “I don’t know where to start.”

“How about start with what happened yesterday. Or start at the beginning. Talk about how your marriage fell apart, or why your sister is mad at you. Tell me your favorite hobbies as a kid, and how you got built into the woman you are. Tell me favorite memories. Tell me not-favorite memories.” He pointed into the kitchen. “I got us breakfast sandwiches when you get hungry,I’ve already gone and got your car, it’s parked in the driveway. Unless you have lawyer meetings or work or something, we have nothing to do today but sit her and cut that lonely feeling right out of you.”

Her lip quivered and her eyes burned. Harley lowered her gaze.

“Nah, don’t do that. Don’t hide from me. You don’t have to. I won’t judge. I want to know it all.”

He’d come all the way here because he knew she was having a hard time. He’d taken off work just to be her support system through Tuesday. He was telling her he was a fighter, not a listener, but for her, he would try.

Never in her life had she met someone like Cash.

So…she did it.

She told him everything.

She told him about her hopes in her last relationship, and her disappointments. She told him the things that had hurt her, and the lead-up to the end. She told him about her childhood, and the complicated relationship with her younger sister. She told him about her parents, and her cousins and her grandparents, and her friends here in Bozeman. She told him what Carolina had told her on the phone yesterday, and about all the betrayals she’d felt at the end of her relationship with Lance. She told him about the times she’d been taken advantage of, and the times she’d been the one to make mistakes, and handled things less classy than she’d wanted to. She told him how happy she’d been in Darby for that short time, just getting an escape from everything that was happening here.

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