Page 66 of Tripped By Love
Marco
ONE CALL AWAY
“Darling, if you feel like hope is gone,
Just run into my arms.”
Performed by Charlie Puth
Written by Carter / Puth / Stanley / McDonald / Franks / Prime
Walking home with Cassidy from theclinic, my heart felt like it had been squeezed and pulverized down to a mere stump. The silent tears she’d shed as the lab tech had swabbed Chevelle’s cheek had made me want to ruin Hardy. I clenched my jaw, promising myself I would continue to poke and prod into every corner of Clayton Hardy’s life. I was going to uncover every tiny rumor about him and every single bad decision he’d ever made.
I wouldn’t let him come into Cassidy’s life and destroy her peace. Not when she’d worked so hard to earn it. To build a life for herself and Chevelle after he’d walked away without a look back.
I pulled the stroller up on the porch for her and followed them into the house.
As soon as Cassidy set him down, Chevelle ran for his blocks. That kid was a builder almost as much as he was an animal lover. I wondered what it said about his future. I wondered if I’d be around to see him turn into a man making his dreams come true. An ache hit me in the bottom of my stomach at the thought…at how much I wanted to see him grow and change and take the world by storm.
“You’re staying for dinner. As a thank you for going with me,” Cassidy demanded more than asked, and my lips twitched because we’d been playing this game for three weeks.
Jonas and I had been here almost every night. I wasn’t quite sure how it had happened. I’d suggest bringing home takeout, or she’d insist the meal she’d planned fed four. I was grateful for the dinners together because I wanted Jonas to feel grounded in Grand Orchard. I wanted to surround him with good people instead of eating with just me, in silence, in an apartment that could hardly be called a home.
“You don’t need to thank me. I didn’t do anything,” I told her.
She stared at me for a long moment. “I bet you’d like to believe that, wouldn’t you?”
I didn’t respond. Instead, I sank onto the floor with Chevelle, helping him assemble the tower that was growing by the second and would certainly topple before long. I could feel her gaze burning into me, watching me play with her son, and I wondered if the same forbidden thoughts flipped through her brain as mine. How right it felt for us all to be together like this.
“Are you okay watching him while I work in the kitchen?” she asked breathily, as if I’d sidled up to her, slid my hands under her T-shirt, and kissed her. I glanced up, and the look in her eye almost killed me. Soft and sultry, with hope neither of us could afford blaring from them. I was the coward who looked away first.
“I’m good.”
She looked from me to Chevelle one last time before heading into the kitchen. The air had been different between us ever since I’d let myself indulge in kissing her. Since that failed restraint, I’d kept my hands to myself, and she’d kept her hands to herself, until today, when I’d wrapped her in my embrace as a way of comforting her. Every piece of me ached to kiss away her tears, which meant it was dangerous for me to be here.
Chevelle hauled over some of his cars and toy animal figurines to shove into the piles of blocks he’d stacked as if he’d built a garage, or a pen at a zoo, or some strange mix of both. I watched his dark hair as it fell in his eyes. If it had been blond instead of chestnut, it would look like Brady’s hair, thick and shaggy. There was a lot of the O’Neil family in Chevelle. Square chin, dimpled cheek, long lashes. Ever since the day Cassidy had delivered him with me pacing in the hall outside her hospital room and Brady inside, holding her hand, I’d had one thought about him. He was beautiful. A perfect bundle of joy and sweetness, just like his mother.
The day she’d gone into labor, Brady had called me to drive them to the hospital, and I’d felt panic in a way I’d never known. I’d been desperate to get her to safety before something went wrong with her or the baby. Outside in the hallway, I’d fought every instinct I’d had to storm into the room and make sure she was okay when her grunts and cries crawled up my spine and made me bite my nails into my palms until they’d bled.
I’d known, even then, it wasn’t normal for me to feel like that about a woman who wasn’t mine, who was simply my employer’s sister. A person I’d barely spoken to and yet somehow felt responsible for?wanted to be responsible for.
Those feelings were still there. Stronger than ever before.
I took out my phone and dialed Trevor’s number while Chevelle played, and Cassidy banged around in the kitchen.
“Hey, have we gotten anything more in on Hardy?” I asked.
“Give me a second, and let me check,” Trevor said. I heard papers shuffle and his fingers glide over the keyboard. “Well, hell. Isn’t this interesting.”
My face got dark the longer he talked. I’d never been a guy to play offense. To strike out first. I’d joined the military determined to be a corpsman. To heal and protect, not to shoot people or blow things up. But Hardy…he made me want to use my military training in a very different way.
I hung up with Trevor using a hand that shook. I made sure Chevelle was happily engaged with his toys and headed for the kitchen.
I froze in the entryway. Cassidy had the radio on. A country song about summer nights and taking chances was playing, and she was dancing to it as she moved around the kitchen, a basket of berries in one hand, the other moving wildly. Her movements weren’t smooth or practiced. In fact, they were almost awkward, but they were also free and uninhibited. A moment of joy after her afternoon of sorrow. Her eyes were closed, and there was a soft smile on her face as she sang with the words. She had a pretty decent voice—another thing that the O’Neil family had in common.
Before I could stop myself, I’d swept into the kitchen and joined her, pulling on her waist so she was tucked up against me, hand going to her free one, and spinning her around. My feet moved to a rhythm they hadn’t since I’d danced with my mom in a kitchen in Austin. She’d told me I needed to know how to dance with a girl if I was going to ask one to prom. I’d been embarrassed and uncomfortable, and she’d made me laugh until my unease slid away. The memory was normally full of heartache, but today, as my feet moved with Cassidy’s and she smiled up at me with wide eyes, I was grateful for it. For my mom. For the time we’d had together where she’d tried to make me a better man.
My chest ached at the thought. They would have been so disappointed in me.
