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Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. Marilyn Monroe
“You didn’t weed thoroughly enough. I want someone who has zero interest in me. No complicated shit. Maybe they could be happily married?” “Happily married women don’t want to live in your house for the summer.”
Loool dumbass
She leaves me stunned. And when I glance back down at my open palm, it hits me she’s long gone. I have no idea what her name is, and I’m still here . . . Holding her panties.
I think back on my black underwear plunking down on the floor and how mortification slowly morphed into hysterics. Only me. Things like that would only happen to me.
I’m not cut out for sleeping outdoors.
I may not know what my path in life is yet, but I promise it doesn’t include air mattresses and sleeping bags.”
I’ve always liked kids, possibly because I still feel a bit like one sometimes.
“Cade is the panty guy?” “I’m not the panty guy,” he interjects, but Summer and I ignore him.
Hehehehe panty guy
But this Willa character. I don’t know her. I don’t trust her. All I know is that she makes my dick twitch, she talks too much, and she has a spare pair of underwear in her purse.
Luke’s feet bounce excitedly as he watches her. “Don’t go too high! What if you get stuck?” “You’d save me,” Willa calls back from what sounds like much higher up the tree than I thought she’d go. “I’m too small. But my dad would save you!” Her raspy laugh reaches us at the back deck. It’s still as disarming as it was earlier today. “I don’t know about that. He might be happy to leave me up here, Luke.”
“Oh never. He helps everyone,” my son replies, making my heart twist in my chest. Sometimes I wonder how I must seem to him, how I look in his eyes. And this one gets me right in the gut.
:''''''''')
“Sounds like her loss, because you might be the coolest kid I’ve ever met.” She doesn’t use a sad voice, or a baby voice, she just talks to him like a normal human being.
As u should
“Fucking hell,” I curse under my breath because she just practically hired herself.
The similarities in their body language are impossible to miss. But where Rhett is all smiles, Cade is all scowls.
All thick arms and broad chest and furrowed brow. Dirty boots. Muscular thighs. Cowboy porn with a frown.
He’s got an intimidating vibe about him. Like a hot, mean teacher.
Older guys. They’ve always done it for me.
Undecided seems easier than failing.
I pull my cell phone out of my back pocket and check the time. My countdown is on. She seems like the type of person who would be late. Scattered. Disorganized. Or maybe I just want her to be so I can be justified in not liking her.
She has city girl written all over her. She has wild child written all over her. She’s not some sweet, small-town girl. She’s the girl who told me she’d be ready for me to inspect her undergarments and didn’t think twice about it. She has temptation written all over her.
Willa laughs, all pretty and sexy, with a little rasp—like she smokes or something.
“One of the kids at school said that he and his dad drove really fast down the back roads and threw heads of lettuce out the window and watched them explode on the road.” I stare at the little boy, all earnest and genuine. It’s like he doesn’t even realize what majorly hillbilly shit he just asked me to do. Goddamn, small towns are weird.
He rears back a little, and I think it might have to do with her breath. To be fair, I’d like to get as far away as possible too.
Same though
Cade: If I pay you more, will you stop texting me about this? Willa: Probably not. I don’t need the money. I’m just easily bored, and poking the bear is fun.
“It’s not funny,” I say, but I don’t mean it, really. I mean . . . it’s kind of funny. Just not haha funny.
Don’t get all weird now. People always get weird when they find out Ford Grant is my dad.” I glare at her. “You’re not some psycho superfan, are you? I had you pegged for a Garth Brooks kind of fella.” My jaw ticks. “Songs about your truck breaking down. Your dog dying. Your woman leaving you for another man.”
Willa: I can’t believe you didn’t tell Cade I’m a bartender and not some professional Mary Poppins.
I prefer Nanny McPhee
“Welcome home, Master Cade,” I announce with a flourish as he walks into the kitchen, shooting me a scowl. An annoyed scowl? “What are you doing? And why are you calling me that?” Cade’s voice rumbles dangerously. “Stirring the spaghetti sauce that the young Padawan requested, I am.” Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers. He can clearly see that I’m moving a spoon around in a pot full of Bolognese sauce.
I smile prettily. “Okay, Darth Cade.” At that moment, Luke blasts into the kitchen from washing up. “No! I want dad to be Jar Jar Binks!” Cade’s forehead wrinkles and he appears genuinely confused. “What the hell is a Jar Jar Binks?”
HAHAHAHA omg i love this
The door swings open, and he steps out onto the porch, which is right when Luke and I jump out from behind a planter. “Boo!” I shout, as Luke yells, “Chipmunks!” Cade flies back, and I glance down at Luke, wondering what the hell would inspire him to randomly scream chipmunks. But I don’t think about that for long, because when I look back up Cade’s stern face is the color of a tomato and he’s wearing his beer down the front of his fresh T-shirt. Oh yeah. We got him good. All I offer is a lame attempt at a joke. “Wet T-shirt contest?” And all I get back is a scowl.
Beau chuckles. “Well, you know. Boys will be b—” “No,” I cut him off. Because that saying is straight trash, and years of bartending have given me plenty of time to see boys being boys. Which really is just boys being shitheads.
As I approach, his scent sneaks up on me. Crushed pine needles and sunshine. I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s that warm earth that I associate with digging in the garden on a sunny day. There’s nothing manufactured or store-bought about his scent—it’s pure outdoor masculinity.
His scent sounds like the most scrumptious thing ever
He turns to me and offers the most devastating smile. One that makes my stomach flip and my lips pop open in shock. It’s like I just put glasses on for the first time and am seeing him in a completely different light. And I can’t look away.
I shove away a spark of jealousy over the way my dad and Willa are smiling at each other. Because that is insane. She was just so excited over me laughing. Over me smiling. She smiled back. It felt good. And now she’s in here giving that megawatt grin to other people, who are grinning back at her. And I feel like I want all her smiles for myself.
She rolls her eyes while staring out across the room. “You don’t like me. You tolerate me.” I mull that over. Is that how I come off to her? I guess she has no way of knowing it’s a struggle for me to keep my eyes off her when she interacts with Luke, even harder to keep her image from popping up in my mind when I fist my cock in the shower. Both things I don’t intend to tell her, so I opt for, “The way I see it, I like you a little more every day.”
“I got you. I saw that. Are your cheeks bleeding, Eaton? Does it hurt to hold in your laughter like that? I hear it can give you erectile dysfunction.” “You kiss your mother with that mouth, Red?”
Cade: Why are you texting me from the same table? Beau: Because you’re too terrifying to talk to. Cade: I hope our nation’s enemies don’t find out what a pussy you are.
I don’t want to sound like some insane helicopter parent. I try so hard not to be, even though I’m freaking out internally ninety percent of the time, hoping I’m doing this whole parenting thing right, often wishing I had someone to do it with, to explain my fears and failings to. Instead, I just close my eyes and hold on for dear life. Say a prayer that I can keep him alive into adulthood.
“Did you, uh, build this deck?” I offer lamely, mind racing with how I must be the naughty girl who drops panties and flashes her pierced tits at him. But then he’s the man who suggested he wouldn’t be quiet while I gave him a blow job. The one who ran away when I questioned it. I berate myself internally. He’s the man who signs your paychecks, you horny fool.
His brows furrow and his eyes narrow on mine. “What are you thinking right now?” “That I like sitting here with your eyes on me.”
“Do my nipples bother you, Cade?” Coffee sprays from my mouth.
I’m left standing there. Watching her. Wondering if she’s wearing any panties under those soft, loose shorts I could so easily pull to the side.
Feeding the people I care about is how I tell them I care without having to say it out loud. Because saying it out loud makes it a little too real for me.
I lean back in my chair and cross my arms over my chest, wondering why I ever disliked her. How can a single person not like Willa Grant? She’s fucking enchanting.
She’s fun. She’s funny. And Luke loves it. He doesn’t even dance. He just jumps around laughing at her, spindly arms and legs flailing wildly. She does some shaky, twerky move that I’m sure the kids these days have a name for, and eventually grabs his hands in hers to make him dance with her. He jiggles his hips and smiles up at her so widely that my cheeks hurt just watching. I realize they hurt because I’m smiling that hard. The back of my throat aches as I watch Willa spin my little boy around the kitchen on what’s meant to be her day off.
“Do you see how weird she is, Dad?” Luke calls to me. “Yeah. Super weird,” I agree as she turns to give me a fake scowl over her shoulder. The only weird thing is what I’m feeling about a woman I’ve known for mere weeks. It’s not just weird. It’s fucking absurd.
Willa: He *is* a stickler for the rules. Maybe I’ll break them and see if he spanks me. Summer: Fucking gross.
Cade sits on a dark horse, speckled with gray—a beautiful blue roan color with black mane and tail—which perfectly matches his black cowboy hat, signature bicep-hugging black T-shirt, and black leather chaps over worn jeans. He’s seated comfortably in the saddle. Leather-gloved hands on the horn of his saddle, hip popped comfortably, with a toothpick hanging out the side of his mouth and an amused smirk on his lips. He’s so fucking hot.
“When do I get my own horse?” Luke eyes the group of youngsters in the holding pen, glancing at the round pen where a cowboy sits on a horse doing its best to buck him off. “When you actually take an interest in learning about them. They’re a serious commitment, and the only thing you’re committed to right now is dinosaurs.”
I wink at him. “Thank you for the coffee. I’m ready for you to break my back.” His face pales, like he realizes how I could have interpreted his note. “I meant you could ride if you wanted to.” “Oh, I want to.” Heat flares on his cheeks. I shouldn’t prod the bear like this, but it’s just who I am. I like to watch him squirm.
