Graceless - Page 55

“Hey.” Savannah arrived.

“Hey,” everyone chirped in unison. Savannah paused where she stood, right next to Cassidy’s seat. She looked around, picking up the weirdness in the air. Cassidy felt guilty. It was her fault, after all. Her sister looked at her, probably regretting her existence, let alone the fact she’d convinced her into staying. Then she smiled, leaned down and swiftly kissed Cassidy on the top of her head, before taking her own seat.

Cassidy felt her eyes suddenly fill with tears. She blinked them back hard, trying even harder not to draw attention to the couple that escaped. When she finally dared to look up, Lane was looking not at her, but at Savannah, a trace of wonder in their expression.

“How was everyone’s day?” her sister asked lightly. And just like that, Cassidy was back in the fold.

A week went by, and then two. Everything got simultaneously easier and harder.

Brynn was back in the studio, and she still let Cassidy tag along. Cassidy made a point of being as agreeable as damn possible. She asked Brynn questions about her life, about her music, about her family. She learned all of Brynn’s past lives, like how she had nearly been a doctor, then a burned out alcoholic, an all round Hollywood dog’s body, then a Malibu lifeguard, all by the age of thirty. Brynn told her the straight-up bananas story of how she’d met and fallen for Savannah, and Cassidy had gasped, laughing, and realizing she absolutely saw why her sister had married the woman.

Tucker was both easier and harder, because he was a sweet, funny delight, but also, he was Lane’s number one sidekick, and Cassidy absolutely did not know how to approach that situation. Instead, she joined in on family movie nights with Tucker and his moms, the four of them claiming their spots on the various couches, Tucker sometimes snuggled around his mama, and sometimes nestled up against his young aunt.

One afternoon, she accosted him as soon as he came in the door from his day with Lane, whipping him into the kitchen to bake cookies. As the two of them giggled and made a mess together, Lane themself walked in to see them both splattered with flour and streaks of chocolate. They hesitated, staring, and Cassidy felt her cheeks go red. It was the most sustained attention she’d had from Lane in weeks. But Lane quickly recovered, simply ruffling Tucker’s hair to distract him, then pinching a handful of cookie dough from under his fingers and walking straight back out the way they came in.

So yeah, Tucker time was great, and also complicated.

Cassidy didn’t know how to approach Savannah. She still wasn’t sure she could. The emotions ran so damn deep, the fault lines so shaky. She hoped her sister could see her efforts with her family and know she was doing her best. She could feel Savannah’s watchful eyes – on how she spoke, on what she ate, where she was in the house or the city. They were civil to each other, even kind, ‌but the barrier was still there. Cassidy wasn’t entirely sure she could ever fully unpack it.

And as for Lane, Cassidy had decided – perhaps out of cowardice, she wasn’t entirely sure – that she would give them space. All the space. She was still intensely hurt every time she thought of Lane’s instant unquestioning allegiance to Savannah over her, the ease with which they had dismissed her from their life. She practiced speeches over and over where she beat down Lane’s door and told them her side, made them see. But she wouldn’t lower herself to trying. For them to have had any chance together, Lane had to want to see her side, and they very clearly didn’t.

It had been a savage lesson to learn, but Cassidy was learning it. Lane had always been on the fence about her, and to desire someone wasn’t necessarily to like them. She had, it turned out, been just a piece of ass to Lane after all. Lane had warned her, explained explicitly that they weren’t sure they liked her. What had felt like a growing connection had been so easily severed that it couldn’t possibly have mattered to Lane. Not the way it mattered to her.

Little memories tormented her, though. The time Lane nearly rode off into the mountains to search for her; the intense sweetness in their face as they’d gazed down at her in the grass trying and failing to end it; their belief in her as a musician before she’d even sung them a note; their fierceness over the whole bartender situation. It had felt, sometimes, like Lane had cared a whole lot. And if – if – they had, Cassidy had crushed that little spark with her out-of-control temper.

There’d been rage in her household her whole life. Even before Randy had ever expressed it physically towards her, she’d grown up seeing her brothers get hit, witnessing her mother cowering as Randy shouted in her face and punched the wall beside her head. In turn, her mother shouted at her, her brothers shouted at each other. Cassidy hadn’t realized it was inside her, too, until her last day at home when she’d exploded with it.

Lane had made it clear that at least as far as they were concerned, her outbursts at Savannah were inappropriate, including when her nephew had witnessed it. She’d been pissed off and yet deeply ashamed. She wasn’t at all like Randy. Was she? She sure as hell didn’t want to be, but she didn’t know where to start and there was not one person she could talk to about it.

Chapter Nineteen

Lane was starting to wonder if maybe they were broken. Mia was wearing an incredibly low cut top and making the point of leaning toward them over the table as often as possible and Lane felt…nothing. They recognised a fabulous pair of breasts when they saw them but it was like it was happening someplace else, like it had nothing to do with them, like it was honestly really none of their business.

The same thing had happened with Sasha, their old crush and many a time casual hook up, when she had gotten in touch last week. Lane had been thrilled to hear from her. It was perfect timing, what with how they were still reeling from ending things with Cassidy and filled with unspent energy. Sasha would be an amazing distraction and a great step toward moving on.

Only when they arrived at the bar and there she was, gorgeous as always, long legs bare under a cute tiny mini-skirt and pressing right up against them and kissing them on the mouth as a hello, Lane’s body seemed to shut down. It felt like Sasha was behind Plexiglass; Lane could see her perfectly clearly, but they felt nothing. They’d eventually pled a stomach ache and gone home, still frustrated.

So far the only time their libido had flared in weeks was when they’d walked into the kitchen the day after their failed date with Sasha and seen Cassidy lit up with laughter, everything smelling like sugar, a splash of chocolate smeared across her cheek, another on her throat. Lane had instantly wanted to taste her skin. They’d all but run in the opposite direction, since while their brain knew it was over for good, their body hadn’t seemed to have gotten the memo.

Lane stared directly into Mia’s cleavage as if her breasts had magical properties that could somehow restore them back to themself. She noticed and smirked at them.

“You good, Lane?” She raised her eyebrows teasingly. Lane jerked their eyes back down to their laptop, feeling guilty. No girl would enjoy knowing you were checking them out purely in the hopes of erasing someone else. “You know,” Mia said softly, quickly glancing up to see Aria was over chatting to a student at the next table, “you don’t have to just look. All you have to do is ask me out sometime.”

Lane looked up at her. Her eyes were steady and her lips looked soft. She was, by any measure, incredibly sexy, and that she knew it and was in charge as hell about it was appealing too. She couldn’t be more opposite to Cassidy in practically every way. That had to be a good thing, right?

“I’ll keep that in mind,” they said, actually meaning it, and she smiled.

That afternoon when Lane arrived home, the household was in a state. Brynn was getting ready to fly home to see her family for the weekend. Her grandmother was getting toward the end of her life, and with the baby due in less than a month, she’d figured it might be her last chance before chaos hit. Tucker was clinging to her and complaining on the front doorstep while Burt loaded her bag into the car, and Savannah looked exhausted in advance.

On their way over the driveway toward them, Lane watched the family interact. Brynn kissed Savannah with extra tenderness, her hand habitually on the small of her back where she was always supporting or kneading Savannah’s aching muscles. Then she hugged Cassidy. Lane blinked. They hadn’t known those two were on hugging terms, but Cassidy said something as Brynn drew back that made her laugh. Brynn hugged and kissed Tucker and when she stepped back, it was Cassidy that he smooshed his sad face into.

Lane made it to the steps just in time for their own hug.

“Look after them,” Brynn said under her breath so her wife didn’t hear. Lane looked her in the eye and nodded. Then they reached up and noogied her, right as she tried to noogie them. Lane looked to Tucker, waiting for him to leap on them for comfort, but he stayed where he was, leaning his face against Cassidy’s hip.

The car slowly disappeared down the driveway and Lane looked to Savannah to see how she was holding up and caught her brief I’m okay smile directed at Cassidy, who also appeared to be checking in.

For a second, it felt like the twilight zone. Instead of butting heads with absolutely everyone, Cassidy seemed tight with Brynn, adored by Tucker and almost caring toward Savannah, while Lane was the only member of the household who she seemed to barely acknowledge. It was such a sharp contrast to the first couple of months of her presence, when the whole family were on the outer and Lane was the only real recipient of her soft side, that Lane felt their breath catch in their chest.