CADE
“Oh shit!”
I couldn’t hide my grin when I heard Danica screaming from the bedroom. I’d been there way too many times and I only just hoped that she made it to the bathroom so I didn’t need to clean puke up off my bedroom floor. I grab another bottle of cold water and walk back to the bathroom, standing in the doorway as she throws up. When she looks up at me her eyes are bloodshot and the dark circles could come with their own zip code. I do my best to hold in my laughter. “You okay?”
“Dying…” she croaks out.
This time I do laugh, “You’re not dying, just hungover. Toni said you drank a lot of Grey and wine last night. Did that make you feel better?”
She shakes her head, “I don’t remember.”
“Here, chug this,” I hand her the bottle of water, take some more Tylenol then get in a nice warm shower. I’ll have a cup of coffee waiting for you and that’ll help you perk up a bit.”
I turn around to walk out of the bathroom when she calls for me, “Cade! Wait.”
I stop and turn back around, she’s standing up and I’m taking her all in. She’s a lot shorter than I am, but the shorts she borrowed from Toni make her legs look long and toned. Her makeup is a mess and her hair is still half up in that wedding hairstyle she had. Fuck wedding, she was supposed to get married yesterday. “What’s up? You need something?”
“I don’t have any clothes to change into.”
I point into the bedroom. “There’s a duffle bag at the foot of the bed, the clothes should fit. If not, you can borrow some sweats from me, but I think they might be a bit too big.”
“Where did you get clothes?”
“I called Toni this morning and she brought some stuff over. You guys are kind of the same size, it looks like. Her shorts fit you fine so I figured everything else would too.”
“Oh, did she bring...um...you know…”
“Underwear?” I grinned.
Her cheeks turn a sweet rosy color, “Yeah, that.”
“I think so. I know it is kind of weird because they aren’t yours. I guess you could go without. Whatever.” I walk around her and start the shower for her. “Hurry up, we don’t want to be late.”
“Late? What would we be late for?”
“Brunch.”
Before she can ask any more questions or protest any further, I head back through my place and into the kitchen once again. I toss a pod into the coffee maker so it’ll at least be cool enough that she can just chug it to try and wake up. The shower only runs for about ten minutes and a few minutes after it shuts off, the door opens again.
“Cade?” She calls my name from down the hallway.
“Yeah?”
“Do you have a toothbrush I can have?”
Normally the answer would be no, but I just happened to replace mine last week with a five-pack. She was lucky. “There should be some in packages under the sink. You can use my toothpaste.”
“Thank you.”
Another five minutes and she padded into the kitchen. She looks a little more refreshed and I was glad to see that Toni’s clothes did fit her. “You feel better?”
“Much,” she smiles. “About brunch.”
“Yep, gotta leave in ten, hurry it up.”
I hand her the coffee that has had plenty of time to cool and she takes a long gulp. As she stands there and drinks the caffeine bomb, I notice the little things that I didn’t see before. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and her skin had some red spots, undoubtedly from the hot shower water. I also know enough about women’s routines to know that her eyelashes are back to their normal state, not the false ones that adorned her eyes last night.
Her hair must have given her a bit more trouble because it was just thrown up in a messy bun. I didn’t have a brush so I’m sure she was just using my cheap comb to go through it. The clothes fit nicely, maybe too nicely because her curves are accentuated in every way possible and I just want to dig my fingers into them and pull her into me, but she’s not in a place for that right now.
I might be a pig and I fucking love sex, but I’m not going to try and have sex with a woman who is clearly going through a life crisis right now. What I am going to do is stare at her, specifically stare are her ass as she walks in front of me.
“Are you done with your coffee yet? Actually, don’t worry about it,” I take the cup and set it on the counter and then grab her hand, “there is going to be fresh coffee there and my mom really hates it when I’m late.”
I grab my keys and pull her behind me. She’s resisting just slightly, but when I open the front door she digs her heels in, causing us both to stop. “I don’t have shoes.” We both glance down at her feet.
“Oh, that’s right. Um….here, hop on my back. I’m sure that we can find you something where we’re going or we can stop by the gas station and grab some flip-flops on the way back.”
“The gas station?”
“Yeah, where do you buy your flip-flops?”
“Um...American Eagle?”
I chuckled, “Yeah, we don’t have those here. Hop up, darling.”
She hops onto my back with a half groan, half laugh. We walk out to my SUV and she shimmies off of me and into the car while I hop in my side. She doesn’t say much until we pull into the driveway behind all my brothers’ cars.
“What’s this place? I thought we were going to brunch.”
“This is my parent’s place, we meet here for brunch almost every Sunday. It’s Sunday, which means we have brunch today.”
She shakes her head, “But I’m not family. I’m nothing except some random girl that you kissed and then I pissed you off the next night.”
I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn to face her, “Why did you kiss me that day? Because I know that I kissed you, but you fucking kissed me back so hard that there is no way you only kissed me because I kissed you. If you were engaged and you were going to get married, why did you kiss me back with so much...want?”
She looks down at her bare feet picking at an invisible thread on her leggings, “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” I pushed her. “I just want a straight answer, Dans. I don’t care if you think it makes you a bad person or something, you just did it for a reason and I just want to know.”
“Because I’m attracted to you and a guy like you has never given me attention the way that you did. I was going through some things and the way you made me feel that day is a way that I have honestly never felt about a guy before.”
A guy had never made her feel that way? That was impossible. “But you were engaged. You almost got married yesterday.”
“I know,” she finally looks over to face me, “ which is why what I did was so wrong, but I don’t regret it. Kissing you was the first step that made me start rethinking getting married.”
“What is your plan now?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I guess hit the road again and find a hotel or something.”
“Well, you can’t do that on an empty stomach, so let’s go eat.”
We both get out and make our way up the driveway to my parent’s place. When I open the door and walk into the kitchen every single set of eyes stares right at us. I feel her tense up beside me and instinctively I feel the need to protect her and I take her hand and pull her next to me.
“Um hey everybody. This is my friend, Danica.”
YOU ARE READING
When We Run (Mason Brothers Book #4)
RomanceCade Mason was the last of the Mason Brothers to not fall for the fairytale of a happily-ever-after. Not that he didn't believe in love, he saw it every day in his parents and brothers. When he is at work at the family-run Mason Jar, he's all busine...
