“Look at you.” She reaches forward with trepidation, and her hand lands cautiously behind his ears as if she were petting a cactus. “Look at you. You just want some lovin’. You really are just like your daddy.”
I place my hand over hers as she relaxes, offering up a gentle scratch behind his ears.
“How am I doing?” she pants out the words, struggling to control her breathing.
“You’re doing great.”
“Maybe tomorrow I can graduate to a walk around the block. With you holding the leash, of course. Both mine and his.” She titters out a laugh. “I’m teasing. We both know I’m in charge of the leashes in this house.” She gives a little wink.
“As it should be.”
Cassidy helps me walk him to his room. Baby steps she calls it. I call it the best-case scenario for my furry little friend, and my heart.
“Oh, wow”—she leans past me, inspecting the tiny canine suite—“you have an honest to goodness bed in there for him.”
“Someone’s got to take care of the old guy. As soon as Piper moved into your dorm, Buddy scored a room of his own. Someone had to make use of that bed.”
We share a warm laugh as I reel her in, walking backward to the next room where I plan on making good use of my own bed tonight as well.
Cassidy and I take our time with one another as if this one night had the ability to stretch out for an entire millennium. I make love to every last inch of her—her hands, her feet, those arms that hold me with such affection, the legs that love to wrap themselves around my body. I dive my lust down onto that sweet spot that stays wet for me until she claws at my back with approval. My mouth finds a home over the softest part of her body, burying my face between her tits, never wanting to come up for air. Cassidy and I roll over the sheets like tigers, pouring out our desire on one another until we lie spent in one another’s arms.
In the morning, I make breakfast this time—a tower of pancakes not nearly as impressive as the ones she’s made.
I still have one more surprise for Cassidy. Before she hits the shower, she said she had one for me, too.
“Okay, you can come in now!” she calls from the bathroom.
The door is open just enough, and I nudge it the rest of the way. There she is, wrapped in a towel, water still beading on her shoulders.
Cassidy has her head turned to the left, a maneuver I haven’t witnessed in a while.
“I wanted you to see me.” She blinks back tears. “All of me. I don’t go showing this to a lot of people, but you’re probably the only person I really don’t mind. I know you won’t judge me, that you’ll love me just the same, but”—she blows out a quick breath as if gathering courage for what comes next—“you think you’re ready to see it? See the real me—what lies beneath?”
“Yes.” I pick up her hands. “Of course.”
Slowly, she turns, exposing a bright shock of red stained across her tangled flesh. The ridges, the rope-like veining, the melded skin that’s been shredded, then put back together—every last bit of it is singed with deep shades of crimson.
“Is this what you want to wake up to for the next fifty years?”
“Yes.” A smile tugs on my lips, and I give it. “I still see you. I see the real you that lies beneath.” My fingers touch over her scar before I lean in and kiss her there—gently, my lips lingering over the rawest part of this beautiful girl, and I love her just like that. Cassidy exhales as if that singular act were enough to take away an ounce of her pain. “Nothing has changed. You are so damn beautiful my heart aches because it can never be full enough of the love it has for you.” I pull back and bear hard into her eyes as if to drive the point home. “You don’t ever have to hide from me. This is your home, too. I promise, I love you just the way you are—perfect in every single way.”
Cassidy blinks down at the floor. “I don’t know how you say that with so much conviction, but I thank you for that.” Her arms swim over my back as she lays her scar onto my bare chest, and it feels as if that last wall has finally crumbled. It feels nurturing, healing. Cassidy wears her wound, her heartbreak on the outside, and I wore mine on the inside. And by some miracle, we managed to free and heal each other.
She sniffs back tears. “Now, what’s this surprise you got for me?”
“Come here.” I walk us back a few steps and pull out a small gift bag from the hall closet. “I saw this, and I knew just who to give it to.”
She gives the bag a little shake. “Let me guess. A jar full of stars? You city boys really do take gift giving to a whole new level.”
I can’t help but laugh. Cassidy has a way with words, with her voice that brings unstoppable joy. “On second thought, try not to get your hopes up.”
Cassidy pulls the gift straight out of the tiny brown bag and holds it between us as she gasps.
“A snow globe with a unicorn in it!” she marvels, staring down at the glittering watery world. “And there’s a city behind it! This is so perfect. I can’t believe you found this! It looks exactly like the one my grandmother used to have—minus the mythological pony. Talk about a miracle.”