“Did Eve say something to you about me?” he asked.
She looked at him as if he’d sprouted an extra nose. “For nearly every minute of the eighteen years that I’ve known Eve, she’s talked about you. Or Tessie. Or Brett. She has nightmares about Brett, you know? She cries about Tessie. But you’re the one who can send her into a tailspin. She’s my best friend, and I’d like to avoid future tailspinning.”
Yeah, so would he, but it almost seemed inevitable when it came to Eve.
He kept vowing to keep his distance from her, kept vowing to not kiss her, and then that plan would go to hell in a handbasket the moment he laid eyes on her. He had to do better. Because Cassidy was right. Eve wasn’t in a good place to have her feelings dicked with.
“Eve kept that dress, you know,” Cassidy went on a moment later. “The one she bought with all her babysitting money.”
Lawson had been following this conversation just fine. Until now. “What dress?”
“The pink strapless one she was going to wear to the Sadie Hawkins dance your senior year. She was going to wear it and tell you...something important.”
Well, hell. Now he was really interested. “Tell me what?”
But Cassidy immediately waved that off. “I’m not sure, but I know that dress meant a lot to her. When she took it out of the Lawson, etc. box, she got misty-eyed.”
At least he wasn’t clueless about the box because he’d seen it at her house, but cluelessness was plentiful on the rest of this. “Why would a dress make her misty-eyed? Especially a dress she never even wor—”
He stopped. Because he got it then. She’d bought the dress when they were still together, and it was probably a reminder that she’d broken off things with him and moved before she could wear it.
Lawson was still a little confused, though, on the misty-eyed part.
“Are you saying that Eve regrets breaking up with me?” Lawson asked, but then he decided it was best not to hear the answer. He gave his own take on it. “I didn’t end that relationship. She did.”
Cassidy acknowledged that with a nod. “But that doesn’t mean she can’t be all sad about something she’d planned and fantasized about for months. She kept that dress, so that means it was very important to her.”
“Fantasized?” he questioned.
“Not that kind of fantasy,” Cassidy scolded. “She wanted you to dance with her while she was wearing that dress. It’s a metaphor for lost youth, innocence and all that shit.” She covered Aiden’s ears for the last word.
Now they were talking metaphors. Well, Lawson knew some things about lost innocence and other shit. And that dance was going to be an important night for him, too.
Not the dancing part though.
No way had he ever intended to do that.
But Lawson had planned on going and giving Eve the gift he’d bought her over Christmas break. He hadn’t given it to her at Christmas because the timing hadn’t felt right. But instead he’d saved it for the night of Sadie Hawkins. A night that had never come because Eve had already moved to California by then.
“Why are you telling me all of this?” he asked.
Cassidy got in his face, which meant Aiden was right there, too. The kid smiled and kicked his feet, his toes landing against Lawson’s stomach. “I’m telling you because Eve is still hanging on to a lot more than just that dress and the Lawson, etc. box. Remember what I said about not dicking around with her feelings.” She didn’t cover Aiden’s ears that time, but she only mouthed the word dicking.
Lawson had already gotten the point without the dress story. That didn’t mean though that he wouldn’t screw up again. Especially since there was a big reason he might get pulled right back in. A reason that didn’t have anything to do with lust, dresses or dances that he would have never danced.
“Did Eve tell you that Tessie came to the Longhorn last night?” Lawson asked.
Cassidy nodded, sighed and moved back out of his face. “Tears were involved. Lots of them. Despite Eve’s crying, I see it as a good start that Tessie came here. Any idea why Tessie left so suddenly after driving all this way to see Eve?”
Lawson knew all right. It was because Tessie had probably been scared that he was going to tell on her. And he would if the girl hadn’t come clean with Eve. But he didn’t intend to get into that with Cassidy.
“Tessie saw Eve and me kissing,” Lawson admitted. “That might have upset her.”
“Maybe,” Cassidy said as if giving that some thought. But dismissed whatever she was thinking with a head shake. “When all of us were still in California, Tessie was always trying to get Eve to go out on dates, so I doubt that would have bothered her.”
Cassidy looked him straight in the eyes as if waiting for him to tell her the truth, but Lawson didn’t spill anything. He gave Aiden’s toes another jiggle and changed the subject. “How’s this little man doing?”
Cassidy’s long stare continued a moment longer before she dragged in a long breath. “He’s a crappy sleeper, is frequently gassy, as you heard, and he will pinch any part of your body that he can reach when you’re feeding him a bottle. Not soft pinching, either. He gets a good grip.” She kissed Aiden and grinned at him. “But he owns every bit of my heart, and the little shit knows it.” She covered Aiden’s ears for the shit word.
Aiden laughed.
Lawson could see how this kid could manage some heart-claiming. Of course, maybe he felt that way because he’d been the one to bring him into the world.
“It won’t be long before he’ll be ready to go out riding.” Lawson hadn’t intended to say that out loud. It made him seem too, well, involved. And that’s when he knew it was time to skedaddle.
“I’ll watch my step with Eve,” he added.
Lawson said goodbye and headed toward his office. He nearly made it, too, but then he saw Nicky coming out of the kitchen. Like Cassidy, she was also carrying a baby. Her six-month-old son, Ben. The kid was sacked out with his head dropped down on Nicky’s shoulder.
Since Nicky and Garrett lived here now, it wasn’t a surprise to see her there, but then he saw the serious look on her face. Not a frown exactly but close. Which meant Lawson was probably about to get another round of lecturing. If Cassidy and his mom had heard about the kissing going on between Eve and him, then Nicky almost certainly had heard, as well.
First, he put his hands over Ben’s ears even though there was little chance the sleeping kid could hear it. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to dick around with Eve,” Lawson volunteered.
Nicky blinked, clearly surprised by that confession. “Oh. Okay.” She tipped her head toward the hall just off the kitchen. “Might be a good thing since she just arrived and is waiting for you in your office.”
Lawson blinked, too. “Eve’s here?”
Nicky used her free hand to pat his arm. “Maybe it’s a good time for you to clear up that no dicking around. First, though, you should probably try to convince yourself that it isn’t going to happen again.”