From Ashes(22)
Author: Molly McAdams

After a quick good-bye to Adam and Dana, I took both of her bags into the spare room before going back out to the living room and picking up the girl I love. When she was all settled in the guest bed, I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt off her head and brushed the hair from her face. God, she’s beautiful. And she’s here. She’d run to me. For the first time ever, she’d gone to someone other than Tyler. Granted, all this was his fault, but she’d gone somewhere else, and it’d been to me.

“I love you, Cassidy,” I whispered, and pressed my lips to her forehead before reluctantly leaving her to go back to my own room.

CASSIDY

THE SMELL OF coffee woke me the next morning and I was briefly disoriented when I didn’t recognize the room I was in. When I started to get out of bed and fell back with a groan, the night before came rushing back to me and I wanted to die when I realized how Gage had taken care of me. And Tyler—what the hell? How could he do that to me? I’d never once kept my feelings for Gage a secret, and he knew I needed time to get used to us as a couple. I thought I’d progressed significantly, but apparently not enough. I couldn’t believe he’d just bring someone home like that though. It wasn’t like my Tyler at all, and I was surprised by how much it hurt. It wasn’t anything like when Gage broke my heart, but it still felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. Or maybe that was just a side effect to whatever was going on with the rest of my body. I tried to sit up again but didn’t make it far before my head hit the pillow.

There was a soft knock on the door and Gage poked his head in. “Mornin’, how are you feeling?”

“Like a truck ran over me.”

“What were you thinking, Cass?” His eyes narrowed as he sat on the end of the bed.

“Wait . . . you’re—are you mad at me?”

“Mad? Darlin’, I’m furious. You could have died! Does no one understand that? Because apparently Tyler didn’t get the memo either.”

My breath stuck in my throat. “You spoke to Tyler? When?”

“When I left you with Dana last night, I went to go talk to him.” His green eyes flashed and he looked away quickly before settling his narrowed gaze back on me.

“I don’t remember a lot of last night. Just coming here, and parts of the shower.”

His eyes softened for a second. “Cass—just tell me why you didn’t try to get someone to help you. Or ask someone to use their phone.”

“I don’t know anyone’s number; it’s all just saved in my phone. And it was really late, I didn’t think it’d be safe to hitchhike over here.”

“And walking over here in sleet wearing your pajamas is safe?”

“Seemed like it at the time,” I mumbled lamely as I finally managed to get off the bed and tried to ignore the way my entire body felt like it was two seconds from collapsing and never getting back up. “Sorry I bothered you, Gage. Thanks for taking care of me. I’ll see you later.”

“What? Where are you going?”

My eyes widened in surprise from the anger in his tone. “I’ll go to Jackie’s until I can get my own place.” I stopped walking and stood there still as stone when Gage’s sweatpants fell off me and straight to the floor. Let’s just add on one more thing to be humiliated about when it came to Gage. At least his sweatshirt was big enough that it still covered everything important. I flushed when I realized he’d already seen everything last night. “Can I please use your phone so I can call her? Or Ethan,” I asked through clenched teeth.

“Cassidy, why are you leaving?”

“Because I shouldn’t have come here in the first place! Obviously it was a bad idea.”

“I don’t want you to leave.” His voice softened drastically and he reached out to grab my hand to pull me back to the bed, coughing out a laugh when I tripped out of his sweatpants. “Sorry, that’s the warmest clothing I had for you last night.”

I just nodded and turned my head so he wouldn’t see my blush.

“Hey.” He put his fingers under my chin and turned my head so I was looking into his dark green eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you; you just scared the crap out of me last night. I was seconds from calling an ambulance. I probably should have but I was too focused on warming you up.”

That just made my blush get about ten times worse. Oh my God, I can’t believe I was in a shower with Gage. Not that I was able to enjoy one second of it or even realize at the time what was really happening. “Gage,” I began after a few silent moments, “was she still there when you got there last night?” I almost told him not to answer that, but then his face morphed into one of pity and I no longer needed him to. “I’m kind of tired,” I said, quickly changing the subject, “is it okay if I go back to sleep for a bit before I call Jackie?”

“You can go back to sleep; you need to rest as much as possible after last night. But I want you to stay here, Cass. Adam and I brought most of your stuff over last night. You don’t have to, but you’re more than welcome to live here. As long as you want.”

Live with Gage again? But he hated having me with him last time. “I appreciate what you’re doing, Gage, but you don’t owe me anything. And I don’t want you to give me a place to stay because you feel sorry for me.”

“That’s not it at all. I want you here—honestly I’d rather have you here than anyone.”

I doubted that. But the idea of being this close to Gage again had my stomach fluttering. I realized I still hadn’t said anything when he stood up and walked over to me.

“Just think about it.” His raspy voice got even deeper. “But go back to sleep now, darlin’. I’m gonna go for my run. I’ll check on you when I get back.” His hand brushed across my forehead once I was under the comforter and he frowned. “Are you hot?”

“No, actually I’m still kind of cold. Can you throw me your sweats?”

Gage cursed under his breath and headed out the door, tossing me his sweats on his way out. Before I could try to pull them back on he’d returned with the comforter from his bed. “Here you go.” He brushed his hand across my forehead again and down my left cheek. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”

“Have fun,” I mumbled as I curled into a tight ball. I didn’t even have the strength to try to put the sweats back on.

GAGE

I HADN’T EVEN gotten down the driveway when I ran back inside and grabbed my keys. I couldn’t run. Not right now when I was worrying about her so much. As soon as I was in the truck, I called my mom. Yeah . . . I know. I was that desperate.

“Why doesn’t it surprise me that you’re already awake? It’s your last day before school starts back up; you should be sleeping in.”

“Hello to you too, Mama.”

“How’s my boy?”

“All right. Hey, Ma, I need your help on something. Cassidy’s burning up, and I don’t know what I should do. I’m on my way to get a thermometer, but is there anything I should buy . . . like food, drinks, or medicine?”

“Cassidy?” She couldn’t hide her surprise in that one word. “Shouldn’t Tyler be helping her if she isn’t feeling well?”

“Uh . . . long story short?”

“Sure.” She sighed, letting me know I’d have to give her the full version later.

“He brought home another girl and kicked Cassidy out last night.”

“He what?! Are you sure?”

“Ma, yes. I’m sure. I even asked him myself. But that’s not the worst part. He locked her out without her phone or keys or anything and she ended up walking to my place. It was sleeting really bad and she was in her pajamas; she didn’t have a jacket or anything.”

“Oh, that poor girl. Is she okay? You said she’s burning up?”

“Yeah.” I blew out a deep breath and tapped my thumb on the steering wheel furiously until the light turned green again. “She’s in sweats and I cranked the heater up really high last night. She said she’s cold but she’s bright red and really, really hot.”

“Just get the thermometer for now, and some NyQuil. Call me back after you’ve taken her temperature.”

“All right, thanks, Mama, love you.”

“I love you too. Bye-bye now.”

I ran into the drugstore and got the most expensive thermometer I could find and a few bottles of NyQuil before heading back to the house. I’d only been away from Cassidy for maybe twenty-five minutes, and there was no doubt she was worse than when I’d left. I could feel the heat emanating from her skin and she was shaking again.

“Cass, wake up, let’s take your temp.”

She groaned and pulled both comforters up to her cheeks.

I continued trying to wake her up while I tore open the box. She finally nodded when I showed her the thermometer and I slipped it into her mouth. While I waited, I touched her cheeks and forehead and had to stifle the urge to yell at the damn thing to hurry up. I’m pretty sure the people who made the thing laughed at being able to torture people with the wait. Not able to sit there doing nothing, I called Mama again and told her about the changes. If I’d thought she was hot earlier, she was on fire now. Finally the stupid torture device from hell beeped and I gently but swiftly took it from Cassidy’s mouth.

“Shit, that’s high,” I breathed.

“Gage Michael Carson!”

It took me a second to realize what happened. “Sorry, ma’am, but it says one-oh-five-point-two. What should I do?”

“Take her to the hospital right now. If she stays at that temperature for too long she can start having seizures or go into a coma.”

What?! “Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Call me as soon as the doctor tells you anything, you hear me? I want to know immediately.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I hung up and scooped Cassidy in my arms; she’d already fallen back asleep and didn’t so much as move until after I already had her in the ER. And then it was only to start shaking uncontrollably, and I wished I would have thought to bring one of the comforters with me, or at the very least put the sweatpants back on her. I’d never had to take care of someone, and I felt like I was doing a f**king awesome job . . .

I LOOKED UP when I felt a hand on my back and smiled softly. “I really do appreciate you being here, Ma. I didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing.” I raked a hand through my hair and sighed when I looked back over to Cassidy, who was asleep in my bed. “Obviously.”

“Hush. You did everything you could.”

“If I would have just taken her as soon as she got here—”

“She would have had pneumonia either way, Gage. She was out in that weather without the right clothes and had wet hair. You can’t blame yourself. Tyler, on the other hand . . .”

“God, I want to punch him again.”

“For once,” she said with a sigh, “I wouldn’t try to stop you.”