Southern Comfort (Southern 2)

“How is that?” I listen to her telling her story about how miserable her life was, and I want to make sure she never feels that way again.

“I don’t know what love is,” she says, and my heart and stomach hurt for her. “If you’ve never had love in your life, how do you know what it feels like?” She shrugs. “It’s like I know I’ll never be a mother.”

“I get that feeling,” I say. “I’ll never get married,” I finally admit to her, and she looks at me. “It’s just not for me.”

She laughs. “Cowboy Casey on the loose.” I shake my head. “Adding notches to your bedpost.”

I look down and then look up. “Hardly.”

“You’re not lying,” she says softly. I grab a water bottle and take a drink, my mouth suddenly dry.

“Whatever this thing is.” I point at her and then at me. “The one thing I can tell you is that I will never lie to you.”

“Thank you,” she says softly. “I think that is one of the nicest things someone has ever said to me.” She looks down and then she looks up again, and I see the tears in her eyes. “This can’t go anywhere,” she says. “I’m here until it’s safe, and then I’m leaving.” I want to ignore the crushing in my chest. I want to ignore the fact that my stomach now burns, knowing she’ll eventually leave. I don’t answer her. Instead, I look off into the trees and pretend my heart didn’t just break.

Chapter Seventeen

Olivia

I hear an alarm in the distance, and my eyes finally open. I feel him leave my side and turn to look over my shoulder at him. It’s still dark outside. “What time is it?”

“Five thirty,” he mumbles. “Go back to sleep.”

“It’s five thirty?” I ask him and lean up on the couch, not believing him as he gets up and goes to the bathroom. It’s the second night that I’ve slept on the couch with him. Yesterday, I spent the day on the couch bored out of my mind. I tried to work, but when I finally got my computer out and the emails started coming in, my head started spinning. Kallie looked over at me, and she took my computer from me. She then went as far as telling Casey about it, and all he did was glare at me and fold his arms over his chest. Needless to say, that night we sat in the almost dark, and we made out. God, the man could kiss like no one’s business. He kissed me breathless, yet I didn’t want to stop. Even when my eyes got heavy, and I knew I would be falling asleep, I went back in for one more kiss. It was always one more kiss until I fell asleep without a care in the world.

I turn over and throw the covers off when he walks out of the bedroom dressed in his Levi’s. “What are you doing?” he asks when I stand and stretch. “It’s early.”

“I slept for ten hours,” I say. “Ten straight hours.” I shake my head. “I don’t even think I dreamed.”

“Well, if you go back to sleep, you can sleep twelve hours,” he says, putting on his shirt. This time, it’s a black one. I look over at him, watching as he pushes his hair back, and I have to take a minute before I move again. I’m used to my heart speeding up when I look over at him, but what I’m not used to is the flutters in my stomach. The itch that my hands get to walk over to him and hold his face in my hand and kiss him.

“I’ll meet you in five minutes,” I say. Walking back to the bedroom, I get a pair of pink yoga pants and matching sports bra with a gray off-the-shoulder shirt. I grab my sneakers, and I sit on the stairs while I wait for him. “I’m ready!” I shout back when I tie my hair up on the top of my head. He comes from the kitchen and looks at me. “Let’s get the day moving, cowboy.” I wink at him, and he shakes his head. We walk out of the house just as the sun is rising and the sky looks pink. “It’s so pretty,” I say, listening to the sound of our footsteps since it’s the only sound in the air. “It’s so peaceful.” Our fingers graze each other, and just like every other time, his fingers entwine with mine.

“It really is,” he says from beside me. “No matter where I am, this is always going to be home.” I look over at him and wonder how many other places he has. When he took me out to the barn yesterday and told me about his ex, I was floored. Did it bother me that he loved someone else? No. Did it bother me that he got hurt? One hundred percent yes. I never wanted him to feel that hurt. He doesn’t deserve it, especially when he loves with his whole heart. As he told the story, you could just hear how his heart shattered all those years ago. But then when he got to the end, you saw that it made him the man he is today, and no one can take that from him.