Intertwined

Seven

Cassidy

The night after the rodeo never felt real to me, as I lied awake thinking about how close we were together. How I asked for him to kiss me, or how his lips felt when they briefly touched mine. That night was flipped upside down in our world, and there was no way to get over this.

Houston wanted that kiss, I wanted that kiss - nothing happened.

A sliver of light peeked through the curtains, a small sign that the night was over. I didn't get any sleep.

I stood up once I knew sleep was hopeless, and strode over to my door opening it a crack. The hallway was empty with no one in sight, and Houston's room was across the hall begging for me to knock. I needed to know how he felt - if he felt anything about the almost kiss.

I raised my fist to knock on the door, but the door immediately opened and the person behind suddenly gasped. He exclaimed, "Cassidy! What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to talk about us," I spat back immediately, gesturing between the two of us. "Remember last night?"

In reply, he shook his head and slid past me into the hallway, "There's nothing to talk about. That was just a one-time thing. Nothing like that would happen again."

I stopped him in the hallway, a few steps away from the stairs, and my family waited on us. When I touched his shoulder, the muscles underneath his shirt instantly tensed up as his blue eyes widened at my hand on his shoulder.

"Houston, you and I both know there was something that we had last night," I pleaded with him, while Houston's eyes searched everywhere in the hallways except for meeting my gaze. "We kissed, Houston. Or we were so close to kissing, and you didn't do anything about it."

At the mention of the kiss, Houston took a step back and crossed his arms in a defensive stance, not wanting to meet my eye. He finally met my gaze, his eyes now looked more like a stormy, gray cloud over the ocean. 

"Cassidy, we never kissed," he snapped, lying to himself about the hesitation felt in those split seconds when his face was centimeters away from mine. "Whatever happened last night, will never happen again. I want to be with Kate. I'm going on that date with Kate, so why won't you just let me be?"

Instinctively, I stepped away from him after hearing those words. Even though he said those words with the most poison he could muster, nothing I experienced before ever felt like he was lying straight to my face. You know, for someone who was terrible at speaking in white lies, Houston was incredible at hiding his feelings when he knew it would hurt someone.

He continued shrugging his shoulders and turned on his heels, even as I followed him down the stairs. I stated determinedly, "Houston, we have to talk about this since we're living together."

"No, we don't!" He exclaimed, causing the people in the living room to look up at us.

Beckett asked curiously, "What did you need to talk about what?"

Houston stopped in his tracks, blue eyes surveying the landscape as my parents and Beckett watched us from the front door. I answered back too quickly, "Houston's painstakingly long showers. There was no hot water left for me."

"What? I don-" Houston began to argue before I elbowed him in the forearm making sure no one knew about what we were talking about. "I-I-I mean, yes. I take so long in the shower, but I needed to get ready."

It was cute that Houston was such a terrible liar, but it was so inconvenient. Hopefully, he could keep everything a secret.

My parents and Beckett glanced between Houston and me, not completely convinced at our lie before shrugging it off. Mom glanced at me and asked, "Cassidy, you should probably get ready. We have church in an hour."