Melt Your Heart

Happy New Year! Hope 2022 is treating you well so far. Thanks for the reviews on the previous chapter; I really do appreciate it! I hope you enjoy this one, too.

Chapter 26: Friend Request

Cassie finished one cup of tea and poured herself another. She still had some time before she needed to collect the twins from school, and she was enjoying the rare slice of silence. She'd worked at her shop all morning, returning after lunch as guests were expected early that afternoon.

Guests that Abigail had actually warned her about.

Cassie was still a little flushed from her encounter with Sam in the master bathroom, and felt ridiculous about it. Someday she might laugh about it, but that day was not today.

She was a tad ashamed of herself that she hadn't even stuck around long enough to ask him why he was there, she'd just sidled out like an embarrassed teenager.

Deciding that tea alone would not calm her, she started to get ingredients out of the cupboards to do some baking. It always centred her and had the added advantage of making Grey House smell extra welcoming and homey.

She tensed, the bag on sugar in her hands as she sensed footsteps coming down the main staircase. At least this time she'd be prepared to face him.

Sam was fully dressed now, wearing one of his usual grey work suits with a white shirt and blue tie. It didn't help that he looked just as good in a suit as he did when he was shirtless.

"Hi Sam," she greeted when he appeared in the kitchen doorway, and was proud that her voice sounded light and breezy. "Sorry about walking in on you earlier."

Sam leaned on the doorjamb and smiled at her.

"I should be the one saying sorry; I'd assumed that Abigail had already told you what happened."

"What did happen?" Cassie asked, wiping her hands on a towel and giving him her full attention. If her pulse quickened when their eyes met, she didn't pay attention to it.

"Plumbing disaster," he replied, breaking eye contact and rubbing at an ache brewing behind his eyebrows. "I can't get anyone out to look at it until tomorrow, so Abigail said it was okay if I crashed here."

"Of course it is," Cassie agreed much too quickly.

"I didn't want it to be weird," he admitted. "But Abigail said it would be alright with you." Okay, that wasn't exactly how she'd phrased it, but Sam was trying to placate two Merriwick women here, and that was not a challenge to be taken lightly.

"Yeah, absolutely."

The more she said it, the more insincere it sounded to her ears and she hoped Sam didn't pick up on that. Of course it was fine for him to stay here in theory, but knowing they were going to be living under the same roof for the next twenty four hours had her stomach twisted in knots. And not necessarily in a bad way.

It was just so much easier to resist him when he was in his own house.

"I'm headed out to work now anyway," he told her, breaking through her thoughts. "I'll try not to disturb anyone when I get back."

"Okay," Cassie replied. She was relieved and disappointed that he was going in equal measure; this was the most normal conversation they'd had in a long time.

Sam knew he should go, but there was something about this scene, this conversation, that felt so natural.

So domestic.

It could be like this, he realised, if she wasn't quite so stubborn about them.

He wondered what it would be like, leaving for work with one of her muffins still warm from the oven and the memory of her kiss on his lips.

It was everything he wanted.

And if that didn't make him panic…

He suddenly had a blinding flash of realisation: this was what Cassie was afraid of. Not that things wouldn't work out between them, but that they would.

Oh yeah, he had to agree, that was a hell of a lot more terrifying.

They stood looking at each other across the expanse of the kitchen, almost daring the other to make a move…until the bell at the front door signalled the arrival of the expected guests.

"See you later," Sam said, brushing by her on his way to the kitchen door, desperate to press the briefest of kisses to her forehead, or her cheek, or her lips, as they passed.

But he didn't.

Cassie took a breath, tried as hard as she could to push Sam from her thoughts, and went to greet her guests.

"He has tattoos."

Abigail stopped in her tracks, leather jacket folded over her arm as she made her way into the kitchen. It was after seven and the twins were in bed, and she was pleased to see that Cassie had opened a bottle of red wine, especially as two glasses were sitting in the middle of the kitchen table.

"I…what…who?" Abigail asked, draping her jacket over the back of her chair and then turning her head to meet Cassie's gaze.

Truth be told, she had been expecting her cousin's wrath (such as it was) for not telling her about the invitation she'd extended to Sam.

Maybe the wine was poisoned…

But, no. Cassie didn't seem pissed.

She seemed…Abigail couldn't even find a word for the emotions she was picking up from Cassie.

"Sam," Cassie replied simply. "He has tattoos."

Abigail wondered if she'd stepped into an alternate universe.

"Yes, he does," she replied, reaching for the wine and pouring two generous glasses. She had a feeling they'd need it, which was presumably why Cassie had opened it. "Wait…"

"Thanks for letting me know he was staying here, by the way," Cassie said, pleased to finally get some kind of release for the weird pent up smorgasbord of emotions she'd been experiencing all afternoon. "It would have been nice to know before I went barrelling into the bathroom and found him without a shirt."

Abigail couldn't help it, she knew she should have been contrite because, yes, it was only fair and respectful for her to have told Cassie they'd have another guest, but she snorted into her wine with a look of almost childish glee.

"I'm so sorry, Cassie, I should have told you…" she said, trying to sound apologetic which was difficult when her lips kept wanting to quirk into a delighted grin. "But aren't you glad I didn't?"

"No!" Cassie protested, perhaps a little too forcefully. "I acted like an idiot."

"What did you do?" Abigail asked, scootching forward on her chair and motioning for Cassie to take the one opposite. Her cousin reluctantly joined her, picking up the other wine glass with a lot less reluctance. "Tell me everything."

Although Cassie was still slightly annoyed at Abigail (and at herself for behaving like a lovestruck idiot), it was so nice and so simple to just have this girly conversation with someone.

"He does look really, really good without a shirt," Abigail agreed when Cassie had finished her tale, her cousin's cheeks flushed from more than just the warm kitchen and the red wine.

Cassie sighed. "I know."

"And I think the tattoos were from back when he was in a band."

"A band?" Cassie demanded.

"Yeah, didn't he tell you?" Abigail said, frowning into her wine and idly wondering if she could have another glass on a weeknight. "He used to play guitar in a rock band when he was in med school. They were really pretty good."

Cassie groaned. Why did everything she learned about Sam have to make him all that more appealing to her?

"He didn't tell me that," she admitted.

"What exactly were you two doing when you were dating then?" Abigail asked, quirking an eyebrow lasciviously. "Well, it can have been anything too exciting," she answered for herself. "If you only saw his tattoos for the first time today."

Cassie had the grace to blush, again. The simple truth was: she'd never gotten around to seeing Sam without a shirt before because they'd been interrupted before he could get her shirt off.

She'd spent too many sleepless minutes wondering where they'd be now if James hadn't been sick that night.

It was stupid to wonder, but she couldn't help it.

"You two will be the death of me, I hope you know that," Abigail told her cousin, pushing up from the kitchen table and rinsing her glass in the sink - making the sensible, if not boring, decision to leave it at one glass tonight.

"But," she said, turning around when Cassie didn't reply. "I do respect your decision to not be with him, even if I think it's a stupid one."

"Thanks?" Cassie replied cautiously, realising that from Abigail this probably counted as a compliment of some sort.

"I'm heading up to bed," she told Cassie, even though it was still early. She had a date with her laptop, and there were certain things she didn't need her supernaturally perceptive cousin picking up on. "I'd say "sweet dreams", but I think I already know what you'll be dreaming of."

Without another backward glance, Abigail strolled out of the kitchen, leaving Cassie flushed damn near the same shade as the half empty bottle of Merlot.

Propped up in bed, her laptop resting on her knees, Abigail's fingers hovered over the trackpad. She knew this was something else she should be warning Cassie about ahead of time, but her cousin had so many other things on her mind, and she didn't want to give her another excuse to push Sam even further away.

No, she'd wait to share the truth with Cassie when there was something substantial to say.

For now, she would keep this to herself.

Steeling herself, and wishing she'd gone for that second glass of wine after all, Abigail tapped her finger against the cursor.

Message request accepted.