"That's not much of a benchmark," I answered in defeat.

She squeezed the inside of my elbow. "You'll always know where I am and how to contact me. Lucas could have health problems, and I might be the only person able to help." She'd thought of everything. "And maybe later on, when you've settled as a family, maybe I can see him again." I didn't miss the tremor in her voice.

In the distance, I heard the first sounds of a guitar playing. You couldn't have a bonfire without an acoustic guitar, could you? I shifted my body to the right. It was a micro-move, and I was pretty sure no one out there would notice. Cassie did, though. Her next breath was raspy and her gaze shot forward, away from my face. She stayed where she was.

"You know what? Since there's not going to be another night like this one." She waved the tip of her bottle of Coke between the two of us, then toward the party. "Let's try and enjoy ourselves. Shoot the shit."

"So no divorce talk anymore?"

"No divorce. No secret baby either."

I shrugged halfheartedly. "I was starting to get used to the soap opera."

"Come on, Champ, you have the rest of your life to watch them on TV." She took another sip and I enjoyed watching her relax. It'd been so long since it'd been just the two of us.

"I love that song of yours. The one you sang at The Turf." She frowned. "The one about home."

"I wrote it a couple of months before Gran passed away. She'd already taken a turn for the worse and I had no idea how to make things better. Weird how being miserable can trigger creativity." She stared absently into the night.

"Steep Hill won't be your home much longer." I hoped I'd kept the bite out of my voice. Otherwise my little pep-talk about living your dream would have been for nothing. "You finally have your chance to get away."

She took two more sips of her Coke. We listened to the guitar and watched our high-school friends acting silly. A gasp of wind passed through the clearing. Next to me, Cassie shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. Without thinking, I unzipped my hoodie and rested it around her shoulders. She took hold of the collar and pulled it closer to her face. Etiquette or not, I might never have another chance to take care of her this way.

She broke our silence. "I'm not sure I want to get away. I just know I have to."

"Why?" I wasn't really pushing the conversation toward the light and shallow, like she'd wanted.

"Because if I don't, I won't be able to let Lucas go." Her eyes locked with mine. "To let you go."

Her words could have knocked me off my feet. I tried not to look down at her lips. I really tried, but each of her breaths stole mine from me. My head angled forward until my forehead rested against hers. Her eyes were shut. I tuned out the noise around us until the only sound left was my heartbeat. My crazy, wild heartbeat.

"Don't." Her lips moved, almost one inch from mine. "Don't spoil what we have left. What you have with Lenor."

I forced myself to swallow. I straightened up "Sorry." I managed to say under my breath.

"I baited you. I'm sorry too."

That was when an explosion of noise replaced the guitar. It came from Nichols's truck. It took the guy a minute to lower the sound and tune in to something mainstream. And the song started playing. Our song. The one from our first time.

This was going to be awkward. I cleared my throat and shuffled.

Cassie giggled in a very un-Cassie way.

I risked a sideways glance. She was really giggling, her hand now covering her mouth, and the awkwardness vanished. I burst into laughter. And it felt so damn good. So damn good to laugh with her.

When our laughter died down, I relaxed, my back against the tailgate of my truck, my legs crossed at the ankles again. I finished my beer and set the bottle at my feet. When I stood back up, Cassie raised her hand, palm facing upwards. I looked down at it. I didn't have to think long before my own palm lay on hers. Our fingers laced. I tried not to apply too much pressure. I brought our joined hands to my mouth, dropped a light kiss on hers and rested my forehead against it.

We didn't talk for the rest of the song, or for all those that followed. I tried just to listen to the music, just to feel her next to me. Maybe for the last time.

thirty-five.

Cassie "I should check on Woodie." I really didn't want to, though.

What I wanted was to stay next to Josh and listen to the music. My hand curled in his. Maybe for the last time.

For the last time.

"I'll come with you." He placed his hands on my waist and helped me get down from the tailgate of his truck.

I leaned against him and wrapped my fingers around his forearms... longer than I needed to regain the balance I hadn't lost. I let him nuzzle against the top of my head. I liked the feel of him. So much.

We walked to where our high school friends were getting shit-faced. But they weren't shit-faced enough to keep their eyes from raking over Josh and me. We'd been the biggest gossip of our class, by far.

"Where the hell has he gone?" I mumbled to Josh.

"I lost sight of him a while ago."

We'd lost sight of everyone and everything tonight.

We looked back on where Woodie had parked his truck. Still there. "He couldn't have gone far. Maybe that idiot is emptying his guts in the wood."

I waved to the girl who used to be our head cheerleader. I even gave her a smile. Josh started towards the trees. I got stuck behind. I couldn't force my feet to go that way. My stomach jumped into my throat.

"What's up?" Josh looked concerned.

"The last time I went there to look for you... I didn't like what I found."

Which was him in her mouth.

It was dark but I swear I saw Josh blush. He wrinkled his nose. "I made a fool of myself that night and I'm sorry you had to see it. I'll go, Cass. You wait for me here."

I was being a wuss. "Wait." I rushed after Josh and grabbed his hand.

He welcomed me back to his side with a smile. He pulled me toward him and we passed the first line of trees. Suddenly, it was like someone had turned down the volume and switched the lights off.

"Woodie!" I called.

Josh's voice echoed mine. "Yo, Woodie. Where'd you go?"

I saw something move on my left. Not far at all. Breaking from Josh, I walked closer.

"Woodie?" I hesitated. "Woodie?"

There were muffled sounds until I saw two bodies split from each other. One tall. One much shorter. One boy. One girl.

The tall one stepped toward me. "What are you guys doing here?"

I didn't have time to freak out or scream. "I was looking for you, idiot. Are you all right?"

Woodie shrugged. "I can take care of myself." He sounded more than a little pissed-off.

Then I saw her. Alarm bells started ringing in my ears.

God, NOT again.

"Clarissa?" Josh was by my side.

"What the fuck are you doing with her?" First Josh, now Woodie, I wanted to roar. "Why am I asking anyway?" I spat. "We're on Clarissa's hunting ground after all."

"Let it go Cassie." Woodie ran his hand through his hair.

"The hell I will. That midget whored her way into my life one too many times."

"Don't use words like that about her."

Shit. I was now seeing fluorescent purple. "That's always an asset in her line of work. She doesn't have to go down much to perform."

Josh took hold of my shaking hand and squeezed it. "Calm down, Cassie."

"You'd better not get involved. You and she have quite a bit of history together."

"Don't be a bitch, Cassie. That's different. Clarissa and I, we're together." In one move, Woodie had pulled that thing against him.

My mouth opened wide. He had to be joking.

"Let's get back to the party." Josh's fingers intertwined with mine. He was trying to distract me but it wasn't working.

Why?

Because I was taken back to that moment five years ago when I'd found him with her. When all I held precious had been trampled into the dirt by that skank. But the truth was that I had lost Josh the day I left him, not when he tried to live his life afterwards. Woodie had to live his life too.

My guilt softened my anger. "How long's this been going on?"

Woodie gave me another shrug. "Since Christmas."

"Christmas."

And I hadn't seen anything. He hadn't told me anything. I slapped my thigh. That was when I paid attention to how she readjusted her skirt. How she kept her eyes down. How she snuggled against Woodie. That wasn't how she behaved back in high school. People did grow and change. Clarissa might have. Hopefully I had too.

Josh's thumb caressed the inside of my hand. His touch untangled the mess inside me.

I managed to whisper. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you'd have gone apeshit," Woodie answered. "Just like now. And because I didn't want you to be nasty to her. I love her."

I shook my head. Woodie was in love and I had no idea. He was my best friend. He had been with me every step of the way. Every high. Every low.

"Sorry." I covered my face with my free hand. "I let you down."

I deserved to stew in my guilt. He didn't let me. "You had a lot on your plate, Cass."

"I'll take her home." That was Josh talking about me. "Clarissa, can you drive Wood's truck? He's had too much to drink."

"No problem." She still had that same nasal voice, and it still grated on my nerves.

Josh turned me around and forced-marched me back to the party. I walked like a zombie. When I made it back inside Josh's truck for the first time in five years, the smell of the leather seats made me feel home. Still, I was lost in a fog. We'd driven at least a mile when Josh pulled me out of it.

"I was an asshole that night. I wanted to make you pay."

I grabbed my bare knees and squeezed them hard. I so didn't want to go there.

"We're cool," I managed to say through the lips I kept tight. "That was a long time ago."

"Not long enough. You still have hang-ups about Clarissa."

"Hang-ups?"

That was loud enough for Josh to stop watching the road and check on me.

"It's obviously still affecting you."

"Affecting me?" Maybe I could stop the echo. "I found the father of my one-month old son getting his dick serviced backstage by the school slut. So, yeah, it affected me." I added the quote marks with my fingers while saying the word. "I still have hang-ups."

Josh's hands tightened around the steering wheel and his head angled forward as it always did when he was pissed off.

"If I'd known I had a son, my dick would have stayed inside my pants."

I slapped the top of my thigh. "Here we go again. Back to that awful bitch Cassie playing tricks on that poor, innocent Josh. Give me something new, Champ. I already know how bad I screwed up."

But his only answer was a frustrated groan. I wanted to bait him so that I could bite back. But my brain was scattered. I tried to think about something to say that would floor him. Something that would make him feel as shitty as I'd felt that night. I watched his profile, how his body had now relaxed against the driver's seat. He wasn't up for a fight.

"I want you to understand something, Cass." If he looked relaxed, his voice wasn't. It was all stretched and broken at the same time. "If it's the last thing I say to you before we part ways." He wasn't looking at me. He was looking straight ahead, into the night. "We are both responsible for what happened. We both share the guilt. We are both to blame."

That wasn't true. I was the one who gave up on Lucas. I was the one who walked away.

It was like Josh could read my mind. "You're not leaving me tonight without knowing that. We both made mistakes because we loved each other so goddamn much."

I reached for him and cursed the seat-belt for keeping me from hiding against him. I only touched his forearm. His muscles tensed underneath my fingers. I could feel the energy inside him twisting beneath his skin, ready to burst. A car drove by and its lights splashed all over his face for a couple of seconds. I saw raw pain and tears at the corners of his eyes.

I wanted to tell him. I wanted to say it.

I still love you so goddamn much.