Thick & Thin (Thin Love, #3)(80)

Just then, with her head lowered as she worked her fingertips against her forehead, Mom looked so tired, worn by the day, the revelations and the ridiculous drama that had put a pause in our lives the past few months. Dad touched her arm and my mother slipped her gaze to his face, letting a small, barely-there grin twitch over her lips. “This is my mess to handle. I’m the one who let him in, the one who didn’t see beyond the smile and the voice and the slick cowboy facade. Cass is my fault. This whole mess is my fault.”

Kona’s shock transformed then, working into insult that he didn’t bother hiding. “The hell it is.” He walked behind her when she tried leaving the room, managing to stop her before she went into the kitchen. “Baby, this happened, all of this, because I tried to handle this shit all on my own. You said it yourself, we’re supposed to be a team. Equal partners. We’re supposed to share our burden. If I’d only talked to you right away, none of this would have happened.”

“Kona…”

“Wildcat, this is our mess.” He stepped close, holding her shoulders until she looked up at him. “Let’s sort it out together.”

God help that dumb cowboy. He was in for a world of shit.



Ever see an opossum caught by a dog? Normally, that critter is smooth, slow. It takes each step with a caution that should only be reserved for bomb inspectors and lions on the Serengeti. An opossum will sling and slow its way toward a source of food until it is sure no threats surround it. Then it will gorge, viciously. Unless, of course, that opossum gets caught. When it does, it quite literally “plays 'possum”—it becomes a limp, pathetic thing, relaxing its joints, its limbs as though life has instantly slipped from it and all that remains is the sad trace of that ruddy face, beady eyes and razor sharp claws. Its defense is to play dead.

Cass Colson was playing 'possum. It had not started immediately. It had, in fact, been f*cking hilarious to watch: Aly and I, watching from the window outside the studio, glaring at that * when he tapped one knuckle against her door and she swung around in her chair, making her expression relaxed, welcoming.

“Look at that bata, all puffed up like a rooster,” Aly said, lip curled as Cass sat next to my mother on the table holding her sound mixer.

She was right. He looked a little too confident, too relaxed as Mom spoke, keeping her focus on her nails, and the slow circle of her foot as she shook it back and forth. Cass leaned toward her, brushing her hair from her face and it was that one touch that did him in. That small gesture was all it took for my father to emerge from the sound booth.

Twice I’d seen my father tussle with someone. One was a photographer that fired away clicks right at Mom’s face when she was seven months pregnant with Koa. Dad had broken the paparazzi’s nose and gotten sued for it. Another time a fan was drunk, got right in Dad’s face when we were out at Morten’s for Mack’s ninth birthday. The drunk was rude, throwing F bombs at my father like they were Mardi Gras beads, flustering both Mom and Mack. Dad popped him once in the jaw and the guy went down. Two days later Mack and my mother got flowers from the * and an apology.

I didn’t think Kona was going to handle Cass like he had the other two asshats he'd fought. In fact, I knew my father was going to maintain his calm. Colson, however didn’t know dick.

It took the cowboy a minute to realize what was happening. Maybe he thought it was me coming out of that booth. Maybe I didn’t intimidate him at all. But Dad did. I knew that, saw the proof of it on Cass’s face when Dad walked behind Mom, resting a hand on the back of her chair.

Funny thing was, Dad didn’t move. He stood there, letting Mom rip into Cass. Her face changed several shades of pink as she stood, poking a finger right into Cass’s chest all the while my father kept his expression deadly—the dent of his cheeks concaving as he frowned, the small flare of his nostrils widening, the dead coldness of his black eyes and the way his eyebrows lowered, turning the shape of his eyes into hard, vicious slits—giving Kona a dangerous air without him uttering a single threat. He barely moved as Mom yelled and Cass, showing a shocking bout of intelligence, took it all in, every horrible thing I knew my mother told him, every accusation, every revelation, every threat if he tried anything—now or ever—without response. He stood there, eyes rounded, wide, hands in fists at his side and his attention never wavering from my father’s threatening expression.

“If looks could kill…” Aly said, laughing.

“Dad wouldn’t need looks.”

Mom had clearly finished whatever she had to say and Cass nodded once but only when Kona moved his chin toward my mother. The cowboy tugged off his stupid straw hat, gripping the side in one hand as he stepped back, free hand lifted as my father took a step. When he spoke, seeming to answer my mother’s questions as they came without a single look at her, my gaze jumped to his legs and fingers, how they shook, how he tightened his grip on that hat so hard that I was sure he’d rip it apart. Then, like the coward he was, the * flinched, a quick jerk of his body as my mother pointed to the door and Kona’s one step became two.

“Good riddance,” Aly said, sounding way too pleased by Cass’s hasty retreat. We moved around the back of the house, coming in through the back entrance just in time to see the cowboy slamming through the front door. “What? No goodbye? No promises to write or text?” She sounded pleased at herself and the small joke and for a moment it felt too normal, so usual to hear Aly’s laugh, in that house. It felt like it had been four years ago before everything got so twisted.