I’m starting to realize there’s a difference between wanting her and needing her. Problem is, I’m victim to both. I want her, God do I want her. But lately, I need her too. I like needing her. It feels…I don’t know. It just feels. But if I blow one side of the deal, I’ll lose the other. It’s a delicate balance, and kissing her—that would tip the scales for good.

“Right, so I just shove all the clothes in this one and then pour in…what? Like, two cups of this stuff?” I’m not even close. Even I know this much. But I thought it would be better to play full dumbass rather than have her see me flounder and look foolish for real.

“Uh, yeah, if you want to repeat that episode of the Brady Bunch where Bobby floods the laundry room with bubbles,” she says, giggling and taking the full cup of soap from my hand, pouring almost half of it back in the bottle.

“That’s a classic,” I say, making my move, pushing back and waiting for her to take over.

“Oh, I don’t think so. Get over here. You are going to learn by doing, not by watching,” she says, reaching her hand to mine. I come willingly, hungry to touch her, but my fire is put out quickly when she pushes the detergent back into my hand.

“What, no hands-on instruction?” I tease. She smirks, but she also rolls her eyes, so I give up on the overt flirting—for now. “Okay, okay, fine. I put in this much, but where?”

Cass points at a small drawer on the side of the machine, and I pull it open and pour in the soap. “Now what?” I ask, honestly clueless. She’s laughing at me genuinely now.

“WOW,” she mouths, big and slowly.

“Hey, don’t make fun of me for not knowing how to do domestic shit. That’s not nice. I’d like to see you swap out an air filter and put in a quart of synthetic,” I say, practically growling when I’m done with my testosterone-filled comeback.

Cass is staring at me with her hand on her hip. “That make you feel better?” she asks, her mouth pursed, and her eyes doing that slow blinking thing that my mom’s do when she’s about to tell me to knock it off.

“Yes,” I actually growl and beat my chest once for added effect. “Yes, it did.”

Without pause, Cass proceeds to talk me through every single step involved in swapping out a goddamned air filter and putting in a quart of oil on a sixty-seven Dodge Charger. A sixty-seven Dodge Charger that “yes, you can switch to synthetic from ten W forty…if you know what you’re doing!” And somewhere in the middle of it all, I admit to myself that there’s a really good chance that I’m falling for her. It was at about the point that her lips slowed down to delicately toss out the words valve covers and oil filter cap.

Scales. Are. Tipping.

“Right, so, I sort the whites from the darks then, and put them in here,” I say, swallowing my pride—with an actual swallow—and replaying the hottest damned dressing-down I’ve ever had.

“You’re getting it,” she says, pulling herself up to sit on the counter, her legs swaying back and forth like wind chimes while she watches me do my first solo load of laundry in my entire life. I’m actually kind of proud.

I look at her over my shoulder, and her bottom lip is caught between her teeth while she tries to hide her smile. I like the way she’s looking at me.

Time to test the scales.

I press the start button and the machine begins to whirl and buzz quietly. It also says forty minutes. “Forty minutes?” I protest, but Cass just laughs, and then pats the counter next to her. I see her eyes flash when she realizes what she’s done, but I won’t let her feel bad.

“I’m good down here,” I say, making a joke out of it and positioning myself right in front of her, moving my hands to grab the meaty calves of her legs. “Damn. Those feel like weapons.”

I let my grip loosen, but I don’t move my hands away, and she doesn’t ask me to.

Cass

He’s touching me. And it’s not like the way he touched me in the gym, when he pressed my muscles to make them work harder. That touch was purposeful. This is a thoughtful touch, a strategic touch—an opening that he is taking.

“So, how do you know how to change the oil on a sixty-seven Charger?” he asks.

“I drive one. Back home. That’s my car,” I say, and his top lip curls just enough to make his left cheek dimple.

“That’s hot,” he says, and I laugh at his bluntness. It’s probably my favorite quality about him, the way he just says things—whatever he’s thinking. There’s no filter, no wall. That’s how I operate, or at least how I try to.