Chapter 240

“Robbie?” Cattie said quietly. We were still standing in the shower and she was in my arms.

“Mhmm?” I asked.

“You know how you’ve been saying you love me?”

“Of course,” I said.

“Did you mean it? Like, really?”

I took in a breath to make sure she knew I was being serious. “I meant it in every way that I could, Catherine. I didn’t want to be the reason you broke up with Heather, but I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t want you to. I was willing to love you like a best friend, or a sister, but I want-”

She kissed me, silencing me. It wasn’t a deep kiss, her lips firm on mine, but it meant something. I just wasn’t sure what.

“I need to talk to Cassidy,” she said as she pulled away.

“Right now?” I asked.

She nodded. “Is that OK?”

“Of course,” I said. I kissed her cheek and got out of the shower, quickly drying myself haphazardly with a towel before opening the washroom door and stepping into the room.

There was a significant lack of extra space in the already tight room. New luggage had been brought in, stuffed with piles of clothes and other things. Cassidy and Wanda were sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Everything OK?” Cassidy asked, looking me over.

“She’d like to talk with you,” I said.

Cassidy frowned slightly and nodded, standing up. As she went to move by me I took her hand and she stopped. I kissed her lightly on the lips and looked into her eyes. “Get in with her,” I said.

“The shower?” she asked.

I nodded. “She needs to feel wanted. Not sexual, I think, but close to you.”

“OK,” Cassidy nodded. “If you’re OK with that.”

“I am,” I said. “Hold her. I don’t know what she wants to talk about.”

Cassidy pecked my lips, looking into my eyes a moment longer to make sure I was certain about this, and then went into the washroom. I sighed and had to take in a big breath as I went to sit on the bed next to Wanda.

“You OK?” she asked me, immediately starting to rub my back as she looked at me with concern.

“I know it shouldn’t be affecting me like this,” I said. “It’s her relationship, not mine.”

“Shhh,” Wanda hushed me, getting up on her knees behind me and starting to massage my shoulders with her small but firm hands. “Robbie, you’ve been going through a shitload of emotional stuff. Trauma; yours and mine and Cattie’s and now Terra’s. It makes sense that it’s getting to you.”

“I just feel ... awful,” I said, hanging my head low. “Like it might be my fault.”

“Oh, Tiger,” Wanda said and stopped massaging me so she could hug me, pressing her cheek to my back. I was still damp from the shower so it couldn’t have been the most comfortable, but she did it anyway. “Do you want the truth?” she asked.

“I do,” I said, reaching behind me with one hand to put a hand on her thigh to ground myself to her.

“My marriage was going to implode eventually,” she said. “Brodi lied, deeply. I just hadn’t realized it yet. You didn’t cause it, you’re saving me from the worst of it. And Heather would have been a pushy cunt on this trip whether you were here or not. It might have taken months, or years, longer for Cattie to get to this point, or it might have turned out exactly like this if you weren’t here. But you are, for her.”

“You sound like you’re trying to make me into the hero here, gorgeous,” I murmured.

“I wasn’t done,” Wanda murmured. “With Terra, I think you might be the reason.”

“Well, fuck,” I said.

“You’re not the only reason, but I don’t know if Terra and JC would have gotten to where they are right now if she hadn’t met you,” Wanda said. She slid around a bit, moving to sit beside me but kept hugging me, and kissed my upper arm as she looked at me seriously. “You’ve made Terra reevaluate things, and she’s not done doing that yet. If you’d just met her in passing, for a couple of hours, it might have taken a lot longer for this to happen. But we’ve all been stuck together for days. Watching each other. Seeing how you interact with everyone, feeling how you look at and care about us. It ramped up the timeline, ramped up the stakes in her head. And JC would have never had sex with that cop if he hadn’t recognized Cassidy’s hair from the video of you fucking his ex. So, yeah, with Terra you’re a pretty big cause of what’s going on.”

I breathed through my nose, my eyes closed.

“That doesn’t make you responsible though, Robbie,” Wanda whispered. “That doesn’t erase anyone else’s responsibility. JC still did what he did. He still is who he is. All the little things that have piled up between him and Terra are real. She still wants what she wants.”

“I’m breaking up a relationship,” I said quietly. “I never wanted to-”