My ex-wife was a lying, cheating, gold-digging slut.

Some might say that statement lacks nuance. That people are complex. They have desires, dreams, histories, motives, loves and hates. There are reasons that people do the things they do, and reducing them to a short phrase is, well, reductive. And that’s all true. Kim was a person as complex as you or I, with her own wants and needs, with a history that informed who she was and who she wanted to be.

It doesn’t change the fact that she was a lying, cheating, gold-digging slut.

When we met in college, I didn’t have any real reason to suspect, other than that she belonged to a particular sorority; that sorority had a reputation as a popular option for women like Kim, who wanted to major in finding a rich husband with a minor in early childhood education. That wasn’t a dealbreaker for me since my mom had been a stay-at-home mom while my dad built a business. I was perfectly content to have a spouse that wanted to do the same.

And, let’s be fair: I was in a fraternity. Admittedly, I was only in that frat because I was a legacy, and my membership in it was one of several preconditions my father had for paying for my college, but I still engaged in at least a limited form of the debauchery that one expects of being a member of a fraternity. I was far from a virgin when Kim and I started dating, and I wasn’t a hypocrite, so her having a past was not an issue for me, either.

I accepted, to an extent, that she wanted to marry me for the stability I could provide, even if I was majoring in computer science instead of business, as my father and most of my frat brothers did. That didn’t make her a gold digger, in my eyes. And, yeah, she’d fucked other guys, but as long as she was faithful to me, so what? Even if she had been a slut at one point, she wasn’t once we were exclusive. 

If you’ve noticed that I’m making a lot of excuses for why I married her, there’s a reason for that. They were the ones I made to myself as I talked myself into getting serious with Kim. Or, more accurately, as our friends and family tried to convince me we were great together, even as a little voice in my head was asking, “Really? Her? She’s nice and all, but...”

When I went home with her for Thanksgiving, after we’d been dating for a semester, I almost heeded that voice and got out. That’s when I met her sister, Cassandra. Kim was, in many ways, the Platonic ideal of a sorority girl: blonde, big tits, perfect makeup, well-dressed, and undeniably sexy in a “girl next door” sort of way. Former cheerleader. Reasonably smart, but taking care to not make a guy feel threatened by it. And, even when she was being critical, it was always said in the most diplomatic way possible.

Her sister was wildly different, Wednesday Addams all grown up and twice as snarky. Bottle black hair, dressed to distress, piercings and tats, pointedly more intelligent than you. She showed nothing but disdain for me, but I didn’t take it personally; she showed nothing but disdain for everyone, including her mother and sister. Their dad had split a few years before, and Cass had gone with him; this was the last of the court-mandated holidays she had to spend with her mom.

After dinner, she was outside smoking a clove when I decided to get a breath of fresh air. She looked at me with all the interest one might show a mildly interesting bug. “Ken.”

“Uh, it’s Jason.”

She rolled her eyes. “My sister is Malibu Barbie; that makes you her latest Ken. Or maybe not. You seem maybe a little smarter and…” She blew smoke out and away from the porch. “…maybe nicer than the previous models.”

“Ah. Thanks?”

She shrugged. “Whatever. Look, you haven’t hit on me yet, which puts you out in front of the other plastic fucks she’s brought home, so I’m going to give you a bit of advice: she’s a slut. She’s cheated on every single fucking boyfriend she’s ever had. Fair warning.” Then, without another word, she flicked the cigarette into the yard and wandered back in.

Later, Kim and I talked, and she immediately and completely owned up to it. She had been a slut. She had cheated on her boyfriends, but Cassandra hadn’t been around much in a couple of years, and she was angry that Kim took her mom’s side in the divorce. She had changed, really changed, since then, and the breakup of her parents’ marriage and the loss of her sister had been a big catalyst for that. That’s what she told me, at least.

Yes, I ignored Cassandra’s warnings. Yes, my marriage was a disaster. Yes, I’m aware of the irony.

But the thing is, by the time we were married, even Cassandra believed Kim. Cass was two years younger than her sister, but, like I said, way smarter. AP courses in high school, testing out of prerequisites, and a course load that would crush a normal person meant that she graduated only a semester after we did. My frat connections had found me a decent dev gig at a security firm; Cassandra’s connection with me found her an accounting job there.

The three of us spent a decent amount of time together, and when the wedding rolled around, Cass was all smiles, just like I was. She and Kim had reconnected, Kim seemed every bit reformed and the loving, blushing bride I thought I wanted, and I had a new friend at work that I could be nerdy with at lunch. 

Because of a trust my mom had set up for me before she passed away, I had a modest house to live in and a small stipend. These, along with my salary, allowed Kim to be a housewife even before we had kids, which meant I was greeted most nights by a clean home, a nice meal, and a sexy wife in barely-there lingerie. Life seemed great.

Then things got weird. Kim got weird.

Six months in, she suddenly really wanted to get started on kids. I wanted kids eventually, but we had both agreed to leave it for a few years, so that we could have the fun of being newlyweds for a while. Her fervor for starting immediately was bizarre, like she was afflicted by a sudden onset case of baby fever. 

I held firm, and she relented, or so I thought. But then I found out that she hadn’t been getting her birth control pills refilled. We rowed about that, and I insisted on using condoms, which chilled our bedroom for a week or so. The condoms still pissed her off, but she eventually settled down. 

Something just wasn’t right, though. Kim was acting completely out of character from how she had previously; she’d never, as far as I knew, lied to me about anything, and certainly not anything as big as birth control. The little voice started to whisper quietly again, and I was beginning to think I’d made a mistake marrying her.

She was partying more, too, a lot more, and going by herself if I couldn’t make it. This coincided with a stretch of crunch time at my work, so I didn’t initially worry too much. I didn’t want her to be bored and resentful, and I knew she had an active social life both before and after we got together. She was still affectionate with me, and she invited me along, so I wasn’t worried that there was something untoward going on.

But then I had lunch with Cassandra one day; she had been traveling, first for training and then for an on-site client audit, and we hadn’t gotten to hang out since Kim had gone off the rails. She could tell I was troubled. As I related the events of the previous few weeks, her expression grew grimmer and grimmer.

Finally, she sighed, “Ahhh, shit.”

“What?”

Cass pinched the bridge of her nose, briefly displacing her glasses. “My mother. She’s acting like my mother.” Seeing the confusion on my face, she continued. “Kim’s always wanted to be like Mom, for some fucking reason I could never comprehend. Mom basically had nothing to offer the world besides being pretty and a decent cook, and she was so worried that Dad would leave that she got pregnant ASAFP. 

“Then, once he was stuck, she cheated on him; or maybe vice versa, maybe she cheated on dad and got pregnant, then convinced him Kim was his. I’ve wondered before if she was actually my sister, and I think Dad did, too, but he never really wanted to know, you know?”

I nodded unhappily. “So you think she’s, what, trying to get knocked up so I won’t leave?”

“Yeah. And maybe– fuck, I hate to say this, because I really thought she’d changed– maybe cheating on you since you’re not giving her what she wants. Then she’ll force an oops with the condom, or maybe sabotage one so it breaks, or whatever.”

My appetite gone, I shoved my food away. “Well, that’s fucking great. So you think she’s just following your mom’s playbook?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. I mean, maybe not; maybe she just wants to have a kid with you. She really does seem to love you; I’ve never seen her act like this with anyone else, the way she dotes on you. And maybe her going out to parties is just her blowing off steam. I hope that’s all it is. But… I dunno. Sabotaging her birth control? And going out to parties solo like she’s still some single college chick?”

“She invites me along, though.”

Cassandra’s expression was the definition of dubious. “Yeah, but she knows you have to work, too.” 

My phone pinged. “Hang on. It’s her, and… yup, she’s going to a party tonight. Invited me along.”

Cass leaned forward to look. “Ask her where it’s going to be.”

We waited a moment, and Kim responded with an address. Then, You’re not going to be able to make it, right?

The two of us chewed on that for a moment before I spoke. “Does… does that sound like she’s hoping I can’t make it?”

My sister-in-law scratched the back of her neck, unintentionally dragging her collar open a little to show a hint of the tattoos under her shirt. “Maybe. I dunno, I’m not sure. This is why I hate texting.” I’m pretty sure Cass would have a rotary phone on a landline if she could justify it; she loved that kind of archaic stuff. “Can you swing missing work tonight? Back out of crunch?”

I thought for a moment. “Maybe. But going to the party with her won’t tell me anything.”

“Yeah, but going to the party when she thinks you aren’t going to be there might.”

And so I texted Kim that I was still working crunch; it was both the truth and a misdirection. I was still working crunch, but I was also going to sneak out of work a little early and make it up by coming in early the next day. That was the plan, anyway.

But then I went to the party. It was a raucous affair, and so was the thing that Kim was engaged in when I found her. She’d gone upstairs with a guy that could have been a carbon copy of me; I knew she had a type, and the dude pumping away into my cheating wife’s pussy fit it to a T. I got my phone out, took a few pictures and a short video, and then… nothing. 

A part of me felt like I should try to beat the guy up, or shout at Kim, or even cry and throw up, but I felt almost nothing. It’s not like I was stunned or overwhelmed, either. I felt some irritation, and a little disappointment, but none of the extreme reactions you hear about, no fury or depression or even nausea. Just a bit sad.

And that’s when it hit me: I don’t think I’d ever actually been in love with Kim. I cared for her, was deeply, deeply in lust with her, but love? No. I married her for a lot of reasons, but they were frankly really dumb ones, and I hadn’t fully realized it until then. 

She was conventionally beautiful, seemed like she’d be a great wife, good in bed, and hung on my every word. She was exactly the type of wife a frat bro should go to college looking for; a beautiful, reasonably smart future mother could be replaced when she got a little too old. And she was exactly wrong for me. 

My father had told me she was perfect. My brothers, both fraternal and biological, had told me she was perfect. Her sorority sisters and her mother said we were perfect together. And Kim did everything she could to convince me we were. But we weren’t, and I, for the first time, realized how much I’d intentionally muted the little voice in my head, the one that said, “This is neither the life nor the woman for you.” 

I was a nerd, a fit, athletic one, but a nerd, nonetheless. I always had been, and I was happy that way. I wanted to major in history, for God’s sake, and teach, but I took the easy path of not arguing with my dad so I could get my college paid for. Then I joined his frat, which I didn’t want to do; I’d never liked fraternities, either conceptually or their typical membership. 

I took CS instead of business like Dad really wanted, but that was still another compromise that made me closer to who he wanted me to be, rather than who I was. And then I married someone who was like one of his trophy wives, someone he would have been happy with instead of me because I had surrounded myself with people who thought like him instead of me. 

I’d lost myself in college instead of finding myself.

I’m not trying to run my father down, but he’s not me, and I’m not him. I respect him, and I love him, but I don’t want to be him. I’m a lot more like my mom, but I’d always thought that maybe dad had regretted marrying her and decided to course correct later in life. I guess I’d become just like him after all.

I felt disgusted, but less about Kim’s cheating and more about my lack of a spine. What the fuck had I let myself get turned into? The fact that I was sadder and angrier about that than her infidelity told me everything I needed to know.

I didn’t raise a scene at the party. It just didn’t matter enough to bother. I texted her the pictures I’d taken, that we were getting a divorce, to not come home, and that I’d make arrangements so that she could pick up her stuff. Then I went home, moved her things into the guest bedroom– because I was almost certain she’d ignore the directive to not come home– and locked the door to my room before falling, fairly quickly, into a restful sleep. For the first time in a long time, I felt unequivocally like I was moving my life in the right direction.

That lasted a couple of hours before Kim was banging on the bedroom door, begging to be let in, crying, pleading to be given another chance. I just told her to go get some sleep, and we’d talk in the morning; I’m pretty sure she laid down next to my bedroom door in the hallway and slept there.

The next morning, I sat her down at the kitchen table, and we talked.

“We’re getting a divorce, Kim. That’s going to happen, no matter what.”

Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. “No! I’m sorry, Jason, I’m so sorry, but we can make it work! I’ll do anything to make it work!”

I shook my head. “It’s not… Your cheating made me realize there was a problem, but the cheating isn’t the reason we’re getting a divorce. We never should have gotten married, Kim. I’m not in love with you.”

Kim looked at me with a sad, sympathetic expression. “Oh, Jase, I’m so sorry. I hurt you so badly, honey, but you don’t need to lie. I know you love me, and I love you. We’ll get through this, baby.”

“No, Kim. No. It’s… I’m being honest. It’s not about you cheating; it’s that I don’t want to be married to you. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”

As if talking to a particularly petulant child, she said, “Baby, I know you’re hurt, but–”

“No, Kim! I’m not, and that’s part of the problem! I just want you gone!”

She crossed her arms, defiant. “Well, I’m not going. We can’t get through this if we’re not together. I’m your wife, and I’m going to stay. We’re going to make this marriage work, Jason.”

So. That’s why I got a restraining order against my wife. Or, at least, the trust got a restraining order against her, to keep her off the premises of my house. The trust’s house. Whatever. She cleared out her stuff a few days later, while I wasn’t there, but a sheriff’s deputy was. I couldn’t get a restraining order against her myself because she hadn’t actually threatened me, and the judge didn’t believe she was a danger to me.

That was sort of accurate. Kim wasn’t a physical threat to me, but she Just. Would. Not. Give. Up. It was like the Terminator as a chick flick. She was living with a sorority sister, and she had nothing but time on her hands. Within a few days, she was banned from my work, then the parking lot of my work. Then, my favorite coffee shop. My gym. Local game store. I kept thinking of that line from Pulp Fiction, that if I went to Indochina, Kim would pop out of a bowl of rice to beg me to take her back.

The texts and calls were endless until I blocked her. None of them were angry, just pleading, even after the restraining order. When I tried to have her served at her friend’s house, she fled out the back. It took four attempts to finally get the papers into her hands. 

Then the calls from other numbers started; I don’t know how she learned about IP and phone number spoofing, but it was a tossup whether a junk call would be a message about my car’s warranty expiring or my wife insisting we just needed to sit down and work things out.

She was relentless. I had lunch with Cass and asked her for suggestions, insight, advice, and anything to get her sister to just accept the divorce and go away.

“I have no fucking clue. She’s never done this before.”

I laughed mirthlessly. “Oh, that’s just great.”

“Sorry, man. I have no idea–” Cass paused, then slowly said, “Welll… wait, I have a couple of ideas, actually.”

“Do tell.”

She took a sip of her coffee. “The first is that she does love you, actually loves you, and she just won’t give up because of that. She’s not used to hearing ‘no’ from guys; I remember some of them trying to stay with her even after she cheated. I don’t think she’s ever really been on this end of things, where she’s not ready for the relationship to end. 

“So, yeah, maybe she just can’t give you up. That’s possible; I mean, you are really–” She stopped and cleared her throat, then took another sip. “I’d believe it. She’s never had a relationship as long as this one, and maybe she either just can’t say ‘quit,’ or she’s head over heels about you.”

“Ooorrr?”

Her tongue piercing clicked against her teeth as she thought. “Do you have a prenup with her?”

“Yeah. The details are a little complicated because of the trust, but as of right now, I think she’ll get a few thousand. A little spousal support? Less because she cheated, though.”

“Mmm. Yeah, there could definitely be something there. I’d need to look at it to be sure, though. Do you have a copy of it?”

“Not with me, obviously. At the house, I think.”

Cass smiled. “Well, I guess you’re making me dinner, then.”

Cassandra showed up at six, still dressed in her corporate goth outfit: mostly black with a white shirt, but something subdued enough to pass for the office. Her makeup was similarly understated– for her, at least– and her long black hair was tied in a ponytail to keep it out of the way.

I made dinner only in the sense that I called the Chinese place and put the dishes out. She poured the wine, and we talked over the meal.

“I spoke with Kim today after lunch.” She swirled the wine in her glass. “I don’t think she’s going to give up. I asked why she cheated, and I think she’s kind of compartmentalized it. It was a ‘bad thing’ that she did, but she’s ‘very sorry,’ in her words, and she’s willing to do anything to get you back. She asked me to talk to you about it, of course. I told her we had been talking about the divorce, but I kind of skirted around the fact that I haven’t exactly been trying to get you two back together.”

I chuckled, but that raised a question in my mind. “Why? Why haven’t you been? She’s your sister.”

Cass took a big gulp of her wine. “Because you deserve better, Jason. Not just the cheating; I honestly don’t know what the hell you ever saw in her.”

“That’s fair, I suppose. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure she…” I was about to say that she’d have made a good wife for someone, but she’d cheated on me. Then I almost said that she had good qualities, but other than being hot, socially adept, and fun in bed, I was having trouble listing them.

Cassandra laughed as my mouth opened and closed. “Yeah, my point.” She looked at her glass. “I don’t like saying that. There was a time… honestly, I loved her. I still do, sort of; she’s my sister, y’know? But when she went with Mom after the divorce. I lost a lot of respect for her when she did that, and then it plummeted as I saw that she treated guys like Mom did. Like she just wanted to be Mom’s little Mini-Me.

“And I look at what Mom did to Dad and what Kim tried to do to you, and I just get pissed off. You’re both good men, and neither of you deserved to be cheated on like that. I’m just glad you were able to get out before she really got her hooks into you.”

I gave her a warm smile. “Thanks, Cass. That means a lot. I feel like a real ass for letting it get so far, but… I dunno. She shouldn’t have cheated on me, but we shouldn’t have been together in the first place.”

Her voice was kind as she reassured me, “That’s just how she is. How Mom was, too, according to Dad. She’s good at making a guy think they’re the center of her world.” She put her wine glass down and watched me closely. “Let’s see if this sounds familiar: you mentioned something that you liked when you were dating, and she didn’t seem to know much about it then, but she listened quietly as you talked. And then, within a couple of weeks, she could hold a reasonable but shallow conversation on it. And she did that over and over again, right?”

With a slow nod, I agreed, “Yeah. But, I mean, I do that, too. Try to learn about the things a girlfriend likes if I don’t already know something about them.”

“Yeah, but why do you do it? Because it’s something they care about, and you care about them, right? You want to learn about a thing that they like because they like it, and you want to understand them better. And maybe you learn enough about it to find out that you like it, too.” 

She shook her head. “When we were younger, Kim did it because she wanted to keep a guy’s attention. I’ve never once seen her actually give a shit about anything she’s learned longer than it was necessary to convince a guy that she was taking an interest in it. It’s never been genuine, as far as I can tell. I had hoped she’d changed, but I guess not.”

As we ate, I thought back through my relationship with Kim, and I definitely saw some things that, in retrospect, should have raised red flags. Would have, if I hadn’t been listening to the people around me. Of course, now I was listening to Cass, but she’d never presented herself as anything but what she was; at least, I didn’t think she had. 

I thought Cassandra might have a crush on me, and I kept that in mind as I looked back at how she and I had interacted, but it never seemed to be the primary reason for how she treated me or talked to me. She could be snarky or sweet, standoffish or friendly, but I never felt like she was steering me towards her own ends. 

Even when things were at their best with Kim, I felt like she was hiding something; I didn’t think she was hiding anything big back then, but the sense was always there. A lot of the other girls in her sorority were like that, too, and the frat boys just kind of put up with it for various reasons, most of them involving naked sorority girls. I went along to get along. I wasn’t doing that anymore; I needed to trust my own judgment again, and that was going to start with Cass. I trusted her, too.

After dinner, we sat with the prenup, and she made little “hmm” and “huh noises as she read. Finally, she made a little triumphant noise. “Child support!”

“You think she’s trying to get child support out of me?”

“Yeah. I mean, if she’s being conniving and not just trying to get back with you, that could be why the sudden drive for babies.” She pointed to a bunch of various clauses. “You’ve got stuff in here for spousal support, the items in the trust, infidelity clauses, a bunch of things. But there’s nothing in here about child support. 

“I’m not a lawyer, but even with infidelity, I bet she could claim to be the primary caregiver and get you on the hook for a pretty hefty chunk. And that wouldn’t go away if she remarried.” She smiled at me. “And you’re a decent guy. I imagine, if you hadn’t caught her cheating, you would give the mother of your child a little more wiggle room if she decided she wanted a no-fault divorce later.” 

I sighed. “I swear to God. I just want to be done with this bullshit.”

“Buck up, Jason. She can only drag her feet for so long.”

That was true, but “so long” turned out to be much longer than I’d anticipated. She would request meetings and fail to show up. She insisted on counseling, then dithered on the counselor; the judge we were assigned was big on reconciliation, so she gave Kim leniency there. I had no idea where she was getting the money to pay for the lawyer at first, but Cass suggested that maybe she was taking it out in trade.

Kim kept amping up the harassment, too. First, she got other people involved. Our friends texted me and dropped by. Her family did, too. Kim’s sorority sisters really got into it, with a fair number even suggesting that if I got back with her, they would be happy to help me get even first, with Kim’s approval. And my frat brothers, some of them, came by unannounced; most were on her side, but a few let me know that she’d tried to seduce them so that they’d try to bring me back into the fold. I guess there was still some fraternal solidarity left out there.

I switched phone numbers and only gave the new number out to trusted folks, so that helped a little, but that still left in-person visits. I knew it was just a matter of biding my time, but I was so fucking sick of hearing her name that I wanted to scream.

Through it all, I had a few loyal companions: a handful of folks from high school and college, my brothers, my father, and Cass. It would have been easy for her to side with Kim or even to just step aside, but instead, our friendship grew over the months of my divorce. She understood my frustration; I think hers might have been even greater than mine in some ways, due to her disappointment in her sister.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t start to have feelings for Cassandra. She was sarcastic as hell, and I was often on the receiving end of her wit, but it never felt mean-spirited. I started to go over to her place to escape the Disciples of Kim, who kept knocking on my door and asking if I’d heard the good word about reconciliation.

Cass was a study in contrasts. She was a true blue– or black, I suppose– goth, but she had some pretty old-fashioned notions on fidelity and propriety. During a long, drunken conversation on the subject, I learned that she was only interested in long-term relationships. She’d had two boyfriends, and a disastrous one-night stand in between that convinced her that they weren’t for her. As she had put it right before passing out, “I’m kinky as fuck, but I’m not a slut. Nothing against sluts, though, ‘cause some of my best friends are sluts.”

She dragged me out to go clubbing sometimes, trying to get me both out of the house and out of my head, and I’d seen her in everything from Victorian finery to skintight PVC. But she rarely bared actual skin; the most immodest thing I saw her wear was a one-piece swimsuit when we went swimming at a nighttime pool party. She was heavily tattooed, all her own designs, with full sleeves and thigh pieces. They were beautiful, intricate works of art that I loved to look at. 

Her torso was heavily inked as well, but I never got to see much of it. When I asked about those pieces, she got a little shy. “That’s… I don’t want to be a famous artist or anything. I just want to make my art and make a living as an accountant so that I don’t have to worry about starving. And some of my stuff, well, I don’t mind if people see it. That’s the stuff on my arms or legs or hanging on my walls. 

“But the other…” She smiled bashfully. “I don’t want to share them with just anyone. They’re for the people that I want to really know me, all of me.” Then she laughed. “Well, that and my tattoo artist. Can’t avoid that, really.”

When I was with her, I enjoyed my life again, really enjoyed it in a way I hadn’t in a while. She had done in college what I should have, exploring who she was and who she wanted to be, trying different things on and letting them go when they didn’t work, until she got herself on steady footing. I was envious of that, even if it had left her with a pretty sizable amount of student loan debt. 

We were sitting on her couch one night, watching a movie, when I realized that we weren’t just sitting together, or even sitting close to each other. We were cuddling. I don’t know how it happened, but she was leaned against me, her head resting on my chest and my arm around her, and I felt really, truly, completely content for the first time since this whole thing had begun.

I stiffened for a moment, worrying that I was making a mistake. I didn’t want to get into some kind of rebound thing with Cass; I really did like her. I might have even been falling in love with her. But I was still a little gun-shy about who I really was and who I wanted to be, and I didn’t want to fuck anything up, including our friendship. 

She squished up against me, hugged me tight, and patted my leg, as if she knew what I was thinking and was trying to reassure me. Telling me without speaking that it would be what it would be, and we’d be fine either way. I settled again, kissed the top of her head affectionately, and we ended up falling asleep there together. It was the best sleep I’d had in half a year, even if I did have a crick in my neck the next morning.

Things were a little lowkey between us over the next week; our lunches were still pleasant, and we were still friendly, but I think she was waiting for me to make a real move. 

And then my divorce finally came through. All the stall tactics that Kim had tried couldn’t entirely slow the inexorable crushing advance of the court system. I had a paper in my hand that said I was free, and I wanted to celebrate.

An opportunity presented itself that weekend: an invitation from a friend from college to a party. I was concerned at first, but neither he nor his girlfriend had been part of the Campus Crusade for Kim, so I tentatively told him I was going to go and asked if I could bring a plus one.

“So… a date?” Cass’s mouth quirked up when I asked her.

I took a deep breath and said, “Yes. If you want. I don’t want to put any pressure on you or screw things up between us or mmmf!” Her arms went around my neck, and her lips on mine in a sweet, long, close-mouthed kiss.

“Pick me up at 8?”