Worth the Fall by Caitie Quinn Page B

in…years.”
    I thought back trying to remember the last time I truly felt at ease and couldn’t remember a better time than tonight.
    “Great. Just, you know…checking we didn’t scare you off.” Jenna gave a little laugh as if she were joking, but I could hear the nerves behind it.
    It hadn’t dawned on me that she was serious about trying to find girlfriends. And, with Ben leaving, she was kind of in the same boat…not really, but the end result was still her guy would be gone. Of course he wasn’t a controlling, manipulative, cruel SOB. She was apparently way smarter about this guy thing than I was.
    “Nope. Not scared off. Maybe a bit nervous’ed off at first, but hey. You guys seem relatively harmless.”
    “Well, you haven’t met Dane yet.” She gave a little laugh, wished me good night, and hung up.
    This Dane guy must be something else…and still off limits.  
    Mental Note: No matter how hot Dane is, stay far, far away. Think hoopskirts.  

    ~~*~~
    Last night I dreamt of Max Darby.
    That was truly the last thing I wanted. I didn’t want to be waking up with a smile on my face thinking about the way he handled tough situations with humor, or the deep dimple that sinks into his right cheek each time he smiles, or the fact that he knew how to maneuver around Jenna’s quirks…or him and kittens, darn it.
    The entire dream was about tons of calendars of stupid Officer Darby holding kittens.  
    White kittens. Grey kittens. Sleek kittens. Fluffy kittens. Kittens in little police hats.  
    It was absurd.
    Okay, Subconscious. I get it. He’s a good guy.
    But, not for me. I was not going to fall for a guy like Max Darby. I wanted security and routine and similar tastes and values and hobbies.
    I did not want a cocky cop who seemed to thrive on mocking me.  
    So, Subconscious, stick that in your vault and throw away the key. I had a plan to succeed as an independent woman and no guy, no matter how flat his stomach or how deep his dimple, was going to run this train off the tracks.

    ~~*~~

    So, this was going to be fun.
    Not.
    “Hello?” My mom’s high, stilted voice came over the phone. She was one of those people who even with a cell phone I’d programmed with my name and picture still acted like she didn’t know who was on the other end when she picked up.
    “Hi, Mom. It’s me.” I closed my eyes thinking about the last few days and followed up with, “Kasey.”
    You know—in case she didn’t know me was her only daughter.
    “Kasey. This is a nice surprise.”
    That’s not a bad start.
    Now I just have to break it to her that the guy she thought was perfect, was…not so much.
    My mom and the male gender as a whole were on some very rocky ground. Their relationship had turned a bit sour a few years ago. Ok, a few decades ago. Things were rolling along just fine, my mom not being bitter at all—or so she said—about giving up her potential career as a backup singer to be a wife and mother.
    When I was six, having a perfectly good day in kindergarten (it was my turn to get pushed on the swings and I’d just gotten an underdog so high my shoe flew off) my mom showed up at the school, damp tissue in one hand, the letter from my dad in the other, and dragged me home to explain that I was now fatherless.
    The problem wasn’t so much that he left, since he hadn’t been around a lot as far as my younger self could remember. The problem was more my mother’s perceived reasons for him leaving.  
    My dad was a company man. He’d seen my mother at a club, told her she was pretty and smelled like spring flowers and chased her until she said yes.
    I’ve heard the tale of their marriage more than most girls have heard Cinderella. Beautiful, young, up-and-coming singer marries beneath her only to find out that two worlds colliding don’t make sparks, they just implode. Aged beauty is left on her own to raise daughter while teaching her to never make the same mistakes she made when she herself