Page 179 of Whistle

“Stay where you are!” a loud voice boomed over some sort of microphone. “Help is on the way!”

Leaning around Em’s shoulder, I gazed up at the bridge, which was flickering with red and blue light and swarming with emergency responders.

“Looks like someone called the cops,” I said.

He scowled. “Probably the wanker who blasted his horn and made you fall.”

“Hey,” I said, forgetting once more about the outside world. “Lance really died by suicide?”

A haunted look passed through his eyes. “Jumped off that cursed fucking bridge.”

My eyes rounded.

“Never go on that bridge again,” he whispered.

As if him leaping off it hadn’t already meant so much, now it meant even more.

“Never,” I vowed. Then, “Em?”

“Hm?”

Laying my hand on his cheek, I said, “I wasn’t going to jump. I’m not suicidal. I never have been. Not even after Brynne was murdered. I might have been reckless, but I never wanted to die.”

Some of the tension around his eyes softened. “That’s good because I don’t want to live without you.”

“Raise your hand if you can hear me!” someone called from the top of the embankment.

Emmett immediately raised his hand.

“We’re coming down!”

I started to shift beneath him, planning on sitting up, but he caught my chin and held me still. “I meant what I said before. I love you. I’m done hiding it. My job and reputation be damned. It’s you and me now, Goldilocks. I’m all in. All the time.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have found it romantic that this man would give up so much to love me. That it seemed loving me would require it.

But damn, if I didn’t want to roll around in the knowledge that he was willing to give it all up to choose me.

“Everything?” I whispered.

“And then some.”

Two responders appeared, and Em rolled away.

“Him first,” he told them, pointing to me. “I’ll be fine as long as he’s okay.”

42

Coach (Emmett)

You know what happens when you’re brought into the ER and aren’t bleeding or in critical condition?

They shove you in a room to rot.

Don’t get me wrong. I was glad neither of us was dying and luckier than a lottery winner that neither of us was seriously hurt. However, sitting in the ER while wearing nothing but a scratchy hospital gown was the equivalent of parading around in a monkey suit and getting auctioned off.

It sucked.

And I was so getting charged for the tux I rented. Trauma and river water left behind permanent stains.

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