Page 57 of Johnathan

“What do you mean? What did she say to you?”

“No, no. I’m not explaining it right. She cut her hand when we were talking. She’s not good with?—”

“Blood.”

“Right,” she nodded. “And so she freaked out a little bit. Nothing really bad, she just asked me to call Sebastian for her. And he came running. I was just stuck standing there thinking about how it had felt when Marco…”

Lord. Her dinner suddenly felt like it was going to come up again, her hand rubbing small circles on her belly trying to calm the nausea. John didn’t say anything. He simply shifted his body, pulling her into the space between his legs.

Abby settled back against his chest. His warmth surrounded her as his arms pulled her into a hug, and she turned her face, burrowing deeper into his chest.

“I’m so sorry, Abby. I shouldn’t have left.”

“I just kept feeling the way it felt to have his knife slide through my skin. It’s stupid. I survived. Aside from an ugly scar, I’m perfectly fine.”

“Honey, I don’t think you’re perfectly fine. And I’d be shocked to shit if you were after going through what you did.”

“It didn’t happen to you, I know, but you were so calm that night. You saw it happen. You held my life in your hands and you saved me.”

She watched his throat bob as he swallowed.

“You don’t think that night still affects me? Of course it does. I still think about how things would have been better if I’d taken the shot. If I hadn’t hesitated, maybe he wouldn’t have had a chance to get the knife close enough to cut you. There’s a lot of guilt that I have about how I handled it all.”

“John. You saved me. In the end, that’s all that matters.”

“It’s not all that matters. You’re still in pain. You’re hurting and having to put on a happy mask every day to make sure no one around you thinks anything is wrong. But that’s not fair to you, Abby. I’m responsible for what happened to you. I don’t want you wearing that mask around me. I want you to call methe minute you start having those thoughts. Okay? I need you to.”

“Because you feel guilty?” She pushed away from his chest. “Is that what this is? All these little moments? It’s because you feel guilty?”

“Fuck, no.” John pulled his hand down his face and sighed. “Shit. I’m not interested in you because I feel guilty about what happened. If I had met you any other way, I would have asked you out immediately.”

Lightning flashed in the distance.

“You don’t think that storm is going to?—”

A crack of thunder shook the hill where they sat and cut off her question. They both jumped up, gathering the food and shoving it back into the picnic basket. A drop of rain hit the top of Abby’s head and a second later, the whole sky opened up.

She hurried to grab the picnic blanket and basket, but saw out of the corner of her eye that John wasn’t moving at all. Instead, his face was tilted towards the dark sky, a smile growing across his face.

“What are you doing?” Abby laughed, watching John stand with his arms stretched out towards her. They were both absolutely drenched, and she sent up a prayer of thanks for whoever controlled the weather because John, in his dark wash jeans and tight fitting white shirt, soaked through, had her heart picking up pace.

“Set all that stuff down and come dance with me.”

“What? It’s pouring out! Don’t you want to get back to the truck?”

“What I want is to dance in the rain with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”

She walked towards him, dropping the picnic blanket away from her body.

“You can’t say things like that to me, John Boone. I’ll start falling in love with you.”

“Then everything is going according to plan.” He pulled her in tightly to his body, the warmth radiating off of him soaking into her skin.

There could have been a million cars driving past them, people shouting at one another, an entire symphony of fireworks, and Abby would never have noticed. In that moment, it was just her and John. Just the two of them, holding each other close, dancing to the beat of their hearts, now perfectly in sync with one another.

God, it was so romantic tears started to prick at the corner of her eyes. She didn’t deserve for good things like that to happen to her. She was broken. Scarred. A gorgeous man, with a heart of gold, shouldn’t pick her. But John Boone did. He’d saved her. Over and over again.

“You’re thinking awfully loud there, beautiful.”

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