Page 30 of Risking it All

“Yes.”

“It’s not possible. We weren’t alone long enough. If we had sex, I’d take my time.”

I choked, and Relic’s mouth tipped up. “I’m kidding.” A beat. “I’m actually not. If given the opportunity, I’d spend all night worshipping your body.”

I sputtered something not intelligible as my face burned with heat. I had never been kissed never mind had anyone talk about worshipping my body. But now that he had said the words, I had images in my head of me and him and his shirt off and his body over mine and a liquid heat rushed through my body.

“Point is, fuck what anybody says.”

Flustered by the images still floating in my brain, I stayed silent and tried to remember why I was upset to begin with.

“That’s not the reason you had a panic attack, is it?” Relic asked like the idea of me hurting over something involving him ticked him off.

Ah, yes, my panic attack. That was a thing that happened before Relic casually mentioned wanting to have sex with me. “No, I’m a wreck because I drove two blocks. Aren’t I the queen of hot messes?”

He lazily slumped in the driver’s seat and held the steering wheel with one hand as if he were the captain of a cruise liner comfortable at sea. “We go to therapy with a person who believes yetis are real and that the Russians are hiding them. I’m sure we haven’t even begun to dig into everyone else’s demons. Whatever category you’re trying to push yourself into, there’s many of us in therapy who share the title.”

I cracked a grin because…Lev. I couldn’t figure him out. “I think Lev’s messing with us.”

“I don’t. I think he’s giving us a small window into his brain. But watch, someday, we’ll find out he’s been right about everything this entire time, and then won’t we look like fools?”

“He could be right about yetis?”

“Why the fuck not?” I loved the mischievous glint in his eyes.

“And that kiwis have feelings?”

“He could be on to something.”

“And that we have alien guardian angels who visit us when we sleep?”

“Someone had to build the pyramids. You think humans were smart enough to pull that off?”

I laughed, he flashed me his pirate smile, and suddenly I didn’t feel so bad anymore.

Chapter eleven

Relic

Lev wore a full-ass fuzzy, overstuffed, shark mascot costume. Even though he had the head of the shark pulled back just enough to see his face, it was still a fucking shark costume. Yet everyone in our therapy group stared at me and Macie as we walked in. Maybe it was because we came into together, her laughing at a stream of bad jokes I had been saying to her like, “What did the fish say when it hit a wall?”

“What?”

“Dam.”

The jokes made her giggle. I liked hearing her laugh, and this standup routine would be here all night as long as she smiled. Because seeing her upset bothered me. I wished it didn’t, but it did. Still—fucking shark costume.

Or everyone could have been gaping because me and Macie were in nearly matching ridiculous outfits of khaki shorts and polos that had the name Bluegrass Mountain stamped on the left-hand corner. Hers was blue, mine a tacky orange, the colorssignifying that I was at the bottom of the mountain, and she was a supervisor.

Of course, Macie Hutchins was a supervisor. She was the type of girl who excelled at all she tried. She ran for President of our freshman class and won. Got shot during a carjacking, almost died, and came back a few months later driving by herself without a damn bit of help. I could tell she was upset she only got a few blocks. Thing was, those blocks took more courage than most people have ever found in themselves in a lifetime.

I sat in my typical seat, Macie hers, but for the first time since we started group, she met my gaze and she looked alive. Color in her cheeks, light in her eyes, a slight Mona Lisa smile like she had a secret with me.

“Are we writing our challenge for the week?” Melanie asked. “I have multiple ones.”

“I’ll give Melanie my time for challenges for the week if it’ll help her,” Lev offered, “and she needs more time. Hers are more interesting than mine.”

I glanced at him. “Really?”

---