Page 4 of Love Me Reckless

“I know,” he replies.

I fight my annoyance—it’s not his fault. I just wish I could be anonymous every now and again. To have the opportunity to meet someone new who doesn’t already know everything about me.

“Pretty. Does it mean something?” he asks.

The bar is empty but for a few servers and the bartender, all of them busy cleaning up.

“My grandma told me it’s the sound a rainbird makes.”

A guest from Zach’s party pops his head in from the deck. He’stall, with broad shoulders and quick eyes, like he sees everything. Hunter, I think. “Hey, there you are.”

“Is Cooper still here?” Sawyer asks him. “We have a splinter emergency.”

“It’s not an emergency,” I protest.

Sawyer glances back to scowl at me. “You’re in pain. It qualifies.”

Hunter jerks his chin toward the deck. “Out here.”

Sawyer hitches me up a little higher on his waist and gently cradles my thighs. The callouses on his palms feel rough on my skin. Is that what’s making my breaths skitter in my throat? Or is it being the focus of his attention like this?

Outside, the sun makes me squint. I’m sure I’ll get a lecture later about too much sun making my cheeks blotchy and my freckles explode, but that’s a problem for another day.

At least Birch isn’t pestering me to leave. Maybe he got tired of waiting and left without me. I should probably feel dishonored or something.

From the grass where the remaining guests are playing football comes another tall guy. A woman with a beautiful flowering vine tattoo trailing down her shoulder joins him—his wife, if I remember right—with a first aid pouch tucked under her arm.

Sawyer lowers me to the edge of a picnic table. When he releases my thighs, a chill coils up my belly.

I lift my foot for Cooper, who cradles it in both of his hands and examines it. “You get this from the deck?”

When he probes around it, I jolt. “My shoes were killing me.” Surely I’ll be scolded for ditching my heels too. Just add it to the list.

“I’ll get water,” Sarah says and hurries off.

Cooper unzips the little kit and slides on a pair of blue latex gloves, then eyes me with a kind gaze. “It’s gonna hurt a little bit. ‘Kay?”

I lock eyes with him and tighten my grip on the edge of the table.

“Hey. You got this,” Sawyer says, his steady gaze drawing my attention. In the sunshine, his eyes are the color of rich, darkcoffee, flecked with copper. He settles next to me at the edge of the table and places my hand on his thigh. “Squeeze this instead. Guaranteed no splinters.”

“We don’t need any more of those today,” Cooper says, focused on my foot.

“Ow!” I squeeze Sawyer’s thigh. Hard.

“Damn. Did I miss you tap dancing barefoot? This sucker’sinthere.”

Under my skin, the splinter wiggles. I can tell Cooper’s got a hold of it with the tweezers.

“Big breath,” Cooper says.

I gulp in and Cooper tugs. My exhale and pitiful cry come out together, with my hand gripping Sawyer’s thigh like a vice.

Cooper holds up a half-inch chunk of the deck, still pinched in the tweezers. “Got it.”

“All of it?” I fight the woozy emptiness swirling inside my head.

Cooper squints again, adding pressure to the ball of my foot to make it flex. The hot pinch from the splinter is gone. “Looks like it.”

---