Page 6 of Love Me Fearless

I pull the blanket up to my chest. “Night.”

After a soft sigh, it goes silent from the loft.

I lay there staring at the ceiling, regretting that I didn’t tell Ava about the accident, or about what happened to my teammate and close friend Luke. Maybe it’s still too raw. Or maybe I don’t want to admit that I’m rattled. Until the accident, I probably believed both of us were invincible.

Above me in the loft, Ava sighs softly in sleep.

Fuck, she gets prettier every time I see her. Stronger, too, if that’s even possible. I used to worry that her going to a big city like San Francisco for medical school would change her somehow. Harden the soft edges I love so much. The ones I suspect she only shares with me. I worried too that we’d grow distant. That she’d pull away, like plenty of people have. My job makes it easy for people to stop caring.

But we’ve grown closer. Maybe it’s our Open When letters I carry with me when I’m downrange, or the little care packages she sends with a note telling me about the intense days of clinics and her tough instructors and her heartbreak when patients die.

Or maybe it’s because of our fight. Last year, someone broke into theapartment Ava shares with two other med students. Though nothing was taken and no one was hurt, I went crazy with worry that someone could hurt her. I begged her to get a security system, something simple, but she refused. Said she could take care of herself. But I couldn’t let it go.

So I did something stupid. I asked our mutual friend from high school, Jeremy Fisher, stationed at Travis Air Force Base in the Bay Area, to keep an eye on her. And good thing I did because a month later, a UCSF pharmacy student who lives only a few blocks from Ava went missing.

When Ava found out about Jeremy, she was furious. Told me to back off.You do not get to control my life from thousands of miles away!I admitted to her that I couldn’t stay committed to the work I do unless I knew she’s safe.

So we compromised. I told Jeremy to stand down, and she got an alarm system. Not exactly a win-win, but a solid truce.

By 4:00,my body clock, still set to Florida time, is going berserk. To keep from waking Ava, I close my eyes and rehearse the sequence for setting up an emergency rescue anchor, one meticulous step after another, over and over, like a meditation. It buys me another forty minutes.

When I open my eyes again, Ava is gazing down at me from the edge of the loft.

I wince. “Did I wake you?”

She shakes her head, making her long dark hair fall forward, framing her face. “I remembered the answer to a test question.”

I don’t like that her test worries are robbing her of sleep. Maybe I’ll push her extra hard on our run this morning to help her let this go. “Did you get it right?”

Her sly smile lights up her honey-brown eyes. “I did. Biosynthesis of nucleotides.”

No idea what the fuck this means, but I give her a fist rally. “Atta girl.”

She laughs. “What got you up so early?”

“The anticipation of kicking your ass on this run.” While true, it’s not the whole truth, which definitely includes seeing her spectacular ass in running shorts.

“Someone woke up salty,” she says.

And horny. I force a deep breath. “Meet you outside in five,” I say, and peel back the blankets.

We follow the paved path past the other cabins at an easy jog, the sunrise just a ribbon of yellow kissing the jagged peaks of the Bitterroot Mountains. Ava’s strides lengthen once we reach the dirt. I settle at her pace for now.

“How’s your dad?” Ava asks over the huffing of our breaths and the soft tap of our sneakers on the soft ground.

“He’s taking Gabby and the kids to Disney World in a couple of weeks.”

“Are you going to see him?”

Out on the dark lake, small circles ripple outward from the fish below snapping up bugs for breakfast.

“Maybe.” I hate the hope edging into my voice. Dad’s busy with his family and his duties. And I’ll be busy with deployment prep.

“Did he make it to your Mountain Rescue Graduation ceremony?” she asks.

“No. Something came up.”

Ava’s quiet for a moment, but I can practically hear her thoughts churning.

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