Page 16 of Slash & Burn

I slid my hand up to his fingers, closing over them as I gave him an encouraging nod. He held my gaze for a long minute before he finally loosened his grip, his hand coming off the wheel and shaking violently before I wrapped mine around it. His trembles were so strong they radiated up my arm, but I only held him tighter.

“Did something happen?”

A rueful laugh, nothing like his real one, shoved out of him, and he yanked his eyes away. “Nothing good.”

“You’re really making me work for this, Holloway,” I teased, feeling a tiny glimmer of relief when his eyes slashed back to mine.

When he still didn’t offer me anything else to go on, I decided to try a different tactic. “You don’t seem too big on sharing at the moment, so why don’t I show you how it’s done.” I blew out a breath, using his gorgeous blue eyes as a focal point to ground me like my therapist had taught me years ago. “I once had a panic attack in the middle of a school field trip. We were at the museum of science in Washington, D.C., and I was ten feet from the NASA exhibit when I suddenly couldn’t breathe.”

When I paused, Grady rested his head back on his seat, but his eyes were locked on me, his expression open as he took long, slow sips of air.

“I’d only had one other panic attack before, so I didn’t know what the hell was happening. I wanted to scream for help, but then everyone would look at me, and we both know how I feel about that idea.”

He didn’t say anything, but he squeezed the hand I was still holding, and it was the best touch anyone had ever given me. The sensation zinged up my arm and landed squarely in my chest, a warmth bursting there that almost hurt it felt so good.

“So, instead of screaming for help, I slipped to the back of the group as fast as I could. And when everyone else had left that room for the next one, I crawled under a bench.”

Finally, his lips parted and one corner lifted into what you could almost call a smile.

“I stayed there until the rest of the class had seen the whole museum. No one knew where I was. No one even knew how long I’d been missing. I might have been left behind altogether if a custodian hadn’t spotted me. I had to be pried out from under that bench and dragged to the bus. Which, of course, was the worst possible outcome because the closer we got the more I could see everyone staring at me out the windows.”

Grady squeezed my hand again. His brow was heavy, a pair of lines between them as his little half grin flattened back out.

“It was almost enough to make me have another attack,” I laughed, even though it wasn’t really funny. After a second of silence passed, I gave his hand a jostle, leveling him with a pointed glare. “So, don’t try to play a player, okay? I know a freak out when I see one.”

“I’d never try to play you.”

I scoffed at the sincerity in his eyes. “Yeah, cause Joey would have your ass.”

“No,” he said, his voice rough like gravel. “Your brother would have nothing to do with it.”

Everything about this conversation was kicking the butterflies in my stomach into high gear. So, I went with humor to defuse it. “Well. Don’t let him hear you say that. He’d be wildly offended.”

Grady shook his head, his eyes closing for a second before he looked over at me. His cheeks had color again and he looked like he’d finally caught his breath.

“Thank you.”

“Thank me by telling me what’s going on. And don’t tell me it was nothing again, okay? That’s insulting.”

He huffed out a laugh, a real one this time. “Anyone ever tell you your directness is refreshing?”

“Never,” I replied dully.

With one hand still in mine, he scraped his other through his hair, his eyes falling to his lap. “You heard about the thing in Florida last spring?”

My mind filled with a flash of headlines. Grady being called a hero. Something about a swimmer being pulled from the ocean.

“Vaguely.”

His head swiveled toward me, a quizzical look on his face like he wasn’t sure he believed that.

“What? I don’t watch the news much.”

If I told him that I’d blocked his name from my news feed I’d sound like a love-struck teen or a psycho—neither were a good look. So, I kept that fact to myself.

“Yeah, well, good. Anyway, I’m just having some trouble sleeping and stuff after all that.”

“You slept through your alarm,” I muttered, remembering what I’d thought was a lame excuse.

---