Page 65 of Blind Luck

It got easier. I wasn’t going to be entering the Olympics any time soon, but maybe I wouldn’t get a concussion. Rusty let go of me, and I might have managed a whole lap on my own if a squawk from the sound system hadn’t sent me skittering. My left foot went one way, my right foot went the other, and I would have done the splits if Rusty hadn’t grabbed me. Did I mention that I couldn’t do the splits without tearing muscles or ligaments or whatever made my legs work?

He lifted me onto my feet, but he’d vastly overestimated my abilities, and I lost my balance again. This was why I liked surfing. Okay, I wasn’t great at it, but at least seawater was more forgiving than ice. Rusty twisted us in midair and took the fall, then let out an “oof” as I landed hard on top of him.

“Shit!” I scrambled to get up and nearly sliced one of his fingers with a blade. “Dammit!”

“Easy, easy.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and held me still. “Don’t panic.”

“But I’m squashing you.”

“I’m good with this position.”

“Huh?” I said. Then I realised what I was sitting on and gasped.

“Please don’t slap me for that.”

“I…I…”

The thought of slapping him hadn’t entered my mind, mainly because my brain was frozen. But when Rusty ran his hands up my back, I tipped forward and found my lips inches from his, my hands braced on his shoulders.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whispered.

“Two options come to mind. You can call me an asshole, or you can kiss me.”

What?He wanted me to kiss him? But…but… Rusty Bolt was handsome and rich and popular and way out of my league. And he was also watching me with the softest smile. If I kissed him, I’d regret it. In a week, perhaps two, he’d leave for Fresno, and I’d be left with an unruly bunch of feelings I had no clue what to do with. But if I didn’t kiss him, I’d regret that too.

I leaned forward and brushed my lips across his, breathing hard.

“Testing, testing.”

The public address system startled me again, but Rusty just tangled his hands in my hair and kissed me properly. And I realised that although I’d been kissed before, I’d never beenkissed. Not with heat fizzing through my veins and a desperate need for more, more, more. Only the buzzing of my phone and someone applauding from the edge of the ice broke me out of Rusty’s spell.

His gaze met mine, his smile wider than before. “Was that the tracking app?”

“What?”

“The tracking app—doesn’t it buzz like that when Kelsey leaves work?”

Oh, yeah. Right. What the heck just happened?

Rusty got us both to our feet and flipped Brick the bird. “Asshole,” he muttered. “You okay?”

Absolutely not. I shook my head.

“Fuck. I’m sorry. So fuckin’ sorry. I thought you were into it as much as me.”

“I was,” I hurried to reassure him. “I am, but now everything’s changed, everything between us, I mean, and I need a moment to process.”

“Right, uh… Give me the phone?”

My hands shook as I handed it over. Rusty already had the unlock code from yesterday, and he checked the alert.

“She just left.”

“Dammit.”

“I’m very, very tempted to say ‘fuck this surveillance.’”

So was I, but what if Kelsey met Galaxy Guy again? We weren’t friends or anything but I still felt I should look out for her. Sisterhood and all that. Plus Rusty had been sent to Vegas to ensure his friend’s future happiness, and Silas would surely be miserable if his girlfriend got hit on by a slimeball.

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