Page 69 of Follow Your Bliss

He squeezed me tighter and settled in closer. “I won’t leave you. I got you. Let’s rest, right here. You and me.” He rubbed my back and kissed my head. “I’ve got you. Sometimes you just need a good cry and a good nap, and the Xanax ought to help you relax. I’ve taken it before, too. Does it make you sleepy, like it used to make me?”

I nodded against his chest and breathed through the anxiety. It felt like he was holding me together. I pulled him tighter. He was right. This was an anxiety attack. No matter how many I’ve had, it was still hard to recognize them when they came.

Long minutes went by. After a while, my heart stopped banging out of my chest. My viselike grip on him relaxed. My meds and his warm, steady presence topped out the fight-or-flight chemicals surging in my body, and now they were subsiding. Birds chirped, Jason’s wind chimes sang gently from the courtyard. Somewhere in the distance, somebody’s lawn equipment whirred. The dreamy afternoon sun through the stained-glass windows soothed me, but not as much as Jason holding me close and rubbing my back. I snuggled against him. Every so often he murmured, “I got you,” and pressed a kiss to the top of my head, his breathing even and soft.

The spicy scent of tacos woke me. I was still on the sofa under a blanket, but Jason was gone. The church lights were low, dreamlike, and the world outside the stained-glass windows was dark. I yawned, stretched, and went to find the tacos.

The dining table was set for two with a bowl of chips and salsa sitting beside a covered dish of steaming taco meat and a whole bowl of shredded cheese. “Oh, hell yeah.” I scooped a heaping spoon of shredded cheese onto my plate. Shoveling it into my mouth, I sat down then dipped a chip in the salsa.

The door opened, and Jason came in with a platter of hard taco shells. “You’re up! I was just warming these.” He set them on a trivet on the table and leaned in to place a kiss on my cheek.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and wouldn’t let go. “Thank you. You’re the best.”

“You’re very welcome.” He squeezed me back and dropped into the seat beside me at the head of the table. “How’re you feeling?”

“So much better.” I scooped meat into a shell, sprinkled a generous amount of shredded cheese on top, and crunched off the edge of it. “Mmmm. Rrr a eely gook cook,” I said around my food.

“Thank you. I’m glad the groceries are starting to open back up.” He slid his hand onto my leg and ate with his other, as if needing to touch me.

I took a long sip of my Diet Coke, eyeing him up. He was minding his own business. Eating his tacos. As if he hadn’t talked me down from a cliff before making me a home cooked meal. As if he wasn’t the first guy to be so caring to me. Definitely the first one to be so fucking beautiful. I wanted to draw him. That jawline, those long lashes.

He caught me watching him and smiled. “What?”

“You’re really good at this boyfriend thing.”

His eyebrows raised, and his face lit up. “Boyfriend?”

My heart thudded. The word was bigger with Jason, but I didn’t want to take it back, even with Big Brother StudFinders watching. “Yeah.” I bit my lip. “Unless you’re not there.”

“Oh, I’vebeenthere.” He slipped his hand into mine and halfway stood to kiss my cheek with that beautiful smile. “I’m just excited to hear you say it.”

What did I say now? I stuffed my mouth with another huge bite of taco to take speech off the table. I was…I was living with myboyfriend. This was new territory, a Level Two I hadn’t explored yet. A level I’d never even considered. Was I still disoriented from my nap, or did this just kind of sneak up on me?

Maybe I’d change the subject. “What have you been up to while I was napping?”

“I wanted to stay close by, so I caught up on all my emails and posts I’ve been avoiding since I got home. I had three requests for custom furniture quotes waiting for me, which I was pretty excited about. And Faduma sent the StudFinders contract. I let her know I got it, but that I was dealing with hurricane damage and I’d have to get back to her. I still don’t know what I’m going to tell her.”

“Does it read like you expected?”

“Yeah. They don’t want it to look like I’m dating anyone for the duration.”

“I still think you should take it.” We’d been over and over it for the past several days. But I knew he’d regret not taking it, even if I didn’t like the idea of hiding our relationship.

“Maybe,” he said. It was how that conversation had been ending, every time.

We kept eating, chatting about my progress on the dresses and his ever-expanding to-do list of custom furniture, social media responsibilities, and the merch orders he was behind on. I offered to help him pack them up and bring them to the post office. Getting out of the house sometimes might do me some good.

My phone buzzed on the other side of the table where I’d plugged it in earlier.

“It’s been doing that a lot,” he said. “You might want to check it.”

When I’d downed my last taco, I unplugged my phone and pulled it to me. Missed calls and texts from Heather, Abby, and a number I didn’t recognize. I tapped into Heather’s text first.

Instant heartburn. “Oh my God.” I clapped my hand to my mouth.

“What’s wrong?”

I couldn’t take in enough air. Tears sprang to my eyes, and before the worry on Jason’s face could reach critical mass, I handed him my phone. Stared at him with my hands over my mouth as he read it, his eyes and mouth going wide.

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