Page 30 of Trip Me Up

“Do you want to?” Niall’s voice was low in my ear, his breath tickling my neck. “You don’t have to.”

“Okay.” My voice was a breathy whisper. I cleared my throat. “Okay.”

Pettingill held up his phone. “Ready?”

The way the phone hid half his face rocketed me back. Not to a crowded, well-lit bookstore but to the bedroom in Stephen’s swanky, off-campus apartment. I was a lowly freshman, still trying to figure out what the confident senior, someone even Mother liked, saw in me. So when he’d begged, I’d done a clumsy striptease. The memories were sharp snatches like the looping videos in Natalie’s social media. The too-bright lamp shining on the white sheets and my naked skin. Stephen’s dark hair and one eye behind his phone, snapping picture after picture. His pleas for me to touch myself and my embarrassed head-shake.

But it hadn’t mattered. After, when Jackson had hacked into Stephen’s computer, he hadn’t deleted the photos fast enough. I’d watched over his shoulder and seen them all. And below the row of real nudes, Stephen had Photoshopped my head onto an actress’s body in a still from a porn. Next to the ones I’d let him take, they didn’t have to be realistic to be damning.

“No. No.” I shook my head and backed away until my back hit a display table. “No.”

“Hey.” Niall was there, in front of me, blocking the man’s camera. “Are you okay?”

I stared at the white button on his plaid shirt, gray crossing over darker gray, overlaid with pairs of thin red lines. “I can’t.”

“You can’t take the pictures? Or you can’t do the book talk? I can do it alone if you need to go to the hotel.”

For a second, I fantasized about skipping the reading. About not having to stand up in front of all those people. About retreating to the hotel and hiding under the comforter with Bilbo Baggins. But what would Heidi say if I did? Would Martell side with her or with me? He hadn’t been able to get me out of the tour. If he’d even tried.

“I’ll do the talk. Just—just no photos.”

“Are you sure?”

I dared to look at him then. His green eyes weren’t the strident color of the cover ofMagician in the Machinebut soft and faded like a piece of sea glass. Maybe I’d screw it up. But I had to try. Not just because of what Heidi would do to me if I didn’t but because Niall Flynn thought I could.

“I’ll do it.”

“Good.” He reached toward my shoulder, like he’d caress it, but then he settled his big hand on Bilbo Baggins’ head. “I’ll take care of Pettingill. You take a minute. Breathe.”

Niall smiled that camera-ready smile, threw an arm around Pettingill’s shoulders, and led him off to the side. While they talked, the manager sneaked glances at me.

“Can I pat your dog?” The words came at the same time as a tug on the bottom of my jacket. I looked down into a child’s face topped by curly black hair.

“Sure. His name is Bilbo Baggins.” I eased my grip to expose more of Bilbo Baggins’ fur. He wriggled in anticipation.

The kid buried a small hand in Bilbo Baggins’ silky fur. “Like the Hobbit? He’s so soft.”

“He is. When I’m nervous, it always makes me feel better to touch him.”

“You’re nervous?” Round, dark eyes looked up at me.

“Yeah. I have to stand up there”—I tipped my chin toward the platform—“and read.”

“Me and my dad came to see the authors talk. We readSecrets of the Wood Elvestogether. You’re not that author, are you?”

“No, that’s him.” I let my gaze settle on Niall, who bent like a tree over the shorter bookstore manager, and the kid’s eyes followed. “I didn’t think that was a kids’ book.”

“Daddy helped with the hard words. He says we don’t have to read only kids’ books. We can read whatever books we want.”

“My dad used to read to me, too. I hope you and your dad keep reading together for a long time.” I tried to remember the happy times, when I’d snuggled up against my own dad, and for a few minutes every night, his time wasn’t for his work or even my brothers and sister, but just for me. I tried not to think about how, without him, reading wasn’t worth the trouble.

“If you get nervous, just be like Nieven and think about home. That’ll make you feel better.”

Who the hell was Nieven? And thinking about home would make me more nervous, not less. What would Mother say if she knew I had to read, to speak extemporaneously, in front of all these people today?

Still, I said, “Thanks.”

Niall loomed between us. “Ready to head up there?” He must’ve talked Pettingill down because the manager had put away his phone.

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