Page 9 of Fall to Me
I glance down at our hands again, then my gaze flicks up to meet her eyes. You have to know River to understand why her holding my hand right now is monumental. Aside from that one time she almost kissed me last season, she’s barely even breathed in my direction. That hasn’t kept me from making excuses to touch her—small accidental brushes here and there. I may have allowed my hands to linger on her a little longer than necessary from time to time. But River touching me? That hasn’t happened in months.
“For fuck’s sake. Don’t read too much into it. I’m not taking a chance of losing you in this crowd. Move. Your. Ass.” She turns, and when she pulls again, I trail behind her.
As we pass Four Queens, I hear someone yell my name and look over my shoulder. Aiden, Hannah, and Sean Mac approach us. Sean slaps my back as he passes, then turns around to face us while walking backwards and calls out, “We’ve already checked off two things. You’re going down, Doc.”
Aiden and Hannah’s laughter trails behind them over the music as they look back over their shoulders.
Dragging a hand down her face, River groans, then starts leading the way again. “I can only imagine what you’re about to say, and I swear to God, if you say it . . . I’ll unclip your safety line.”
“That wasn’t even a thought in my mind . . . though, it’s nice to see where your head is. I’ll be honest; I don’t know which is hotter, you threatening to kill me, you tying me up, or the fact that you’re thinking about going down.”
Stopping dead in her tracks, she turns her head to glare at me over her shoulder. A beautiful flush of soft pink blooms across her cheeks. Fuck. She’s stunning.
“I swear to God. One more word, Carter, one more, and I’ll find something to shove into your mouth and gag you with it.”
“Fucking yes, please. This is sounding more and more like a good time.”
“Why do the hot ones always have to be so mouthy?”
“You think I’m hot?” I wiggle my brows.
She doesn’t respond, just keeps walking like she didn’t hear me. See? Like I said, she’s attracted to me. As we draw closer, I look up at the twelve-story slot machine with two different zipline platforms, and my heart pounds a little faster, thinking about what we’re about to do.
River stiffens, and her footsteps come to a screeching halt, nearly causing me bump into her. My brows furrow into a frown. I round her body to make sure she’s okay and let her know we don’t have to do the zipline, but as I lean down to capture her gaze, she stares right through me with a blank expression.
“River?”
No answer. She’s here but not, too quiet and still, except for the rapid movement of her chest. People move around us, their shoulders brushing against ours as we stand in the middle of the street.
Fuck.
I’ve seen this too many times to count.
One of the things I’ve noticed about River is that she hides behind her wit and smart-ass remarks. She acts like nothing in the world phases her, but I see the real person beneath her mask.
I give her a few seconds to see if she’ll come out of what I assume is a flashback on her own, but she’s still not moving or blinking. I don’t know what threw her into this, but I need to do something to bring her back to me. Normally I woulduse a grounding technique, but with her, I settle on trying a distraction first, giving her hand a few tight squeezes. It doesn’t work.
Shit!
If she realizes that I’ve noticed this about her, I’m scared she’ll run away from me. . . like she always does. But more than that, I don’t want to embarrass her, so I need to be creative in bringing her back to the present.
Keeping her hand in mine, I move to stand beside her so when she comes out of this episode, I’m not right in her face.
“River,” I choke out. Seeing this beautiful woman with such a loving heart in this state and knowing someone did something awful to her that broke her spirit and caused these flashbacks shreds my fucking heart.
I clear my throat and try again, rubbing my thumb over the top of her hand. “River. Can you feel the desert heat on your skin? It’s so hot here in Las Vegas, isn’t it? And you see those people on the zipline above us? Hear them laughing and screaming as they zoom by? I can’t believe we’re about to do that, but it’s gonna be so much fun. The smell of street food here on Fremont Street is really making me hungry. I can practically taste the funnel cakes and corndogs. Are you still hungry, baby? I forgot about getting you a snack, but we can do that once we’re done with the zipline. Being in Vegas with all our friends for Aspen’s wedding is crazy. Isn’t it?”
It takes a couple of tries of going through where we are, what’s going on around her, and what we hear and smell before she comes out of it, blinking rapidly.
Her hand flies up to her throat as she looks around. I want to pull her into my arms, hold her, and tell her everything’s okay, but she would only push me away. So, as hard as it is for me to do, I move past her, ducking us through the crowd and leading us closer to the zipline, pretending as if nothing happened.
When we reach the stairs to the platform, I turn to her and say, “Here we are. If you’re scared of heights, you should probably back out now. There’s no tandem ride, and we’ll be too far apart for me to hold your hand if you get scared.”
“I’m not scared, and the last thing I’ll ever want to do is hold your hand. Actually, come to think of it, I don’t want to doanythingwith you.”
There she is. That’s my girl.
“Yet here we are,” I say, holding up our linked hands.
