Page 14 of Fall for Me

For a moment, I thought it was an animal—a squirrel or a bird, maybe, pecking along the ground.

Then it moved again, and there was a flash of blue. No, turquoise.

I squinted, taking a step sideways for a better view. There was a path to my right leading down to the clearing, but I didn’t think I’d make it in this shape. Instead, I peered over the grassy outcropping I was standing on, which curved to my left, partially blocking whatever was down there. But when I took one more step, bringing my foot right to the edge, I saw. At the back of the clearing, pressed up against the slope, a piece of wood stuck out of the grass. A cross, with a piece of turquoise fabric tied around the top.

“Careful,” a voice said. Rolling gravel.

I turned my head around too fast to see Seamus standing a few feet behind me. Then winced as pain rang through my head. The painkillers had been working so well I kept forgetting I was concussed.

“I’m fine,” I said, a little curtly. Heat flushed my cheeks as if I’d been caught snooping. Then the hurt turned to irritation at the way he looked ready to catch me. Like I was about to fall. I may be injured but I was a little tired of being handled with kid gloves. I wasn’t helpless.

“Oh, it’s just—” But before he could finish speaking, my foot slipped on the mass of long grass beside me. Grass, I saw now, that hid the steepness of the slope next to me. I gasped, but Seamus reached forward, grabbing my hand before I could tumble.

He pulled me toward him until my feet hit more solid ground.

And my body hit solid man.

I reached out, grasping his shirt for balance with my free hand, my heart thumping.

“You okay?” He asked. Rolling gravel.

My throat was suddenly dry. He was so… hard. I hadn’t pictured Seamus as being so muscular, but now that I looked, I could see the ridge of his biceps under his button-down. I was suddenly aware of how close we were standing, and I took a step back, confused.

“I keep meaning to put a sign or something there but… I don’t get many visitors,” Seamus said.

My heart was still beating a hair too fast—almost falling would do that to you. So would being pressed up against a man who felt like a rock. One who smelled like… spring rain or something. No, trees—spruce or pine or fir. Plus, something else specific to him that made my stomach do a weird flip.

I tried to take another step but stumbled, pain shooting up my leg.

He squeezed my hand, pulling me back further away from the slope. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got you,”

How was I still holding his hand? And how was his skin so rough against mine?

He was a contractor, I remembered. He used his hands.

I had a flash, suddenly, of those hands against my cheeks. Or other parts. Something soft and buttery rolled through me.

This was Seamus Reilly. Quiet, always in the background Seamus, Eli’s best friend. I’d never thought about him this way before. I didn’t think. It felt weird, but not terrible.

Jesus, what’s the matter with you?

A slice of memory hit me, of us in the cab of his truck. Just that tiny sliver: him pulling me toward him. Trying to… what, protect me from something I couldn’t be protected from? There was something else there too, just at the edges of my memory. Something about us being in that cab together.

“Chelsea?” Seamus asked. His eyebrows were slanted in concern. He had brown eyes—deep, rich, chocolaty brown eyes with a darker rim around the iris. “You okay?”

I pulled my eyes away; my hand too. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

He nodded. “Maybe you could come back up here a bit, just so I don’t have to stand on guard?” He stepped aside to give me room.

I nodded. “Right.” Then took a few steps forward before looking back out over the view. “Bet the sunsets are spectacular here.”

Seamus nodded.

I thought of one particular sunset, years ago, after a rain. Me in the woods behind our apartment as a kid. The sun slanting through remnants of the rain still dripping from the trees; running down paint-streaked paper clipped to string. “I always preferred the sunrise,” I said, surprised at the sharpness in my voice. “They feel more… hopeful.”

Seamus was looking at me with a strange expression on his face, his jaw tense, maybe. He was probably worried I was going to fall again.

Over his shoulder, my brothers were arguing now, though it didn’t look quite like it would come to blows. “They’re fighting over me, aren’t they?”

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