Page 65 of Puck Happens

Mayor Martinez stood on the steps of the gazebo with a bull horn in her hand. She lifted it high in the air.

“On your mark. Get set. Go!”

Like we were shot out of a canon, Liv and I took off. I had to ease up a little to account for the height difference, but she was there, keeping up with me stride for stride. Like we’d been running three-legged races our whole lives.

We crossed the finish line first with stunning ease.

I bent down to untie us while she turned around and continued talking smack to everyone just coming over the finish line.

“Oh, yeah, baby. I can do this all day. You want to go again? How about you Sheriff? You want to go again?”

I had just gotten our ankles untied so that we were free individuals once again, and I dipped my shoulder under her stomach. My plan was to hoist her over my shoulder and do a victory lap, letting her trash talk to her heart’s content.

Or possibly to make a breakaway from an angry mob. Bobby was not enjoying the trash talk.

Except the second her feet left the grass she went stiff as a board.

“Putmedown! Putmedown!”

She slapped my back and wiggled like she wanted to throw herself off me. If I wasn’t as strong as I was, she might have gotten away with it, but I was able to wrap my arms around her legs and keep her steady as I lowered her feet back onto the grass.

She was shaking like a leaf and I immediately realized her knees weren’t going to hold her. So I carefully placed her down on her butt, controlling her descent even as I quickly sat next to her.

I cupped her face in my oversized hand and nudged her to look at me.

“Talk to me, Liv.”

“I don’t like to be picked up,” she said, her face was flushed and her hands were freezing.

Right. Of course not. Stupid of me not to think of that.

“Okay. I’m sorry. I was just having some fun in the moment. I should have asked.”

She shook her head and cursed under her breath, but I wouldn’t let her look away.

“I’m not mad,” she finally said. “At you. I’m mad at myself. I used to be lifted into the air with only one hand. I could fly like that for hours. Now my feet leave the ground or I have a stupid fall and I freak out. It’s messed up.”

I nodded. It made sense. It also made sense why she’d reacted the way she did the other week when she’d slipped on the ice. The sensation of falling, of being lifted, it was all triggering for her. The fact that she could get back on the ice at all was kind of amazing.

“You’re not messed up, you know exactly where the fear comes from, and it’s real.”

She jutted out her chin and clenched her teeth. “I want it gone.”

I laughed at that. Of course someone with her will would hate anything she perceived as a weakness.

“Doesn’t work that way, babe.”

She grunted and I pushed her hair behind her ear.

“Are you scared of being lifted or are you scared of being dropped?”

“Isn’t it the same thing?”

I didn’t know the answer to that. Only she did. But what happened to her wasn’t just a bad accident. It destroyed the trust she had in her teammate.

Her boyfriend.

How in the world do you trust another person after something like that?

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