I am petrified of almost dying . . . again.
Finally, I whisper, “You said we would stop if I wanted to stop. If the list got too hard.”
He strokes my hair, gentle and tender. “We can, but this isn’t too hard, sweetheart. You’ve got this. And like I said, I’ve got you. I won’t let you drown. I won’t let you die. I won’t let anything bad happen to you. I promise.”
Can he keep that promise?
I’m not sure, but the fact that he makes it unknots the ball of fear in me.
So do his hands.
He cups my face, making me feel small in a good way. In a this man could absolutely throw me over his shoulder and carry me out of a burning building kind of way.
And yes, I like his promise.
Maybe I need to swim through my fear.
"Do you trust me?” he asks with my face still in his grasp.
A grasp that feels like an embrace.
And like he’s giving me some of his courage.
I take it, letting his strength fill me. “I do,” I say, meaning it.
“Good. I’ve got your back. I swear.”
A part of me tries to grab ahold of the fear one last time, to cling to my phobia. To stay . . . stalled.
That’s familiar. That’s comfortable.
But looking into his eyes, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt he means it. He will do whatever it takes to keep me safe. Fight off sharks and seagulls and tsunamis, and anything else the world might throw at us today.
Of course, I’m no damsel in distress. I’m not a woman who needs a man to save her.
But I am a person who knows when she needs help.
When she needs a friend.
I need his friendship right now.
I need him by my side.
Here with me.
My resistance melts away. I kick my fear onto the boardwalk.
The back of my nose starts to sting a little, and I nod. “Okay.”
His expression gentles. “Yeah?”
I nod and suck in a bracing breath. “But let’s hurry and get in before I chicken out again.”
“You’re not going to chicken out, and we’re not going to rush,” he says, taking my hand and leading the way toward an open space on the sand. “We’re going to take it slow and easy, step by step, and give your squirrel brain plenty of time to get used to the idea.”
I huff as I spread out the beach blanket and set my borrowed beach bag on top of it. “I don’t know about that. My squirrel brain is pretty—”
Jesse whips off his T-shirt, revealing all those beautiful muscles I became intimately acquainted with last night.