“Neckie said she had a big fat Wilde head. I wonder if I had a baby… if it would have a big head.”
I looked over at him. His everything was big.
“Yes,” I said before clearing my throat. “But don’t forget big heads hold big brains.”
Saint’s smile faded a bit, and he glanced at me. “Neckie asked if I might want to go into business with her.”
The sound of the tires on the road filled the spacious cab, and flat plains whizzed by outside the windshield on either side of us. I told my galloping heart to calm the hell down.
“Like, at Twist?” I asked.
“Yeah. She said it’s grown so much, she wishes she had an equal partner. MJ told me later she thinks Neckie actually wants to sell it eventually when she starts her own family.”
My breath came quickly, as if I’d been jogging well past a comfortable pace.
“And, that would mean… what? You’d work there? Live there? In Hobie, I mean?”
The idea of seeing him regularly and not being able to touch him made me feel dizzy. I could just imagine walking to Sugar Britches for coffee and running into Saint Wilde and his beautiful new boyfriend. Because he would have one. He’d have a damned string of them.
Saint opened the center console to grab a pack of gum stashed inside. I caught sight of his handgun in its holster and spotted a box of bullets underneath in the dark recesses of the storage compartment.
He had his gun.
Gun.
My breathing came even faster.
“Yes. Move back to Hobie. Quit my job and help run the gym full-time.”
He glanced over at me again, so I turned my head to look out the window. “Oh. Yeah. That’s… y-your f-family would l-love that.”
Awkward silence fell in the cab, and I struggled to catch my breath.
I would have to move away. There was no way I could see Saint with someone else in my little town. No fucking way. Oh god. Who was I kidding? I was a scrawny-ass geek. This was a lark for him. He was a big, highly skilled tough guy. I was a weakling. A coward. Hell, I couldn’t even convince myself I deserved a relationship. How the hell did I think I could convince someone else?
“Augie?”
“Gngh?”
He looked over again, but I turned my shoulder so he couldn’t see me struggling for breath.
“Baby, shit.”
“No, I’m fuh… fuh… fine.” I sucked in a loud breath and grabbed at my chest. “Just breathed something wrong,” I gasped and tried not to let any part of my body touch the center console where the gun was. What if I accidentally set it off? What if I knocked it with my elbow and…
I couldn’t breathe. My fingers searched frantically for the window button.
“Fuck,” he bit out as he yanked the car off the highway onto a side road. He scrambled around to the passenger side, but I was already out and stumbling across the dried grass into the nearby field.
“No, ’s f-fine,” I tried reassuring him. “S… Sorry.” My knees wobbled until I decided I might be better off on the ground. I went down hard and would have landed on my face if Saint hadn’t grabbed me and kept me from pitching forward.
He moved me around until I was cradled on his lap in his arms.
“Do you need an ambulance? Is it a panic attack?”
I met his eyes and shook my head before nodding. “The gun,” I whispered.
Realization dawned. “You’re afraid of guns. When you fainted at Landen—it wasn’t blood sugar. It was the gun?”
I tried nodding as I let out a slow breath.
“Oh, honey. Oh, Augie. Christ, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me? Never mind. I know now.”
“I…” I heaved in another breath and tried to slow down. “My d-dad was shot in an armed robbery. I w-was there.”
He held me even tighter, cursing softly under his breath. Saint’s neck smelled like heaven. The familiar scent of him went a long way toward helping me calm down.
“Augie, I knew that but didn’t think about it. I didn’t ever even… shit. I never even asked you about it. When I read the article about the robbery, it was before I knew you. Before… I’m so fucking sorry I never even asked. Of course you get nervous around guns. It’s completely understandable. I’m so stupid.”
“Not stupid.”
The adrenaline spike was fading quickly, and I began to shiver violently in the cold October air despite Saint’s warm body against mine.
“Let’s get you back in the truck.”
He made me wait by the hood while he moved the gun around to a locked tool box in the bed of the truck. He’d told me to look up the traffic on his phone to see if there was anything we needed to avoid on the route, but I knew what he was doing. It was thoughtful as hell, and I felt myself falling even faster for him. The idea of this ending between us broke my fucking heart.