“It’s okay, Reese.” His voice cuts through the static in my head. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
He sets me on the rocky shore, yanking off his running jacket and wrapping it around my shoulders. His eyes dart around until they land on my water bottle by my tote.
“I—I can’t breathe!” I sob, my fingers clutching at his arm. “I’m having a heart attack.”
“It’s not a heart attack.” He moves, shaking the bottle hard, listening for something. Then he uncaps it and dumps the water out. “Stay present. Stay with me.”
He reaches for me, gently prying open my clenched fist. Something cold presses into my palm—ice.
“How does that feel? Cold, right?”
“Yes,” I manage, taking a deep breath. The ice stings my skin, sharp and biting.
I stare at it in my palm. One of his herculean hands draws slow circles along my back, and my breathing naturally falls into sync with the rhythm. Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight.
Four. Seven. Eight.
“There you go,” he says. “Keep focusing on the ice.”
The chill burns away the panic, bit by bit. With each drop of melting water that trickles between my fingers, the memory of the pool fades into a dull background hum. The world comes back into focus. First the whisper of wind through leaves, then the rough texture of pebbles pressing into my legs, and finally, most distractingly, Dante’s hand on my lower back.
It’s comforting.
“How?” My words catch in my throat as I look at him properly. He’s soaked to the bone, dark brown hair plastered to his forehead, white T-shirt clinging to his chest. Why did it have to be him to find me? I can’t think with him so close. His gaze bounces from my eyes to my lips to my fingers, which are rubbing along the zipper of his jacket. “What are you doing here?”
“I was out for a run and heard you scream.”
Scream? I didn’t scream, did I?
I lean away from him as my traitorous body shouts to sink into his warmth. The circles on my back stop, and I wish I hadn’t said anything.
“I haven’t felt like that since I was a kid. I thought I was going to die.” The explanation feels weak.
“You had a panic attack.”
“I—how did you know what to do?”
“My oldest sister gets them real bad,” he says. “Figure skating comes with a lot of pressure. Not that Brooklyn would ever admit it. Her therapist taught her this thing with ice. Now whenever she hits the rink, the first thing she does is touch the ice. Grounds her, you know?”
I blink at him, unsure what to say. This side of him is so different from the smug playboy mask he usually wears. I’ve caught glimpses, but I want to see what else he’s hiding.
“You look like you don’t believe me.”
“No,” I say, “I do. I didn’t expect that. Sounds like you’re close to your sister.”
He looks boyish as his head tilts to one side. “I am. Brooklyn’s a rock, always rounding us up like it’s her job. But while I was giving my parents a headache, my oldest sister was always there.”
His words lodge between my sternum, and my mind wanders to what it would feel like to nudge my head into his chest and be held for a while.
“This stays between us, okay? No one can know.”
“Take it to the grave,” he says, crossing his heart. “But what were you doing out here in the first place?”
“I’m afraid of water,” I whisper, the admission making my throat tight. “Not water itself, but diving under it.”
“Southern girl like you never went tubing on the river?” He asks like he genuinely wants to know, not like it’s a setup for some line he wants to use on me.
“I almost drowned as a kid.” I study the pebbles at my feet, aware of his steady gaze on me. “I was twelve. Our pool had this automatic cover. One night, I was swimming alone when it started closing. I got trapped underneath.” My lungs burn at the memory. “The saltwater—Daddy had it converted from chlorine that summer—it burned like fire in my eyes, my nose, my throat. Everything was a blur of dark blue and panic. I was screaming and pounding on the cover, but it kept whirring shut above me, this mechanical monster stealing my sky.” I pause, taking a shaky breath, the phantom taste of saltwater flooding my mouth, metallic and sharp. “If he hadn’t heard me…”
