“Okay.” I nodded.
Unfortunately, even though I believed him, my body didn’t move. I gripped the rope as though my life depended on it. Oh, that’s right, because my life did depend on it. My feet remained planted, turned toward the inside of the platform, away from the taunting distance below.
“Are you afraid of heights?” he asked.
“No,” I said instantly. “No sane person puts themselves in this position willingly.”
He looked at me again. Too closely. Why did he keep doing that? He hadn’t talked about our kiss and so I hadn’t either. It was pretty clear that both of us enjoyed it but that didn’t make the aftermath any less awkward. I thought maybe we would continue what we started last night when he picked me up today. So when he suggested this suicide mission, I was a little thrown off.
Also how did one bring that sort of thing up? “Hi, how are you? Nice to see you again. Can I suck your face now that we’ve gotten the pleasantries out of the way?”
“You don’t let go of control easily. Neither does Skip.”
“Really?” I asked momentarily distracted.
“Yeah. He only started OTB with me because I needed a partner.” He frowned a little as he focused on the horizon. “He’s much better at the business side of things. I just like taking people out of their comfort zone.”
“Clearly,” I said. Then added, “So he doesn’t like—”
“You’re stalling.”
This time it was my turn to snap. “No. I’m not. I’m up here, literally so outside of my comfort zone I don’t remember what it looks like. You push and push me.” I couldn’t believe I was able to articulate precisely what I was feeling at exactly the moment it needed to be said. Sanders made me braver, but he needed to return the favor. “You want me to trust you. I’m asking you to do the same for me.”
I held his stare looking as pissed off as I possibly could, wearing this goofy-ass helmet.
He swallowed, the tendons of his cheeks flexing as he clenched his jaw.
“I don’t like to talk about this stuff. It makes me sound shitty.”
I wanted to reach for his hand but I wasn’t about to let go of this rope. Instead, I shuffled my foot slowly to nudge his. “I shared my dark past with you last night. You can trust me.”
He scratched at his chin. “I don’t think Skip in particular likes this business, no. I think he became my partner to help me. And then it took off and I’m not really good at managing the details all the time. And now it’s too hard to imagine doing this without him.”
I nodded like I understood. But I didn’t really. I couldn’t imagine counting on people in such a big way. It was just asking for failure.
“He typically has to handle the stuff I just plain don’t want to. That’s the reason I missed the conference in Denver. Recently a lot of companies like ours have crept up. We were losing business because I kept making these stupid mistakes. I was really distracted toward the end of my time with my dad. And when he passed, I well, I couldn’t function for a few days.”
“I’m sorry,” I said and quickly managed to squeeze his shoulder.
He sucked in air through his teeth and rubbed at his collarbone, shoulders stretching beneath his shirt as though to get some air. “The day of the conference, a big group came to town. They went to the hotel where they were supposed to be staying.” He winced. “I forgot to book their rooms. They showed up, about twenty of them, and there was nothing available. I rushed to go meet with them and find a place but everything was booked for the conference. I had to smooth feathers. But I fucked up. Big-time. Skip stood in for me at the trade show as I groveled to the customer and got them a place to stay at some Airbnbs. It was awful.”
He closed his eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. Admittedly, that made my skin itchy. That type of mistake was my biggest fear.
“Skip is always there to clean up my messes. Following behind me with his sweeper to pick up my pieces.”
“Is that why he came to Green Valley?” I asked cautiously.
He glanced to me. “Yeah. Between my dad and the business”—his eyes flicked to mine and away—“I think he thinks that I’m struggling a bit.”
This made me frown. Sanders always seemed so put together. So confident. It was hard to imagine him needing help at all.
“One day …”
“What?” I asked.
“One day, he’s going to stop coming to my rescue.” He chewed his lip thoughtfully.
