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Stunt.
He…
No, he wouldn’t.
He promised.
“What stunt?” I ask when I manage to find my voice. “I had a—thing, so I arrived late.” I don’t want her to know Timothy and I fought and she won’t care about Wild Things, so I leave it at that. “We left after I arrived.”
“I’ll send you the video,” she says. “It went viral enough for his older sister to see it and she sent it to me. You weren’t there?”
Her tone sparks my anger, and I’m already primed by the adrenaline I can’t handle. “No, you said I didn’t have to be with him all the time.”
“I said to use your judgment,” she snaps. “Timothy went to a party where his colleagues—other stunt professionals—would be, where there was alcohol, where he might feel the need to prove himself. No offense, honey, but I’m starting to think your judgment might not be the best.”
“Myjudgment?” My voice rises sharply. I might not be loud and brash but I am not a pushover. I don’t care if she is Celia Foley—she’s not talking to me that way. “You hired someone you didn’t know to babysit your son, who, by the way, is an adult and can make his own choices.”
God, she’s right, though. I should’ve been there.
I turn around and Timothy’s standing two feet away, beaming at me. I jump, clutching my chest and glaring at him. How long has he been standing there?
Celia’s reply is immediate and barbed. “I thought if Nic got him to stay away from stunt driving, the woman he wants to marry can keep him from the rest. Clearly, I was wrong.”
“I’ll return your money,” I say coolly, though I have no idea how when I’ve spent a lot of it. I end the call and throw my phone onto the sofa.
I’m going to scream. After I throw up.
“That,” Timothy says with a smile, walking toward me, “was hot. You stood up to Celia Foley. Nobody does that.”
“You hung up on her,” I point out. My phone chimes. Incoming message. I walk over to it to avoid Timothy. I need a moment. This can’t be happening. He wouldn’t.
“Yeah, but I’m her son. She expects it from me.” He sinks onto the sofa and pats the cushion next to him. “Thank you for taking my side. I was questioning whether I was an adult allowed to make choices. I’m almost thirty-four, for Christ’s sake—”
Timothy’s talking, but I’m not listening. Celia’s sent the video with a message that says 4:05. I skip ahead to that spot and press play.
In the video, Timothy jumps onto a chair. I’m sure there’s some technical gymnastic-related word for what he does next, but I don’t know it. And though I do know he makes it safely—he’s alive and uninjured on the sofa in front of me—my heart still goes berserk. When he flips over a fire, I forget how to breathe. Even when he’s safely on the ground, I still stare at the screen, waiting for something, anything, to go wrong.
“See?” Timothy takes the phone out of my hands and rewinds it, sinking back on the couch to watch. “She’s overreacting. No one dies from The Floor is Lava.”
Probably someone has. Timothy easily could’ve, if he’d hit his head. My brain barely touches that thought and the effect is like touching an electric fence.
Timothy’s a fucking tiger and I’m holding his tail.
I jolt into action, and that action is flight.
“Mina!”
I’m already taking the stairs two at a time. I pull the suitcase out from under the bed in my old room, open it, and start throwing clothes in.
“You can’t be serious,” Timothy says, incredulous, from my doorway.
“You broke your promise to me!” I’m not sure where that shout comes from. Some deep part of my splintering heart.
“That wasn’t a stunt,” he says, sounding annoyed. “A stunt is like…jumping out of a helicopter or getting tugged around on wires or—”
“I know what stunts are, Timothy,” I snap, throwing a T-shirt into my suitcase.
“My point is,” he says, forcing some calm back into his voice. “Jumping from chair to chair isn’t a stunt. Backflips and cartwheels and all that shit? Not stunts. They don’t count.”
