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“I’m a guy. What could happen to me?”
“Anything could happen to you—and then what would we do?” He looked half aggravated and half concerned.
“Then I’d be out of theway so you can marry my wife,” I teased.
“That’s not what I want anymore.” He grimaced. “Now, I’m always worried things will happen to you.”
“Being in a relationship is like that,” Tarryn said. “It’s a normal feeling.”
“But how do you live with this anxiety?”
“Sometimes you have to trust the world not to fuck you over.” One of my social workers had said it to me repeatedly as a teenager, and it had been a hard message to internalize.
“Considering your past, how can you trust things will work out for the best?”
“What will worrying fix?”
“At least it gives you a chance to avoid danger, or maybe brace yourself,” Loïc pointed out.
“Brace myself for what? Bad things that might happen? What if good things happen instead, and I’m so busy worrying that I can’t let myself enjoy them?”
“Being careful is sensible,” Tarryn agreed, “but people can’t live entirely without risk. Everyone has to find a balance. If anything, we need to make days like this count.”
“Yeah. Seize the day, Leduc.” I chuckled. Leave it to Loïc to lead us down a grim, philosophical path while we strolled past a kiosk serving waffles and ice cream.
Tarryn led us toward the line for the biggest roller-coaster the park had to offer. That was my girl—go big or go home.
“Tarryn takes too many risks, too. She left her window unlocked—I’m sure that wasn’t the first time. And her doorman is far too pleasant and trusting. The security at Rose Red is almost as bad, and the lock on her trailer is a joke.”
She patted his arm. “I think you need to remember that most people don’t have your drive or your skillset, and people are mostly honest.”
“Idon’t know if I can live like this,” Loïc whispered. “It’s like my chest is always being pulled in two different directions, and I never know whether the person I’m not with is safe.”
“This is what our life is like.” I shuffled after the people in front of us in line. “If you can’t handle it, maybe you should have walked away before we all got so involved.”
“Since we met, the two of you have brought nothing but chaos to my life,” he grumbled.
Both Tarryn and I burst out laughing, leaving Loïc looking aggrieved.
He glowered at us, which only made it funnier.
“Why are you laughing at Loïc?” he demanded, his French accent at its haughtiest.
This man. Who the hell referred to themselves in the third person?
“You keep breaking into our homes and businesses and doing god-knows-what to us, and you thinkwe’rebringing chaos toyourlife?”
The line we were in was short and moving quickly. Thankfully, everyone seemed too invested in their own conversations to pay attention to ours. It was also noisy as hell, so I couldn’t really hear what other groups were saying either.
Loïc glanced around, as though realizing only now that we were in line. “What is this?”
“It’s the biggest roller-coaster they’ve got!” Tarryn’s eyes glowed with elation. “We’re going to tear off the Band-Aid and start here.”
“There should be rules.”
“About the roller-coaster?”
“No! About this relationship,” he said emphatically. For a moment, I thought he would stomp his foot. “None of us get involved with other people, none of us take unnecessary risks, and that includes any plans you might have to go skydiving or swimming with sharks.”
