“Carly,” I whimper, begging, pleading with my body to move, but I’m not in control right now. I’m failing, just like I did then. I’m pathetic, and I can’t even save my sister or myself.
I’m gasping for air, flailing about as I try to stay above water.
Fuck. Why is this happening right now?
“Jensen.” I hear a voice again, but this time, it doesn’t sound like Carly. “I’m right here.”
My labored breathing echoes in my ears, and I worry that I’ll never escape the car, this memory, this moment in time that has defined my life.
Like a jolt of electricity striking through me, soft, delicate fingers wrap around my forearm, and my eyes fly open.
Lainey’s face is warped with sadness and grief, tears welling in her eyes.
For a second, I’m taken back to the time when we were best friends. When she’d sit on the bathroom floor while I showered in her bathroom, just in case I had a panic attack, like I am right now.
They used to be horrible. Hot water. Cold water. It didn’t matter; it all affected me the same. She was there through it all, helping me through every single one.
But I got over that. I haven’t had a panic attack like this in nearly two years. Now, she’s back in my life, dredging up old feelings and pain that I thought I’d moved on from.
I don’t think someone ever truly moves on from this soul-aching kind of pain, the kind that comes out of nowhere and cuts you like a knife. A glimpse of a photograph, a passing thought, or a song can thrust you right back into the agony as if you never left.
I don’t want her to see me like this again. I don’t want to need her like I always used to. Yet here I am, my body and mind at her whim, her touch like the calm to my storming seas.
“Hey, you’re okay.” Her thumb strokes my arm, yanking me from my thoughts, and I feel the world around me start to settle back down. “Come on. Let’s get you out of there.”
When she turns to the side to grab a towel, her neck stretches into the light, and I catch a glimpse of something that I know wasn’t there before—a scar.
It looks big and must’ve been fairly deep to have scarred that thick.
What the fuck happened? Who did that? And why haven’t I heard about it before now?
My anguish and worry feed on the anger, finding an outlet in the rage.I will kill whoever fucking did this.
How could she not tell me? How could she not run to me when this happened, like I would’ve to her? We’ve always been each other’s safe space, but I feel betrayal that I won’t always be hers.
She faces me again and sucks in a breath when she sees me staring at her scar.
Her voice is colder like our encounters before, shielded. “Get out of the bath, Jensen. I need to go.”
Tucking my knees up, I stand out of the water, feeling it cascade down my body in tiny streams. I fix my swim trunks from hugging me so tightly, and when I look up, this time, it’sherI find staring.
“You like the view?” I tease her, feeling my muscles tighten beneath her gaze. The cold water isn’t helping hide them, only enhancing the mounds of my abs and sharpness of the V-line running into my shorts.
Her cheeks light up, and her eyes drift back up my torso, slower than expected, until they meet my gaze. From her calculated stare, my dick twitches, and thankfully, she doesn’t notice.
Crossing her arms, she huffs. “If anything, I’d have thought you would want to be at peak conditioning for this level of hockey. But it looks like there’s still room for improvement.”
Stepping out of the tub, I stride toward her, grabbing the towel from her hands and wrapping it around my waist without breaking eye contact. I tuck it into itself, letting it ride low on my hips.
I can practically see her heartbeat thumping in the side of her neck. I know she feels the same way I do, the same way we’ve always felt toward one another.
I take another step toward her, and she cranes her neck back to hold my stare, not backing down from my challenging gaze.
“Room for improvement, huh?”
“Yeah.” She scowls. “A lotof it.”
I want to push her, to flirt with her more, to see if she notices this connection as much as I do, but I don’t want her to hate me for it, which is exactly what would happen since she’s still with Cole.
