Page 81 of Flirting with 40

“Why?”

He looks at me like an impatient father would, and I smile in return. “I won’t let you run into anything, but you have to promise to keep them closed.”

I give him a defiant sigh to play along but close my eyes as he leads us through the forest. We walk over some uneven ground then up some stairs, and I assume we are at the cabin.

“Stand right there. Don’t move,” he says before letting go of my hand. I listen intently to his footfalls landing on the raised wooden floor of the cabin.

“Slade?”

“Patience,” he scolds playfully. There is some more shuffling and then an odd creaking sound that has me angling my head. I jolt when his hands frame my hips and even more so when his lips find my ear. “Do you trust me, Blakely?”

The chuckle that falls from my lips tells him not exactly, but I nod.

“Open them.”

When I do, the startled laugh that falls from my lips is simply a ruse to pretend that my heart didn’t just tumble out of my chest and fall at his feet. “What is this?” I ask but can already see it plain as day.

Slade has jerry-rigged some kind of swing on the front porch of the cabin. It’s two ropes attached to both ends of a large wooden slat. And on top of that, Slade is standing next to it, holding a red Solo cup out to me, and a bottle of wine rests on the window ledge beside him.

“Slade.” I smile and shake my head slowly. I’m completely astonished by his thoughtfulness. “I’m speechless.”

“And I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be,” I say, and without thought, I step into him, run my hand over the scruff on his jaw, and brush the softest of kisses against his lips. “This is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

He holds the wine out to me while he takes a seat on one end of the wood plank. “Join me?”

“Will it hold both of us?” I ask.

“It’s about two feet off the ground, so even if we fall, I promise you won’t get hurt.”

He made me a swing. He brought me wine. He tried to give me the one thing I told him was the only way I enjoyed the outdoors.

Funny enough, I’ve been enjoying it this whole time, simply because he is with me.

I take the hand he offers and hesitantly sit on the slat of wood, testing my weight bit by bit. There is a moment when I expect the roof to rip off or for the rope to snap, sending us both crashing to the ground.

“See?” he says, his grin widening.

“It’s perfect,” I murmur, still in a giddy daze over this silly swing that he went out of his way to try to make me happy.

We sit in silence for a few moments, the sounds of birds chirping and laughter from someone somewhere in the camp filtering through the trees. I have wine in my hand, a swing beneath me, a breeze on my face, and him beside me.

I don’t care what happens with Heather because this—right here, right now—is all worth it.

“We all have fears, you know?” Slade says somberly.

“What is it, Slade?” I ask, linking my fingers with his.

“I talk a good game about you sucking it up and confronting Heather, but it’s only fair to admit that we all have our own fears when it comes to our jobs. We all have our own insecurities when it comes to our actions. It was bullshit of me to call you out about yours when I haven’t given you enough of me to do the same.”

For the first time since meeting Slade, I see doubt or discord or something I can’t quite read in his eyes. It’s a vulnerability that is as attractive as it is surprising.

“You’ve given me more than enough.” I smile, but thoughts of the phone call I interrupted the other day ghost through my mind, and I’m left wondering what exactly it is that Slade has to fear. Prisha mentioned he had been suspended, but she said it so nonchalantly, that I assumed it wasn’t anything major. Maybe it was. Maybe there is so much more going on beneath the surface with Slade but he hides it under the guise of being so happy go lucky. How is that I’ve been so self-centered that I never even thought to ask him more about it? “Prisha told me you had been suspended.” I’m not sure what I expect in reaction, but him nodding ever so slightly is not it. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He looks out at the lake in the distance, blows out a heavy sigh, and runs his fingers through his hair. “Her name is Ivy,” he says, voice low and full of regret. “I was just coming off an emergency surgery I was called in for. Routine shit but urgent nonetheless. The ER was slammed that night—full moon or some shit—when she came in. I was walking through when an attending called out for help, saying he needed cardio STAT because they’d had to revive her in the ambulance on the way in.” He pauses, and there is so much pain in his face that my stomach clenches over whatever it is he’s going to say next. “She had been destroyed, Blakely.” His voice breaks, and every part of me wants to reach out and hold him.

“I’m so sorry.” It’s stupid and does nothing to fix it, but it’s all I can think to say.