Page 116 of Breathe Like Hell

His gaze slid down to my mouth, then slowly, painfully returned to my eyes.

My stomach flipped.

The tension in the cab increased tenfold, his kapnos a sweeping shadow in my lungs, stirring liquid heat in my core. My desire to throw myself at his feet was somewhat humiliating with how quickly it overcame me. All my braveness melted into submission, my body turning soft and pliable and wanting.

And Micah hadn’t said a single word.

All this, from the barest glance.

The passenger door creaked open, startling me, and I shifted on the seat, my eyes flicking over to Mason as he climbed in. The men clearly weren’t pleased with each other’s presence, but that wasn’t my problem. Sitting between them like this made me happy.

“Where are we going?” Micah asked me. “I’m assuming you have a plan.”

“I do have a plan. I want you to go to the beach first.”

“First?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” He pulled out of the lot, wheels crunching over pine cones, and I started to press buttons and turn knobs on the radio. There was no way to hook my phone up in here, but Micah had a few cassette tapes that I could play if I wanted. I messed with the radio until I found a station with no static, then increased the volume.

The song was unfamiliar to me, but it was some sort of classic dad rock.

We were picking up speed, cruising along one of the fast two lane roads that went through a small town and curved around the shape of the forest, telephone wires strung up on tall poles following the same shape. Neither of the men were speaking—to me, or each other—but the music was loud and having both of them together again was making me giddy.

I scooted over to the passenger side and reached over Mason to crank the window down, cold air rushing into the truck and rippling Mason’s shirt. I glanced over at Micah, his wrist resting on the top of the steering wheel, then he rolled down the driver’s side too.

I climbed onto Mason’s lap so I could put my face out the window, his arms wrapped tight around my waist. He was so warm and strong and steady, securely holding me against his body.

Yeah, I’d said I would choose Micah over him in the middle of the worst fight we’d ever had, but I didn’t know if that was true in the aftermath. Mason had to understand that.

He had to understand that I couldn’t choose Micah, because I couldn’t choose just one of them. It had to be both.

I would never willingly give one of them up. It was settled in my mind.

I would let myself be ripped apart by this before surrendering my heart.

The wind funneling into the car was like a riptide pushing into my lungs, filling me up, swallowing all my normal air and replacing it with instability. That was how it felt being with Mason, like he’d replaced everything else with his own darkness, and I craved that with every beat of my heart.

Sink or swim.

But then there was Micah, grounding me, covering me with a blanket made of shadows, keeping me safe under there from everything except himself. The rest of the world felt so dull in comparison to both of them, so boring and normal and pointless. This was what I wanted. What I’d always want.

I leaned backwards out the window, my hair streaming wildly in the wind. Cold air bit at my cheeks, and I was grinning wider than I had in months.

Maybe I was having some sort of manic episode. Definitely.

Thoughts of Thanksgiving and seeing Anthony again had been tormenting me, making me desperate to do something that would push them away.

I need to do something so hugely violent I can’t even remember what’s coming. I need to use up all the space in my brain on other things.

I ducked back inside the car just as Micah began to slow, preparing to park the truck at the top of the rocks surrounding the beach. The song from before had long-since ended, and there was something mellow on the radio now.

“So, what are we here for?” Micah asked as I slid back into the middle of the bench seat.

“I want to shoot Mason.”

Micah raised his eyebrows, then looked over at the other man. “She’s going to shoot you?”