Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
He sees the nuts. Instead of bolting away from me like he should, he props his arm on his bent thigh and intakes a weird breath.
“Go,” I choke. Breathe. “Koning.”
“You’re having a panic attack. I’m not leaving you.”
I can’t argue with him. I don’t have the breath. Quite literally. Which makes me want to laugh, but I can’t even laugh.
“Just concentrate on me,” he suggests. “Just focus on the things you can see.”
I stare at his picturesque jawline. His eyes—a shade Hailey calls cerulean blue. Like the summer sky, she said. “Think…I can get…high in your eyes,” I say.
“Are you flirting with me while you’re struggling to breathe?”
Yeah. He’s ridiculously attractive. I’ve never been attracted to a man before Jake, so it’s been doing quite the fucking number on my body and brain. “Might as well…One of us could be…dead soon anyway.” Breathe. I gasp.
“I feel fine. Oliver?” He cups my face as black dots dance in my vision. I manage to refocus on his features. On his sheer concern for me. You’d think he loved me. Jake exhales when he sees me catching my breath, then says, “There are better ways to get me to straddle you.”
He is kneeling on either side of my lap. I am enjoying it, but…“I wish I were faking this,” I say with a slow breath, then eye him. “You’re within two minutes of peanut exposure. You’re positive you’re fine?”
“My throat is just scratchy.” He reaches down in his pockets. Right one, then left. He goes rigid. Must be empty.
I pat mine, then pull out an EpiPen from my back pocket.
Jake frowns.
“Didn’t want you to die on me, Koning. I memorized your fatal flaws.”
He takes the EpiPen. “How many are you hiding?”
I put a finger to my lips. “Secrets. I’d have to do very bad things to you if I showed you any more.”
Jake sits beside me against the stucco wall. Not near the peanuts I smeared on the ground. He glances over at me. “How many times have you had panic attacks?”
“This has only happened once. When I was sixteen.” I tip my head toward him. “To be a kid again.” I laugh weakly and it catches in my chest.
He smiles only a little.
“Tough crowd,” I tease, pressing my head back to the stucco. “The first time, Hailey found me.”
“Where were you?”
“Four Seasons in Austin. Beautiful suite. I got back late, late from a job where I found myself in a pickle. To get out, I pretended I’d been mugged, attacked.” I mime knuckles to my jaw.
Jake’s mouth drops. “No, you didn’t.”
“I did punch myself in the face.” I stretch my legs out. “I did it well, too. Gave myself a busted lip and a black eye.” I swallow a knot. Check on him. He’s breathing fine. “It’s not doing it that overwhelmed me. I like pushing myself. It was the anticipation of being lectured for it. I cared too much about being benched. I didn’t want to be treated like a child needing a time-out.”
“Who disapproved?”
“Everett. Hailey’s dad hated when I improvised to that level. I think he thought I’d be the reason they’d get caught, eventually. I had way more faith in myself, but looking back, I was just sixteen.” I roll my stiff neck. “I’m made of mistakes that I learn to let go of. The only way to move on.”
“And Hailey found you?”
“Yeah.” I nod. My eyes feel swollen picturing the memory. “I was waiting for her parents to get home. I’d been in the suite, sitting on the couch holding a bag of ice to my face. And it hit me.” I turn my head to him. “The weight.”
Jake frowns. “What’d she do?”
“Hailey things.” I smile a little. “She walked in while I was gasping for air, sat on the coffee table, and bent her head to mine. Forehead to forehead. She was forcing me to just stare into the pits of her eyes.”
I instantly breathed deeper. Her inhales were mine. Her exhales were mine.
She whispered, “You’re okay, Olly. You’re bleeding, but you’re okay.”
“Don’t move,” I murmured.
“I won’t.”
I look over at Jake beside me. Bullfrogs croak around us. “You aren’t going to ask what has me so bent out of shape this time?”
“I was getting there. I just like hearing you talk about Hailey.”
“Her name does sound great coming out of my mouth.”
He side-eyes me with a headshake and a slow-rising smile. “Stop.”
“What?” I up-nod him.
“Making me think about you fucking her.”
“You don’t want to envision heaven on earth?”
“Says the monster under my bed.”
My brows spike and a smile spreads. “How long have I been in your bedroom wreaking havoc?”
“Oliver—”
“Do I crawl out and slip under your covers?”
“Oliver,” he groans, his eyes dipping to my lips. “Stop.” Now I just want to kiss him, but he said stop, so I won’t.