Page 55 of Unmanageable

“Hey!” I swat his arm with the corner of my planner.

He laughs, and the sound fills the cozy, narrow interior of the van. He reaches out, his movements slow, and catches my wrist. He doesn’t pull my hand toward him; he just holds my wrist gently, his thumb resting right over the tiny symbol of my tattoo.

He doesn’t mention the ink. He doesn’t mention the nightmare. He just brushes his thumb against the pulse point there. One that says I’m right here, but also I’m entirely willing to wait until you’re ready.

“Scottie,” he whispers, his voice dropping an octave.

“We should go inside,” I say, my breath hitching in my throat. “We have to prep the tracking video for the front office.”

“The video can wait for ten minutes.”

“The video is the brand, Cash.”

“Screw the brand for ten minutes.”

He’s leaning across the center console now, just an inch closer, and in the bright daylight cutting through the windshield, I can see the gold flecks in his eyes.

I could very easily let it happen. I could close the tiny remaining gap between us and finally find out if he tastes like the peppermint gum he’s constantly chewing.

But right then, my phone buzzes violently against the dashboard. The screen lights up with an incoming call: Ivy.

The strange spell breaks instantly.

“It’s Ivy,” I say. “Probably calling to check if you’ve been eaten by a black bear in the woods yet.”

Cash lets out a long, deeply frustrated sigh, falling straight back into his seat. “Saved by Callie’s wife. Unbelievable. This is my karma.”

I press the screen. “Hello?”

“Scottie!” Ivy’s voice blasts frantically over the speakerphone. “Please tell me Cash hasn’t broken anything yet.”

“He’s perfectly fine, Ivy. He’s actually starting to look like a professional goalie again instead of a defense man’s target practice. Herb is an absolute miracle worker.”

We stay on the line for twenty minutes. It pulls both of us right back from the edge of the emotional cliff we were about to blindly jump off. By the time I slide the phone back into my pocket, the suffocating tension has simmered down into a comfortable, deeply playful heat.

“Okay,” I say. “Since we’re officially off the clock for Herb’s attic purge, I’ve decided we are going to do something stupid with our afternoon.”

“Stupid?” Cash’s head snaps up, his eyes brightening. “I excel at stupid. What are we talking about?”

“There’s a twenty-four-hour retro arcade and neon go-kart track about two miles down the highway bypass. And I happen to have it on incredibly good authority that I am a terrifyingly aggressive driver.”

“You?” Cash scoffs. “I’m a professional, multi-million-dollar athlete, Scottie. My spatial awareness and reflexes are literally peak human. You’re going to be eating my exhaust fumes within half a lap.”

“We’ll see about that, O’Connell. Loser has to pay for the next double round of deep-fried cheesecake at the diner.”

“You’re on.”

***

An hour later, I am strapped tightly into a tiny metal go-kart.

I have my hair tied back in a bun, and I’ve traded my jacket for one of Cash’s oversized team-issued hoodies that comes down to my knees and smells faintly of laundry detergent and him.

Cash is wedged into the tiny kart directly to my left, his long legs bent at a ridiculous angle so that his knees are practically hitting his chin because his massive frame is entirely too large for the compact kart.

He looks absurd. Especially because he’s wearing those massive, green glitter googly-eye glasses from the gas station again, because of course he is.

“You ready to lose your dignity, Scottie-girl?”