I shrug. “I mean, at first it felt great. It felt like it used to. The wind whipping my hair, Oakley’s hooves pounding the earth—it brought back every memory of every race we’d ever done together. But then…” I swallow down the rising panic. “The memories, the bad ones, got to be too much. I lost control, let the fear win over, and I flat out freaked.” Shame and weakness saturate my skin as I close my eyes and relieve the sensation of failure. “It was a complete disaster.”
“Was anyone with you?” His voice is so soft that I open my eyes, finding his filled with compassion. I shake my head, once, and he asks, “Not even Cade?”
“Not watching, no. I didn’t want anyone to see,” I confess, humiliation burning my cheeks. Oh, how I loathe my fair skin. “If I let everyone down again, and I knew I would, I couldn’t—”
“See, right there,” he interrupts, and I jerk my head back. “Sunshine, you didn’t have a prayer. From the second you entered that course, you were already defeated. You can’t do that—you have to believe in here,” he moves close and brushes two fingers across my heart, “and in here,” he says moving them over my temple and keeping them there, “that you will succeed. That you have what it takes. You’ve done it before, it’s all muscle memory by now. Oakley knows what’s what. But until you believe it yourself, push past that fear and doubt, you’ll never do it.”
Justin’s palm gently cups to cradle my cheek as he stares into my eyes. His golden brown irises are intense with emotion, more than I ever remember seeing before. “Victory starts in your head, Peyton. You know that.”
As an athlete, Justin’s heard a million pep talks, most of them probably from my dad. But this seems to go so much deeper than that. I can’t help but wonder if perhaps, with his recent injury, this speech of his is as much for him as it is for me.
“You also did it alone,” he scolds, ducking his chin and raising a sharp eyebrow, reminding me of Mama when she’s in über-serious mode. I bite the flesh of my cheek to hide my smile. “When are you going to see that you’re surrounded by people who want to help? Who love and care about you?” Any comment I would’ve made flies right out of my head when his thumb begins tracing the shell of my ear. “You might not want to hear it, but I’m one of them.”
This is when you should push him away.
Instead, my hands find their way to the soft cotton of his T-shirt and grip.
Justin takes another step closer and places his hands on either side of my head, caging me in against the wall. “Next time you do something huge like this, or even something small, I want you to call me, okay? You have to know I’ll always come running. You snap your pretty little fingers,” he says and a click sounds near my ear, “and I’m here. Just like that.”
My chest rises and falls with increased breaths and I shift my gaze between his eyes. Is he serious? Up until a couple weeks ago, we didn’t even make eye contact, we avoided each other for years… and now I’m supposed to call him? Trust him to help me?
But then, a lot has changed in two short weeks.
Slowly, sneakily, in ways I didn’t always catch, but happened regardless, things shifted. My defenses toppled, the wall I thought I’d built so high in order to keep from getting hurt again: obliterated. Justin bulldozed his way right through every obstacle I lay in his path—almost as if they never existed.
“Stop overthinking it, Sunshine,” he murmurs. His fingertips caress my cheek as he slides a strand of hair behind my ear. Tingles shoot across my scalp. “I see those wheels turning. You’re just gonna have to accept that we’ll be together again one day. Once you stop fighting it so hard, you’ll see what I see.”
I lick my dry lips and ask, “And what do you see?” though my voice is suddenly so breathless I doubt he understands me. Somehow, he must, because his smile grows.
“Inevitability,” he replies, and a rush of sensation curls through my body.
It begins at the nape of my neck, forcing my head back against the wood. It courses down my spine, straight through to my toes. Excitement, disbelief, a hint of anger, and an even stronger dose of an emotion I’m too afraid to name zings through me as my eyes lock on his. My rapid breaths bring with it the sweet scent of hay and the clean scent of boy—soap, a hint of mint, and Justin. He has an intoxicating scent all his own. It was once my addiction.
Our mouths hover just a hairsbreadth apart, and every instinct, every desire screams at me to close the gap. Just as I concede the fight, a screen door slams in the distance. I squeeze my eyes shut.
This is wrong. So wrong. Even having this conversation is wrong. It’s not fair to Cade, and the emotions Justin’s words have stirred within me make me feel as guilty as if I’d actually done the deed. Cade has been my rock for so long, and Justin… he destroyed me freshman year.
Why do I keep forgetting that?
When a cool rush of air replaces the heat of his body, my eyes snap open. Justin is standing a few feet away, his face a mask of calm, collected, confidence—and he’s wearing a smirk like he’d just won a freaking Championship.