Page 64 of It’s All in How You Fall
I shake my head, and he hits pause on the video and waits. I swallow. This is stupid. It’s not like I can’t watch this move. That would mean never watching a televised gymnastics event again, or even my own friends—Sunny has had an Arabian in her beam routine for more than a year.
I meet his eyes. “That was the move I hurt myself on.” Breathing carefully, I rewind the video and slow it down. “Blind landing. You can’t see where you’re going, and sometimes you’re falling before you even realize it. This time I realized it, but everything was already out of my control, and, well. I fell apart in the worst possible way.”
I smile, mostly because it might keep the tears pressing against the backs of my eyes from spilling over. Alex may have shown me he’s a human being over the last few weeks, but I’ve shown him I’m an emotional trash fire more than once. I press my hands together in my lap, a tremble in my fingers. I don’t let Chellsie flail, keeping her reaching for the beam, reaching for the hope of a stick that’s not coming.
I force myself to glance up at Alex. “A millimeter either way and maybe I… maybe I wouldn’t be here.”
Here.
This is the second time I’ve teared up at this word in his presence, trying to describe the state of me. The first when starting over. And now, when reflecting on where I was. Where I’ve been.
As much of a struggle as it was during those first weeks after my career ended, and the strangeness of trying new things… I like beinghere. In this new chapter with a lifelong recurring character. In the surprise and delight of it all. The changing landscape, sands shifting under our feet with each new experience.
My life previously was about repetition, perfection, the safety in knowing exactly what’s coming, how to do it, how to save it. Even as we’ve settled into a routine, I still never know what to expect from myself or Alex. And the hope of it all, of each new breath piling onto the next and making time enough to be called an experience is just… exhilarating.
And Alex makes it that way. A hundred percent.
I squeeze my hands tighter together, pressing them into my thighs, the fabric of my dress flattening across my knees. Yet my fingers still shake, my lips tremble now too, and a hot tear spills over as I try to cover a sob.
Alex sweeps his thumb to my cheek, stopping the tear in its tracks. Blunting it with the softest of touches. That thumb sweeps the wetness away but then stays, warm against my cheek. “Don’t cry, Caroline.”
At the sound of his voice, my eyes lift from my lap and stop on his mouth. There’s no tightness to it, his lips held as softly as his fingers touch my face. Supple—that’s the word for them.
Supple. Inviting. Close.
I tear my attention away from his lips but only succeed in meeting his eyes. Chocolate brown and warm, trying to read my face.
Tension increases between his fingertips and my skin. I’m disoriented and crying, but in this haze I swear he’s drawn me closer. Our knees knock together, the downy cushions and gravity doing their work. Alex’s other hand cups the double fist I have in my lap, calming the tremble I can’t shake on my own.
We’re bare inches apart now, and everything in me wants to close the distance.
I want to kiss him.
I want to toss away every fear about the aftermath. With Alex. With Sunny. With Nat. With this new life of mine.
That tension in his fingers has only grown, and now he has a true cradling grip on the side of my face, his fingertips splayed in my hair.
I watch his eyes, his mouth, confirming that he isn’t saying no to this.
He hasn’t budged. Hasn’t pulled back. Hasn’t telegraphed any signal that I’m reading him wrong. He’s all warmth and strength and skin on skin.
The consequences hang between us, a veil between before and after.
And for once I don’t care.
My lips part. I lean into his hand, an invitation of my own.
Alex’s beautiful eyes flutter shut, and I swear he’s nearly closed the distance. But that kiss is still a promise just out of reach.
My wet lashes touch and I tilt toward him.
Toward the promise of his warmth and his choices, and the safety of satisfying the want churning in my gut and the consequences that come—
All at once, the garage door rumbles to life and the front door slams open. The collective slap and step of more than one set of sandals echoes down the entry hall.
Lily Jane’s voice crashes into my consciousness. “Alex! Nat’s here, looking for Caroline. Is she—”
We jolt apart.
