Page 117 of Tight Ends & Tiaras
SIENNA
“Thanks for coming with me.I can’t believe we have to go to Dallas on my one weekend off.”
Keeping his eyes on the road, Ben laces his fingers through mine and brings the back of my hand to his lips.
My heart melts. Sometimes, he can be so sweet.
He had practice this morning, and then we loaded his Rover to head to his uncle’s house.
“It’s probably the only time I’ll see you this week.” I mean it as a joke, but he doesn’t laugh. Right now, he looks so somber, I don’t know what to say. That’s the one thing I’ve always been able to do—make him laugh. Not today, apparently.
Maybe this is a good time for that surprise I’ve been working on.
“Hey, listen, I know things have been crazy busy lately, but I thought of something fun we could do, maybe on a Sunday afternoon.”
Did his shoulders just slump or was that my imagination?
When he doesn’t say anything, I reach into my purse to pull out the vouchers. “A friend of a friend owns this skydiving company in Austin, and I thought—”
“Absolutely not.”
I stare at his tense profile and laugh. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“Does it have something to do with leaping out of a plane in mid-air?”
“Maybe,” I say slowly.
His nostrils flare. “There’s no way I will ever go skydiving.”
There’s a hostility in his voice I’m not used to, and my eyes get hot. I blink quickly and shove the vouchers back in my bag.
I cross my arms and stare out the window. “Okay. I guess I’ll find another friend to go with me.”
“Sienna, I don’t want you to go skydiving either. Have you not been paying attention? It’s like you don’t even know me.”
My throat gets tight.
What the hell is wrong with him? He’s never lost his temper with me before.
I bite my tongue because if I say anything right now, I’ll start crying, and there’s no way I’ll do that in front of him.
After a solid five minutes of silence, he sighs. “Listen, I’m sorry I barked at you. It’s just that I get really anxious about dangerous activities.”
“You mean like contact sports such as football?” I ask sarcastically.
I brave a glance at him, and his eyes are flat as he studies the road. “I can’t explain why football is different for me. It just is. But I’m still anxious as hell about getting injured. Here’s the thing, though—my parents both died when I was young. I have a phobia that someone I... I care about will die in an accident. It’s why I had such a hard time being around my sister when we were younger. It’s why I’ll never be the guy who cliff-dives or bungee-jumps. It’s why I won’t fling myself out of a plane. It’s why I pay a shitload of money to a shrink so I can learn to function like a rational person.”
His hands clench the steering wheel, and I get a sudden pang of regret now that I connect the dots to everything he’s saying. It makes me feel like a jerk for not being more considerate.
He clears his throat. “Plus, what if the worst-case scenario occurs when I skydive? What happens to Lily then?” He glances in the rearview mirror to check on his daughter, who’s asleep. “Or what if I break a leg when I land? Lone Star could cancel my athletic scholarship because I was doing something so dangerous. Technically, we shouldn’t have gone waterskiing, but programs are a little more flexible in the off season. And if the truth be told, I was a nervous wreck watching you twirl around on skis.”
“Oh.” I sniffle. “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Something about how he speaks to me reminds me of how my father and brothers always talk to me. Like I’m incapable of thinking through things properly. My embarrassment is so sharp, I wish I could leap out of the car, but we’re going seventy-five on the highway.
I try to wipe an escaping tear without him noticing, but it’s quickly followed by several more, so I turn toward the window. I was sure he was going to love this idea for some reason. Now I just feel dumb.
He skied so well and we had such a blast at the lake that I didn’t even know he had a problem with that kind of activity. I guess I’ve never really understood the depth of his anxiety. It makes me more upset to realize how off base I’ve been. This semester has been super stressful, and I just wanted a chance for us to get away and have fun again and reconnect.
