Page 2 of The Ripple Effect

Before I can get my arms over my face, I’m up again, two big hands hoisting me to my feet. No, farther; he’s somehow gotten an arm under my ass and I’m cradled in the crook of his elbow like a new puppy. His arm is… I think “thick” is the word Iwant? Thick and oaken, dusted with springy ginger-blond hair that teases the back of my thighs.

“Are you all right? Take any hits?”

I scan my body for pain points. “I’m good. Damn, that was close. Thanks for the lift.” Up here, I see things I missed before. His beard is trimmed around those full lips with surgical precision. The harsh artificial lighting gives everyone here a zombie complexion, but when I look at his face, my imagination superimposes a fringe of pale-ginger lashes, hair a couple of coppery shades darker, beard two tones deeper still, face and arms covered with a dense lacework of golden freckles.

Someone jostles him. For a second, I’m afraid we’ll both fall.

The smallest cloud crosses his placid expression as he sets his feet wide. The next person who bumps him bounces off, landing on their ass. His lips twitch microscopically.

He liked doing that.

Nowthat’sinteresting. Underneath the Friendly Giant personality he wears in public, there’s something steelier. Something that doesn’t give.

Maybe he’s alittlebit my type.

The crowd pushes toward the exits, rushing to get away from the trouble seekers up front with their chaos dreams of smashing guitars and starring in blurry social media videos.

“You have unusual eyes,” he says, like he’s too tall to have seen them before this moment. “Pale blue. Like whitewater.”

Compliments aren’t my thing. “You can put me down now.”

He looks at me for a beat. Two. Three. Then sets me down carefully, one armed.

Okay, that was hot.

“How are you getting home?” he asks.

“The buses.”

“Those buses?” He jerks his chin at the public transit parking lot, where there are enough buses to handle a slow trickle of people, not a full-on stampede. They’re all jammed with bodies. The drivers honk ineffectively at the swirling, pushing crowds, unable to leave so more buses can pull in.

He watches my face fall. “I’m heading south,” he says. “I can drop you off anywhere from here to Grey Tusk Village.”

I hesitate, doing mental math. What would I owe him? “I’m in Pendleton. I can give you gas money.”

“It won’t cost me anything to take you.”

“And it wouldn’t cost you anything to leave me here, either. Take the money, McHuge.”

Am I imagining the way his lips curve ever so slightly upward again?

I feel a rush of lightness, a tug in my skin that makes me want to see whether he has room inside his oversize fleece for one more person.

And I remember something else I used to do that made me feel steady—that is, before I turned thirty and decided I’d better try to have a grown-up relationship. When I wanted companionship but didn’t want to roll the dice on love, I’d find someone like me who was looking for a night of warmhearted fun and nothing more.

Hookup math was simple: give as good as you get; leave someone at least as happy as you found them. I got good at avoiding people who were only in it for themselves and even better at gently turning away those whose eyes said they wanted my tomorrows.

It wasn’t as good as partnered sex, but there was an equilibrium to it. I gave some, they gave some, repeat. I’d try this, they’d redirect me to that, the pleasure dulled a little by theeffort of making sure everyone got their fair share. Nothing I loved was lost when it ended, because it wassupposedto end.

I need something to bring me back to myself. After being an ER doc during the pandemic, then getting run out of the hospital by my so-called work family, I can’t weather any more loss.

And I’d very much like to forget that this afternoon, going through boxes of my stuff my ex-girlfriend left at Liz’s house, I pulled out an unfamiliar pair of bikini underwear withSWEET AND SOURwritten across the ass.

Not my size. Not hers, either.

I realize I’ve been staring at McHuge’s fleece too long when he strips it off and drapes it over my shoulders. It feels so good against my bare arms. This guy runs so hot, his jacket is warm on theoutside, for fuck’s sake. It smells like a mountain rescue: honeyed tea and laundry warm from the dryer. The burst of comfort triggers a wrenching shiver.

“Ready to go?” He raises his eyebrows. One of them is crooked, a white line running through the ginger, the two halves meeting slightly off-kilter. Oh, I like his face—the straight nose that says he’s never been in a fight, the eyebrow that says he has. I think he’s not who he pretends to be.

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