Page 14 of Unlocked Dive
There are a dozen tricks I could do from here. Basic ones I can handle even on my off side, but my mind is full of static, and muscle memory eludes me, short-circuited by trauma’s sharp current.
“Unlocked star?” Byrd’s voice breaks through the buzzing in my brain, calm and casual.
It anchors on my bad hand when I do it on this side, but it’s not really a release move since neither hand leaves the rope during the drop. I throw the tail across my waist and regrip, bracing for the rotation, and then pop my leg free. I ride out the short spin, my right arm locked straight to slow and control the drop. It’s not as flashy as it could be, but it lets me absorb most of the landing with my left arm and shoulder, trapping the pole in my armpit so it doesn’t pop free. I relax into the flag like an afterthought, hanging from my good hand with the other held out to the side, the rope taut between them.
So much for hiding my mess.
I let go and drop the few feet to the mat, flexing my fingers like it hurt and biting my lip.
“I’m okay,” I lie, feeling like an asshole when his brow creases with concern.
“Reggie said you were cleared for more intensive training,” he says, rising from the couch and reaching for my hand. “Does it still hurt?”
I hesitate, ready to lie again, but his long fingers close around my wrist, and the heat of his touch derails me.
“Nope.” I flutter my lashes and tease my knuckles along his pulse, imagining it racing to catch up with mine. “But I won’t complain if you want to kiss it better.”
He drops my hand and narrows his eyes, but I swear the hint of a blush steals up his throat, and suddenly Idofeel better. “In fact…” I offer up a slow smile.That’s not all you can kiss.
“Nice try.” He cuts me off before I can push it and ignores my best pout, returning to his perch on the couch. “Do the drop again. Let’s see it on both sides.”
It goes better the second time, but my brief surge of confidence doesn’t last. No amount of flirting can cover up the fact that the old Echo is lost, especially when Byrd refuses to rise to the bait again, and all my insecurities return with a vengeance. I limp through the rest of the workout until he finally calls it quits and sends me off to shower while he runs out to grab lunch from the local store.
Beneath the purgative spray of Byrd’s rainfall showerhead, I rewrite the morning. The memory of his hand wrapped around my wrist spills into a fantasy where I’m tugged against his broad chest, his mouth whispering accolades over my skin. Naked, cocooned in steam-drenched glass, I fly flawlessly through every trick and cast the faint surprise behind his eyes as lust instead of cautious disappointment.
Tomorrow I get to try again.
Yay.
But first I get to spend the rest of the day with him—hearing his voice and watching him cook and whatever else he does for fun out here in the boonies. Maybe he’ll let me suggest a few things to pass the time. I find the tiniest bath towel he owns to wrap around my hips while I saunter back through the house to my room.
Maybe if I can make him want me, I’ll stop feeling so helpless in my skin, and the rest of me will come back too.
Even fallen angels are allowed to dream.
8
Byrd
Losing someone you thought you loved is hell, but I wonder sometimes if it isn’t somehow a kinder tragedy. There’s something perversely liberating about being the victim in your own disaster—just shift the blame onto the person who did the leaving.
At least, that was always Reggie’s preferred tactic.
“I refuse to watch you waste any more time crying over someone who never deserved you. Get up off your ass, Coen, and take the fucking showcase. Screw Gabriel and his guilt trips and his passive-aggressive jealousy. Coach Fleming chose you.”
“Your family fucked you up, Coen, just like the rest of us. Your parents gave so much of their attention to Elke, you taught yourself to survive on scraps. I love your sister, but she is a drama vortex, and you know it. You need to learn to be selfish every once in a while.”
And a decade later:
“If you keep paying for love with pieces of yourself, Coen, you’ll eventually go broke, and there’ll be nothing left to spend on yourself. Get the fuck out while she’s giving you the chance, and go find someone less expensive.”
It was Gabriel’s fault, and Lara’s, and a half-dozen others in between. I was a perfect boyfriend, a perfect husband—making the sacrifices, putting their needs above my own, doing everything right. Beinggood. And Reggie never let me look too closely at why I chose lovers who excelled at taking, or what it fed me to be the one to give.
So I came to the wild NorCal coast, ready to power through my latest hell and gather back the pieces I’d lost along the way.
Even though what I probably need is a good therapist who isn’t my best friend.
But living with Echo Wash is a new kind of purgatory. Selfish doesn’t even begin to cover the way he makes me feel.
