“It’s a poisonous snake curled up tight. It can get really small. So small, I forget it’s there. But when it uncurls, it swells and gets so big it fills me up, crawls up my throat. So deep up my throat, Brock, sometimes I think it’s going to choke me, and when it starts uncurling, I’m always terrified it’s gonna strike.”

One of his hands slid up into my hair and the skin around his eyes got soft before he whispered, “What he left you?”

“Yeah,” I whispered back.

I watched him lift his chin as his fingers sifted into my hair against my scalp and then he shoved my face in his throat.

When he spoke again, his voice was thick. Thick in a way I knew what that meant, thick in a way I knew what it meant to me and I pushed closer to his long, lean body as he asked, “You gonna work that shit out?”

“I…” His hand tensed on my head and my fingers curled into his tee before I whispered, “Yeah.”

“You gonna let me help?”

I closed my eyes.

Then I repeated my whispered, “Yeah.”

His arms got tight, drawing me close and I held on.

“You scared, baby?” he asked.

I didn’t repeat my “yeah,” I just nodded.

His arms got tighter and his voice got thicker as I felt his neck bend and his lips say against my hair, “Don’t be. There’s a wild that’s fucked and there’s a wild that’s just plain wild. You just hooked yourself to a different kind of wild, Tess, and I swear, baby, swear”—his arms squeezed before he finished—“I’ll show you that’s a good, safe place to be.”

I sighed deep and I did this because I believed him.

Then I whispered, “Okay.”

Brock had no response. He just held tight. He did this for a long time. Long enough for me to relax in his arms. Long enough for my fingers to uncurl and settle flat on his warm, hard chest. Long enough for me to realize that cosmopolitans on a back deck at a really bad baby shower with girls who were good to the core and wanted the best for me didn’t shed even a little light on what I had on that couch in that moment.

The only people who knew what was happening were Brock and me.

And after that time went by, he pushed up, grabbed his beer then settled with his back to the couch, his head on my toss pillows at the armrest, me mostly on his body, his beer in his hand resting on his chest, and when I lifted my head to look at him, I saw his quicksilver eyes on me.

Then he muttered, “All right, babe, now tell me about Kentucky.”

I bit my lip.

Brock grinned.

I quit biting my lip and grinned back.