“Go with Penna. I’ll stay,” Nick said, coming up behind us.
He was devastatingly handsome with thick blond hair that was given to curl, bright blue eyes, and a Paul Walker mouth. “You must be Leah. I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances, but I’m glad to meet the woman who’s tamed Wilder.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too, Nick. I’ve heard a ton of great things about you.”
“None of them are true,” he said with a grimace. “Seriously. Take Landon and go. I’ve got it here.”
“I’ll stay, too,” I told Paxton as they loaded Penna into the back of the ambulance. “Between the two of us, we’ll take care of it.”
Paxton nodded once, then pulled me against him, kissing me fiercely. “I thought I almost lost you.”
“You almost did,” I said, and we both knew I meant more than what had just happened.
“I love you, Leah. If that means you need me to stop riding, stop filming, stop…anything, I will. Everything is empty without you. I’m empty.”
I kissed him gently. “I love you, too. Now go.”
“Does this mean…?”
“It means we’ll talk later. Get your ass in the ambulance and keep me updated.”
“I know what it took for you to trust me with your life up there. I’m just asking for you to trust me with your heart.”
“I know,” I whispered, needing a little more time for my brain to catch up to what my heart, body, and soul already knew: I was always going to be his.
He stole one more kiss and then jumped into the back of the ambulance. As they pulled out, Brooke was being lowered into a police car, her eyes locked on Nick.
“I’m so sorry,” I said to him, unable to process the thought that it had been Brooke all this time, laughing with me, guiding me, and plotting against Paxton. But I knew that my feelings had to be nothing compared to Nick’s.
“Me, too,” he answered, his eyes saddened with a loss I could only imagine. “Me, too.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Paxton
Abu Dhabi
“And how do you feel your lack of training time has impacted your preparation for today?” Martin Sykes asked, thrusting his ESPN microphone in my face.
“It hasn’t been easy,” I answered honestly. “The Renegades put a priority on college this year, which is something we’re proud of, but we’ve had to balance schoolwork, field studies, and general fun with as strenuous a training schedule as we could handle.”
“How has training on board a cruise ship challenged you?”
“The boat moves.”
Sykes laughed, and I didn’t bother to tell him that I wasn’t joking.
“We found that when we were at sea, we were focused on our studies and physical training. We had limited facilities in port, but we had some great friends open their tracks and ramps to us, for which we are eternally grateful.”
I glanced to my left, where Landon was taking his own questions, and farther down, where Penna sat with a bevy of reporters, her leg, casted in bright pink from the hip down, propped on a chair.
“And the loss of Rebel after yesterday’s training accident?” Sykes asked, following my line of sight.
I forced a wry smile. “As you can see, she’s not lost, she’s healing.”
“Right. Bad choice of words. Do you think the priority on school is what caused that accident?”
He waited easily, unknowing that he’d just ripped open the still congealing wound.
“I think there are a lot of factors that led to Rebel’s accident, but I can assure you that we’ve taken protective measures to make sure nothing like that will happen again.” And it wouldn’t. If I ever had to sit in another hospital for one of my friends, it wasn’t going to be because I’d been too blind to see what was really happening.
“Right. And that trailer? You took a big risk going with that angle to draw in views.”
This time my smile was genuine, especially when I saw Leah coming through the doors behind him, wearing that flirty sundress she’d bought in Mykonos. I couldn’t wait to slide my hands up those smooth thighs— Concentrate! “Right, the trailer. That motive was purely selfish, but I wanted everyone to see that what makes life extreme isn’t always just pushing your body to the limit, it’s also about opening yourself to new experiences, whether they’re physical or emotional.”
“Has she seen it yet?” he asked with a sly smile.
“You know, I’m not sure. But I think I’m going to go ask her, if you don’t mind,” I answered.
Sykes laughed. “Ah, young love. For ESPN, this is Martin Sykes with the X Games Gold medalist Paxton Wilder, leader of the famed Renegades.”
I gave the camera a sharp wave and a grin and then headed toward Leah without asking if he’d want to talk again after. If I succeeded, they all would. If I failed…they all would. Either way, I wasn’t getting out of here today without a ton of cameras shoved in my face.
“Hey. I didn’t want to bug you, I just wanted to say good luck before I found my seat,” she said, nervously tucking her hair behind her ear. “Plus, our grades came out,” she added nonchalantly, like our entire future wasn’t riding on them.
My stomach dropped. “Okay?”
A slow smile spread across her face. “You passed with a 3.4. That physics class pulled up your GPA. Well, and your Lit final.”