Page 36 of Eye of the Hurricane (Weathering Doves Harbor #2)

Katherine

I feel like I’m staring down the barrel of everything I’ve worked hard for. I’m less than two hours out from my interview with The Sea Dragons and I feel like I’m going to throw up.

Everything in my life has been leading up to this moment. I can’t fail now, I won’t let myself. I’ve sacrificed so much in my life to get here. I don’t want to find out I gave up all of that for nothing.

I never really realized until this year how much I had sacrificed.

That’s just the way it always was, I never considered having it any other way.

Of course, until Ares walked into my life.

He has shown me how fun life could be if I let it be.

And I really, really, want to let it be fun. I just have to get this job first.

I’m currently sitting in the parking lot of the athletics facility trying to calm myself down and running through the lists upon lists of practice questions that Jacob gave me.

I even found some online. I know that I’m cut out for this, I know that I am.

Still, there is this nagging fear that I’m not ready.

The time seems to drag but after all of the prep work, I’m finally being called back for my interview. I expect to see Mateo or any of the staff that I have been introduced to in my time shadowing here.

Instead, it’s an unfamiliar face on the other side of the desk.

A woman who looks to be somewhere between her fifties and her sixties.

She’s very professional looking, she’s got on an all white pantsuit.

She reminds me a little bit of my mother and that alone has me psyching myself out.

Wondering if she too will think a woman in athletics is ridiculous.

The interview is somehow even more intense than I had thought it would be. I feel like I was asked all of the mainstream questions about my work ethic, how I handle conflict, and how I work with others. Then on top of that, I was asked a million more related to the job itself.

Ninety minutes of nothing but questions. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so damn stressed if she had even cracked a smile. That woman was all business, no pleasure.

This is a level of anxiety I’ve never dealt with before. I manage to put on a brave face through the entire interview and out to my car. As soon as I’m in the car, I fall apart.

All of my fears set in. What if I don’t get it? What if she hated me? What if I’m not qualified? Worst of all, what if I’m totally qualified and don’t get it because I’m a woman?

I’m not crying, although this feels worse than crying. Instead, I’m sitting here trying to steady the tremble of my own hands. I want to call my mom and tell her how fucking scared I am. But she wouldn’t have anything comforting or productive to say .

My second thought is that I want to call Ares. But in what world is it fair to him that I call him freaking out after my interview when I’m the one telling him we can’t be together right now.

Sure, things were great the weekend of the wedding. But it was temporary, nothing has changed. I still don’t have the time for something serious and he still deserves better than that—more than that.

So instead I drive home with shaking hands and a racing heart. When I walk through the door, the soft jingle of a bell collar is a comforting sound. I pick Bellatrix up off the floor and she rubs her face against mine, purring.

It doesn’t settle me the way I want it to. I feel uncomfortable in my skin. Uncomfortable doesn’t even cut it. I feel like I want to claw my way out of my skin. I feel suffocated.

I sit the cat down on the ground, pour myself a glass of wine, and splash cold water over my face. It doesn’t do a thing.

I’m filled with this overwhelming sense of dread. The feeling of suffocating has gone from metaphorical to literal. I can’t fucking breathe.

I’m not proud to say that it’s my first reaction in a crisis. I’d love to say I call Luna. But instead, it’s Ares’ phone number I’m dialing.

“Hey, Audra said your interview was today, how did it go?”

“Can you come here?” I choke the words out through gasps for air.

“Are you okay?” I sit down on the kitchen floor exactly where I’m standing, not bothering to walk to the couch.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s wrong? ”

“I don’t know,” I snap.

“I’m on my way. Are you at home?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to stay on the phone with you until I get there?”

“Yes.”

I don’t even comprehend the minutes between him telling me he’d stay on the line and when he walks through my front door. I spend that time trapped in a loop of counting heartbeats per minute and forcing air into my lungs. I feel like I’m living manually right now.

As soon as he steps inside the house his eyes fall to me and his features soften. In three long strides, he’s next to me and dropping to the floor beside me.

“Honey…” he breathes, pulling me into his lap. “What happened?”

“Promise me you won’t laugh at me,” I demand.

He offers me his pinky finger for a promise.

“I think I’m having a heart attack. I know it’s crazy but I’ve been so stressed with this job interview and I feel like I can’t breathe…

like I can’t catch my breath… and my heart is racing. I feel weird. Like impending doom.”

“A panic attack, honey.” He gathers my hair in his hands and pulls it up off of my neck. He pulls the hair tie off of my wrist and ties my hair into what I’m sure is the worst bun ever done.

“What?”

“You’re having a panic attack, not a heart attack.” He pulls my back to his chest.

“How do you know?”

“Audra has them. She has since we were kids,” he tells me .

“I’ve never had one. I don’t even have anxiety. Are you sure?” He presses a firm palm to the center of my chest to feel my heart.

“I’m sure,” he confirms. The assurance that this isn’t going to be the thing that kills me takes a weight off of my shoulders. I huff a breath, loosening the tenseness in my muscles. I slump my weight against his body. “Breathe.”

I drag in a few breaths and he lets out a chuckle. “Breathe slower.”

“I can’t,” I whine.

“You can. Match your breathing to mine. Pay attention to the rise and fall of my chest under you. Focus on that,” he instructs. I do as he says and I laser my focus on his breathing. At every inhale, I drag in a breath of my own. Slowly but surely I feel my body calm down.

“Is this how you help Audra?” I ask and he laughs.

“Definitely not.”

“How’d you know what to do?”

“Instinct I guess. I just saw you on the floor hugging your knees and everything in my body was begging to hold you and make it better,” he admits.

A similar spark of panic ignites at his words. Lately, things between us don’t feel like we’re faking any of it. To the extent that I’m not sure we ever were.

It would be so easy to melt into this. To let him hold me the rest of the day and into the night. To be done with the plan and let him show me what life could be like.

Except I won’t let myself have this. Not until I know if I got the position. Not until I know if all of the focus and work paid off.

“I’m sorry I called,” I sigh. There might be more conviction in my statement if I wasn’t still lying against him .

“I don’t know why you’re sorry.”

“I don’t know. I feel like a bitch for calling you to my rescue after don’t-wait-for-me gate,” I say. He bursts out into laughter.

“Don’t-wait-for-you gate?” he asks, laughing harder.

“It’s not funny! I feel really bad,” I pout.

“Before all of this, we were friends. Even if that was where we drew the line you’d still be welcome to call me when you need me. It’s okay to ask for help, you know.”

“It’s just not something that feels particularly natural to me.”

“I can see that. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. I’m happy to be here, anytime you need me.”

I drop my palm on the little service bell at the front of the bar at The Sand. Marco comes out from the back with his big customer service grin.

“Where’s your other half?” he asks. I know immediately he’s talking about Luna. I almost never come here without her. I just needed a moment to myself.

The new friendships in my life are so special to me. Sometimes it feels like my independence has been stripped from me. So maybe it’s silly, but I needed to spend a couple of days alone.

“No Luna today,” I tell him climbing up on the bar stool. He squints his brows at me.

“I meant the boy. Ares, I think?”

“How do you know about him?” I ask .

“Luna’s been here alone more often lately. Every time I ask where you’re at, she says you’re with him,” he explains.

“Gotcha. We’re just friends.” He laughs.

“Right… Luna told me you would say that,” he says.

“Of course she did,” I groan. “I’m just here for nachos and a milkshake.”

“Chocolate peanut butter?” he asks.

“Yes, please. And I want everything but onion on those nachos,” I tell him.

Soon enough he brings my food out. I take my first sip of the milkshake and it tastes like magic.

“You’re the best, Marco.”

“Don’t forget it!” he yells to me before going back to the kitchen. It looks like it’s just Marco here which is pretty normal for a weekday. Usually the weekends he has a couple of servers and a spare bartender here.

“You coming out tomorrow for Halloween?” he asks, reemerging from the back.

“Yes. Me, Luna, and all our friends.”

“Oh, you guys have friends?”

“Hilarious,” I deadpan.

“Will Ares be here?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

“He will.”

“I’ll be too busy to meet him with Halloween but I expect you to bring him in here one of these days,” he tells me, pointing a finger at me.

“We’ll see.” I shrug.

Marco disappears again and I’m left alone to finish my food and think. I expected the time alone to clear my head, help make sense of things. If anything, it’s all more jumbled than before.

All of the things I want feel like puzzle pieces. Except they’re pieces from different puzzles and none of them fit together.