Page 5 of Run the Play (Nashville Rampage #2)

“I guess I’ll just have to take you up to the hotel pool and drop you there,” he teases, smiling down at me.

“I want to do it.”

“I don’t want you doing anything that you don’t feel comfortable doing, Roe.” He moves to a nearby lounger and sits with me still in his arms.

“What are you doing?”

“You don’t want to go. I’d never do something like force you or take you out of your comfort zone. I was just playing around.”

“You’re supposed to talk me into it,” I tell him.

He tosses his head back in laughter. I know that I’m being difficult.

I do have a fear of what’s in that water, but I also want to know what it’s like to be submerged in the ocean.

When I visited in the past, when I lived in Los Angeles, Chaz never cared if I went in or not.

In fact, he would take off with his friends, leaving me to sit in peace.

I was never a part of their day, even though I was there with him.

“I want to do it, but I need you to not let me go, and if I’m ready to go back to shore, we go back to shore. Can you promise that?”

He nods. “Trust me,” he says softly.

That’s just it. I don’t trust easily, but for some reason, this man, I trust him. I feel it in my soul that he’s someone who keeps his promises. “Landry,” I say, and my voice has an evident tremor this time.

“I won’t let go of you. I promise you. Rowan Mills, you’ve got this. Make this ocean your bitch,” he says, teasing, trying to hype me up.

I look out at the clear blue waters and all our friends and Knox’s family laughing and having a great time. “You won’t let go?” I ask.

“Promise.”

“Okay, in and out,” I say, taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling.

“Keep your arms wrapped around my neck,” he says as he walks farther into the water. “Breathe, Rowan,” he whispers.

I focus on deep, even breaths, and soon, he’s waist-deep in the ocean with me in his arms. The water is so crystal clear that you can see everything below, and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Either way, I’m not in the water because Landry is holding me out of it.

“Not so bad, huh?” He smiles down at me.

“Not so bad,” I repeat. I can’t believe I’m conquering one of my biggest fears. It’s not so bad when I’m in his arms.

“You want to get down?” he asks.

“No. No, don’t put me down.” I cling tighter to him, and he nods.

“Okay. Do you want to get on my back? Reposition on my front?”

“I just—I don’t know.” My voice wobbles.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he soothes. “We can stand just like this. Tell me what you want and need, and I’ll make it happen.”

“I need not to be eaten by a shark.”

“No shark food. Got it.” He nods.

“Landry.” I laugh, slapping at his bare chest. “Not funny.”

“Come on, it’s a little funny,” he says, dipping me into the water.

I shriek and tighten my already steady grip on him. No way am I letting him put me down in this water.

“We’re not ten feet from shore, Rowan. You’re okay,” he says, his voice soothing.

A massive gush of water splashes into us.

At first, I start to panic, thinking that it’s a wave and we’re going to get sucked out even farther into the abyss, but when I hear laughter, I look over to find Corie grinning.

She’s on Knox’s shoulders and smiling like she just won a billion-dollar lottery.

“Sorry, not sorry.” She shrugs.

“Not cool, Beckett!” I yell at her.

“Aw, I’m a Beckett now.” She gets this dopey look on her face, bends over, and somehow manages to kiss Knox on the lips.

“Still a Reynolds,” Landry grumbles under his breath.

“And she’s still your sister. Nothing will ever change that,” I tell him, keeping my voice low so he’s the only one who can hear me.

He nods. “She’s the only family I’ve got. Blood family, that is.”

“And she still is. No matter what.” I don’t know why I feel like I need to reassure him. I guess because I can hear the anguish in his voice. “He loves her.”

“I know he does. With everything inside of him.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t love her too.”

He squeezes me gently, pressing my body more firmly into his. “Hey, Roe?”

“Yeah?”

He grins. It’s a goofy grin, and I brace myself for the words about to come out of his mouth. “You’re in the ocean.”

I freeze, and that’s when I notice he’d dipped under the water. I scramble, fear taking hold of me again, and I end up with my front plastered to his chest, my legs wrapped tight like a vise around his waist, and my arms around his neck.

“Landry—” My voice quivers. I feel his strong hands beneath my thighs.

“I’m right here, Rowan. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Please don’t let go.”

“I won’t let go,” he assures me. “How about we dip down, and then I’ll bring us back up. Just to your chin?”

“I don’t know.”

“I won’t let go of you. We’re close to shore. Look.” He nods to the white sandy beach. “Just a quick dip.”

“I don’t like this.”

“Do you want me to take you back to shore?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

He chuckles lightly. “On three, we’re going down and coming right back up.

” I nod, and he counts us off, and then we’re moving.

He bends his knees, submerging us in water, and I cling to him like a baby monkey clinging to their momma.

“I’ve got you.” He stands back up, and the smile that lights up his face is nothing short of a masterpiece.

“Don’t be so smug,” I say, pinching his shoulder, which doesn’t seem to faze him.

“I’m proud of you, Roe. You did it. You faced your fear of the ocean.”

“You mean I held on to you like I was a permanent extension of your body and dealt with the plan,” I reply.

“You did more than that. Do you want to go again?”

I think it over. It’s not as bad as I imagined that it would be, so I nod.

“Good girl,” he says huskily. Then he dips us under. There is no countdown this time, but the warm ocean water washes over us, and it feels nice. Freeing even.

We pop back up, and this time, I’m laughing. That’s how we spend the next twenty minutes or so. Landry spins me around in the water. I even hold on to his hands and float a little, but there is always a part of me that is tethered to him.

When we all decide it’s time to call it a day and head inside for food and to get packed and ready to go home tomorrow, Landry carries me out of the water and gently places my feet on the sand.

“Safe and sound.”

“Thank you, Landry.” He doesn’t know what a big deal today was for me.

Not just because I went into the ocean where fish and so many other wild creatures live but because I trusted him to get me through it.

I don’t trust easily, and somehow, Landry Reynolds managed to ease me out of my comfort zone and believe his words when he said he wouldn’t let go.

He never let go.

I know there are good men out there. Just none of them have ever been a part of my life. Maybe I've found a few with this new job and my new group of friends. In fact, I know that I have, and Landry Reynolds is at the top of the list.