Page 38 of Wild Card

Jeans I’d happily tug off if she asked me to.

I shake my head.No. That ship has sailed.

My gaze drops lower, to her bare feet, her pink toenails wiggling in the sand. She holds her socks in a loose fist at her side.

“What are you doing out here?” I ask, confused.

“It was loud inside. I have to teach a hot yoga class early tomorrow morning and I would rather not be sweating champagne for all my students to smell. So I can’t really treat it like a night out, even if it is a Friday.” She glances at the water with a soft shrug. “Plus, I’m a sucker for going barefoot in the sand, so I snuck out for a breather.”

I nod. “Same. Minus the yoga part.”

She quirks a brow but doesn’t call me on it. Then her expression softens. “Want me to leave?”

Do I want her to leave?

“I can get out of here. I wanted to go check out that little guesthouse. That’s my dream spot for yoga. Maybe bigger windows. Private. Quiet. A view of water. Just lock me up in there and I’ll be happy. Actually, bring me food too.”

I almost smile at her ramble. Despite the way I’ve behaved around her lately, Gwen doesn’t annoy me. Not in the least. She’s a go-with-the-flow free spirit, and I’m laced up tight—fighting against the flow a lot of the time. But she just…doesn’t.

“No,” I murmur, keeping my face turned toward the lake. “Just stay.”

I feel her approach, coming to stand beside me quietly before asking, “Are you nervous?”

“A bit.”

“Take your shoes off.”

I turn to glance at her now. “What?”

“Just trust me. It’ll help you feel better.”

I’m already kicking my boots off when I ask, “How?”

She closes her eyes, and her lips curve up. “It will help ground you. Feel the pulse of the earth on your bare skin.”

I scoff, and she peeks out one eye. “Shut up and lose your socks, Sebastian.”

Her snapping at me like that makes me chuckle. It’s so out of character. And yet, I’m reaching for my socks and soon standing barefoot beside her.

“Now what?”

“Push your feet into the sand.” My head tilts as I watch her, ankles rotating, toes wiggling as she slowly works them down into the cold grains.

I follow suit and a wave of déjà vu hits me even though I can’t specifically remember the last time I did this.

“It’s fucking cold,” I mutter.

Gwen smiles, eyes fluttering closed once again as she sighs deeply. “Makes you feel alive, right?”

I don’t respond to that. I’m not sure what to say, because, as ridiculous as it sounds, yeah, it does make me feel alive.

“Now turn your palms toward the water and press your middle finger to your thumb.”

A small part of me wants to roll my eyes, but a bigger part of me trusts that she might actually know what she’s doing. So I go along with it, positioning my hands the way she instructed.

We stand like that for a while before she speaks again. “It would be weird if you weren’t nervous, Bash. It’s normal to let your brain wander down every path of possibility. So long as we don’t let it go too far. You have to come back to that feeling of knowing yourself better than anyone. Of being so in tune with yourself that your mind always comes back to center. You need that stability. Grounding.”

“You have a lot of practice with that, do you?”