Down for the Count by Christine Bell

favorite piece of advice? Don’t look down until you reach the summit. Galen had asked why, thinking Max would give him some inspirational shit about the satisfaction of seeing how far he’d come at the end or something. Instead, Max had snorted, “Because it’s fucking scary.”
    This was another small step toward independence for Lacey, and he wasn’t about to call too much attention to it, because it was definitely scary for her.
    But inside? Inside he was beaming with pride.
    .
    An hour later, Galen found himself sitting under an umbrella on a lounge chair, seriously questioning his sanity. What the hell had he been thinking taking her to the beach? It had been bad enough with her prancing around in boxer shorts and a tank top, but this was ridiculous. She’d started off in some sort of muumuu-type cover-up, but after twenty minutes in the sultry heat, she’d seemed to gather her courage and had shucked it off. He, along with every other guy on that spit of beach, had nearly swallowed his tongue.
    She stood before him now against the backdrop of crystal blue water in a nefarious white string bikini. Four triangles of cloth clung to her with no more aid than a slender chain on each curve of hip and one looped around her neck. It was enough to rock his socks off.
    “Does it look stupid?” She wrapped her arms around her waist, which only succeeded in pressing her breasts together, plumping them against the edge of her suit, which, in turn, sent something plumping against his. “It looks stupid. I’m going to go to the gift shop and get a tank suit. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
    She retrieved her cover-up and was in the process of tugging it back on by the time he finally trusted himself to speak. “Don’t.”
    She paused and met his gaze. “I look silly. This isn’t me. I’m not ballsy enough to pull this off.” She bit her lip and turned away. “I just wanted…”
    “I know what you wanted.” He would’ve stood, but his physiological response to her state of undress made that impossible unless he wanted to get himself arrested for indecent exposure. “You wanted to let go, have some fun, do something different and exciting.” The genuine sadness in her eyes kept him from adding, And for the record, I’m different and exciting.
    She clutched the brightly patterned cloth more tightly in her hands. “Yeah.”
    “So I don’t know why you’re trying to talk yourself out of it now. The hard stuff is over. You dumped the groom, ran out on your wedding reception, and jumped on the back of a Harley in your slip. Then you got drunk and flew to Puerto Rico with your best friend’s older brother, who, incidentally, thinks you look smoking hot. Who’s got more balls than you?” he asked, allowing some annoyance to trickle into his tone. His baiting her was terra firma for them both. Hopefully the familiarity of it would remind her that he was, and always had been, a straight shooter. He wasn’t blowing smoke up her ass here. A lot of people in her shoes would’ve crumbled after yesterday, but she’d handled that lights-out blow to the chin better than most of the heavyweights he’d fought.
    Her eyes went so wide, she could’ve been a cartoon. “Y-You think I look hot?” Her wringing hands went limp and her cover-up fell to the sand.
    He considered backpedaling rather than revealing exactly how much she affected him, but one look at the hope on her face killed that notion. Instead, he played it matter-of-fact. “I don’t think it, squirt. I know it. It’s like water’s wet, the sky is blue, Lacey looks fine as hell in her bikini.” He shrugged. “Facts are facts. You’ve gotta get some confidence working because I think your view of yourself is skewed. Fake it until you make it.”
    She lifted her hands to cross them over her midsection again, but then froze, letting them drop to her sides. Sucking in a deep breath, she nodded, then snagged the cover-up. “I’ll try,” she said,