Page 76 of Total Jane Wreck

“Amazing. Horrifying. Soul-reckoning. All of the above. I met a tarantula that would have terrified you.”

“Mmm.” He sucks in a breath. “Not so terrified. You would have protected me.”

“True.” My fingers run through his thick waves. “I would have protected you at all costs.”

“I know.” He looks at me like I’ve gone from something hazy and abstract to someone clear and real. “You look terrible,” he says. “There are hollows in your cheeks. And you’re sunburned. Plus . . .” he points to my T-shirt “. . . Bigfoot? What happened to the art museum tees?”

I shrug. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“So true. Well . . . whatever. You’re still beautiful. So beautiful.”

“Mmm. Remember when you said I could be covered in pus-filled boils and you’d still find me attractive?”

He breathes out a laugh. “Yeah.”

“Well, I’m recovering from poison ivy, so now’s the time for you to prove that wasn’t a lie.”

Even though I was joking, Chet’s face turns solemn, as does his voice. “Jane, from now on, I’ll only ever be honest with you, and I’ll prove that again and again and again.”

He pulls me toward him, and I let him, settling carefully against his uninjured side, my head finding the space below his shoulder. His arm wraps around me, his exhale long and slow, like he’s been holding his breath for an entire month.

“Jane,” he speaks into my hair.

“I know,” I say. “Me too.”

We lie there for a bit, comfortable in the silence. “I can’t believe you gave all your money to the horses.”

Chet chuckles. “Believe it.” His thumb traces lazy circles on my hand.

“How did you even come up with such a crazy idea?”

A beat. “Simple. I asked myself, ‘What would Jane do?’”

I go very still.

“Since then,” he continues, “that question’s become my new philosophy of life.”

I prop myself up on my elbow so I can look into his dark eyes. “Careful. Keep talking like that, and you’ll have me believing the sun comes up just to hear me crow.”

Chet full-on laughs. It costs him. His whole face tightens. He presses a hand to his stomach as if trying to hold himself together.

His gaze finds mine anyway, warm and unhurried. “It’s okay if you believe that,” he says, quieter now. “Because if I were the sun, I’d rise and set for the rest of time, never once tiring of hearing you crow.”

I look at him for a long moment. This ridiculous, infuriating, generous man.

“You’re going to the doctor tomorrow.”

“I know,” he says. “I know I am.”

This small concession is how it happens. Here we are, on the too-small mattress, needing to be careful and reckless all at once. His injured belly is an invisible barrier; I keep my arms around him but my weight off his ribs. His slow, careful kisses confirm what I suspected along the Colorado Trail: If life is full of chaotic choices, the best way—the only way—to make sense of it all is by loving someone completely, flaws and all. And by letting them love you in return.

“Don’t,” I caution, when he tries to pull me on top of him. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“It’d be worth it,” he murmurs, pressing me to him. Love and desire shoot through my veins, astounding me.

We’re a hot mess. Fumbling, laughing as we kiss, needing to stop several times to reposition or catch our breath. He murmurs my name in a voice so low it’s like he’s telling a secret to my skin. Every time a wince of pain crosses his face, I freeze, but he shakes his head. “This is the best painkiller in the world,” he says.

I memorize Chet’s hands, the way he holds me, and the hesitant, hopeful way he touches my face afterward. We are just two bodies tangled together, no past, no future, not even names. We’re spent and damp. The sheets are a disaster, but he studies my face. “Promise you’ll stay,” he murmurs.