Ex-Daredevil by Zoe Lee

Chapter 36

Gavin

“Raise ‘em up for one last hoorah with the whole family before we divide and conquer for the next eighteen months!” Barley roared, lifting his tequila shot high. “Hoorah, y’all!”

The four other members of Barnyard, their significant others and kids, their personal assistants, their manager, their tour manager, their only reckless publicist, two of the record company suits, four techs, and me all raised our shots and echoed, “Hoorah, y’all!”

We drank and bit our lime slices, then grinned at each other and whooped some more.

The music in the common room of the lodge Barley had rented for the three-day trip to the Grand Canyon blared, but there was no one else for a few miles to hear. We were full of the chimichangas we’d had for dinner and overflowing with energy for the international tour, even if we weren’t going, like me. The band had finished cutting their next studio project, a twenty-fifth anniversary album of acoustic versions of some of their best hits, plus four new songs Barley had written when Eliott and I first started dating.

It was a celebration, a temporary goodbye, and a vacation all in one, and I loved it.

I hadn’t been to one before, because this was the first international tour they’d done since I was hired. But his last personal assistant, who’d trained me, told me they were like the best possible version of a company retreat, and so far, I wasn’t disappointed at all.

We danced and had a couple more shots, but that was it, since they weren’t big partiers or drinkers despite their legendary rock star statuses. Around midnight, we ate a ton of warmed up hot fudge brownies, wrapped in blankets outside, staring up at the sky. It was the beginning of April, so it had been almost seventy during the day, but it was colder now. Someone started to sing something I hadn’t heard before, a few others joining in, and one song flowed into another, some about deserts and stars, some about friendship.

It was everything I loved about this job—this family, because they really were—and I was floating with happiness and exhaustion as we all went inside and crashed out.

The next morning, we ate delicious chorizo and egg scrambles, then loaded up into SUVs to go whitewater rafting, everyone’s energy and camaraderie pumped up high.

The weather was beautiful, the company was stellar, and I hadn’t gone rafting in so long, I was practically vibrating on the drive to where we’d meet the guide company. Rafting was one of the few activities I did that was really about teamwork, since everyone had to help steer and pay attention for things to be safe and awesome. It was the perfect team building for the Barnyard family to do, and someone had brought small action cameras to attach to the helmets we’d be wearing so we could capture the whole thing on video.

We got to the starting point, went through the safety training with no nonsense because we were loud but not idiots, and headed to the launch point. Once we were there, we put on wetsuits because the river definitely wasn’t warm, strapped into the life vests and helmets, and off we went.

To start, it was a beginner-level stretch of river, so that we could all get reacquainted with the momentum and rhythm, plus delight in the amazing views around us on the Colorado River. We whistled and hollered, gave each other shit, and worked together.

By the time we stopped for lunch a few hours later, the river had advanced into a higher class, which required more skill and experience to navigate. We were breathless, starving, and I could feel a sunburn coming up on my nose and the back of my neck.

“Damn, I needed this,” Barley boomed from beside me. “This divorce is sucking so much of my time and energy, and I didn’t even realize until I got into the raft, you know?”

“Sorry, man, but I’m on the other end of the journey,” I told him with a little smile.

He elbowed me with enough force to almost send me tumbling. “Still going well?”

I just said simply, “Yeah, I love him. Just have to tell him.”

Whistling, he announced, “Gavin’s head over heels.”

“Not for you, I hope,” one of the other band members shouted.

Everyone else made fun of Barley’s ego, but I just smiled to myself and kept eating, sighing at the big, but completely gentle, wave of love and excitement that engulfed me.

A few minutes later, it started raining and everyone shouted in excitement. Rain wasn’t a danger when it was like this—it wasn’t like we could get any wetter, and it would only make the rapids more fun. I’d rafted in the rain a bunch of times over the years, and my heart started pounding in excitement as we wrapped up lunch and got ready to go again.

Pretty soon, the rapids were picking up and we were definitely no longer on a beginner-level part of the river anymore. My muscles flexed and strained pleasurably and the noise of the water grew, and like a lot of summer rains out here, the sky stayed blue.

“This is awesome!” the tour manager shouted from the front of the raft.

We went into a more challenging stretch, with more rocks and fairly small drops, bouncing and hollering as we went faster. The publicist with us bounced high in the back and shrieked, then laughed her head off gleefully once she’d landed again.

“Shit, girl, I thought you were gonna take a header right into the river!”

“Now that would be a great story,” she yelled back, grinning ear to ear.

“You could have even gotten a cool scar,” someone else shouted.

“Scars are badass!”

“It’s about to get rougher, folks!” the guide called, and everyone cheered.

All of a sudden, dread cracked through me and I shivered violently, losing my grip on my paddle for a second. My heart pounded and I swore the sky darkened to near blackness, and the cold water felt like it was slithering into my wetsuit like icy worms on my skin.

If you have life insurance, I’d like to be the beneficiary. It’s sure to pay out shortly.

One of Eliott’s first texts echoed in my mind as if I were hearing him speak to me.

“What am I doing here?” I whispered.

“Gavin!” the person next to me shouted. “What are you doing? Help me steer!”

“S-sorry,” I stuttered, feeling like I didn’t have control over my fingers as I started to panic, unable to get my paddle at the correct angle to help keep us on course.

We shot over a drop and I honest to God thought I was going to throw up mid-air.

We hit at a sharper angle than we should have because I hadn’t done my part right, but I swore and jerked back into action, levering my body weight quick and hard to correct it.

“Damn, son, I thought you were going to pass out,” Barley joked from in front of me.

“Me too,” I muttered, but he didn’t hear me.

The rest of the trip was maybe two more hours, but it felt like pure hell. My heart never slowed its frantic thumping and I spent every ounce of my concentration to do my part paddling and steering. Everyone shouting in excitement and laughing joyously around me was like bees buzzing around my ears, distractions that made me flinch to try to escape.

When we were finally done, the raft up on the rocky, muddy shore, I fell out and couldn’t catch myself, hitting the ground on hands and knees, feeling the sting of scrapes.

“Shit, fuck,” I hissed.

Someone hooked an arm around my waist and hauled me to my feet.

Dazed, I looked up to find Rathbone, one of the band members, holding onto me. “Steady, Gavin,” he said quietly while everyone buzzed around us, not seeming to notice. “You look pale as death. Are you okay? I’ve never seen you so uncoordinated before.”

“I—”

My esophagus felt like it torqued in my throat and then I turned away and threw up.

“Whoa!” Barley yelled, skidding into my periphery immediately.

“You’re okay,” Rathbone murmured in his classy voice, his hands soothing over my back. “He’s okay, Barley, just had a bit of an existential crisis on the trip, I’d wager.”

“You did?” Barley sounded confused.

I felt everyone else crowd around before they started asking questions.

“Barley, get everyone loaded up, we’ll be right there,” Rathbone instructed.

“Sure. All right, y’all, get going that way, Gavin’s fine, give him some damn space!”

I concentrated on breathing and getting my throat to open, then unscrewed the lid of my water bottle with unsteady hands so that I could take careful swallows of water.

“Want to talk about it?” Rathbone offered once I’d blown out a big breath.

“I’ve always been a daredevil, and it’s never for a second given me any guilt or hesitation. No one in my family pesters me to quit, so it’s not like a rebellious thing,” I explained. “But, I don’t know, everyone was crowing about the pretty tame danger, then we went over a drop and I…” My shoulders went up in a tight jerk and then I looked up at him, feeling defiant, my mouth mulish. “No, it’s not a mystery or something that snuck up on me. I’m in love with my boyfriend and I haven’t told him, and he hates all this kind of stuff, and—”

All the air sucked out of my lungs and I couldn’t finish, the defiance draining out.

“You’ll learn how to balance it,” Rathbone replied with his signature self-assurance. When I looked over at him with a frown, he smiled and elaborated, “It’s nice, better than I ever thought it could be when I was young and completely free of responsibilities, to have someone you love out there. Someone you love more than, say, playing outdoor concerts in lightning storms, someone who needs you to be safe, but also wants you to be happy.”

“But you’re still out here, and I know you have someone out there,” I countered.

His lips quirked. “Has your man demanded that you stop being a daredevil?”

“No,” I denied immediately. “He’s just kind of… haughty about how reckless it is.”

Rathbone chuckled and started to lead me gently towards the others. “You’re not reckless; you mitigate risks by taking classes or getting certified and having expert guides, so you can have fun but be as safe as possible. He’ll get used to it, and you’ll reassure him.”

“How do I reassure him?” I asked.

“Just a suggestion—sex,” Barley boomed from right behind me.

Everyone cracked up and I shoved him in the shoulder, not that it moved him much.

“Life-affirming sex is as intense as make-up sex, but you don’t have to fight first!”

“Not the worst suggestion you’ve had,” I admitted. I caught Rathbone’s eyes and added quieter, “Thank you. I haven’t been in a real partnership before and I get all jumbled up.”

“Try telling him that,” Rathbone advised, rubbing my shoulder in reassurance.

Determination and the advice smoothed out the cracks my panic had caused and I nodded. The only reason that I hadn’t told Eliott yet that I was in love with him was because I didn’t know how and an opportune moment hadn’t come around naturally. But I was almost completely sure he was there too, so I really wanted to tell him, and then… level up.

Whatever that looked like, since I wasn’t anywhere near ready for, like, marriage.

There were a thousand things to do before that, I just needed to figure out which ones I liked best to show him that I was committed, that I was serious, that I’d never leave him unless I absolutely couldn’t control it, like an alien spaceship crash-landing on my head.