someone would want to hurt me.
“Gigi.” Vince wrapped an arm around my shoulders, leaning his forehead against the side of my head. “You sure you’re good?”
“Yes.” I cupped his arm. “Thank you for catching me.”
“Always, baby. I’ll always catch you.”
I shivered, knowing that he wasn’t just talking about me falling off the ladder.
“Hey guys.”
Both of us turned to my mom coming toward us from down the hall.
“What’s going on?” she asked, glancing at the ladder.
“The step broke and Gigi fell,” Vince explained, keeping his hand on my hip.
“Oh God. Are you okay?” Mom asked, inspecting the step.
“Yeah.” Even though what I had with Vince was new, I liked the fact that he wasn’t afraid to touch me in front of people, especially my mom. I stepped back, a soft sigh escaping me at feeling his hard body pressed up against mine.
His eyes burned into my head, his hold tightening on my hip as if to say, ‘I got you, babe.’
“Your dad isn’t going to like this,” she mumbled, inspecting the ladder. “We got some new volunteers. I’ll have to look into things.”
“I’m sure it was just an accident.” But even though those words left my mouth, I knew they were a lie. Someone did this deliberately. I just didn’t know who or why.
“We run background checks on everyone, but I’ll see if I can find out if anyone was here who wasn’t supposed to be,” Mom gritted out, giving me a hug. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Me too.” I didn’t want to think what damage falling off the ladder could have caused. I had already destroyed my knee by doing a spin and jump wrong. I could still feel the pain as my leg had twisted in a way that hadn’t seemed humanly possible.
“Queenie.”
I jumped, forgetting Vince was behind me. “I’m fine,” I told him when that frown between his eyebrows deepened. “I promise.” I stood on tiptoes, placing a soft peck on his cheek.
When I went to pull away, he wrapped himself around me.
“If something happened to you...” His voice trailed off, his face pushing into the crook of my neck.
I was momentarily shocked by the nervous energy coming off of him. “Hey.” I returned the embrace. “I promise I’m fine.”
He lifted his head. “I need to see for myself.”
Before I could ask what he had meant by that, he grabbed my hand and led me to a nearby storage room. No one ever went into this room. Even though it had been packed with stuff, it was like we kept everything just in case we needed it one day.
“Vince.” I spun on him when he gently shoved me into the room. “Listen, I promise I’m fine.”
He slammed the door shut, clicking the lock into place and closing the distance between us. “You can tell me that all you want but it’s still not convincing me otherwise. I need to see.”
“You can’t expect me to get naked in here.” Not that I was opposed to getting naked in public, but I could never do something like that at a place like this.
“As much as I want you naked, we’re not doing that here.” Vince lowered to his knees. “Hold onto me.”
My heart jumped but I did as I was told. Cupping his shoulder, I waited. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do but knew that I needed to reassure him.
“Are you sore at all?” he asked, wrapping his hand around my shin.
“I…” I realized then that I was a little stiff. “Not sore exactly.”
His dark eyes shot to mine. “Stiff?”
I nodded.
A shadow passed over his face. “Your body must have tensed when you fell.” He trailed his fingers down my shin. “You sure you’re good?”
“I am. I promise.” I ran my hand to the back of his neck. “See?” I kicked off my sandal and wiggled my toes. “All good.”
Cupping my foot, he leaned back and brought it up to his mouth. He placed a soft peck on top of it before helping me back into my sandal.
But that small movement did something funny to me. It made me realize that no matter what, he would drop everything and do anything to make sure that I was in fact okay.
“Vince?”
He pushed to his full height.
“Are you convinced now?” I asked, placing a hand on his chest.
He covered my hand. “If something happened to you, I don’t know what I would do.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Not now it didn’t,” he snapped.
“Hey.” I pulled my hand from his and cupped his face.
Vince pushed