He blinked. “I might need a refresher course later.”

“Don’t make me smack you, Wil.” His face clouded briefly, and it occurred to me that he might not realize I was joking. I immediately felt like a jerk. “I’m kidding.”

He nodded. “Now you tell me if I’m breathing correctly.”

He inhaled and exhaled. I leaned forward to get a better look at his abdomen. “Again?”

“Maybe you should put your hand here.” He gestured to his firm, sculpted abdomen, which was now, thankfully, covered by his t-shirt. “So you can tell.”

I peered at his face to see if he was pulling a fast one on me, but he appeared deadly serious. I tentatively reached out my hand and, with the lightest of touches, placed my fingertips on the area just below his sternum. He inhaled and exhaled, and the feel of his rock-hard, muscled chest under my fingertips made them tingle. Again.

I jerked my hand back. “That’s good.”

“So we’ve established that I know how to breathe. Now what?”

I smiled. “Now we ground and center.”

“Ground and center? That sounds like baseball.”

“It’s a visualization technique that should work well with your style of thinking. So time to put your image-centric mind to the test. Close your eyes and rest the backs of your open hands on your knees, palms up.” Hesitantly, he complied, closing his eyes last, as if he had no concept of how to move or place his hands unless he was watching them.

I began to speak in a low voice, keeping it calm and even. “Okay. Now you are going to relax every part of your body. With each breath you take in and expel, you are going to become more relaxed. Your muscles easing. Your heartbeat slowing. Your breaths becoming further and further apart.”

A long pause. “You’re using a Jedi mind trick to get me to stop breathing, aren’t you?”

“Wil! Be serious. Do as I say.”

“I’ll do as you say.”

“Good.”

“It is very good.”

I opened one eye and peered at him, but he had his eyes closed and was sitting exactly how I’d left him. Hmm. Was he joking around? It was so hard to tell!

I decided to test him. “Clear your mind.”

“My mind is clear.”

“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”

“These aren’t the droids I’m looking for….”

I tapped his leg with the back of my hand. “Stop goofing around. This is important!” The smile melted from his face and I immediately felt bad. I cleared my throat, continuing in a less waspish tone. “You need to take this seriously. You have to win. You have my honor to defend, remember?”

I said it lightly, but he nodded soberly. “Your honor, your tiara, my place in the clan and…my worthiness. A lot depends on this. I won’t joke around again.”

He’d mystified me. “Um…your worthiness?”

“Yes.”

I blinked. “What exactly do you mean by that? You think you lost because you weren’t worthy?”

His gaze met mine and fled just as quickly. “I lost because of my shortcomings.”

“We all have shortcomings. You’re no different. It has nothing to do with your worth.”

He didn’t appear convinced. “In the medieval era, disputes were solved by duel. The worthy knight was the one who won the duel.”

“Well, this is the twenty-first century, not the medieval period, and you aren’t unworthy. Who on earth ever gave you the idea you were unworthy?”

Something flashed in his eyes—a deep, dark hurt. His lips pressed together so hard they whitened, but he didn’t answer. I’d hit a nerve and the Vulcan veneer had cracked just a little.

I held out a placating hand. “Um, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. If you want to believe that this battle is for your worthiness—if that’s what motivates you—then you should be allowed to believe that.”

“I believe it because it’s true,” he asserted.

And he said it in such a somber way that something inside my chest twisted and then tightened. I could tell he was using those words to say something else. Those words had weight. They fell like coins, rattling on the floor between us until they were motionless and their echoes had faded.

“You don’t think that because of Doug, do you?”

He looked profoundly puzzled. “Doug?”

“I mean, because Doug was mean to you and talked shit about you?”

He chewed on his lip. “I never think about Doug. He’s not worth my time.”

“Oh…I’m just confused, I guess.” I so wanted to argue with him. If not because of Doug, then why would he think himself unworthy?

“Doug can’t tear me down because I don’t respect him. Why would I believe his opinion of me or let it define my opinion of myself?”

I nodded. “Good point. That’s a healthy attitude to have. But why believe yourself unworthy, then?” The pain that had passed through his eyes went deeper into his past. I immediately wanted to know what it was.

He looked away. “I have reasons.”

So that was that.

I clenched my teeth, fighting the urge to pursue the issue. But I couldn’t allow myself to get involved. I was moving on soon and I couldn’t be anchored down. I’d help William because I had a stake in this, but that was where this had to end.

I took a deep breath and lifted my chin, ready to begin. “Time for us to get back to this breathing business, okay? No more talk about being worthy or not.”

He glanced up at me and nodded, but what I caught in his eyes startled me. Because it looked a lot like fear.

 

 

Chapter 6

William

“Now,” she says, and I try to not look at the way her lips form the words, the way she brushes her pale hair back from her shoulders. I try to ignore that tight, tense feeling I experience whenever I’m around her. I wipe my palms on my jeans again and she leans forward to correct me. “No. Palms up. Rest them on your knees.”

She grasps my wrists in her small hands—her fingers aren’t even long enough to close around my wrists—and turns my hands upward.

I do that sometimes. Rubbing my palms across my pant legs calms me. I turn my palms back over again, brushing them across my jeans a few more times. It’s already starting to work.