“I used to get them sometimes too. The panic attacks. After my cardiac arrest. They sucked,” he admitted.

Why were we still talking about this?

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I responded, not knowing what else to say.

Beckett absentmindedly rubbed at the spot below his collar.

“So, I’ll see you next week?” He posed the statement more as a question.

I looked at him for a moment and nodded.

Beckett smiled, his eyes lighting up. “Cool. See you then.”

“See you,” I said with the wings of a thousand butterflies beating against my rib cage.

Suffocating. Consuming.

Exciting.

Oh crap.

Chapter 3

Corin

“So not a good group then?” Adam asked, handing me a basket of fries, which I politely declined. I picked at my salad and shrugged.

“I don’t know. It just might not be exactly what I’m looking for.”

We sat perched on our designated stools behind the counter in Razzle Dazzle while a group of preschoolers and their helicopter mothers painted ceramic bunnies and chicks for Easter. They were a rowdy bunch, and my normal love of kids was being sorely tested with this group.

Adam gave the kids a disinterested look before turning back to me. “Just find another group then,” he suggested, and I agreed that would be the easiest thing to do.

Part of me thought I was overreacting. So what if the guy that had helped me during a mortifying panic attack happened to be a member? It wasn’t the first time I had endured horrifying and very public humiliation. What did it matter that he had seen me lose it? He wasn’t the only one, unfortunately.

I had lived through embarrassments much worse than that.

So what was my problem then?

“Yeah, well, I’m going to give it one more week and if it still sucks, I’ll find a different group.” What I didn’t want to admit to Adam was that I wasn’t sure that the heart patients’ group was going to work out for entirely different reasons.

Because, of course, Dr. Harrison had called yesterday, just after I got home from the group to inform me that my other tests had come back normal.

He told me that he wasn’t sure my heart was the problem, but he wasn’t ready to rule it out. I was supposed to go back in for another battery of tests on Friday. Deep down, I knew that those tests would come back with the same results as the earlier ones. And then I’d be back right where I started. With no answers and the constant gnaw of unresolved anxiety.

I had gone straight to bed with one of the worst headaches I could ever remember experiencing. I had slept on and off the rest of the evening and had to force myself out of bed the following morning.

I was feeling sluggish and lacking energy. The dull ache in my head threatened to explode once again into full-blown agony.

I was exhausted. Sick and tired of being sick and tired.

“Can I have one of those?” Krista, our cute part-time helper asked, reaching between Adam and me to snatch a fry from his plate. I raised my eyebrows in surprise that she would be so forward. Normally Adam’s I’ll-murder-you-in-your-sleep personality dissuaded people from talking to or even looking at him.

I was even more surprised when Adam didn’t rip her hand off and feed it to the raccoons that ate out of the trash in the alleyway.

“Is it all right if I go take a break? I need to run an errand,” Krista asked. Was she looking at Adam? Did I really just see her brush up against him? Adam didn’t respond to her in any way so I was pretty sure I had imagined the whole thing.

“Yeah, go ahead. It’s pretty slow today, so you can just call it a day,” I said, poking my salad with my fork.

“I don’t mind coming back—”

“Go ahead and head home, Krista. We don’t need you today,” Adam barked.

Krista flushed red and lowered her eyes. “Oh, okay then.” She grabbed her purse from behind the counter and scampered off.

I waited until she left and gave Adam a reprimanding look. “A little harsh with the employees, aren’t you?”

Adam shrugged but didn’t respond. His communication style could best be described as scary with a side of I-don’t-give-a-fuck.

“Incoming. It’s your turn,” Adam muttered as a woman hurried across the store toward us.

“You suck,” I hissed under my breath as Adam slid off the stool and disappeared into the office.

“I’m so sorry,” a frazzled mother said, handing me a broken teapot that her son, who had clearly been raised by wolves, had knocked off the shelf. Normally I would have let it go as an accident. Kids were kids after all. But I had seen the mini-monster in question purposefully throw it on the floor.

I took it while biting my lip so hard I was pretty sure I drew blood. “You’ll have to pay for this though,” I informed her, pointing to the sign Adam had insisted we post by the cash register: YOU BREAK IT, YOU BUY IT.

I had argued that the notice was rude but now I was extremely glad that he made me hang it up. Because I had a feeling these devil children were going to destroy half of our inventory.

“I understand. I’m just so sorry. You know what they say about the terrible twos,” she laughed, pulling out her wallet and handing me her credit card.

I forced a smile and pretended to understand what she was talking about. Wishing I could tell her that I didn’t think the terrible twos was the source of her child’s problems.

But I liked having customers. Verbally berating their parenting skills wouldn’t endear me to the clientele.

I processed her credit card and dumped the remains of the teapot in the garbage.

Twenty minutes later—and after Adam deemed it safe to leave the office—we were cleaning up the mess left behind by the band of misfit children. After I disposed of the pile of broken ceramics, my phone began to ring from the front of the store. Thinking it could be Dr. Harrison’s office, I hurried to answer it.

“Hello?”

“We need to have a conversation.”

“Hello to you too, Tam,” I mumbled, wishing I could jump into a time machine and go back to thirty seconds ago and not answer this particular phone call.

“I’m on my lunch break and I don’t have a lot of time. I have a meeting I have to prepare for so excuse me for not exchanging pleasantries first.” That was my sister, total asshole.

“Well, I’m busy too—”

“Please, Cor, I don’t think you can compare your little pottery shop to what I do on a daily basis,” she huffed.

“Did you decide to take up brain surgery in your spare time?” I asked with just enough sarcasm to piss her off. I couldn’t help it. I had to get my digs in while I could. I knew that telling her to shove her condescending attitude and holier-than-thou bullshit would only result in all-out warfare that I was so not in the mood for.

I’d have to settle on strategically placed barbs. It gave me just the smallest bit of joy. Though it never lasted long.

“Your lack of maturity is draining, Corin. You can’t for one minute compare your hobby with my career. I’d love to spend my days playing with paint, but some of us have actual responsibilities,” Tamsin shot back, going in for the proverbial kill.

Tamsin was a criminal defense attorney. I knew she had worked hard to get herself through law school and blah, blah, blah. What it boiled down to was that it was her job to defend drunk drivers and pedophiles. She made certain that Bob, who had been arrested for beating his wife to within an inch of her life, only served two years of a ten-year sentence. And while I knew she worked hard, I didn’t think she would be presented with the Nobel Peace Prize anytime soon.