Free Want It Bad by Melinda DuChamp

other under her knees. A second later, and she was back on her feet on the pier, her whole body trembling, tears welling in her eyes.
    She blinked them back. “I’m so embarrassed.”
    He pulled her close, smoothing her hair out of her eyes, as if he was tending to a child. “Something happened to make you afraid of boats?”
    Carla nodded, but it took several seconds before she trusted her voice enough to speak. “I was twelve, staying at my dad’s new place.”
    “Your dad was into sailing?”
    She could tell he was expecting some kind of tragic story. “It isn’t a big deal, not really.”
    “Seems like a big deal to me.”
    “It’s not. That’s why I’m embarrassed.” She made herself push out of his embrace and stand under her own power. “I fell.”
    “Into the lake?”
    “Into Puget Sound.”
    “That’s scary.”
    “I was wearing a life jacket.”
    “Still scary. Puget Sound is a pretty big body of water.”
    Carla shivered, remembering the cold waves, the endless tossing, and her so small in the midst of all that water. “There was nothing I could do but float, try to keep my head up, hope my dad would come back. There were big waves. Some fog. I couldn’t see him. I didn’t know if he’d ever find me.”
    “Were you out there a long time?”
    “It seemed like forever, but my dad said it was only five minutes.”
    Carla looked up at him. The evening sun sparkled off the stubble lining his jaw. Jake’s eyes focused squarely on hers, as if he was really listening, really cared. Which had to be nonsense, because Carla knew men. They cared about stocks. And cars. And sports. And snacks. And pretty much everything but women talking about past traumatic experiences.
    Jake was a better actor than he gave himself credit for.
    “I know,” she said. “It’s lame.”
    “Not lame. Sounds pretty terrifying. Have you been afraid of water since?”
    “I’m not afraid of water. I like to swim. I love sitting out here on the pier.”
    “You just aren’t good on boats.”
    “Yeah.” She glanced over at
The Gloria
, and the tremors still seizing her muscles increased.
    “Why didn’t you tell me you were afraid of boats? We didn’t have to go out on the lake. I only suggested sailing because you said you were thinking about it. We could drink beer on the deck.”
    “If you don’t mind, I’m not much in the mood for hanging out.”
    “Because the boat freaked you out? You just said that was lame.”
    “Look, I’m just not up for conversation. Is that okay?”
    “Is it something I did?”
    “No.”
    “So what is it?”
    “Having a conversation about why I’m not up for conversation makes no sense.”
    “All right. Let me walk you back up to the house.”
    “You don’t have to, really.”
    “I’d like to.”
    She braced a hand on his shoulder, controlling the distance between them. “That’s sweet, but I just need to… regroup.”
    The only thing she could think about at the moment was getting back inside her house where she could fall apart in private.
    “Some other time?”
    “Sure. Some other time.”
    Carla hurried away, up the pier, across her lawn, and made it inside her solarium before she realized she’d forgotten to tell Jake that she was his eight o’clock client, and that she needed, more than anything, to cancel.
    She’d practically had a nervous breakdown in front of this man.
    There was no way she was going to pay to get naked in front of him.
    No way.

Four
    Carla couldn’t relax, tossing and turning in bed as she alternated between self-pity and self-loathing. She finally got to sleep around two in the morning, and had vivid dreams that she was tossing and turning and couldn’t get to sleep. When she woke up, she was exhausted.
    Work was awful. Carla had back-to-back meetings all morning, an appeals court ruled against her in the afternoon, and by the time evening rolled around, she found herself stuck in stop-and-go traffic that raised her cortisol to