He yanked me onto a side street just as I started to wheeze. His eyes snapped to me. “Peaches, focus on me, okay?”
I looked back instead. The first paparazzi camera was as blinding as it had been that day on his mother’s porch. The crowd faded to black as my mind focused on the one paparazzi who snapped blinding photo after photo of me.
I wheezed again and Jax stepped between me and the huge camera. “Move, Whitfield.”
My gaze jumped to him. His eyes were assessing me, calculating something.
I didn’t have time to figure him out.
Couldn’t he see I was panicking? Couldn’t he hear me wheezing?
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. And there was definitely no way I could move.
His gaze hardened. He didn’t wait for me to gather myself. He shoved me backward instead. “Move your ass.”
“Seriously?” I stumbled backward and used the momentum to pivot away from the crowd down the alley. “You’re pushing me?!”
He didn’t say anything from behind me.
Great, because I had more to say anyway. “I couldn’t breathe back there! Do you know how that feels?”
The only answer I got was the pounding of his footsteps behind me.
Of course, he didn’t sound at all winded back there either.
“You know, those people wanted nothing to do with me. It’s your fault they were taking our pictures in the first place, yet you have the audacity to shove me when I’m having a meltdown, nervous they might dig up my past or something. I could have fallen and scraped my hand again!”
I heard him scoff. So, I did it right back.
I wasn’t wasting my breath on him anymore.
I focused on weaving through more alleys to get back to my place as quickly as I could, on the route. Not on the fact that I could be in the spotlight again, that someone really could dig up my past if they wanted to.
I sighed when I got to the apartment complex and was able to get through the lobby.
I reminded myself that no one could follow us any farther, but my hands still shook when I tried to unlock my door.
Jax didn’t say anything. He just took the keys from my hand quickly and looked at me with pursed lips and worried eyes as he unlocked it for me.
When I rushed inside, he stepped in behind me and shut it.
He followed so close. So close, I could smell the mint mixed with just him.
My body wanted to lunge for him and rip his clothes off. How ridiculous that just his scent could erase all the panic and make some part of me want him again.
I cleared my throat, not sure where to start and not sure I wanted to turn around to see him standing there with that same worried look. Did I tell him to leave because people were gathering outside? Did I tell him to stay because I’d just had too good of a day with him?
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed you,” he blurted from behind me.
I was pretty sure my eyes almost bugged out as I turned around to face him. Never had he ever apologized to me. Not when we were together and definitely not when he had left.
“But you needed me to push you metaphorically and literally. It got you moving.”
There it was. Somehow, I was the wrong one. I nodded and rolled my eyes. “What a great apology ...”
He brought his hands to his face and scrubbed them over it. “Look, as much as I would love to work you up into a fit, this is too serious. This is a fucked-up situation. I know you don’t like attention and publicity. I don’t like it either. This might make the news, and I know it scares you and—”
“I’m not scared of it.” My response was a knee-jerk reaction.
“Whitfield, you’re still shaking.”