Wilder

“Leah!” Paxton snapped, forcibly turning my head to meet his eyes. “Stop.”

“Why?” I asked, my voice breaking as tears pooled, stinging me with my own weakness. “Don’t you want to know? You all do. You all want to dig inside, to know every detail like you were there, like it’s your story. Like by knowing my tragedy you can somehow touch it. Well you can’t, it’s mine. I was alone then, and I’m alone now.”

He flinched before his eyes narrowed in focus. “Stop assuming I’m everyone. I’ve lived my life making sure that no one is like me, so don’t lump me in with those assholes.”

“But you looked,” I whispered, a tear slipping down my face.

He wiped it away with his thumb. “I can’t say that I’m sorry I looked. Because I looked, because I fucked up and slipped, we’re having this conversation now. Yes, it was a violation of your privacy. Yes, you did it to me, but this was not payback. I knew you guarded your legs. I’m not stupid. I can’t imagine what you would have done had I tried to take off your pants, and believe me, getting in your pants has been at the top of my list since I saw you on that balcony.”

Some of the fight drained from me. I hated that he was right, that I would have spazzed out on him and ran the minute he tried to slip my jeans down my hips, but that didn’t excuse what he’d done. How he made me feel.

“I’m not sorry that I know,” he continued, his expression softening. “But I wish you’d been the one to tell me. That you would have trusted me.”

“It’s not about trust. It’s about ripping open scabs I’ve barely let heal. That accident, losing Brian that way…it was the worst thing that has ever happened to me. It is something that changed who I am, what I’m capable of, and how I view my future. You had no right to cut open my scars. Just because you live your life in some transparent, camera-ridden world doesn’t mean that the rest of us believe in cellophane for our bedroom walls. Some of us need to block out the light. Some of us need to lick our wounds in private.”

“You’re right,” he said, wiping another tear that I hadn’t realized had fallen. “My life is a public spectacle. But please don’t think that you can find everything about me on Google.”

“Okay. Then what is the worst thing that has ever happened to you? And I’m not talking about broken bones or failed stunts.” I wanted him as raw as he’d scraped me, as vulnerable.

He swallowed, looking up to the cabin ceiling before he took a deep breath. “What’s the one quality you have to see in someone you care about?”

My forehead puckered. “Honesty. You don’t lie to someone you care about.”

He nodded, like he was accepting my answer. “Mine is loyalty. With what we do, I have to know that I can trust my friends with my life. Hell, with more than my life.”

“Okay?” Where was he going with this?

“My best friend betrayed me.”

“What? How?”

He exhaled. “He slept with the only girl I’d ever called my girlfriend.”

I couldn’t decide if I was more offended that he thought that was even in the same league, or more surprised Paxton was anyone’s second choice.

“I know it’s an anthill next to your mountain. I’m not trying to compare the two. But yeah, I liked a girl. Liked her enough that I didn’t even try to sleep with her. I dated her by the book, and the book got me fucked. Or rather, got him fucked. And the funny thing was that it wasn’t even the girl who broke me, it was him. It was my notion of who and what I trusted about my life. For months he looked me in the eye and called me his best friend while he stuck a knife in my back. The same guy who helped me tune my bike and pack the chutes that kept me alive…” He sighed. “It ripped the ground from under me, took my gravity, spun the world backward, you name it. She didn’t break my heart—he did.”

“What happened with him?” I asked, trying to imagine what I’d do had it been Rachel. He was right. The loss of the friendship would destroy me.

“I couldn’t stand to be around them, and once they were over, he and I hated being around each other, looking at what we’d cost the other. We seriously couldn’t manage being in the same room, so we went our separate ways until we could.”

Nick. That must have been where the fourth Original Renegade was. Banished for taking his girlfriend. That’s why they kept him out of the media. Paxton was embarrassed. “How long ago was it?”

“A while,” he answered, giving me the same answer I’d initially given him about my own heartbreak.

We sat in a tense silence for a few minutes while the normal noise of the plane came back to life. At least we weren’t the in-flight entertainment anymore.

I looked out of the window, over the bluest water I’d ever seen. Mediterranean blue. It was its own unique color, deep and bright all in the same breath. Just like Paxton’s eyes.

What was going to change between us now? Would I be off his radar since he knew how damaged I was? I rested my head against the seat and sighed. Maybe it was better this way, that I hadn’t stressed about how to tell him, that he hadn’t taken one look at my legs and blanched. Yeah. Maybe this was better. And maybe if I said that enough, I’d believe it.

He was quiet so long that I figured he’d fallen asleep.

“Leah,” he said, startling me.