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Movement to my left catches my eye.
And then I forget all about my phone when I focus on the handsome guy standing across from me, fiddling with his wallet.
I know him from somewhere.
He’s vaguely familiar and plenty handsome with his dark hair cut short to accentuate an angular face and bright brown eyes, his body elegant even while standing still in his dark T-shirt and ripped jeans, tall and slender like a dancer.
Just then, he looks up, snapping his wallet shut and shoving it into his back pocket. His gaze passes over me, moving to the information desk. He hasn’t recognized me.
Of course he hasn’t. He never noticed me in the first place. Just because I was engaging in stalkerish behavior, staring at Kyrian and his pack kissing at the bar…
Because now I remember where I know him from. He was with Kyrian and Archer, his pack. He’s one of the bartenders at the Alpha Bet.
And I’m still staring at him and… now he’s staring back at me, too, a crease between his brows.
Great job, Sawyer. He’ll probably sue you for… I don’t know. Harassment? Can you sue someone staring at you for harassment?
Shit… The stress of my parents calling and the thought of meeting that pack is constantly at the background of my mind, and now a new layer of stress spills over that, making my lungs labor and my breath stutter.
Fuck… I need to… sit down. Clutching my bag, I turn blindly to look for a bench, a chair, anything, before my knees give out. Now that would be fun. Faceplanting in front of a handsome stranger just because my brain is a mess.
What I don’t expect is for him to follow me. “Hey. Are you all right?”
“I’m…” I wave a hand, frustrated at the lack of seats around me. “Not so… bad, I just…”
“Hey.” His arm is around me a second before I realize that my legs are going from under me. “Careful.”
He shuffles me sideways, and I have no clue what’s going on, until he drags me onto a bench.
Ah, there was the bench. How did I miss it? I sink down on it gratefully. “Thanks.”
“What’s wrong? Are you going to pass out?”
“I don’t think so,” I whisper.
“You look like you’re about to pass out.” He pushes my head down between my legs. “Take deep breaths,” he instructs. “Slow and deep, okay?”
“Okay.” Sure. Why not? Despite my confident answer, the truth is I feel light-headed, and although my anxiety attacks haven’t caused me much grief lately, I know one when it hits me.
It sucks balls.
“Sit like that for a bit,” he says. “Shall I call someone for you? Your pack?”
“I don’t have a pack.”
A pause. “Oh, at the bar, I thought… Never mind.”
“And I’m fine,” I tell him, muffled as my head is somewhere between my knees even as I realize he did notice me at the bar, after all. “I promise. Sorry for the bother.”
“No bother,” he says. “Did you miss lunch?”
“No, and it’s nothing. Just… stress.”
Not a lie. Just a half-truth.
“It looked like a panic attack.”
I lift my head, surprised. That’s pretty close to the truth, and most people have no idea what such an attack looks like. “Just an anxiety attack, I think.”
