Page 31 of Love JD

I caught her forehead, crossing my other arm over her body to brace her against the seat. I’d done some research the first time she’d told me she had dysautonomia, and from what I could tell, she probably had a specific type called autonomic syncope. The fainting itself was harmless, according to what Amos had told me. He had said it shouldn’t last long or have any dangerous side effects. So, I held her. I pressed her head against my shoulder and kept my arm braced in front of her to keep her from falling forward, and I ignored a curious look from a passing flight attendant.

Isla woke from it in seconds, blinking and sitting up like she’d fallen asleep. She looked mortified, and her eyes glanced around like she expected someone to laugh at her or something worse.

I gave her a reassuring smile as I removed my arm from her torso. “It’s okay. I caught you.”

Isla turned enormous eyes up to me. “That’s it?”

I shrugged. “That’s it.”

“You’re not freaked out?” she asked, nervous.

“Nah,” I replied with lighthearted dismissal. “So, you take five second naps every once in a while. No big deal.”

The gratitude on her face nearly sent my heart hurtling back down to the ground from thirty-thousand feet in the air. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Nothing to be nervous about. Is it flying that’s got you twisted up in knots?”

She inhaled deeply through her nose. “I didn’t used to care about flying, or tree climbing, or meeting new people. But something happened to me after my eighteenth birthday,” she explained. “I got really nervous about an amusement park ride. Like… pukey, dizzy, crazy nervous. I’d never felt that way before, and I thought maybe it was hormones.” She closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the headrest with her brows pinched together. “But that was the first day I lost consciousness. On the ride. After that, I barely made it out of the park without it happening again.” She exhaled softly. “Nothing has been the same since then. I get anxious about things for no reason, and then because it caused me to throw up or pass out in random places before, I get anxious about getting anxious. Bad luck, I guess.”

I resisted the urge to reach out and take her hand in mine. Bad luck didn’t quite cover it. To have that happen right out of high school, and then to deal with it while finishing her degree—it was admirable that she had handled it at all. And completely unfair. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

She gave me a hesitant smile. “Like you said. It’s not so bad as long as people don’t overreact.”

“It sounds like you need an unflappable lawyer with a good poker face,” I joked.

Isla gave me an eyebrow quirk. “Let me guess—they kidnap people and look like yetis.”

“With washboard abs,” I clarified.

“Thank God, I’m saved.”

The rest of the flight passed by without incident, and Isla bopped her head to music with her headphones on while she stared out the window at the golden-hour sky. As we landed, she chewed her thumbnail again. Her knee bounced up and down, and her breathing deepened as she blew controlled breaths through her lips. She shirked away from every loud sound, and she nearly vibrated with tension as we made our way through the narrow aisles to exit the plane. Okay, I thought as I watched her, maybe she doesn’t give any signs she’s going to faint in the moment, but she certainly has symptoms leading up to it.

I put my hand to the small of her back, and as soon as we funneled out to the walkway, I pulled her aside and shoved her head between her knees.

“If you ignore it, you’re going to make it worse,” I murmured, crouching in front of her. She groaned, putting a hand over her eyes. I rubbed her back in wide circles. “And stop making yourself an anxious mess over it. You know what people are most interested in?”

“What?” Isla croaked.

“Themselves. I promise you, they’re going to forget they ever saw the pale woman with her head between her knees in the plane walkway. I give it fifteen seconds. They’ll get a text from their bratty kid or a call from their boss, and they won’t give a shit who you are or what’s going on with you.”

“You care,” she pointed out, her voice thin.

“I’m an exceptional human being.”

She spared me a glance, and a smile tugged at her pretty bow lips. “Must be the yeti DNA.”

I let out a soft laugh and then traced a line under her lip with my thumb. “Any better?”

“Yeah,” she said, like she couldn’t believe it herself. “Yeah, that helped.” Her eyes bounced between mine, and suddenly, my breath stalled in my lungs. The desire to pull her close to me nearly overwhelmed me, and I tried to shake it loose. It didn’t make any sense. I’d been with dozens of women, but what I’d felt with them paled in comparison to three seconds crouched in an airplane walkway with Isla Valehart.

Logic deserted me, so I clung to desperate pride and cleared my throat, looking away.

Isla fell asleep in the car on the way to my house, which I couldn’t blame her for. She had purple shadows beneath her eyes, and Tabitha had sounded concerned that Isla hadn’t slept much since their run-in with the paparazzi. And if that was the case, then it was my fault. Guilt writhed in my gut like a parasite. It wasn’t that I had put her in this situation on purpose, but I hadn’t exactly been careful, either.

When I pulled into the driveway of my house, she stirred, sitting up from where she’d been slumped against the window. She gave me a confused look. “Whose house is this?”

“Mine,” I said, pulling past the white picket fence and over to the two-car garage.

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