Page 102 of Sliding into Home

“I don’t know. We figure it out.” How was he supposed to answer that? He didn’t have the first clue how to handle this kind of thing. And if Austin kept fueling it with his bullshit hashtags and posts all over the place, who knew how bad it could get?

“If you hadn’t been all jealous, there wouldn’t have been anything for them to have a picture of.”

He clenched his jaw. He hated that his jealousy had anything to do with this. “I know, and that’s why I apologized.”

“Yeah, and then did it again the next time you saw Brandon and I together. If you’d just believed me the first time, this never would have happened.” She shook her head, and angrily shoved her hair from one side to the other, like somehow having it touch the right side of her face was annoying.

“Maybe If you gave me more to work with, I wouldn’t have felt jealous in the first place,” he snapped.

She reared back. Fire burned in her eyes as she glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I didn’t know where I stood,” he growled. “You didn’t want Max to know about us. You didn’t want my friends to know. You didn’t even want to tell your sister at first.” Yeah, he’d handled it badly, but having her deny what they had, what they were building had hurt and he’d reacted poorly.

“That was to protect Max. I told you that.”

“Bullshit, Kia, that was to protect you and we both know it. How the hell was I supposed to feel secure about us when you wanted to keep us a secret?”

She sucked in a breath. Her eyes widened, and her mouth gaped as she stared at him. “So, this is my fault?”

Frustrated, he scrubbed his hand over his face. “No, I’m not saying that.”

“It sure sounds like it.” She ran her tongue along the front of her teeth. Her jaw tensed as she clicked her mouth. “Yeah, I’m not doing this anymore. I’m done.”

“Kia, come on.”

“No, Jeff, this isn’t working. We said when we started this that we wouldn’t do anything that would hurt Max, and clearly this is.”

“Us being together isn’t hurting Max.”

“That’s bullshit. If we stop dating, this all goes away.”

“How? Max is still my kid. Whether we’re together or not, that doesn’t change.”

“No, but if we stop dating, the media stops talking about me. They stop talking about me being a gold digger who’s just after your money, or a whore trying to fuck up the team dynamics. They stop talking about me, and they stop caring about Max.”

“Kia.” His stomach knotted.

She held up her hand to stop him from talking. “No, I can’t do this.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Today, when I went after that reporter, I felt like everything my parents had ever said about me was true. Max deserves so much better than all of this shit.”

“Are you trying to protect Max or yourself?” he asked.

“What the hell are you talking about? This isn’t about me.” She pushed upright on the sofa. Her protective blanket fell to the floor.

“Are you sure?” He stared at her. “You’ve been looking for a reason this wouldn’t work since we got started.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Bullshit,” he growled. “You have, and we both know it. This is just the perfect excuse for you to cut and run. When I saw that video of you today, I thought there’s a warrior who’ll fight for what she wants.”

“And I am,” she yelled.

“Yeah, I see that.” He pushed to his feet. “I just stupidly thought what you wanted to fight for was us.” Emotion clogged his throat.

“I can’t, Jeff. Max is the only thing that matters.”

“For the record, breaking up with me isn’t putting him first. Eventually you’ll realize that.” There was no point in continuing this conversation when she felt like this.

Growing up, his mom had always said when fear and anger started talking, nothing else could be heard. He’d seen his parents go to neutral corners on more than one occasion. And they were still together, so maybe she was right. Who the hell knew? But with the way he was feeling at this moment, nothing nice would come out of his mouth. And he’d promised Kia after the whole jealousy thing that he’d think before he acted, so that’s what he was going to do.

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