The door flew open.
I froze. Kieren did too.
A voice I didn’t recognize—low, surprised. A reporter? A teammate? Someone who mattered.
Their gaze landed on us and I saw it—the flicker of understanding, of judgment. We were a mess. Disheveled. Emotional. Caught.
“Shit,” Kieren muttered under his breath.
That was all it took. I bolted.
He called after me—I think. Or maybe it was Cam. I couldn’t tell.
I ran down the hallway, heels echoing off the marble floor, heart slamming in my chest like it wanted out. My lungs burned, but it wasn’t from running.
It was from feeling too much.
Because the truth—the part I couldn’t outrun—was this:
I loved him.
And I was terrified that I wasn’t enough for him.
Not in the spotlight. Not in his world. Not when every part of me still felt like it had to fight to be chosen.
I shoved the hotel door open and waved frantically for the first cab I saw.
The second I climbed inside and the door clicked shut, the sob broke free.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face as the city lights blurred past. “I—I can’t do this.”
Chapter 26
Kieren
My phone wouldn’t stop vibrating.
At first, I ignored it—groggy, half-asleep, arm slung over the side of the bed. But then the buzz turned into a chorus. One call. Two. Then a flood of texts.
I cracked an eye open and reached for it.
12 missed calls.
Group chat: exploding.
My stomach twisted before I even opened anything.
CLOSET VIDEO.
Did you see??
Walker/Sommers closet — WTF
My heart stopped. I sat up, fully awake now, and clicked the first link.
It was grainy. Low-res. Some shaky, unauthorized camera angle from what looked like a security feed—greenish hue, timestamp in the corner. Two people in a dim service closet.
One of them was me.
