Promise? ✤ COLIFER SHORT STORY

Chapter 8 ✤ Exposed

Jen's POV

"WHAT?!" I ripped my sunglasses off and threw my book down on the towel. "Are you kidding me?!"

"No, in fact, I'm not," Josh said, pointing at something behind us.

My heart just stopped when I saw Alex coming towards us through the sand, but the actual reason why I couldn't breathe wasn't Alex.

It was Asher. He brought him.

"Momma!" Asher pulled himself loose from Alex's grip and ran straight for me, but as he ploughed the last few meters through the sand, three different cameras were aiming straight for us.

"Asher." I caught him in my arms, but I couldn't feel happy about seeing his face right in front of me. My first instinct was to shield him from the paparazzi, to get him away from the flashes of the cameras, and the people around us who were beginning to stare.

Alex came to halt with a grin on his face just as I got up with Asher in my arms, looking pleased about his little surprise visit. But before he could say anything, I stormed the last few meters towards him.

"What in the world do you think you're doing here?"

Alex's face fell and he looked like I just hit him right across the cheek. "Well, I thought it'd be a nice surprise—"

"Hey, guys, will you knock it off already?"

Josh was approaching the paparazzi, who were still pressing the shutter button every two seconds; Asher whimpered in my arms. He didn't like that I was holding him so tightly, and even though he didn't understand, he could feel that something was wrong.

"This was the stupidest thing you could've done." I tried to keep my voice down for Asher, but that was nearly impossible. "I have to get Asher out of here, come on."

I didn't even care to take my stuff; I shielded Asher's eyes as we passed the paparazzi on our way back to the hotel. Alex came running after me.

"Jen, I— I'm sorry, but what did I do wrong? I thought you'd like to see Asher, I know how much you miss—"

"Of course I wanted to see Asher," I snapped at him from the moment we entered the lobby, "But it was incredibly stupid of you to take him to LA with you! You know I want to keep him away from the media, and we're being watched this entire weekend!"

Alex's eyes were huge. We were now standing in the lobby, and a couple that was checking in looked around curiously to see what was going on.

"Come on, I'm taking him upstairs," I said when Alex still wasn't moving. I headed straight for the elevators.

"Momma?"

Asher was holding onto me for dear life, burying his head under my chin, and I held his face against me.

"Hey, everything's alright, Ash," I said soothingly, kissing him on top of his head. "None of this is your fault. I'm going to show you my room, and maybe you can get a little snack from the mini bar. Would you like that?"

He nodded softly.

"Jen, I—"

"We're going to talk about this later, Alex," I cut him off. The doors of the elevator slid open and I pulled our room key out of my back pocket as we walked through the hallway. "You take Asher inside and give him all he wants. I need to talk to Colin first."

Alex seemed too taken aback by my fierce reaction to object. He took the room key from me and I handed Asher over to him, but I saw Asher's trembling lip when he looked up at me.

"Hey, my beautiful boy," I said, smiling sadly. I kissed both of his cheeks and stroked the bridge of his nose. "Momma will be right back. You have fun with Alex for a moment, okay?"

"Okay," he muttered.

It almost broke my heart to see him like this. But by the time I was back in the elevator and heading for Colin's room, the anger started rising in my chest until I was almost shaking.

I rapped my knuckles on the door, fuming inside, and I stormed straight past Colin when he opened the door.

"Alex is here."

I stopped next to his bed, turned around, and locked eyes with him. For a moment, he looked at me as if I'd just told him Santa wasn't real, but then he shook his head in confusion.

"What are you talking about?"

"Alex is here," I repeated through clenched teeth, pacing up and down the space next to his bed. I felt so angry inside that I didn't know what to do with myself.

"Alex is here, in LA? But what about—"

"Yeah, and he was stupid enough to take Asher with him. The paps were on the beach; they must have about a hundred pictures of Alex, Asher and I."

This time, Colin seemed to realize that what I meant, and he slowly dropped down on the end of the bed. "Asher is here?"

"I brought him back to our room, Alex is watching him." I let out a whimpering sound and stepped closer to grab his hands. "Colin, I don't know what to do. I don't know how we're going to get out of this."

He scratched the top of his head; his mind seemed to be racing to comprehend what the consequences were of Alex's actions. But I knew that we both knew it; to get out of this mess, we had to stop lying to the press and tell the truth.

But that was the one thing we couldn't do.

"Well, for all the world knows, you're still together with him, aren't you?" he said eventually.

"No, Colin, that is exactly the point!" I yanked myself loose from his grip and spun around in frustration. "After they spotted us on the beach yesterday, it's going to look like I just grab every man that gets close enough!"

"Jen, that's not true, you don't—"

"I do know, Colin. Either that, or I'm cheating on Alex. Or a combination of both. Oh, and on top of that, you would be cheating on Helen with me."

The more I spoke, the bigger this mess seemed to get, and the less patience I had left. I started pacing up and down in front of him again; he didn't have much color left in his cheeks and his jaw was clenched.   

He cleared his throat. "Well, so..."

"So? 'So"?" I came to a halt in front of him, my hands on my hips. "Is that all you've got to say?! Wow, thanks, that was really helpful!"

That sparked his own anger; his jaw dropped and the look in his eyes changed. "Oh, what, you're blaming ME for this now?! Last time I checked, I wasn't the one who was stupid enough to turn up in LA when the entire world is watching our every move!"

"NO, and last time I checked, he wasn't the one who waited FREAKING FOUR YEARS TO GET BACK TO ME!"