Whatever caused this reaction, I need to fix it.
“You look beautiful,” I remark, blurting out the first thing that comes to mind.
Chey lifts her gaze, giving me a tight-lipped smile that doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “Thanks, this is my best shirt,” she jokes, the color draining from her face as she darts another glance around the crowded restaurant. “Excuse me.”
Before I can even process what’s happening, she abruptly slides out of the booth, jolting up to her feet and making a mad dash for the restroom.
“Is she okay?” Lo asks, her brows pinching together in concern. “Should I go talk to her?”
“She just needs a minute,” Javi replies with a wince.
That may be true, but I’m already out of the booth and on my feet, crossing the restaurant toward the ladies’ room that Cheyenne just disappeared inside.
I don’t consider how wildly inappropriate it is to follow a woman into a public restroom. Or that if she’s having a panic attack, as I suspect, my intruding on her could make it worse. Suffice to say that there isn’t an ounce of rationality in my thought process as I stomp right up to the door and push it open, driven by the innate need to comfort my mate while she’s in distress.
Chey is standing at the sink with her palms pressed to the counter, hanging her head and drawing ragged breaths. She startles when I enter, jerking her head up and meeting my eyes in the mirror.
I show her my palms, lingering near the door to give her space as it swings closed behind me. “Hey, I’m just here for moral support,” I say, holding her gaze in the mirror. “It’s a panic attack, right?”
She jerks a nod, throat bobbing with a hard swallow.
“My friend Avery has them sometimes,” I murmur. “It helps her to close her eyes and focus on her breathing.”
Chey squeezes her eyes shut, drawing a deep inhale.
“She’s got a thing with small, enclosed spaces,” I continue. “This one time, we were cleaning out a storage closet at the squad complex and I bumped the chair we’d propped the door open with. It was one of those doors that locks automatically when it shuts, ya know?”
She nods numbly in acknowledgement as she blows out a steady breath.
“Well, as soon as it shut, she started freaking out. I had no clue what was going on until she told me it was a panic attack. She said she’d had them before, and it’d only get worse unless she could calm herself down somehow. I asked her how I could help, and she had me breathe with her and tell her a story to distract her.”
Chey’s eyes pop open, meeting mine in the mirror again.
“Is it helping?” I ask, the corner of my mouth lifting in a little smile of encouragement.
She nods again, drawing another measured breath.
“Good. So, like I said, we were stuck in there, and of course it was in the middle of a training session, so everyone else was out on the field. And I had my phone, but my friend Madd is a psycho about people having their phones on them while they’re training. Seriously, if you ever wanna piss him off instantly, whip out your phone during practice.”
Her shoulders shake with a soft chuckle, her tense posture gradually loosening.
“There was still another hour left of training, so it looked like we were going to be stuck in there for a while. Then I had the brilliant idea to try to break the door down with brute force.”
Chey’s brows lift.
“Yeah, not my best idea,” I mutter wryly. “I started ramming my shoulder into the door, thinking I could just Incredible Hulk the thing down. Which I totally did, by the way, but then I had a whole other issue to contend with because I dislocated my damn shoulder in the process.”
She snorts a laugh, pushing off from the sink and swiveling to face me. “Seriously?” she asks, arching a brow.
“Seriously,” I reply, my lips pulling into a grin. “Hurt like a bitch to get it popped back in, but it was worth it to break us outta there. And hey, who knew that learning about how to deal with a panic attack would come in handy someday with my fated mate?”
Her amber eyes glimmer in amusement as she smiles softly. She’s still a little pale, but she already looks a hell of a lot better than when I entered. “Thank you,” she rasps.
“Anytime,” I reply with a dip of my chin.
“God, I’m so embarrassed,” Chey groans, scrubbing a hand over her face. “I’m sorry, Iver, you shouldn’t have to deal with this kind of shit.”
“Hey, don’t apologize,” I scoff. “You already told me you didn’t like to be touched. I should’ve respected that, and I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself from now on.”
