Jack had been acting reserved the whole weekend after the little incident at rehearsals. Seeing as he wasn’t exactly wearing “I heart Milo” t-shirts under all his clothes, I was surprised he wasn’t over the moon that my romance with Milo had come to a standstill. Truthfully, my personal life really wasn’t any of his business, so what he thought essentially didn’t matter. Except Jack was kind of the only person I had left to talk to about anything, now that the whole Dr. D situation had completely isolated me from my normal life. Without Jack around to hear my complaining, I’d be forced to befriend Chris, who never even spoke. Or even worse my brother, who never shut up. As much as it killed me to admit it, I needed Jack around, and not just for physical protection.
But evidently, even Jack had his limits when it came to discussing Milo. I guess guys just aren’t interested in hearing about other guys, especially if both of them are extremely attractive and don’t like each other much. Aria and Veronica definitely would have been interested in hearing about my Milo struggles. They would have agreed that the universe was being a serious bitch, or at the very least bought me some expensive ice cream and put on a Julia Roberts movie. Veronica might have even let me copy her homework, which is what I really needed. But once again, I had to keep them out of the loop. I didn’t trust my brain’s filter. If I let one thing slip, everything else would come tumbling down with it.
I figured Jack would suck it up and move on when Monday came around. After all, he’d had half of Saturday and the whole of Sunday to be in a constant state of PMS. Apparently, I was wrong.
“I’m not in the mood for this,” Jack grumbled. He pocketed his car keys in his jacket with a sigh, instinctively surveying our surroundings.
“For what?”
Jack motioned to the building closest to the parking lot, where we were. “This. School. I did my time, and now I’m stuck here forever like that sparkly dude from that Twilight book.”
That comment was definitely feeding my vampire theory about Jack.
I rolled my eyes. “You are not stuck here forever. I am going to graduate, you know!”
Jack gave another frustrated sigh and shook his head. “Whatever,” he said, as we walked toward the entrance to the lockers. “Let’s just do this.”
Jeez. We hadn’t even gotten to first period and Jack was already Mr. Grumpy Pants. It wasn’t my fault I was walking on sunshine ever since Saturday. Maybe Jack needed to find someone who made him feel the way Milo made me feel. Which, currently, was pretty shitty. But you know what I mean. Of course, she’d have to be amazing looking to match up to Jack’s looks, especially in that black jacket he was wearing. And she’d have to be funny, because he has a good sense of humor. She’d also have to be smart, because Jack is always going on and on about all this stuff I don’t know about. Not that I cared about the type of girl Jack would be into. I was apparently “not his type,” so he clearly had poor taste.
“Gia!” Aria exclaimed, cutting into my train of thought. We had just reached the entrance when she had appeared out of nowhere, smiling widely at me.
Veronica appeared seconds later, a little out of breath but with an equally wide smile. She was cradling a stack of books in her hand, and pushed some hair out of her face, a little flustered.
“Hey Gia!” she said, taking a few deep breaths. “I love your outfit today!”
I looked down at the heeled motorcycle boots on my feet, my ripped, black skinny jeans and fringed tank top with a shrug. I had been forced to throw on the first thing I could find before we left because I had overslept. Yet again. The whole skipping school thing had really taken a toll on my body clock’s schedule.
“It’s kind of whatever,” I said, giving them a strange look. “But thanks.”
Veronica and Aria exchanged nervous smiles and I raised my eyebrows. My friends have had their fair share of being weird, but acting like they had just finished burying a body was something new to me.
“Hey Jack!” Aria cried, waving at him even though he was standing less than a yard away.
“Hey Aria,” he replied, smiling at me. Clearly he was amused.
“So,” I said, after a few seconds of silently exchanging smiles. “I’m going to go to my locker now.”
“I got your books for you!” Veronica piped up, thrusting half of the stack in her arms at me.
“Oh, thanks V!” I told her, giving her a touched smile. “But I actually need to go to my locker anyway. I left my jacket in there a long time ago and it—”
“I’ll get it?” Aria volunteered excitedly, practically bouncing up and down as if I had told her she would run into Johnny Depp on her way to school.
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “Why are you guys being weird?”
“We’re not being weird,” Veronica replied almost immediately.
“Yeah!” Aria added. “We just thought it might be nice for us to get your books for a change. We’re providing a public service.”
“Aria,” I said, giving her a knowing look. “You can barely find your own locker. You have no chance finding mine.”
I took a step forward to try and walk past them, but they immediately came closer together, shoulders touching, barricading the entrance. I raised my eyebrows and took a step to the right, thinking I could go around them if not through them, but Aria jumped in front of me, her smile still plastered on her face.
“Seriously, what’s going on?” Jack asked from behind me, and I looked at my friends expectantly.
“I—I heard there’s going to be a crêpe guy at school today. Flew him up from France and everything.” Veronica announced.
“Okay, you guys need to move. You’re starting to freak me out a little.”
I took another step to the right when Aria was exchanging more worried looks with Veronica, managing to barely slip past her before she stopped me once again.
“No!” She exclaimed with urgency, grabbing onto my wrist.
“What?” I cried.
Aria released my wrist with a frown. I glanced at Jack, who gave me a shrug, and took another step forward, challenging my friends to stop me again. They didn’t.
I had taken barely three steps inside the building before I felt everyone’s eyes settle on me. Sheets of paper carpeted the floor and were stuck to the lockers, turning the whole building white. The papers had some kind of pictures on them, but I couldn’t tell exactly what they were. I was too busy wondering why everyone was looking at me with suppressed laughter. Oh God, why were they all staring? I was definitely wearing clothes; I had just checked. Was there something on my face? I didn’t trust Jack, but one of the girls definitely would have mentioned it.
“What the hell is this?” Jack asked, emerging from behind me, looking around the hallway with the same confusion.
“Why are they all looking at me?” I whispered to him.
“Oh shoot!” I heard someone hiss behind me. It sounded like Aria.
“Gia!” Lincoln came rushing up to me, holding a sheet of the white paper in his hand with a concerned look on his face. “Gia, I have no clue who did this. But don’t worry. I’ve taken all the ones down from the boy’s bathroom.”
Jack took the paper from Lincoln without asking, and I leaned in closer to see what it had on it. There was a picture of the Golden Globes stage from last year. I recognized it from all of my non-stop studying of actress’ speeches, trying to find the perfect way to “glide” and not “trot,” as Carol had so kindly put it. Except instead of a beautiful actress, there was a photo-shopped picture of a killer whale in an evening gown, standing upright on the stage next to Christian Bale. Instead of its actual head, my smiling face had been photo-shopped onto the body in its place. The picture had probably been taken from one of Dad’s premieres a few years ago, because I looked a little younger. Not that anyone was really going to notice that. They were going to be too busy imagining me looking like a humungous underwater mammal on what was perhaps the most important day of my life. My wedding doesn’t count, because based on the way I was going, I was never going to have one.
I snatched the poster from Jack, rooted to my spot. I mean, sure I had been eating a little extra chocolate. But that was just due to all the stress from Dr. D and my constant emotional battle with Milo and Jack. Chocolate calms me down, so sue me. I was by no means a killer whale!
“Gia . . .” Jack began slowly, his smile now completely absent from his face.
I pushed him out of the way and tore another piece of paper off the nearest locker. This one had a photo of me smiling, from Aria’s birthday party last year, only it had been zoomed in to practically take up the whole page. I recognized it because I had been wearing Veronica’s purple feather earrings that I had been in love with, and had gone perfectly with my purple Steve Madden heels. It was a pretty flattering picture if I may so myself. It would have remained flattering if someone hadn’t colored some of my teeth in black, added warts all over my face and devil horns on either side of my crown. Scrawled across the top in thick black text was the heading The New Face of the Golden Globes.
“It’s not that bad,” Jack said, as if replying to the horrified thoughts passing through my mind.
“NOT THAT BAD?” I practically shrieked. “Jack look at this!” I motioned toward the students pouring out from everywhere, edited pictures of me in their hands. “I’m the school joke!”
“Don’t let her see this one,” Veronica whispered behind me, and I spun around to face my two friends eyeing a sheet of paper taped to the locker behind them.
“Great,” I declared, sarcastically. “There are more than two versions of this! Fantastic! If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to lie on a very busy road now.”
I tried to head for the entrance but Jack caught my elbow, stopping me from running out the doors and hiding in the bushes for about fifteen years until I was convinced the humiliation had passed.
“No you’re not,” he said sternly. “You’re not going to hide, Gia. It’s not even that bad! We’ll just take all the posters down and clean up the floors. Problem solved.”
“I’ll help,” Lincoln offered.
“Same,” Veronica said.
“Same,” Aria agreed.
“Hey, Gia!” I heard Aaron’s voice, and I looked behind me to see him running down the hallway toward us. “These posters of you . . . Man, that one with your face on that obese body is really harsh.”
“You mean the killer whale,” I corrected him with a sigh. “Yeah, I saw.”
He raised an eyebrow and said, “No, I mean that obese body stuffed into a bikini. What’s this about a killer whale?”
I slapped a hand over my eyes as if that would help shield the embarrassment and sudden trauma my poor brain had been forced to deal with.
“Oh my God!” I wailed. “Make it stop!”
“Okay,” Jack said, uncertainly. His confidence in just how bad the situation was had clearly faltered. “I’ll get Gia out of here, you just deal with the posters.”
My friends all nodded aggressively, swapping pitying looks that I knew were meant for me. Lincoln stopped a group of freshman boys picking up a pile of papers off the floor and grabbed the posters off them.
“What are you even doing in our hallway?” he asked a scrawny one with big, green eyes.
“There were some on our lockers as well,” he explained in a nervous voice. “But we heard the good ones were on the senior lockers.”
“In the freshman hallway?” I yelled, my voice becoming shrill. “WELL GEE. That’s just freaking fantastic!”
“Beat it, kid,” Lincoln told the scrawny boy. “And take down all the posters in your hall and throw them away.”
“Come on,” Jack said, tugging on my hand as he led me toward the entrance. “We’ll skip first period. I’ll get you a Krispy Kreme to make you feel better.”
“I can’t eat a Krispy Kreme, Jack!” I cried, fighting back tears. “People already think I look like a whale! What, are you trying to ruin my life completely?”
Jack sighed as Veronica pulled Aria toward a set of lockers, ripping off sheets of paper as she went along. I gave my friends what I hoped was a grateful look, but probably came across as majorly depressed, because Aaron and Lincoln exchanged frowns.
“Come on, Gia,” Jack said, tugging on my arm lightly.
“SHOW US YOUR TEENY WEENIE BIKINI GIA!” Someone yelled out from behind me, and I was certain a part of my insides had died.
“Yeah, we all know you’re an expert in teeny weenie things, aren’t you Carter?” Aria yelled back, and the crowd ooo-ed and aaah-ed.
Carter flipped Aria the bird, to which she replied by blowing him an air kiss.
“Just ignore them,” Jack told me firmly, and I bit my bottom lip to stop from crying.
It was easy for him to say that. His social status hadn’t been murdered in front of his own eyes.
“Who would do something so horrible?” I heard someone say from a little behind me.
It was a good question. Who would capable of pulling off such an extravagant prank? More importantly, who hated me that much they actually wanted to pull the prank in the first place.
“Hey Gia,” Meghan said sweetly, walking through the entrance of our hallway just as Jack and I were ready to make our escape. She placed her sunglasses on top of her head and beamed at Jack, her two sidekicks by her sides. “Hi, Jack!”
“Hey,” Jack replied, with a pleasing amount of disinterest.
“Meghan!” I snapped, pulling my hand away from Jack’s grip.
She spun around to face us and I narrowed my eyes at her. “Can I help you with something?” she asked, her fake smile still on her heavily made-up face.
“Yeah, I hope so,” I said with a fierce nod. “Maybe you could do me a favor and go fu—”
“Far out, Gia!” Lori said with an offended look. “What’s with the ambush first thing in the morning?”
“Gia, come on,” Jack said calmly, stepping beside me and putting a hand on my shoulder.
I shrugged it off with a steely stare directed at Meghan. “Look around you, Meghan,” I told her, pointing at floor where my edited pictures lay scattered below our feet.
Meghan, Lori and Mischa obediently looked at the ground, craning their necks to get a better look at the papers on the floor. Lori bent down and picked a few up, handing them to Meghan. The three leaned in to inspect the posters while I crossed my arms over my chest, seething.
“That’s horrible, Gia!” Meghan cried, placing a manicured hand to her chest. “I can’t imagine why anyone would be so cruel.”
“Yeah, neither can I. So why’d you do it?”
Meghan faked a shocked expression and turned to her friends, as if to reconfirm that she had heard me correctly.
“You think I did this?”
“I know you did this,” I told her. “You’re the only one evil enough to pull it off.”
Meghan’s shock turned to sympathy as she reached out and lightly patted my arm. “It’s alright, Gia,” she said. “I know you’re upset and you just want someone to blame, so I won’t take this absurd accusation personally.”
“Yeah,” Mischa added. “We’ll just attribute this to your substance abuse problems, poor thing.”
I gave her an incredulous look. First she went and made all these terrible photo-shopped pictures of me, then she spread them all over the school, and now she had the nerve to deny all of it in the world’s most condescending tone ever and bring up an addiction I didn’t even have?
“Gia,” Jack said quietly, sensing the volcano of anger was ready to erupt. “You don’t know that Meghan did this.”
“Exactly, Gia,” Meghan agreed, fake sympathy dripping from her voice. “But if you’d like, I can go to Principal Morris with you. I’d be more than happy to help you find out who pulled this hideous prank.”
“You want me to hit her?” Aria asked, coming to my other side with a pile of ripped up posters in her hand.
“I don’t think that’s the best idea!” Veronica piped up with a concerned look, standing with Aaron a few feet away.
A crowd was forming around us. What with my furious looks and my well-known rivalry with Meghan, everyone else seemed to have figured out that I was pointing fingers at Meghan Adams, and began to gather around us to hear the conversation better.
“Are you sure?” Aria asked me, ignoring Veronica. “Because that World History textbook you’re holding can do a lot of damage.”
“Excuse me?” Lori exclaimed. “You can’t just go around hitting people, Aria! Especially when they didn’t even do anything wrong.”
“Exactly,” Meghan said, looking at Aria with disgust. “If anything, I’m the victim here.”
Jack sucked in some air and my mouth dropped open. If Meghan Adams was the victim in all of this, I was the new Pope.
“Okay, hit her,” I told Aria, taking a step back and thrusting my textbook in Aria’s hands.
“Violence never solves anything, guys!” Veronica cried, running up to us and snatching the book from Aria’s grasp. A few spectators groaned with disappointment. “Can’t we just talk this out?”
“You lay a fingernail on me and I will slap so many lawsuits on you, your plastic surgeon daddy will have to give up that shoebox you call a mansion.” Meghan’s eyes turned cold and predator-like.
“Oh, you’re going to need my plastic surgeon daddy after I’m done rearranging your face!” Aria shot back, taking a step forward, challenging Meghan to retaliate.
Veronica immediately stepped in the middle of both of them, desperately trying to reason with Aria as she and Meghan exchanged some not-so-nice nicknames for each other. The bell signaling that it was time for first period rang and everyone stopped shouting at each other.
“Alright guys!” Jack said, with a hint of amusement in his voice. His bodyguard instincts apparently kicked in as he pulled me back toward him. “As much as I would love to see this fight . . .” He turned to Aria with a grin. “And trust me, I would really love to see that fight, I think it’s time to dial it down a notch.”
“Whatever,” Meghan announced, flicking her hair behind her shoulder and pulling her handbag higher up on her shoulder. “I don’t have to stand here and deal with you barbarians. Gia, if you can’t prove that I pulled this little stunt, then I really have no reason to keep looking at your face right now.”
I desperately tried to think of a good comeback, but my mind had shut down. So instead I stared at her through squinty eyes. When I finally couldn’t think of anything good to say, I continued to glare at Meghan and her sycophants as they walked all the way down the hallway in their inappropriately high heels and disappeared inside a classroom. Around us, disappointed students began to disperse, heading to their classes and giving up hope for a good catfight.
“If that didn’t cheer you up a little bit, I don’t know what will,” Jack whispered, and I pouted.
Personally, I didn’t feel any better. I had just missed an opportunity to watch Aria release hell on my arch nemesis, so disappointment was at an all-time high. On top of that, Meghan was right, which is a scary thought in itself. I didn’t have any proof that she had printed out those edited pictures of me, let alone spread them all over school. All in all, there was nothing to make me feel better, and now I was late to my first class.
“Screw it! Buy me a damn sugary treat,” I declared, grabbing onto Jack’s leather jacket sleeve and pulling him toward the entrance roughly.
“Don’t worry, Gia,” Veronica assured me. “We’ll deal with the posters.”
“And Meghan,” Aria added, winking at me. “You go home. We got this.”
“I’m actually starting to like L.A.,” Jack said, smiling at me as we left the building and headed back to the parking lot.
It had been all but three minutes and I was beyond done with school for the rest of the year. I needed to go home, crawl under my silky covers and not come out until I was pushing sixty. I hoped the embarrassment would have subsided by then.
“Nice to know you’re enjoying my humiliation,” I said, returning his grin with a glare. “I was insanely close to slapping her.”
“I think Aria had that part covered,” Jack laughed, putting a hand in his jacket pocket as we approached the car. “She’s a keeper, I’m telling you.”
That much was true. If there was a silver lining coming out of any of this, it was that I had some pretty amazing friends. But even still, I could seriously do with a calorie-filled dessert right now.
“Oh shoot,” Jack said, stopping next to the driver’s door.
“What?”
“I think I dropped my keys when I was trying to break up the catfight. My jacket pocket was open.”
I widened my eyes, panicked. “I’m not going back in there, Jack! I can’t!”
“You don’t have to. I’ll be back in a second. Stay here.”
“You can’t just leave me here!”
Jack rolled his eyes. “Relax, Princess. I’ll be back before the big bad wolf can eat you.”
I watched Jack jog back to the school with another sigh. Great timing for losing your car keys, Jack. Right as I’m trying to make my great escape. I leaned against his jeep and crossed my arms over my chest, glaring at my boots. I was considering possible lawsuits against Meghan when I felt my phone ringing in my pocket. I pulled it out and looked at the screen, squinting in the sunlight.
“Milo,” I said, answering the phone with forced happiness. “Hi.”
“Hey, is this a good time?” Milo asked, with slight urgency in his voice.
That was an interesting question. It was pretty much the worst time possible, but if Milo Fells was calling me, I was pretty sure things were looking up.
“Yeah. Sure, what’s up?”
“Is Jack with you?”
“Um,” I looked over at the school entrance, watching a few latecomers rush through the doors. No Jack. “Kind of. He actually just ran inside to—”
“Gia, listen to me,” Milo said, cutting me off. “We watched the security footage from the Coco Club. The blonde guy Claudia was talking about was Jack.”
Oh shoot. It’s not like I didn’t see this coming, but I had kind of forgotten to think of an excuse for that.
“Um, really?” Was all I managed to mumble, but Milo didn’t seem to be paying attention.
“We’re still trying to identify the blonde girl, but it’s definitely Jack in the video. Look, I’ll explain everything soon. We’re coming to your house, I’ll be there in like half an hour.”
“Wait, Milo!” I cried out, before he hung up. “I know Jack was at the Coco Club!”
“What?”
“I’ll explain when you get to my house,” I told him.
“Wait, you know he was at the Coco Club?” Milo repeated, as if he was still processing that fact.
“I wasn’t . . . entirely honest with you the other day.”
My phone began beeping, cutting into our conversation and indicating I had another call waiting.
“Gia w—”
“Sorry! I’m sorry! Look, I’ll explain soon. I’ll see you at my house. Okay bye, thanks!”
“Wai—”
I cut the phone before he could ask more questions and I could make even more of a fool of myself.
“Hello?” I said, answering the second call, not bothering to even check who was calling.
“Gia. It’s been a while.”
“Hello?”
Oh shoot. Dr. D.
“Sorry I haven’t been in contact. Did you miss me?”
Gee, let me think about that one. Nope! I covered my free ear with my hand, trying to block out the sound of a car that was parking nearby. Dr. D had clearly decided his Darth Vader voice was more effective at scaring me than his auto-tune, and he was absolutely right.
“You were at the Coco Club the other day,” I said, asking more than declaring a fact.
My voice was shaking and I kept looking over at the school, but Jack was nowhere in sight.
“I was,” came the reply, and I pressed my phone tighter against my ear, straining to clearly make out what he was saying. “I’m glad you received my message.”
Sixty seconds was all I needed to nail his location, and I knew Milo would be listening closely.
“Thanks for the drink by the way,” I said.
“You barely had any of it.”
“I’m not much of a drinker,” I replied, desperately trying to keep the fear out of my voice.
It had barely been fifteen seconds. I needed to keep him on for longer, but honestly what were we supposed to talk about? Hair products and Taylor Swift’s new boyfriend? Yeah. I doubt it.
“Neither am I,” Dr. D replied. “But I hope you can make it to my after party.”
“After party?”
Still no sign of Jack, and my heart was pretty much threatening to burst out of my chest from anxiety.
“Yes. It should be quite spectacular.”
Something about the way he said “spectacular” with his creepy voice sent a chill down my spine. Suddenly it hit me that in a tiny amount of time, the most important day of my life so far would involve me coming face to face with a person who had been watching me for lord knows how long. If the pressure of not falling flat on my face or looking like a whale in my dress wasn’t bad enough, I also had to deal with the possibility that I may get kidnapped. Or die. Or rip my dress. Shoot I didn’t even have a dress yet! I paced around Jack’s car, fidgety and quite possibly suffering from some kind of an anxiety attack.
“What does the napkin say?” I demanded, transforming my panic over the lack of a gown into what I hoped was confidence and power.
“You’re a smart girl Gia. Except, of course, when it comes to your math homework. You can figure out what it says.”
“Hey!” I cried, putting my free hand to my chest. “I’m trying my best, okay? You try being me for one day! I had to deal with Meghan Adams ruining my life this morning, I don’t have a gown yet for the Golden Globes, the guy I really like is moving away and I really don’t need this from you right now!”
Okay, so I wasn’t particularly using my brain. Yelling at my potential murderer was probably not the best idea. A low, grumbling laughter came from the other end of the line and I looked up at the sky in frustration. Where the hell was Jack? What, was he cutting a new car key or something? And why was there a random group of people standing way on the other side of the parking lot holding massive cameras, looking all lost?
“I’ve got my tux ready,” he said, in an almost patronizing way, and I turned my attention away from the group of photographers. “I’m looking forward to the night.”
“Wait!” I cried. I pulled the phone away from my ear to check how long we had been speaking for—fifty-one seconds. “What does the napkin say?” I practically yelled into my iPhone.
“In the meantime,” Dr. D continued in his Star Wars voice, “Smile for the cameras.”
“Wait, what?”
Fifty-six seconds. He had managed to slip away again.
“GIA!” I heard a girl call my name out, and I spun around, coming face to face with a camera flashing in my face. “Is it true you’ve been receiving threats from a mysterious caller?” she asked.
“How does your dad feel about this?” A man beside her asked, resting a bulky video camera on his shoulders, the lens pointed at me.
“Where did you even hear that?” I mumbled, backing away toward the car.
There were about eight or ten of them, some had tape recorders, and the others had cameras. They were all swarmed around me, eyes widened as they expectantly waited for me to reply to their questions.
“Is it true that your father is planning on moving you to live with your mother in New York?”
“Have the police been notified?”
“Any comments on who you think this person is?”
All the questions were coming at me with speed I couldn’t handle. I felt like I was being backed into the corner of some weird experiment, poked and prodded at by evil scientists.
“I—I really can’t comment,” I told them, spinning on my heel and pulling on the car door even though I knew it was locked.
How did they even know all of this? And who decided it was a good idea to ambush a girl in her school parking lot? I felt like yelling but I didn’t know why. I felt like crying but that didn’t make any sense either. And stupid Jack, who had completely vanished, had the car keys!
“Gia! Just one more question!”
I could hear their footsteps hurrying behind me, flashes of cameras bouncing off my back. Maybe I should call someone. Who, though? If my own bodyguard wasn’t around when I needed him then why would any else be? I pulled on the car door handle again, just in case Baby J decided now would be a good time to grant me a miracle and have it magically unlock. Nope. No miracles for me today.
“Oh!” I called out in a completely animated voice. “I am just taking my car keys out of my bag. So I can drive away now. I have car keys in my bag.”
The reporters stopped throwing questions at me for a second, giving me strange looks. Great. Even the paparazzi thought I was weird.
“Gia!”
I snapped my head up, along with my eight new companions, and watched Jack jog toward the car with a confused look on his face.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked.
My eyes slid back to the momentarily silent reporters standing in front of me. Three. Two. One.
“Gia, is this your new boyfriend?”
“Does he know anything about the stalking?”
“What about your relationship with Brendan Miller?”
Jack grabbed my hand and tugged me toward him protectively. Bodyguard mode had been switched on.
“Gia is not answering any questions. Excuse us,” he said in a voice so formal, I wanted to laugh.
Jack put his hand on the small of my back, leading me closer to the passenger’s seat. He unlocked the car door, and I yanked it open, struggling to fight off the questions and camera flashes that were being hurled my way. Jack had his hand in front of my face, shielding me from whatever he could long enough for me to slide myself inside the car, pulling the door shut behind me.
I sat in the car with my hand replacing where Jack’s had been over my face as I waited for him to come around the other side of the car. Tape recorders and video cameras were pressed against my window, and I told myself to do some breathing. My heart was thumping against my chest and I kept looking at my lap and shaking my head with disbelief. Being the daughter of Harry Winters, I had definitely had some encounters with the paparazzi. But never before had they sprung out of nowhere in my school parking lot. The driver’s door opened and the sound of the reporters’ questions filled the car.
“Let’s move,” Jack said calmly, the car door shutting with a light thud.
“I don’t even—”
“Don’t worry,” Jack said, clicking his seatbelt into place. “You’re safe now.”