My heart begins to race, and I lower back onto the old creaking stair.
My bodyguard halts at the banister. Towering above me, the staircase too narrow for more than one person to sit.
“Thatcher,” I greet.
“Jane.” He asks, “How are you doing?”
Chocolate melts between my fingers, and I lick my thumb. “I’m doing fine. I’m more concerned…” about you.
My voice fades completely. We both seem to tense in our silence, but the room is quite loud as SFO, Jack, and my cousins talk.
I break our quiet. “How are you feeling?”
Thatcher drops his voice another cavernous octave. “The same.” He holds my gaze much more securely. “I feel a strong responsibility to you.”
Dear God, let me breathe properly. “To protect me,” I state for clarity.
He nods firmly, but another raw emotion almost surfaces through his tightened gaze. He blinks and deadbolts it shut.
To protect me.
I push my wavy hair off my shoulder, hot all of a sudden. I need to backtrack, and I’m curious, of course. “What you found in the box, it doesn’t affect you? It’s not every day that bodyguards are sent roadkill.”
Security hasn’t discovered who dropped the package via a drone, but the anonymous delivery included a mutilated squirrel and a note:
For the tall bodyguard.
Fuck you.
That was all.
Omega thinks it must be a vexed suitor from earlier this morning. Someone Thatcher must’ve accidentally angered.
His expression darkens. “I’ve seen a lot worse than a dead squirrel.” He ends there. Cut and dry.
I hesitate to prod. “Can I ask you something more personal?”
He looks readied. “Go ahead.”
I rest my elbows on my knees, my mint-green tulle skirt splayed over them. “Have you seen worse while you’ve been in security or before this job?”
“Both,” he answers without pause. He checks over his shoulder for a millisecond, and I track his brief glimpse to the fireplace. To Farrow.
Farrow is holding Maximoff’s cheek and whispering in the pit of his ear. Less serious, I think, since Farrow smiles wider and wider with each word he murmurs.
I frown. “It involves Farrow?”
He gives me a serious look.
Nate.
The realization strikes me cold. The night that Nate was apprehended, there were only two bodyguards on the scene: Farrow and Thatcher. And he’s telling me that night was more horrific than a dead mutilated squirrel.
I want to express my guilt for trusting Nate, but it’ll open a dam and I’m not ready to drown in those feelings.
“Turtle?” I offer, holding up the tin of caramel pecan chocolates.
Thatcher has never rejected one before, and he doesn’t now. We eat turtles and face the room together.
I whisper to my bodyguard, “It seems Akara and Sulli are back on good terms.” They had an awkward month or so after Greece, but their buddy-guard friendship is intact.
The Omega lead, a six-foot-two commanding Akara Kitsuwon is dressed in his usual Studio 9 muscle shirt and backwards baseball cap, and he shares the Victorian loveseat with Sulli. Fuzzy pillow on their laps, their hands are clasped together in an intense arm-wrestle match.
I missed their bet, but they look about tied right now.
Thatcher studies them a little longer, and then his attention drifts to the corkboard. Where Oscar and Donnelly are surveying the photographs of suitors while eating Sun Chips and a pudding cup. I think they must have temp bodyguards covering their clients for a short bit so they could help Akara move in.
Jack and I make eye contact from across the room, and he treks over to the staircase to greet me. “Jane,” he says; his charming smile radiates a thousand feet in all directions.
The exec producer is very charismatic, affectionate, and a good friend to me and Maximoff after so many seasons filming We Are Calloway . We shed our armor and share our insecurities in the docuseries, usually with Jack first.
I instantly smile back.
He hugs me. “Looking gorgeous as ever.”
“You as well.”
Oscar looks back at us, his curly hair falling over a rolled blue bandana. “Where’s my positive affirmation, Highland?”
Jack wears a softer grin. “What kind are you looking for?”
“What do you want to give me?” Oscar shakes a water bottle full of protein mix.
Jack is about to reply.
“Give it to him sloppy,” Donnelly smirks.
“Ignore Donnelly,” Oscar tells Jack. “You’ll feel smarter.”
Donnelly scoops pudding with his finger. “Ignoring Oscar makes your dick feel bigger.”
Oscar ends up laughing, but he nods to Jack. “I’m still waiting, Highland.”
Jack opens his mouth, and now Farrow chimes in, “Really digging deep for a compliment, Oliveira.”
Oscar sets down his water bottle. “At least I know what they look like, Redford.” And then he throws a potato chip at Maximoff, which my best friend dodges easily.
Farrow points at his friend. “Fuck you.” It’s very lighthearted.
Oscar grins, and Jack has already left my side to go referee Akara and Sulli’s arm wrestling match. Jack has grown closest to Akara out of all the bodyguards.
Thatcher observes all of them without much of a reaction.
I truly adore being a fly on the wall among security. The FanCon tour was a pivotal turning point. I was able to peek further and further into the lives of our bodyguards in ways I never had before, and I could spot pre-established friendships of their own.
“Who bought a hundred banana cream pie pudding cups? Literally, a hundred .” Quinn scrunches his face and hoists a plastic bag at the table.
Oscar tosses a chip in his mouth. “Who do you think? There’s only one guy who’s eating that shit.”
Donnelly is crushing the cup, squeezing pudding in his mouth.
Quinn reads the nutrition label with furrowed brows. He’s a very clean eater, something I noticed during the FanCon tour. “Damn, how come no one bought avocados or bread, but we have a hundred pudding cups?”
Thatcher stares more sternly. “If you had your radio on, you could’ve asked for that.”
Donnelly nods. “You tell him, Thatch.”
“It’s Thatcher,” he corrects. Often, actually.
I’ve wondered if it frustrates him when people try to shorten his name, but I haven’t found the proper time to ask.
I’m not even sure now is. Especially since the stairs creak behind us. Our heads swerve as Luna descends with a long yawn.
Bodyguards glance at Luna, but they offer privacy and try not to plaster their gazes for more than a few seconds.
I smile at my cousin. “Good afternoon, sleepyhead.”
Light-brown hair splays messily on her shoulders, faded green marker streaks her cheeks, and her lanky arms and body are hidden beneath an oversized Thrashers hoodie.
“Howdie.” She yawns longer. “I heard something upstairs about a squirrel in a box.”
I shift from the staircase to let her pass. “You heard right.” I explain what Akara told us in depth.
Luna hardly flinches at the news. She was gifted poop in a bag by a bully in high school, so this isn’t shocking for her either.
“People suck,” Luna says under her breath while she skates past Thatcher and me, and then the adjoining door quietly opens.
Banks slips inside.
All of Security Force Omega is now here.
I thought Thatcher’s brother would be in New York all day. I look to Thatcher, and he leans closer to me. Just to speak privately. Do not elevate any dangerous hopes or wishes, Jane.
I inhale his strong woody scent as he says, “Tom’s bodyguard went on-duty earlier.”
“Right,” I breathe.
It means that Banks is now off-duty and floating to wherever anyone on the team must need him. Especially if Farrow has a med call.
It’s sometimes strange how security is more attuned to the happenings of my family as a whole unit, more than I can ever possibly be.
Sulli groans. “Cumbuckets.” She just lost the competitive arm-wrestle match.
“There’s always next time, Sul.” Akara pushes himself off the cushion to a stance and steals a Fruity Pebble off the donut she’d been eating. He makes his way over to Banks, who has screeched to a halt beside Oscar.