“What was that?” the brunette asks.
The door cracks open. Jane slips out, eyes wide on the group of women, but she’s good at course correcting.
She smiles in greeting. “Hello.”
“Jane motherfucking Cobalt,” the brunette gapes. “We love your mom.”
“She’s our idol,” the blonde says.
“Mine too,” Jane smiles more, and her eyes subtly flit to me. I approach, my fingers brushing her hip, and she whispers rapidly in my ear, “Charlie doesn’t want Oscar to clean this mess. I convinced him to let you and Farrow in.”
Copy that. I wrap my arm around her waist and then motion with a nod to Farrow to enter Charlie’s apartment. He kicks off the wall and grabs his trauma bag. Too nonchalant to cause attention.
Oscar and Donnelly retreat back into security’s apartment. Shutting the door. Jane has an easy time excusing herself from the women.
We’re right behind Farrow.
I lock the door when we’re inside.
“Watch your step,” Jane cautions, the four-bedroom apartment dimly lit.
I’ve been here plenty before. High ceilings, dark wooden floors, and leather furniture—it looks like an upscale bachelor pad, and I’ve never seen a fucking dish, a wine glass, or a pillow this out of place. Now, surveying the spacious apartment, I’d think a fistfight broke out or someone raided kitchen cabinets and smashed every dish and drinking glass for dramatic effect.
And knowing the Cobalts, either one could be likely.
Broken glass crunches under my boots. Further in the living room, bourbon stains a shag rug and leaks onto the floorboards.
I spot Eliot Cobalt.
Shirtless and slumped against the far wall, near a bookcase—red wine bleeds into his white pants.
“I thought it was blood at first,” Jane admits. “Thankfully it’s just wine. He’s not hurt.”
Farrow approaches to check on him. Eliot’s groggy eyes fight to stay open.
Charlie comes out from a bedroom. He runs a hand through his hair. The strands stick up in a thousand different directions. Lean build beneath an opened button-down, spots of wine stain the white fabric. He glances at me. “He doesn’t do this often, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“I wasn’t.” Honestly, it didn’t even cross my mind. I just want to help where I can, and right now, I see sharp, broken glass on the floor. Jane is wearing thin ballet flats. The faster we can get this cleaned up, the faster we can avoid a deeper clusterfuck.
Jane looks to Charlie. “I already told Thatcher about Eliot’s new play.”
She did.
In the car on the way here, she explained how Eliot joined a new theatre company when he moved to New York. Jane said all her brothers were concerned when he was cast as an alcoholic in the upcoming play. Eliot throws himself head-first into his craft. Method acting, she told me.
Jane steeples her fingers to her mouth and watches as Farrow bends down to Eliot. Checking his pulse.
“He’s going to hate himself in the morning,” Jane says. “He promised he wouldn’t get pass-out, sloppy wasted.”
“You actually believed him?” Charlie looks at her like she’s lost her mind.
“I wanted to,” Jane breathes into a sigh.
Eliot squints like he’s trying to open his eyes. They land on me first. “Is that my…fake brother-in-law?” He barely gets those words out before he heaves onto the floor, missing a bowl at his side. Farrow grabs it and puts it under his mouth.
Brother-in-law. This is Eliot’s normal humor, and I know it’s not just a drunken joke.
Jane edges nearer to me like she’s called to be closer. “Eliot, I’m not fake married,” she corrects him. “Thatcher is my fake boyfriend . He is of no fake relation to you.”
Eliot wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist. “I’m losing track of your deception, dear sister.”
“I’m losing track of my patience,” Charlie says as he crosses the room to right a tilted painting on the wall. “I leave you for one extra second and you’re smashing wine bottles now?”
“It was…an…” Eliot’s eyes slowly close. “Accident.” The word comes out breathy and soft. He leans over like he’s going to slump down on a pillow.
There’s no pillow. Just hard floor.
Farrow catches him by the shoulders before he thumps his head hard into the ground.
“Charlie, watch your feet,” I call out as the other Cobalt brother almost steps onto a large broken shard. He’s wearing a pair of fucking flip-flops.
He glares at the floor. “This is—”
“Fixable,” Jane cuts in. “We’re going to help.” She motions from me to her. “We’ll do the glass and stains. You do all the little things that we’d miss but Beckett would notice.”
Charlie nods in agreement and then sets his gaze on me. “Fake boyfriend or not, you don’t have to be here. But you are. So thanks.” It’s a curt thanks . To the point. But sincere. Before I can reply, he zeroes in on the mantle and crosses the room to collect an empty wine bottle on it.
At that, we split up. I take one last glance back at Farrow before Jane and I head to the kitchen. Farrow is rolling Eliot onto his side and asking Charlie for a washcloth. These are the days I’m glad he’s on the med and security team. I have no reservations or concerns when I leave the living room.
Warm light from above the stove bathes the kitchen, and now alone with Jane again the air seems to still and thicken. There’s a lot I haven’t said. That I want to say, still. Especially the stuff that I almost told her at the costume shop. But I’m not sure if there’s a right time. If there ever really will be.
Jane bends down to gather cleaning supplies. She’s been tense since she got Charlie’s phone call, but being here has eased her worry. She breathes easier. Less stressed.
Still, I ask, “Jane, you okay?”
“Oui,” she says. “It’s a situation than can be solved.” She hands me a brush and dustpan set and then rises to her feet with a clear container. Bottles of cleaner, trash bags, scrubbers, and more all meticulously stashed away inside.
“It is,” I agree.
Her lips lift, thinking of something. “I always wondered how Charlie would react if I introduced him to a boyfriend.” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “He’s the most unpredictable of my brothers.” She sets the container on the counter and unclips the lid.
And all of her brothers never met any of her friends-with-benefits.
She pulls out a pair of elbow-length yellow rubber gloves. “He was very quick to let you in,” she tells me. “That rarely ever happens.”
“Probably because I’m on security.”
She doesn’t look convinced. “Probably.”
I don’t know another reason, and I can’t worry about it.
We return to the living room with the supplies. She takes the hardwood while I focus on the rugs. Sweeping up the glass and removing the stains.
Five minutes later, Jane says, “Thatcher.”
I glance over from my area, a few meters from hers. Jane still has on the gloves, the rubber wet with wine. But she forgot to put her hair up. A tendril sticks to her lip and her arms are outstretched, trying not to touch herself with the gloves.
She tries to blow the strand off. “I made a fatal error.”
“Not fatal,” I tell her and come to her side. She’s kneeling on a clean patch of floor by the fireplace. We both avoid glancing to the window where her brothers and Farrow sit.
They can see us.
They can hear us.
They think we’re fake dating. Fake fucking. It’s so far from the truth that even being in this room feels like wading in a lie.
But I’m here. Beside her. And there’s really nowhere else I want to be.
I squat down to be nearer to her height. They’re watching us. Can’t think about that now. I brush her hair from her lips. Natural. It looks natural.
I’m just her bodyguard.
“Thank you,” she says, but her breath is heavy like I’m one second from taking her right here. I was inside her last night. And the night before that. And in a few hours, I’ll be deep between her legs again.