“Fifteen,” he answers, unflinchingly. “What about you?”
My brows bunch, fingers paused on a veil. “Don’t you know about me already?”
It’s not public information. But the boy had to sign an NDA, and my bodyguard at the time was around to protect me.
Our bodyguards are privy to stories and secrets that they’re supposed to safeguard. For most of my life, I had Mitchell, who’s now retired. I always believed he shared more stories with the team about me, which is allowed. So I just assumed all of security knew this one.
“I do know how old you were.” He holds my gaze tighter. “But I want to hear it from you.”
My lips rise. The act of sharing personal stories feels intimate. I’ve never really done this with anyone beyond the docuseries producers and family.
“I was fifteen when I lost my virginity,” I say aloud. “Same as you.” I can’t restrain a smile.
His carriage lifts in a headier breath.
“Did you enjoy your first time?” I ask.
“Hell yeah,” he nods a few times. “Did you?”
“I did, immensely, and I really love that you enjoyed your first too.” Feeling that there was happiness in his life makes me happy.
He checks slight movement on his right, orange streamers blowing as the air conditioning kicks on, and then he looks at me. “Your first time didn’t hurt?”
I inspect a pair of black wings in a fallen angel costume. “A little bit in the beginning, but then it felt better.” I turn more to him. “The overall experience was illuminating and exciting, and now sex is practically a favorite hobby.”
He nods. “Sex feels different with you though.”
We both tense at his admission. Treading carefully.
“Good different?” I pry a little deeper.
“Beyond fucking good, honey,” he answers, inhaling strongly like my scent does him in and we’re only a few feet apart.
Heat pricks my nerves, flush ascending my cheeks. He’s on-duty , I remind myself, and I’m respecting his position as my bodyguard from now until forever.
He shifts around me, standing closer to the emergency exit as someone pounds on the door from the outside.
I flinch at the noise.
Thatcher’s indomitable I will annihilate anyone who tries to harm you presence eases me considerably. Anyone who tries to hurt me will have to pass through his iron-will and brawn, and it won’t be an easy feat.
I hear a muffled, masculine voice. “It’s locked.” And then footsteps drift further away.
Thatcher turns to me. “It’s still safe here.”
I relax more, and he watches me examine the black angel wings. I manage to land on another question. “What were you like as a teenager?”
He’s a second from responding, but his phone rings. Security would communicate through comms, so I’m assuming this has to be his family in South Philly.
“Mannaggia,” he curses under his breath in Italian and digs for his phone in his pocket.
I asked him what the Italian-American word meant not long ago, and he said, Damn.
Thatcher narrows his gaze onto the phone screen. “Xander is calling me.” We share a look of confusion.
When Thatcher permanently transferred to my detail, I asked him repeatedly if he was positive, if he was comfortable, leaving Xander Hale: my fragile cousin, who Thatcher protected and saw grow up from nine-years-old to fourteen.
I love my cousins as if they were my sisters and brothers, and Xander needed Thatcher more than me. There was a giant place inside my heart that felt like I was stealing someone crucial and vital to Xander’s mental well-being and life.
Thatcher told me, “I need to leave Xander, and Banks is going to have to leave at some point soon too. And it’s going to be one of the hardest things we ever do.”
I didn’t understand at first, but he said, “It’ll be good for all three of us.” Thatcher explained that Xander relied on them to the point where he’d panic if they needed to take a day off and couldn’t be on his detail. If they needed to switch with a temp for an hour, he’d be more anxious and upset.
I think Thatcher felt like they made a mistake for five years in not helping Xander be more comfortable with other bodyguards. Becoming so dependent on them that only they could be his safety net—when they needed Xander to trust the entire team.
And so they had to help him move on.
Now Xander is calling him, and it’s a little out of the ordinary. Thatcher has been off his detail for almost a year, and if Xander calls anyone, it’s most likely he’ll dial his older brother’s number. Possibly he couldn’t reach Maximoff, but that’d mean something terrible is happening to my best friend.
Moffy is almost always reachable.
“Maximoff is still here?” I ask Thatcher before he answers the call.
“As far as I know,” Thatcher says. “But Farrow doesn’t always use comms if he changes locations.”
I wait to text Moffy.
Because there are more possibilities for the call. Xander could be hurt knowing that Thatcher never told him he was a Marine. His military service leaked recently, and Banks and Thatcher have had to assuage confusion and some stronger feelings in the team. All without answering a probing question as to why they didn’t enlist in the Navy and follow their father’s footsteps.
No one knows.
And I wouldn’t pry, but Farrow said the Navy guys were digging at the Moretti brothers during the meeting. Until Akara stepped in with harsher words.
Thatcher taps his phone screen.
“Thatcher?” Xander sounds a little out of breath.
“Hey, kid,” Thatcher says, concern lining his forehead. “Jane is here; you’re on speaker.”
“Bonjour, Xander,” I say brightly. “Is everything okay where you are?”
“Yeah…life’s going, I guess.” Xander pants some. “I’m at Uncle Ryke’s gym…hitting this bag, or trying to.” He pauses. “Thatcher, you know how I’ve been learning to box?”
He’s been working out with Moffy and Farrow more recently, and he’s taken more interest in boxing, so Farrow has been helping teach him.
“Yeah,” Thatcher says, eyes on me and our surroundings.
I plant a hand on my hip, staring at the phone.
“I asked Farrow if he thought it’d be cool if maybe…you, him, and Banks could train me or something. To actually fight in a ring. And I get that you don’t have a lot of off-duty time. It was just an idea I had…”
Thatcher is unblinking, thinking at rapid pace. I can practically see the gears shifting in his mind, and he cares about Xander. But he must be gauging how healthy it’ll be to reconnect in this way.
To give Thatcher more time to consider, I chime in, “What’d Farrow say?”
Xander catches his breath. “He said he’s up for it.”
I’m not so sure I understand what Thatcher and Farrow are at the moment other than co-workers. But they’ve been far more willing to share space together.
“Okay, I’m up for this too,” Thatcher suddenly agrees. “I’ll help you in the ring, but with Farrow.”
“Yeahyeah,” he says, a joyful smile in his voice. It swells my heart. “Thanks, man. Just text me when you’re free.”
“Sounds good. Take care of yourself, kid.”
Once they both hang up, Thatcher has a faraway look in his eye that he tries to extinguish. He blinks hard a few times, centering himself to the here and now. His muscles are taut, and he rubs his mouth with a rougher hand.
My curiosity has fallen to the wayside. Replaced by concern. “Can I do anything for you?” I whisper and hook the angel wings back onto the rack.
Skin wrinkles between his constricted eyes, staring at me like he’s looking directly into the brightest light.
I keep going. “Maybe I can help with whatever you need. I fully recognize we’re fake boyfriend-and-girlfriend, but I’m a terrific wingwoman. I can be your right-hand.”
His
lips almost tic upward. “I have no doubt you’d be great. But I’m your right-hand, honey. I’m your wingman.”
I smile a very overwhelming smile. “And you’ve been a superb wingman, but maybe my wingman needs a wingwoman from time to time, and I’m at your service.” I mime the tip of a top hat.
He’s more lost in my eyes than before. “If you want to be my wingwoman, there’s something I need to tell you.”
I stare up at him more curiously and prepare for impact. “I’m all ears.”
24
THATCHER MORETTI
I’m literally a half a second from telling Jane something I almost never talk about. To anyone. Barely even Banks.
Call it divine intervention or maybe the devil is laughing in my fucking face—but her phone rings and blows this one shot to hell.
Truth is, I’m not even close to upset. Because she’s my purpose. I want to be here for Jane more than anything; it’s my drive in life and I’m already squared away to push out.
“I’m so sorry,” Jane says quickly, her face torn in a wince while she unzips her purse and grabs her phone. “I want to say this will only take a minute, but if it’s my family, we’ll need to leave.”
I think she’s forgetting I’m her bodyguard and that I’ve been around her for almost a year, a part of her daily routine. Nine times out of ten, her phone calls lead her in a new direction.
Always family.
Her big blue eyes lift up to me.
“I want you to take as long as you need,” I tell her, not breaking our gazes. “I’ll still be here beside you at the end of everything.”
She breathes deeper and nods repeatedly, then reads the Caller ID. “It’s Charlie.”
Her twenty-one-year-old brother is hard to pin down. Literally and everything else in between. Hell, I spent months on a tour bus with the kid, and I can’t say I fully understand him. I just assume he prefers being at arm’s length.
Which makes protecting him a clusterfucking shit show. He’s gone through the most 24/7 bodyguards of any client. It used to be a running issue on the team. Who can last on Charlie Cobalt’s detail for more than two weeks?
Almost no one. We had brand new hires quit after being paired with Charlie, and then finally, we found his perfect match. Oscar Oliveira is the only bodyguard able to keep up with him.
Jane puts the call on speaker. “Charlie?”
“How far from New York are you?” His voice is smooth, but I hear some frustration.
“I’m a couple hours without traffic.” She lifts the speaker to her lips. “What do you need?”
He speaks in French, and then hangs up.
Jane growls a little at the phone. “Charlie.”
Oscar isn’t speaking on comms. I switch frequencies to Epsilon. But no one is talking about Charlie or any of Jane’s brothers in Hell’s Kitchen. “How serious is it?” I ask Jane.
“I’ve no idea.” She slips her phone in her purse, quickly plucking a deep, red lacy dress off the rack. A sticker on the fabric reads: Gothic Queen of Hearts.
By her urgency alone, I can tell we’re moving out. I touch my mic, about to radio in the location change, but I home in on Jane, checking to see if she’s okay.
She speaks faster. “Charlie has never been forthcoming with me, even before his feud with Moffy. He’s always been closest to Beckett, which I respect entirely.”
I nod. Beckett is Charlie’s fraternal twin, and Jane can empathize with that close relationship better than most people. I think because she has a strong bond with Maximoff—a bond that always reminds me of what I have with Banks.
They’ve even dealt with the “incest” horseshit that we used to get all the fucking time in high school. Guys we barely knew would joke about us jerking each other off or me giving my brother a blowjob.
I’m not sensitive. You can earn the right to rib me like that and I won’t bat an eye. Infantrymen did, bodyguards still do. But if I don’t know you and you tell me to go suck off my brother, then you’re just an asshole trying to piss me off.
And don’t be surprised if I deck you.
Before I agreed to the fake dating op, I asked Banks if he’d be okay with “incest” shit exploding on a larger public scale.
Everything I do reflects on my brother. I’m never just thinking about myself. I’m constantly thinking about how my actions will affect him.
We’re identical. People see one person. An entity. The twins. Growing up like that, we lose out on a lot. I wasn’t an I. I was a we from birth, and I know who I am. I can differentiate myself from my brother.
The fight is having other people see me. And not just us .
To be treated more like a singular human being in the eyes of my peers, all I had to do was not be around my twin brother.
Seems easy.
Except that’s the one person who I loved most growing up—so it’s not that easy after all. A kid shouldn’t have to make that fucking choice. To have people see you as a person or to be friends with your twin.
Letting go of what people think—it made us stronger. We have thick skin, and we can handle every kind of fucked situation. We’re bred for days that are like ten-pounds of shit in a five-pound bag.
Still, I needed to confirm with Banks about the fake dating op.
He smacked my chest with the back of his hand. “Semper Gumby, man. I’m ready for it all.”
In the costume shop, I stare down at Jane, my hand still on my mic. “Charlie didn’t tell you anything then?”
“Just that he wants me to come over to his apartment—and he said there’s an issue, but he wouldn’t tell me what.” She adjusts her purse. “He always says I’m smarter than most and can solve mysteries with less. But he’s also aware that I really do prefer knowing who’s in trouble. Charlie withholding this is…” She sighs. “…not very pleasant.”
“We’ll figure it out without him.” I trust that my men are keeping their eyes peeled. I click my mic. “Thatcher to security, is there any word on issues in Hell’s Kitchen?”
Jane is looking at me breathlessly, like I just fucked her for three hours straight. We’ve done that. I’ve been sneaking in and out of her room every night like we’re in college and she’s in a dorm with a 3 a.m. curfew.
Blood wants to pump through veins in my dick, but I stay ice-cold. Frosty. When I’m working, I’m thinking about protecting Jane.
When I’m not working, I’m thinking about having sex with Jane.
I listen to comms in my ear, bodyguards responding, and Jane and I already start heading to the checkout. I wrap an arm around her waist and hold the Queen of Hearts costume for her. She’s busy texting and walking.
I click my mic. “Copy that. Jane is Oscar Mike in ten. We’ll be at your AO in a couple hours.” I glance down at Jane. “It’s probably Eliot. His bodyguard said he’s been day drinking and then bought a handle of bourbon. He’s safe back at the apartment. But he was stumbling in.”
She exhales, about to speak, but our heads swerve to Farrow and Maximoff who move to the checkout with matched urgency.
We all meet at the wooden counter. Where a college-aged girl with bright pink hair smacks gum and taps the keyboard to a computer. She’s already signed an NDA. So Jane and Maximoff talk freely, catching up one another.
Farrow and I hang back, eyeing the gathering paparazzi outside. But I notice how Farrow puts in his earpiece and switches on his radio. He raises his brows at me. “What the fuck are you looking at?”
Yeah, we’re still feeling things out. “You turned on your radio.”
He tucks his black V-neck into the waistband of his black pants. “Don’t get excited. I didn’t do it for you.”
I skip over that. “Did med call you?”
“No.”
I nod. Good. It means no one is hurt.
“I can’t go with you, Janie,” Maximoff says, his body rigid and on guard. “I just got a call from Kinney. She was trying not to cry.”
My chest tightens. I ca
re about everyone in these families. Deeply. Kinney Hale is a girl I saw grow up for years, and now she’s thirteen. I was with the Hale family day-in, day-out. Along with Farrow, who was protecting their mom.
As weird as that fucking sounds, we worked together. He may’ve been on Alpha while I was on Epsilon back then, but we still went on all the same Hale family trips.
“Oh no,” Jane whispers. “What happened?”
I splay the costume over the counter. Farrow grabs the ones that Maximoff is buying while we check out for them.
I listen in.
Maximoff pockets his phone. “Her new girlfriend Holly is apparently moving to Nebraska next week, and she just found out.”
Jane presses her knuckles to her lips. “Not again.”
Maximoff nods tensely. We all know about Kinney’s first girlfriend Viv, who moved to LA to be on some tween show so they broke-up.
“Go be with your sister,” Jane says. “I’ll take care of the debacle with my brothers.”
I catch comms chatter in my ear while we pay for the costumes. “Thatcher, Farrow—we’ve got a problem outside.” Temp guards are speaking. “Someone slashed the tires of the Beetle and Audi.”
They should’ve been watching our clients’ vehicles. But I’m not ripping into them. That’s for the leads to do.
I make the next decision fast, and I speak into my mic. “Call a tow truck. Your job now is to babysit their cars at the repair shop. We’re going to take security’s Range Rovers.”
“Roger.”
Maximoff and Jane heard my end of the line.
“Some fucker slashed tires on both cars,” Farrow informs them.
Maximoff crosses his arms. “Typical.”
Jane nods. “Will we manage without extra security to block paparazzi? Or will we need to wait for more?”
“We should be fine,” I tell her. “I’ll drive to New York.” I know she prefers not to drive security’s vehicles.
Farrow turns to his fiancé. “You going to let me behind the wheel, wolf scout?”
“Maybe,” Maximoff says firmly.
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