She looked at me, and I caught a whiff of that lilac oil she liked to rub on the insides of her wrists. It was a fleeting smell, but it brought me back to all the times that we had gone out to a coffee shop or a restaurant when we’d been together, how much fun we used to have. How much fun I thought we were still having, even though she was out sleeping around with other guys. I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that someone could do something like that.
“I just hate the idea that this city somehow isn’t big enough for the two of us,” she said. “It’s kind of ridiculous, if you think about it.”
“I think this city is plenty big enough. It’s not so much a problem with the city as it is that we still own a house together.”
She put a hand on her hip and squinted at me. “Is that a problem?”
I could feel my dad’s gaze boring into me, even though my back was to him. In his head, he was probably commanding me to tell Camille to fuck off, demand that we sell the cabin. “Because I thought we had discussed this. Neither one of us wants to buy the other out; neither one of us wants to sell it. Other than what happened last weekend, I thought things were going pretty smoothly. Are you telling me that I was wrong?”
“It’s just... it just seems like maybe it’s not the smartest idea to have this piece of property we own together. It’s not like we run a business together or anything. We don’t have kids.”
“Thank God,” she said.
I ignored that. “And we’re both obviously moving on in our lives. I mean, you’re telling me that Brian was psyched to show up for your weekend getaway to find me there?”
“He wasn’t going to let it ruin his weekend. He understands that things are not always perfectly black and white, and he can be a mature adult about it.” She glanced around me toward Dad. “Unlike some other people I can think of at the moment.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not selling. I love that cabin. We put a lot of work into it.”
This was not the time or the place for this sort of conversation. “Okay, okay,” I said. “We don’t need to talk about this right now. But obviously it’s something we’re going to have to discuss at some point.”
I turned and walked back to my dad before she could say anything else. I tried to take a deep breath before I sat down, but I could feel my pulse thrumming behind my eyelids. Dad was more than halfway finished with his sandwich.
“What are the chances,” he said. “I never leave the house. Finally do, and we run into her.”
“Please stop.” I picked up my sandwich and took a bite, but my appetite had vanished.
“I won’t keep going on and on about it. But I know what kind of person she is, Ben. And she’ll take complete advantage of you again if you let her.”
“I’m not going to let her.”
Dad nodded. “Good.”
I could tell he didn’t entirely believe me. And in a way, I understood. I had refused to believe Camille had been cheating on me, even when presented with the evidence. Denial is a powerful thing, that desire to hold on to some idea of your life that wasn’t even really reality.
***
It was a relief to finally get into the office. No, being inside wasn’t my favorite activity, but I at least knew what was going to happen here, felt as if I had some semblance of control. Camille would not come waltzing in here. Dad would not show up unannounced. Just knowing that neither of those things would happen was good enough for me.
I grabbed my coffee that Cole had picked up from Superior Coffee off the conference table and went into my office, saying hi to Drew and Jason on my way. Normally, I would stop for a chat, ask Jason how his daughter was doing, shoot the shit with Cole, once he finally reappeared, get any necessary office updates from Lena—but after everything that had happened this morning, I just wanted to be in my office, with the door shut. So I made a hasty retreat, though I didn’t end up shutting the door all the way—we almost never did that here, unless it was something really important or serious. Which this kind of was, but not really. I was supposed to be over it by now. Moved on, as Camille put it.
I took a few sips of coffee and threw myself into the never-ending task of responding to emails. It felt good to be able to take the focus on my own inner strife and instead try to come up with solutions and answers for other people’s issues, minor as they might be. Mrs. Brookshire, for example, from Brookshire Jewelry, where we had a guard posted during business hours, was having some trouble with the alarm again, and it not recognizing the correct PIN number. Having gone down there to troubleshoot the issue myself when it first arose, I knew that it was not the system that was giving Mrs. Brookshire a hard time, but the fact that she had arthritis and often incorrectly entered the four-digit code. I spent several minutes trying to think of how I could word this delicately, without offending her. If I had to go down there, I would.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since I’d been sitting at my desk, answering emails, sucking down coffee, but when I heard a knock at the door, it startled me a little, as if I had been very caught up in what I was doing, which, I suppose, was true.
I looked over at the door, trying to tell myself that it wasn’t Camille, and it wasn’t my dad. They wouldn’t come down here. Would they? “Come in,” I said, a note of trepidation in my voice.
The door was partially open, so I couldn’t see who was standing there. I knew it wasn’t any of my co-workers, because they would’ve just come right in. The door opened the rest of the way, and I saw first her long, red hair. My heart did a weird little thing in my chest right then—or maybe it was the large coffee I’d just sucked down. It was Teagan. She had on a navy-blue skirt and a short-sleeve, cream-colored blouse. She looked like the most responsible, put-together person you could imagine. The picture of stability and common sense. The exact opposite of Camille, in other words. She gave me a little wave.
“Hi,” she said. She looked back over her own shoulder. “The guy down there? Cole, I think? He said that you were in here and I should just come in. Um... so that’s why I’m here. I know I don’t have an appointment or anything, but since I didn’t the other day, either... Are you... are you busy?”
I had to bite the inside of my lip to suppress the smile. Not because I was laughing at her... It was just she was cute, getting that flustered. “Not at all,” I said. “Come on in. Have a seat.”
She gave me a sheepish smile. “I wanted to apologize, first, about running out of here like that the other day. That must’ve seemed so abrupt and random. Well, I guess this whole thing is kind of random.”
“You don’t need to apologize.” She sat down in the chair across from me.
“That’s kind of you to say, but I do feel like I need to; you were just trying to be helpful. And I thought about it some more, and I would like to have some sort of security detail. Maybe not twenty-four hours, but when I go out and stuff... It would make me feel better. My anxiety’s been through the roof.”
“We can certainly do that for you,” I said. “I’ve got several people in mind that I think would be a good match for what you’re—”
“I want you.” Her face reddened. “I mean, I’d feel most comfortable if it was you who did it. I don’t know if that works with your schedule, but... I’m hoping you can maybe make it work. I’m happy to pay whatever it is you want.”
I paused. I didn’t work in the field as much as some of the other guys did—in fact, I only worked certain big events, usually one-offs, unless we were short-staffed or someone called out sick. I handled most of the stuff around the office, maintained our website, took care of the bookkeeping, helped Lena with marketing. Plenty of my duties could be done remotely, a fact that I did take advantage of when I could. I probably could manage to do what Teagan was asking—be something of an on-call security guard—because of the flexibility I had with my schedule, but I’d need to clear it with Drew first.
I could tell her that I’d need to get back to her about it, but I could als
o just pop down the hallway and run it by Drew, who I knew would be in the office today until at least two.
“Can you give me one second?” I said.
Teagan nodded. “Absolutely.”
I pushed back from my desk and stood up, feeling her eyes on me as I did so. I gave her a brief smile before I left, and then strode down to Drew’s office. The door was ajar, so I tapped lightly on it.
“Come on in,” came his reply.
“Hey,” I said. Drew looked up from the yellow legal pad he was writing on. “You have a minute?”
“Yeah, of course,” he said. “What’s up?”
I went in, pushing the door shut behind me, though not all the way. I hadn’t really given much thought as to how I was going to present this, and as I sat down in the chair in front of his desk, I wondered if that was the right idea. Drew had always been an excellent boss, but he was sometimes hard to read, and he could think that I was crazy for proposing what I was about to propose. He was the sort of guy who appreciated logic, facts, and plausibility. Did I have a plausible reason for wanting to do this for Teagan, other than that I felt strangely drawn to her?
Which sure as hell was not a reason to become her personal security guard. That was, actually, a big no-no, and the only other instance in which that had worked out favorably had been with Cole and his now girlfriend, Stella.
“I see that woman came back to talk to you,” Drew said. “What was her name?”
“Teagan. She’s interested in having security detail—not around the clock or anything, but primarily when she’s going out.”
“Okay,” Drew said. “Well, that’s certainly something we can take care of. I’m glad she came back. Sounds like the two of you have a bit of rapport. Did you have anyone in mind?”
The way he said it, it was almost like he knew what Teagan had said. Maybe he did. Drew was good at intuiting all sorts of things about people, sometimes even before they themselves knew it. But he wasn’t going to offer that information up first, if that’s what he was thinking—he’d let me say it. Anything else would be taking the easy way out, and Drew was not the sort of person who would ever do such a thing.
“I did actually have a couple of people,” I said, “but she wasn’t interested in hearing about them. She specifically asked that I be the one who do this, for the exact reason you just said: we’ve got a bit of rapport.”
Drew frowned, though I hoped that it was more in contemplation than annoyance. “I see,” he said. “What are your feelings on that? I didn’t think this would be something that you’d want to take on.”
“I’ve got the bandwidth for it,” I said. “At least I’d be willing to give it a try. If it turns out she does want security around the clock or anything, then obviously we’d have to revisit the issue, since I wouldn’t be able to do all of that, but right now, I think I could make it work, what she’s looking for.”
“This is strictly business, though—right?”
“Of course,” I said immediately. This was not entirely a lie. There was something I found intriguing about Teagan, but it wasn’t necessarily a romantic thing. She was an attractive person, yes, but I could keep any feelings that came up separate. If I was really honest with myself, what I was hoping was that this would be enough of a distraction from Camille that I could finally, once and for all, get over her. I wasn’t the sort of person who was interested in rebounds or a bunch of no-strings-attached relationships—and maybe that was why I hadn’t quite been able to get over my ex-girlfriend yet. But a professional relationship like this, where getting close—but not romantically involved—was necessary, then perhaps this was what I needed to get myself over Camille once and for all.
“Cole was lucky,” Drew said. “I don’t think he realizes how lucky he is, sometimes. Getting involved with Stella like that could have gotten a lot messier than it did. Fortunately for all parties involved, it worked out. But that sort of thing usually doesn’t.”
“That’s not why I’d be doing this,” I said.
He nodded, still mulling it over. “Okay,” he said. “You know I trust you, Ben. And I know that you trust yourself, and wouldn’t be putting yourself in a position where you’d end up doing something that you knew you shouldn’t. So if you think you can make this work, I’ll let you take care of it. If it does turn out that you’re going to need more coverage, just let me know, and we’ll figure it out.”
When I returned to my office, Teagan was still sitting there, though she had started chewing at her fingernails. I could tell by the expression on her face that she thought whatever I had come back in to tell her was going to be bad news, and I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened in her life that had made her so skittish, so unsure of herself. Maybe nothing—maybe it was just this whole thing with people getting shot that had her freaked out. That was possible, but my feeling was there was something more to it than just that.
“Well, I have good news,” I said. “I’ve cleared it with my boss, so we are good to move forward on this.”
“That’s great,” she said with a smile, the look on her face unmistakably relieved. That lasted only a few seconds, though, before it changed back to worry. “So... how exactly is this going to work out?”
I sat back down. “The nice thing about an arrangement like this is that it can work however you want. You said you don’t think you need someone around the clock, but it sounds like you do have some times in mind when you will want someone to go out with you.” Go out with you? Had I ever phrased it like that before? But luckily, Teagan didn’t seem to pick up on my Freudian slip, or, if she did, she was too nice to draw any more attention to it.
“It’s mostly when I’m going out. I don’t have this crazy social life or anything—in fact, I usually go most places by myself.”
The situation was actually rather similar to that of Cole and Stella, when he first started working for her family. I gave Teagan the CliffsNotes version of that and she listened, nodding the whole time.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” she said. “Of course, I’m not going to be out riding mountain bikes or anything like that—I’m not really an outdoor sort of girl—but being able to call you and have you meet up with me when I’m going out would be perfect.”
Not an outdoor sort of girl? I wasn’t used to hearing that. Even though some of the girls I had dated had turned out not to really be into the outdoors, it wasn’t the sort of thing most people were willing to admit these days. Everyone was supposed to be into unplugging, getting back to nature, finding your inner peace, all that bullshit. Though I myself couldn’t imagine ever being the sort of person who would choose being indoors over being outside, there was a part of me that had to admire Teagan for at least being able to admit a truth about herself, when plenty of other people would try to make it sound like their entire life was one big Patagonia ad.
But we weren’t here to talk about my personal preferences; it didn’t matter what I thought about whether or not she enjoyed being outside. I took a deep breath and pushed any thoughts that were not strictly business-related out of my mind. Obviously, everything that had been going on with Camille was getting to me, even though I knew it shouldn’t, that I should be beyond that. The fact that she could still get under my skin the way she could was not a particularly pleasant thing to find out, and I needed to do all I could to keep it from getting any worse. In other words, now was the perfect time to throw myself into work, keep myself distracted, just to show Camille that she really couldn’t bother me anymore.
Chapter 6
Teagan
When Elliott called me, I picked up the phone, glad that I would be able to give him some good news. I just hoped that his call wasn’t to inform me that someone else had been killed, because if that was the case, my next move would probably be exactly that: relocate, somewhere remote, somewhere that maybe didn’t even have good Internet, give up all forms of social media, and find a job at a library. It would be a quiet life, I probably
wouldn’t even make a quarter of what I was making now, but that would be worth the peace of mind.
“Well, I did it,” I told him. “I got a security guard, just like you suggested.”
“You did?” The surprise in his voice was obvious. “Oh. Wow. I didn’t think you actually would.”
The tone in his voice gave me pause. “Really?” I said. “But... you were the one who suggested it.”
“No, I mean, I’m not saying that I think it’s a bad thing,” he said quickly. “Not at all. It’s just... you don’t usually follow through with that sort of thing. So it’s just a little surprising.”
“Oh.” I tried not to feel stung by his statement that I didn’t follow through with things. That had been another of his criticisms when we’d been together—I always had a lot of ideas about things, but sometimes those ideas were just that—ideas that would never actually come to fruition. Elliott was more of the mind that if you talked about something, you should try to manifest it into existence. “I guess I’m glad to have surprised you in a good way, then.”
“Tell me about this security. Have you felt better having them around? Safer?”
“Um... I guess. It’s a little weird, to be perfectly honest, but the guy is very nice. His name’s Ben.”
“What—does he just follow you around?” Was I imagining it or was there a hint of irritation in Elliott’s tone, as if he was less than pleased that I had gone and done what he’d suggested?
“He’s not with me all the time.” I laughed, hoping to make it sound like I found this whole situation very light and carefree. I didn’t want him to think that this mattered to me. “He’s not sitting here right now or anything. Just when I go out. Especially after what happened with that guy in the Mercedes.”
“What happened?”
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