by Banks, R. R.
For all of his many faults and flaws, for all of the things about him that annoy me, I can’t deny that having him out there, watching my back makes me feel safe. I can’t deny that – he – makes me feel safe.
It’s something that’s both comforting and irksome. I’m not a porcelain doll. I don’t want to be made to feel like I need to be wrapped in bubble wrap and protected. I want to feel capable of standing on my own two feet and taking care of myself.
But I know that I also need to get over myself. I need to tell myself that there is nothing wrong or shameful in asking for help. I have to listen to what the people I trust are saying: Peter, Maura, and – ugh – Knox. I have to admit that this Elliott guy has me more than a bit rattled. To have left flowers at my home and a gift inside my car – that’s scary stuff. Very scary stuff. And as capable as I believe myself to be, I don’t know that I am equipped to deal with somebody quite obviously that mentally ill.
I look at Knox’s hulking frame and smile – then mentally kick myself for the thoughts rushing through my head. Thoughts I shouldn’t be having. Not about him.
And yet, I can’t seem to make them stop. I see his eyes, that chiseled and sculpted body. I can feel the rumbling timbre of his voice vibrating through me and can’t stop myself from picturing his big, strong hands caressing my body. My thoughts rapidly grow more X-rated and I gasp, my cheeks flaring red as I try shut them all down – which draws the attention of my fellow panelists, who are all looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
I give them a smile and quick shrug. “Sorry,” I mouth to them, which makes them all grin. They obviously knew my mind wandered away. I’m sure it’s happened to them once or twice. As I try to regain my composure, if not my dignity, one thought keeps bouncing off the walls inside my head. It’s a thought that’s disturbing as hell. One I fight to deny to myself. And yet, no matter how hard I try to slam the door in my mind, it creaks right back open again.
Oh God, what if Maura’s right? What if I am into him?
Knox
“That seemed to go pretty well,” I say.
Felicity nods. “Yeah, I think it did.”
“You looked pretty natural up on that stage.”
“I don’t know about that,” she laughs.
“You were natural, connected with your audience, seemed to be at ease,” I compliment her.
“Think so?” she asks.
“Absolutely.”
We’re sitting in the tent again. The panel is over, and she’d spent about forty-five minutes signing autographs and taking pictures with the fans who did what she’d asked and waited at the ropes for her. When she saw them, she marched right over and didn’t finish until she’d talked to the last person there. It was nice to see her giving back to her fans. Each and every one of them walked away glowing and gushing about how amazing she is.
Felicity is positively beaming. She’s practically floating on a cloud. It’s good to see. It’s kind of sweet. I’m used to getting nothing but scowls, eye rolls, and cutting remarks from her, this is a nice change of pace.
“How would you know? You were supposed to be watching for the bad guys,” she teases.
“I’m an excellent multi-tasker.”
She smiles and takes a drink of her water. But then our gazes meet, and there’s a moment where it seems like the whole world just draws in a breath and holds it. Everything around us falls away, and we’re left in this prism of silence that’s so perfect, it’s almost like being in a vacuum. I feel this sense of anticipation – or maybe expectation – hovering in the air between us. I can see by the look in her eye that Felicity can feel it too.
The tent flap opens, and it feels like a blast of Arctic wind billows in, immediately snuffing out the heat that’s been building between us. Maura steps in and the moment Felicity and I have been sharing passes. Just like that. The older woman lets the tent flap fall shut behind her as she steps in, glaring at me. I flash her a grin as Felicity quickly takes a drink of water.
“Nice to see you crawl out from under your bridge,” I greet her.
Felicity chokes on her water, spitting it out on the grass beneath her feet. She grabs a cloth and puts it to her mouth, ostensibly to wipe her lips, but not before I see the smile on her face. If Maura glares any harder at me, I’m convinced lasers will shoot out of her eyes and turn me to ash on the spot.
“It’s time for you to slither back under your rock, isn’t it?” Maura fires back.
“I see what you did there,” I chuckle. “Clever. I’m impressed. Surprised, but impressed.”
Maura sighs and folds her arms over her chest. All she needs to do is stamp her foot to complete the petulance trifecta. I give it a moment and wait for it, but it unfortunately doesn’t come.
“I’ve got it from here. You may go now,” she dismisses me.
“Sorry, my orders are to escort Ms. Manson all the way home,” I explain. “You’re welcome to follow us in your car, though.”
The older woman’s mouth falls open. She stares at me like I’ve suddenly grown a second head. She starts to speak, but all that comes out is a frustrated gasp. She closes her mouth again, but her glare is no less angry. Felicity looks at me, her expression one of shock, but the mischievous glint in her eye tells me something different. She’s amused by all of this.
“That won’t be happening,” Maura finally manages to croak. “You did your job, now you are dismissed.”
“Like I told you before, Ms. Kazmeyer, Peter’s the one who’s set all this up, so if you have a problem with the arrangement, you should probably talk to him,” I inform her, affecting my best professional tone and trying not to let my sarcasm come through. “Until then, I’m going to escort Ms. Manson home, as per my orders.”
“You cretin, I –”
Felicity moves quickly over to the older woman, giving her a soft smile. “It’s okay, Maura. I’m pretty tired anyway. The afternoon wiped me out,” she tells her. “I’m probably just going to go home and do some work before I go to bed.”
Maura looks at Felicity with an almost maternal gaze, but when she turns her eyes to me, there’s nothing but a bitter coldness in them. Yeah, I’m guessing we’re not going to be exchanging Christmas cards anytime soon.
“If you upset her or step out of line in any way, I swear to God, I’ll cut your balls off,” she hisses. “Do you understand me?”
This is getting old pretty fucking quick. “Save your threats, lady,” I growl. “She’s a client and my friend’s sister. Do you really think –”
“I wouldn’t put it past you,” she cuts me off. “I’ve known men like you before.”
I scoff. “Trust me, you’ve never known a man like me.”
“Knox, just drop it,” Felicity interjects. “Stop acting like a five-year-old.”
“Five-year-old’s aren’t that arrogant,” Maura says. “Children at least have some semblance of respect and humility.”
“Yeah, but at least I don’t wet my pants anymore and can use multisyllabic words to insult you.”
“Knox! Stop!” Felicity snaps at me.
I hold my hands up in surrender and flash her a grin – one that clearly does nothing to charm her given the scowl on her face. I may have gone one bridge too far with the last crack.
Felicity helps usher her agent out of the tent, leaving me standing there by myself. They’re out there for a couple of minutes. I’m tempted to stick my head out just to keep an eye on her, but I figure I probably shouldn’t press my luck. I can hear their low, mumbled voices just outside the tent, so I know that Felicity isn’t being bound, gagged, and carted off at the moment.
Eventually, she comes back into the tent and fixes me with a gaze and a frown that just radiates disappointment.
“Do you have to do that?” she asks.
“Do what?”
“Push her buttons so hard?” she questions. “You take things way too far sometimes, Knox.”
I shrug. “I take things too far most of th
e time.”
“I was trying to be polite.”
I give her a small smile. “No need to be polite or stand on social graces around me,” I inform her. “I’d much prefer blunt honesty.”
She walks past me and starts to gather her things. “People say that but that’s not really what they want.”
“No? Then what is it people want?”
Finished putting her things into her bag, Felicity slips a sweater on. With the sun going down, it’s starting to cool, but it’s not unpleasant. All things considered, today had just about the best weather I’ve seen in Seattle for a long while.
“You want honesty, Knox?”
“Sure, I can take it,” I grin.
“I’m grateful to you for protecting me. And yeah, maybe you’re right that I can’t handle this myself. But you’re a fucking prick. It’s like you think everything is a joke, and you go out of your way to piss people off. Maura has done a lot for my career, and all you ever do is piss her off. And me. And yeah, sometimes it can be a little amusing, but you’re not a fucking child, Knox. You are an adult. And I would appreciate if you treated her – and me – with a little more fucking respect.”
I blink, processing this information. I hadn’t realized it was bothering her this much. “I’m sorry,” I offer.
“You see? People want sugar-coated words. They want the platitudes they claim to not want,” she observes. “They may think they want the truth. Deep down, they may believe they do. But nobody really wants the cold, hard, unvarnished truth.”
Some of the tension in the room dissipates a bit, and I chuckle. “Wow. And I thought I was cynical.”
She shrugs. “It’s just been my experience.”
“Does that include you?” I wonder. “Is it the sugar-coated platitudes that you want? Or the truth?”
She opens her mouth to speak but falters. The words don’t come out at first, and she frowns. Felicity slings her bag over her shoulder.
“If I’m being honest, the sugar-coated platitudes hurt less,” she finally says.
“But they do nothing for you. They certainly don’t teach you anything or help you grow in any meaningful way,” I state. “And you strike me as the kind of person who is always challenging herself and is trying to grow. Evolve. You strike me as the kind of person who will never fail to try to better herself or live her best life.”
A rueful smile touches her lips. “You’re not necessarily wrong,” she tells me as she heads for the tent flaps. “But sometimes, it’s nice to be fed the sugar-coated platitudes.”
I fall into step beside her, and we remain silent for a while as we walk across campus, headed for the parking lot. The charge that was in the air between us before – that sense of anticipation – is gone. In its place is a very marked tension. It’s not the anger or contempt I sometimes get from her, but it’s definitely a step back from when we were actually speaking like normal, civilized human beings earlier.
I know I’m partly to blame for that. Hell, I’m mostly to blame. I’ve never been known to work and play well with others to begin with, but there’s something about Maura Kazmeyer that really gets under my skin. Something about her just doesn’t seem right to me. I don’t know what it is. There’s just something about her that seems – off – to me.
Maybe it’s that she’s too protective of Felicity. She treats her like a goddamn china doll. Felicity is a grown woman, and Maura treats her like a child, controlling every facet of her life, her career, and everything in between. I know Felicity can see it and yet, she lets it happen. Lets Maura run her life. For whatever reason, Felicity feels completely beholden to the older woman.
From some of the things Peter’s told me, and some things I’ve gleaned on my own, it’s because she thinks she owes her success and her career to Maura. But that’s what I don’t understand – Felicity owes her success to nobody. She’s the talent. From where I stand, Maura Kazmeyer is just a glorified leech – she just rides Felicity’s coattails and basks in her success.
“Why do you do it?” Felicity finally breaks her silence. “Why do you antagonize Maura the way you do?”
I shrug. “Why does a dog lick its own balls? Because it can.”
She lets out a loud breath. “Everything is just one big joke to you, isn’t it?”
“The way I see it, life is just way too short to take everything so seriously. To not have fun,” I tell her. “We only have so many years, and I want to spend them enjoying my life.”
“And to you, enjoying life is torturing my agent.”
“I think torture might be overstating things a bit,” I defend myself. “I mean, it’s not like I broke out the thumbscrews or the Pear of Anguish or something like that.”
I scan the crowds we pass, still on alert and searching the sea of faces for any potential threats. Just because Graham didn’t show his face at the panel discussion or her signing doesn’t mean he won’t pop up now like some jack-in-the-box from hell.
“Nice visual,” she chuckles, despite her best effort not to. “But you have a unique ability to fluster Maura. The woman is usually unflappable, and yet, you’re able to piss her off at the drop of a hat.”
“What can I say? When I put my mind to something, I’m really good at it.”
Felicity shakes her head then looks up at me. “Why, though? Why do you enjoy harassing her?”
“Honestly, I think it’s because I’m pissed off on your behalf.”
“My behalf?” she questions.
I nod. “Yeah. I mean, I see the way she micromanages you. If I were in your shoes, it’d piss me off to no end,” I offer. “Plus, she started it.”
She arches an eyebrow at me. “Really?”
I nod. “Oh yeah, that night in the bookstore. She started slinging the attitude from the word go.”
“You realize you sound like a child, right?”
I give her a wide grin. “I know you are, but what am I?”
She rolls her eyes and sighs – giving me the double whammy – but she can’t quite hide the small smile touching her lips. She’s trying to not be amused but can’t quite get there.
“It doesn’t bother me,” she tells me. “Everything Maura does is for me. For my benefit.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Felicity looks at me carefully. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
She looks at me closely, her eyes boring into mine. “No, you mean something by that. Tell me.”
I shrug. “Just seems to me that the better you do, the better she does,” I finally relent. “Kazmeyer isn’t exactly being altruistic, you know. She gets her cut.”
Felicity lets out a long breath. “I know she does. This is a business, and nobody works for free,” she explains. “But she was also the first person to truly believe in me, Knox. She’s done a lot to help get me to the point I’m at right now.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” I counter. “Your talent has a lot to do with where you are right now too. And that is all you.”
There’s a small, but genuinely warm smile on her face. We fall into a silence that’s a bit more comfortable than the one before. I slip my phone out of my pocket to let Peter know I’m taking her home.
Finally reaching my car – a black Escalade – I hold open the rear door, my eyes still searching for potential threats. If Graham was going to show up, he probably would have by now, and I’m starting to think that maybe we’re in the clear. Maybe roughing him up at her other event made him reassess his position and opt to stalk another, easier target.
It also made me realize that this might be the last time I see Felicity. It’s not like we’re friends who will hang out together once this job is done. Nor do we run in the same circles. So yeah, this very well might be my last time I see her.
As I slip behind the wheel, start the car, and set off, I let that thought play over and over again in my head. Truth be told, it bums me out. One the one hand, she can be something of a huge
pain in my ass. On the other hand, though, she’s funny. Strong. Spirited. She’s obviously very intelligent and has a razor-sharp wit. There’s a lot to like about her.
The more time I spend with her, and the better I get to know her – if only on a superficial level at this point – the more time I want to spend with her. I want to get to know her better. She’s unique. In a lot of ways, Felicity’s still a mystery to me. She’s completely unlike the women who usually throw themselves in my path. There is something about Felicity Manson that intrigues me and makes me want to know even more.
I hesitate to ask her out, though. There are a million reasons I’m hesitating with. Maybe the biggest one being that Peter’s my friend. And because he and I have known each other for years, and he knows my track record and general attitude when it comes to love and relationships, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t approve of my dating his little sister. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’d try to knock my head off if I tried.
More than that, though, there’s something I feel when I even think about asking her out that I find entirely shocking. When I’m around Felicity, I feel – uncertainty. Nervousness. That’s not something I’ve felt around a woman in – well – hell, it might actually be the first time a woman has ever genuinely given me a case of nerves.
And that’s something I find intriguing. Something I find compelling. And something I am definitely interested in exploring.
I catch sight of her in the rearview mirror. She’s chatting away on her phone, and our eyes meet. There’s a moment that passes between us that feels like the air has been supercharged with electricity.
The blaring of horns and the squeal of tires on pavement snaps me out of that momentary stupor. Looking up, I see the car in front of us has come to a sudden and screeching halt. I hit the brakes, both of us lurching forward in our seats, our belts holding us in place. We stop in time to avoid rear ending the car in front of us – just barely – and I quickly look back at her.
