Page 19 of Hate Wrecked

There arethings you should never do in this life. One of them is repeating your father’s sins.

I told Riley about my father’s death and that we moved to America when I was a boy. Losing a parent—and, for my mother, a husband—would be reason enough for anyone to reclaim or wreck their life. We couldn’t stay in the house we shared with him because the loss was twofold. After his death, my mother learned of the affairs with the women he was charged to protect.

She lost him twice, once without even knowing it.

I didn’t want to be him. I didn’t want to repeat his mistakes. So I knew I couldn’t be attracted to Riley. For a number of reasons.

One could question the psychology of my choice to be a bodyguard. But maybe I just wanted to do it right. To do better than him.

I am not him.I repeated the words as I walked through the house. Well, house didn’t seem to be an adequate word. Mansion. A palace. Though no one in this house seemed to be enjoying themselves but my boss.

I heard movement in the master bedroom, and headed in that direction. The door opened, and Riley came out, a pill bottle in her hand.

She stopped—a deer in headlights. “Hi,” she said.

I stopped, hands at my side. “Hi.”

I looked at her hand, and she looked me in the eye, shrugging. “Something to take the edge off.”

The scope of my job was drenched in grey.Should I tell someone about this? Is it none of my business?I couldn’t be sure, but it was what I was there to learn.

Riley walked past me, the scent of her pulling me from my thoughts, pulling me from the dream-like state I sometimes found myself in. “The edge off what?” I asked.

“This fucking life,” she said, agitated.

Riley’s moods were difficult to track; sometimes they depended on the mood of the house, while other times she brought a storm from her father’s house, one of her own making. I just tried to hold on tight, guarding whatever sense I had left. “Are you okay?”

Riley looked back before entering the kitchen. “I think that’s an answer better saved for my shrink.”

I nodded, not wanting to pry, but always wanting to pry.

Riley popped the cap off the bottle and reached for a glass. She poured just enough water to swallow the pill, closing her eyes as she did.

The members of her family were unpredictable, messy, and chaotic. But the money was good.

“Want one?” she asked, angling the bottle toward me.

I shook my head. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t take any drugs. I didn’t drink. Addiction ran in my family, and I didn’t want to tempt the beast. Most people thought it was weird that I didn’t have those vices. But my vice was reading and working out. Shaping my mind and my body to be good at my job.

That was all that mattered to me. And Riley was a distraction.

“Suit yourself.” She shrugged, shoving the bottle in her purse that sat on the counter.

The silence stretched between us as I turned to leave. I had a job to do: watch the house. But it was okay to watch her, right? She was inside the house.

Maybe I did have vices.

“Do you want to go with me to the beach?” Riley called after me.

I turned around. “I’m supposed to be here.”

“But don’t you need to protect me?”

“I didn’t even know you would be here.”

“But now you do, and you can hardly let me leave here without an armed guard,” she teased. I liked it. And she was kind of right, right? God, I would let her talk me into anything.

“What’s at the beach?”

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