Page 18 of Protector Next Door
“Fine,” he grits out through his teeth, tugging the door closed behind him as he steps into the hallway. I cough once to let Xander know that I’ve gotten him to agree to go down to the lobby, even though he’s viewing a feed of the security camera for this floor rightnow.
Yeah…I’m wearing a wire. I never thought it would happen to me. This is all kind of cinematic, and thinking of it as a step removed from me is the only way I could psych myself up to actually wear it. I’ve seen mob movies. I know what happens to people who are found out to be wearing a wire. Not that Bryce is in the mafia. I don’t think he could get enough people to tolerate him to the point where he’d be able to assemble enough people to constitute a proper mafia. He’s more of a lone wolf, out of default instead of choice. He’s not very likable. At first he’stolerable. He’s objectively good-looking and has a quirky, off-kilter intensity that I think a lot of people find very charming. I found him charming at first,too.
He grabs me by the elbow as we get to theelevators.
“Excuse me, do you mind?” I tisk, pulling my arm away. I rub the spot where his fingers were. My skin feels gross. I’m going to have to wash my hands after this like a TV doctor scrubbing in for surgery. I need soapy suds all the way up to the elbow. Both elbows, for goodmeasure.
Bryce just scoffs next to me as if he isn’t deigning to give me a response. I look up at him - at his hundred-dollar tee-shirt and two-hundred-dollar jeans and roll my eyes. He always spent more money on clothes than Idid.
We’re silent in the elevator as it brings us to the first floor. I feel vulnerable in this small space with him, but I don’t think he’ll pull any crap. He doesn’t appear to have any sharp objects on him, though there’s really no way to know that without doing a full pat-down. No thank you. Not even if it’s for my own personal safety. And anyway, this man is afraid of knives. The time I asked him to slice up a tomato for a salad I was making to servehisstupid friends at a dinner party he’dinsistedon throwing, he sliced his index finger open and acted like he’d severed a limb. Drama. Drama.Drama.
We step off the elevator and it’s only now that I realize I wish I weren’t being seen in public with him. When we were together I received a number of comments about being with him for his money, for his influence, for the bounty of good will that I’d be able to rack up by being with one of tech’s rising stars. There are bound to be a few pictures snapped of us with probing headlines. I sigh. I have to do what I have todo.
I lead him to the center of the lobby and sit on a big chair that’s facing another one, with a coffee table in-between. I motion for him to sit. There’s something oddly empowering about knowinghe’sthe one who reached out tome. And now that I’m leading the way, telling him to take a seat - it kind of makes me feel like a boss. And on some level, I want to tell him to go on right ahead and send the nudes of me to all of his friends. Where my power ends, the power of law enforcement begins, and he could be in a lot of trouble for distributing thosepictures.
“Have you ever heard of the term…revenge porn?” I say, crossing my legs and raising an eyebrow. I scold myself inwardly. Maybe I’m enjoying serving him a hot plate of reality a littletoomuch.
He clenches his jaw as he slides his laptop from his bag on the floor beside his chair. He opens it on the table and turns it around so the screen is facingme.
What the hell? I grab both sides of the screen and pull the computer toward me. There’s a file on the desktop that’s titled with the name of an app I’m currently working on. I double click on it and open a document with lines of code. My jaw clenches and my eyes travel up to look atBryce.
“How did you get this?” Idemand.
“It doesn’t matter how I got it. Those pictures could go away very easily. All you have to do is keep your fucking mouth shut when I present this programtoday.”
My fists clench around the edges of the laptop screen, making my knuckles white and my blood boil. I don’t know if I should scream or kick or run into the ocean and let the tide take me away. I have my personal dignity on the line - but my career is also in the balance. I spent six months on that code, a dating app that matches people up by super-granular interests, like what size jigsaw puzzles they like or what level of sudoku expertise they’ve achieved. Do you like pizza and beer or wine and a good steak? Want to share that preferred pairing with yourdate?
There’s an app forthat.
And it’s supposed to havemyname onit.
But I have a secretweapon.
“Fine,” I say, standing on shaky feet, “you win, okay? You win.Asshole.”
I turn to walk away from him when I see Xander, as planned, barreling into the lobby from the corner of my eye. He marches straight toward Bryce and picks him up by the collar, making his thousand-dollar shoes scuffle against the floor and his legs go loose like spaghettinoodles.
I falter backwards and nearly trip over the coffee table. A police officer dashes past me as Xander sits Bryce down and grabs hislaptop.
“Where are the other copies of the pictures?” he shouts into Bryce’s face. Bryce fumbles into his pocket and pulls out a flash drive. Xander yanks it from his hand and throws it to the ground, stomping his heel against it. “Whereelse?”
“Just on thecomputer!”
Before Xander has a chance to break it over his knee he lets cooler heads prevail and hands it off to a second cop surging past me. Xander grabs Bryce by the neck again and shoves him at the two cops, who promptly yank his arms behind his back and slap cuffs on him. One tells him he’s under arrest and the other starts to read him his Mirandarights.
He freezes as he starts to walk past me, his eyes locked ontomine.
“I didn’t think you had it in you,” he says, driving a final nail into thecoffin.
“I didn’t,” I say, the words flowing from my lips, “but now Ido.”
Holy shit. The perfect comeback at the perfectmoment!
One of the cops jerks him away and leads him through the gathering crowds and outside into a cop car. I turn my head to find Xander and he’s standing right next to me. I throw my arms around him and he presses a kiss firmly to myforehead.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he says. I squeeze my arms around him and take a deep breath, looking up at him as he looks down at me. It’s as though we’re the only two people in theworld.
I amneverletting this mango…
