Page 3 of Tangled Like Us
To the dark sea.
And then, her big blue eyes land right on me.
I blow out another rough breath through my nose. Never breaking eye contact.
Call her over.
Point-blank, I’m not sure how. This feels personal on some level, and it’s against my fucking job to make a personal move. I can’t interrupt her time with her family.
There are rules in security. Rules that help her just as much as they help the team, and I won’t disobey them.
My jaw hardens, tendons in my arms and neck pulling taut. Muscles burning. I cement to the shoreline like the rest of the 24/7 bodyguards. Water rushes against the heels of my boots. I never shift out of my position.
Call her over,I’m still thinking.
But I’m immobile.
I can’t move.
Can’t disobey.
Jane quickly diverts her gaze, her neck reddened, frustration in her next hot sip of beer.
I breathe in another coarse breath.
We used to have a better working dynamic. She’d talk my ear off, and I’d listen. Now she says nothing, and I still say next-to-nothing.
Eight months.
I’ve been Jane’s bodyguard for eight months, and I’ve been put on a silent treatment for almost two of those. Any other client and it wouldn’t bother me, but I’ve grown used to Jane rambling to herself and filling the quiet.
I’m with her close to 24-hours a day. Replacing her light-as-air voice with silence has been fucking unbearable. It doesn’t feel good knowing that I fucked it recently. I blew a short fuse even shorter and I made a mistake that I’ve never made before.I shouldn’t have punched Farrow.
My fault.
It’s all my fault.
I suddenly spot movement on my three. I glance at the shoreline.
Banks nods his chin to me.
Good timing.
Focusing on the team has always kept my mind right and off things I shouldn’t be fucking contemplating.
Banks treks over to my position, boots sinking in wet sand. Carrying nothing more than a radio and a gun, both clipped to the waistband of his slacks. Sweat stains the abs and armpits of his white button-down.
I’m dressed in a black button-down.Professional.I’m not representing these billion-dollar families in fucking flannel. Not unless I’m off-duty. Or away from the parents.
Banks sidles next to me. He’s gnawing on a toothpick like a damn llama.
My hard gaze narrows on him before I continue hawk-eyeing the beach.Something’s wrong with my brother.
He’s been trying to quit smoking for years, and the only time it looks like he’s about to bite a toothpick in five halves is when he’s craving nicotine.
He glances at me briefly, and then scans the darkened sea behind us. “You have any ibuprofen on you?”
My brows pull together while I survey the families. “You have a migraine?” I dig into my pocket.
