Page 58 of The Playboy SEAL
“I need to get my stuff,” she says.
Shaking my head, I squash that thought before it goes any further.
“Mom, I’ll see you soon. Please stay safe,” Teala says. “I love you, too. I love you,” she says, but she’s looking directly into my eyes.
It’s too much. I look away.
“I don’t have anything with me,” she says.
She trusts me so implicitly she doesn’t ask questions. Maybe she doesn’t want to know, but she doesn’t strike me as a woman who wants to live in the dark for the sake of her feelings. She’s the type of woman who wants to know everything and stand among the devastation proudly. I nod to the rack of clothing she has for sale on the wall.
Without another thought, she pulls all of it off and shoves it into a tote bag with her studio logo on it. She goes under her desk and hunts out the zippered cash envelope. “What else?” she asks, meeting my eyes.
“The computer,” I reply, glancing around. My gaze lands on her plants. “And anything you don’t want todie.”
She looks at me. “Then you’re going to stay at my mom’s, too? You’re the one thing I want to keep breathing.” Her eyes turn down in the corner, and it breaks my heart into a million pieces—a feat I would have laughed at if you’d told me it would happen only several months ago.
“I’m too stubborn to die,” I reply, trying to keep my tone light. Death isn’t something anyone wants to talk about, but in my line of work, it’s a reality, and with what’s happening right outside this door, I don’t see a need to beat around the bush. “I’m always safe. Okay?”
She frowns, nods, and throws herself into my arms. It forces me to take a step backward. “My car is fine here?”
She can’t see my face because she’s wrapped around my body, which is good. “Take whatever you want out of it.”
She inhales deeply, and my eyes flutter closed at the intense longing I feel at the simple gesture. I want to fuck her until there’s no doubt in her mind that I’m coming back for her. She’s mine. Nothing is taking her from me. Not my own ego, or what my brothers think of my reformed ways, and definitely not some fucking terrorists who want to steal everything. No one is touching her. The first thing I thought of when I watched a split screen of the conferences confirming this nightmare was her. I realize what that means.
I swallow down my flailing emotions and whisper, “Let’s go.”
Directing her to stand behind me feels odd. I’m in uniform, which usually gains respect, but right nowit puts a target on our backs. As we exit her studio, a woman runs directly into me in a blind frenzy of tears and screams.
“They killed him!” she says, her eyes red-rimmed and wide. “They killed him!” the woman repeats and then runs off.
Teala clutches my back, and I’m made aware she’s sobbing. I can’t afford to comfort her right now. I may never be able to comfort her properly, but I’ll keep her alive.
She told me before we locked the door she didn’t have anything in her car she wanted. Teala is holding two bags with everything she collected from inside. I open the passenger side of my car and push her inside a little more roughly than I mean to. Teala doesn’t say anything else, but she does whimper before I shut the door.
My phone rings when I take my seat behind the wheel. The doors are locked and we’re safely stowed away, so I’m confident enough to answer the call from my friend. “I have her,” I tell Tahoe before he can ask.
Teala peers at me with an indiscernible look of frantic love. It hits me so hard I take her hand in mine and rub my fingers over her knuckles. She soothes under my touch, and her bravado returns. I hand her a water bottle from the back seat and return my hand to hers. I reply to Tahoe at the appropriate times and try not to belie my true feelings. This is worse than anyone thought. I end the call.
This is WWIII.
I untangle my hand from hers and drive toward thefreeway and try to remember the directions Teala gave me only moments before. She silences the static-filled radio and looks out the window as we go. She asks me questions as I drive. Not about anything she knows I can’t answer. Simple things. Like where will she get food and clean water and what about electricity and normal living things and her bank and money and her apartment. I make up responses the best I can. She believes every single one, even though they were only things said to placate her. It’s what I do for my parents, and maybe she knows I’m doing it because she’s seen it firsthand, but she doesn’t remark. She squeezes my hand tighter and leans her body as close as she can to mine.
Her mother’s road is bare of cars when we arrive forty minutes later. I was right in my assumption. The melee isn’t as severe out here. Or at least I tell myself this as a comfort tool. “You’ll be safe here,” I explain.
It’s not a steel ball, but at least they’ll have each other. The neighborhood is filled with older houses. This blessedly means residents have more property and can’t hear their neighbors fucking like animals. She points to a tall red brick Tudor with a high, wrought iron fence surrounding it on all four sides. The gate is locked, and there’s a box to buzz. Viola must be watching for us because the gate opens before I lean over to punch in the code Teala rattled off.
Her shoulders relax and her breathing evens as we roll down the long, black, winding drive. Trees line it on either side, and they meet each other at the top. A tree tunnel. “I like this more and more,” I say, mostly for my own benefit.
I’m nodding when she asks, “Why?”
“There’s only one point of entry, and it’s locked. It doesn’t mean people can’t get in, but it may deter them.” I have no idea what to expect, and no one knows the extent of the damage still ongoing. I pull the car behind a red sedan and throw the shifter into Park. Sighing, I face her. “I don’t want to leave you here, and I don’t want to tell you what to do.”
Teala is antsy. I can tell she wants to get inside to her mother. That’s what I need. “I won’t leave here. If you tell me to stay, I will.”
I glare at her. “Not like this morning?”
She looks down at her lap, a small smile playing on her lips. It vanishes quickly. “I had no clue when you told me then. Had you said the world was ending, I probably would have listened,” she explains, using her hands. “Or better yet, demanded you take me with you.”
