Page 16 of Stay Close
While the few remaining protestors break formation and sprint toward the noise, he folds me under the shield of his arm and races us the other way.
They didn’t leave the door unguarded, but the only person between us and freedom is a boy who looks like his diet consists of microwaved starches. Though he leads with his shoulder, his voice cracking as he calls for back-up, Lucas plows into him,grabbing my hand and breaking into a sprint, ducking between campus buildings and racing across snowy fields. As has become his habit, he tosses me into the front seat of the car and drives away in the waning light. I clutch a treasure trove of books in my lap.
“Hungry?” he asks when we’ve put some space between us and the twinkling lights of Arnhuis. When I nod, he pulls into a roadside inn, the amber lights streaming across the cobblestones. In the bar, a loud sports match is playing on the television, drawing a crowd, but the dining room is empty, and the waitress takes our order, bouncing on her toes, anxious to get back to the game.
“Soccer,” Lucas tells me, leaning back in the booth to assess the situation. “Sondmark and Vorburg.”
“Isn’t it the wrong season?”
He shrugs. “I’m a college football fan. It looks like emotions are running high,” he says. His words trail off, and he leans across the table, holding up his palm. Without thinking, I reach for him. He curls his fingers and brushes his thumb across the back of my hand.
“No surprise,” I say, appreciating the sensation of being soothed. “Being on opposite sides of the Cold War didn’t help foster a sense of brotherhood between the countries, but even if an iron curtain hadn’t split Elsum Forest in half, there have been wars and battles going back centuries. They haven’t exactly been neighborly.”
He grins. “Your negotiations are not about fishing rights and mother earth after all?” His palm lands over his heart. “I’m shocked.”
“It’s about scoring against an ancient enemy, same as it ever was.” I bump my chin at the crowded bar. “The thing is that they’re the same people.”
Our waitress places a basket of fresh bread and a crock of butter on the table, possibly the only things which could tempt me to let go of Lucas’s hand.
“What do you mean?” he asks, slathering a generous knob of butter over his slice and devouring it in three bites. “Different monarchy, different anthem, different language…”
“The DNA doesn’t lie,” I say, talking around the bite. I ate a good breakfast knowing it would be a long day, but I’m dying of hunger.
“You probably feel like you could eat a whole cow,” he says, pushing the basket toward me.
I chuckle. “I should slow down.”
He smiles and looks away. I notice a freckle on his earlobe, a dark dot against the warm brown of his skin. It looks as soft as lamb’s ear, the one species of office plant I’ve managed to keep alive.
“It’s the adrenaline,” he explains. “You’re not used to being chased, and your fight-or-flight response went into overdrive. You can nap in the car.”
“It’s not even four. I won’t sleep.”
He doesn’t argue, only nods.Whatever you say.
“Does this kind of thing happen to you a lot?” I think back on the running and the hiding. I was scared. I admit as much to myself.
He nods. “It’s all in the job description. I’m not going to charge you extra.”
“Stop,” I whisper. It’s good to smile.
“We do everything we can so that it stays boring—as basic as pushing back a perimeter while a client walks through a crowd of screaming fans.”
The soup arrives—a hearty lentil soup with thick slices of sausage and chunks of carrot. “I don’t have screaming fans. I don’t have any fans. Who do you know who has fans? A client? Was it a singer or actor?”
His ear turns a soft red, and his answer is vague. “Those are the clients who typically need that kind of security work.”
It isn’t like Lucas to be evasive, and now I’m curious. “Is it against company policy to disclose prior clients?”
He shifts in his seat, more uneasy than when he had me penned up in the Ancient Greek section of the library as I lost my mind between Homer and Herodotus. “You’re curious.” He states it as a fact. It is a fact. “You’ll find it if you look. There’s a Seongan girl group called BLUSH…I don’t know if you’ve heard of them. I was assigned as their head of security for a brief stint.”
Though I’ve visited Seong, their girl groups are not my area of expertise. Not yet. But you don’t climb the heights of international law by sitting on your thumbs. My research skillsare practically a superpower, and by morning, I expect to have a complete databank of the history of Asian pop, an encyclopedic knowledge of each member of the band BLUSH, a favorite song, and opinions about each of their eras.
“Why are you blushing?” I ask, fascinated when the color deepens. I thought nothing could faze my protection officer.
“Fans were taking all kinds of videos, imagining relationships that didn’t exist.” He shakes his head. “That’s not for me. In my job, I have to be someone the public doesn’t think twice about.”
I take a bite of stew, and when it slightly burns the top of my mouth, I chase it with a glass of water. Not think twice about Lucas? Impossible.
