Page 24 of Stay Close
“Hey Dad, what are the Aggie’s chances this year?” I ask, sinning against the holy topic of Texas football to throw my mother off the scent.
Each weekday I guard Edie at the Grousehof, ushering her to a secure washroom or checking her meal order for tampering. What do I expect to find in a herring salad aside from the horrors of a herring salad?
In the evenings, we settle into a quiet routine. I come to her suite, working with the head of Black Swan tech, wading through online profiles and social media posts, compiling a threat matrix. Green is safe, yellow is caution, red is danger. Each week, as the talks ramp up and the diplomats slog it out in the press, the matrix turns from golden to pink. On the surface, we look relaxed and companionable but the adrenaline rush from the harbor hasn’t found its outlet. Every nerve in my body is aware of every breath she takes.
Sitting three feet from Edie, managing her risks, I struggle to decide which pieces of information to impart. Do I tell her about the internet crank who posted photoshopped images of her impaled by a trident? Do I tell her about the meditation circle that meets “weekly at the Durmstein Rec Center every Wednesday from 7-9PM for Vibronic Chanting with light refreshments to follow. Crystals encouraged but not required”? Do I tell her about this one guy who posts updates about what she’s wearing every day so that everyone knows theright target to egg?
With a gentle acoustic playlist accompanying the sounds of the winter storms and a crackling fire, she works on her background research, throwing on her stretchiest clothes and warmest socks while she scrolls through fishing data 1998-2013 or reads out an old sailor’s poem about the dark, lonely night.Hump-backed Sove doubled over, tending his garden on the seafloor, my only companion.We laugh at former Miss Vorburg Galaxy costumes—bright silver seas and wads of nylon suggesting islands.
“It has to be Sove,” I say, zooming in. “Or she has anatomical anomalies.”
Meanwhile, I trade texts and emails back and forth to Scotty, the Black Swan tech genius. Run this background. Provide context for such-and-such Vorburgian word. Is this person in our database? The staff at the Grousehof isn’t as good as Caroline but they provide me with a list of employees and their CVs. I have Scotty run them, too, looking for links to suspicious organizations.
I keep returning to the man who attacked us. We run his plates, and Scotty sends me an identity. Cor van Pelt. 34. Unmarried. Active on three of the social media groups protesting American involvement in the mediation process. He’s listed as the admin of the worst site.
“Is everything all right?” Edie murmurs, setting aside a sheaf of papers.
“Mmm?”
“You growled,” she says.
“People don’t growl,” I say, clicking shut the GIF of Edie cringing away from lemon pie. She’s crying animated tears, and I want to reach through the screen and kick the teeth in of the person who created it.
“Sure they do.” She drops her voice, and a smile plays across her lips. “Hit the accelerator,” she says, repeating my words.
I shake my head. “That was a roar.”
“My mistake. A growl is quieter. You growled in the library,” she says.
“I didn’t growl.”
“You did. You said—” She halts, a line forming between her brow. “It won’t be the same unless we’re squashed in somewhere.”
My fingertips electrify when she starts looking around.
Because this is a palace, added to over the centuries, the building has walls that jog suddenly, lone columns propping up who knows how many tons of brick and timber above it. She grabs my hand and drags me off to one of these alcoves, far smaller than the refuge I found for us in the library. There’s no room at our feet for a bag of books or between our bodies for a heavy winter coat.
She pushes me into the space and squeezes in after. “This is close enough,” she says, looking everywhere but at me. I don’t mind. I can get my fill of her face, for once. Maybe if I do, I can start thinking of other things. I inhale her scent and feel a growl begin in the back of my throat—warm and contented like a tiger in the sun.
“There we were, evading long-haired uni students, mashed up in classical literature. You said, ‘Quiet,’ and I swear you growled.” She looks up and laughs, her face pink with embarrassment. “Try it.”
It’s been murder these past weeks, keeping her safe, protecting her, trying to keep things professional. The sharp boundary between my job and the feeling of wanting to tear apart anyone who touches her blurs.
This is a strange no-man’s-land. As a bodyguard, I have to be willing to take a bullet or a knife or fist to the face for her, sacrificing myself so that she’s not hurt. I’m programmed to make that deal, which makes me well-suited to the work. But now I want to seek and destroy anyone who thinks about harming her.
I’m ready to dedicate my life to the care and protection of Edie Spencer, and I remember what I told her all those weeks ago.You can always tell what someone loves when they’ll do it for free.
Edie pokes me in the side, and I jerk, crowding against her even more. “Say it,” she says. She’s pushing me, right to the brink. I wouldn’t have played so dangerously near the edge, but she is dancing on it.
I lift my arm, trapping her in the tight space, closing us off from light and noise and time. “Quiet.”
It’s a low growl, and it’s not enough. She doesn’t laugh and dart away, crowing about how she was right. She lifts her chin, and her eyes are an invitation. My head dips. I growl.
“Edie.”
CHAPTER9
Edie
