Page 4 of Quiet Protector
It feels like the planet circles the sun a million times while waiting for the three-dash message sequence to be replaced with a text.
For how long it takes, I expected more than a five-word response.
Unknown number:It’s Melody. Can we talk?
As my eyes stray to my partially cracked opened door, my heart beats out a tune I haven’t heard in years. Don’t ask me why I’m checking if the coast is clear. Your guess on my weirdness of late would be as good as mine. I’ve barely felt myself the past seven years.
Me:Okay.
What?I’m on the verge of coronary failure, so it was either send a one-word text or collapse. I chose the one that wouldn’t have the coroner snapping off my cock when he loads me into the back of his van. I have peanut butter on my lips, and the girl who turned my love into an obsession is asking if we can talk at three in the morning. A monster dick is understandable.
The situation in my pants grows worse when the message screen on my phone is replaced with an incoming FaceTime call. I tilt my head to the side to check Phillipa is still snoring before hitting the connect button. With my room bare of another place to sit, I rest my back on the wall my mattress is pushed up against before dragging across a second pillow to cover my crotch. I’m wearing sweatpants. The imprint of my dick is very noticeable.
Have you ever had a moment where you can neither speak nor move? That’s what happens to me the instant my dodgy internet finally connects. Excluding the newspaper articles I regularly scanned for her pictures and the ones Phillipa gave me late last week, I haven’t seen Melody’s face in years. She’s even more beautiful than I remembered. Her looks have matured, but just like her jump from adolescence to womanhood benefited her, so has the past seven years of adulthood.
From the way the screen of her phone illuminates her face, it’s obvious she’s sitting in a dark room. Not even the dingiest conditions could hide her gorgeous face, tulip-shaped nose, and bright brown eyes that are twinkling despite a small bout of wetness flooding them, though.
“Hi, BJ,” Melody signs through watering eyes.
“Hi.” I want to say more, but I’m truly and utterly speechless. Usually, I speak while signing, but I can’t even manage that this time around.
“I am sorry for the late hour—”
“It is fine. I was awake,” I interrupt. “Are you okay?”
The quick bob of her chin lowers my heart rate miraculously fast. “I need a favor?”
“Anything,” I reply without pause for thought. She helped me when I reached out to her a few months ago, so the least I can do is return the favor.
Who am I kidding?Even if she hadn’t secured Marjorie’s file for me, I still wouldn’t have said no to her. I was trained to obey, protect, serve, and honor her. Years of silence didn’t change that. It just taught me to ensure the person I’m helping is worthy of my assistance. Melody cheated on me, but Grayson is right. She made a mistake—once—so it’s time to let bygones be bygones.
“What do you need?” Conscious not to wake Phillipa, I only sign my question instead of speaking it as well. Melody doesn’t seem to mind. Just as much silence is resonating from her side of the conversation as mine. I can’t even hear the annoying tick of the antique clock she keeps on her bedside table. It’s one of those old wind-up styles. It ticked all damn night when I had sleepovers at her house when we were kids, so you can imagine how mortified I was when she packed it when we left for college.
Mercifully, Melody exhausted me to the point of being near-comatose the weekends we spent at her dorm, so it didn’t keep me awake like it did in our youth.
The only good thing that could have come out of Melody’s dorm fire was discovering that frustrating time contraption had been destroyed by flames. Alas, nothing ever comes easy for me. The damn thing survived with only a handful of scorch marks.
Although I can’t testify that Melody packed her clock when she left for Cali all those years ago, but since its annoying tick couldn’t be blamed for my lagging sleep schedule the following six months, I’d say she did.
After glancing up and to the left, Melody returns her eyes to mine. “I was hoping you could help me identify someone.” When my head bobs, she continues, “I only have a photo to go off. It is grainy, but I figured you would—”
“Grainy is fine. Grainy works. Can you send it to me?”
Smiling, she nods. My phone dings two seconds later. This will make me sound like a sucker, but it takes me a good three seconds to log out of my FaceTime app to open up my messages. I don’t want Melody to disappear again, even with this feeling more like a business call than a personal one.
I’m anticipating for the person in Melody’s photo to match the man from Phillipa’s surveillance images. I’m proven wrong when my eyes drink in a blurry image of a large bald man standing next to a dark four-wheel drive. His biceps are the size of bowling balls, and he is a good two heads taller than the raven-haired woman he’s guiding into the back seat.
Once I’m confident I’ve taken in the photo with due diligence and wiped the riled expression from my face, I reopen my FaceTime screen. Melody is there, patiently waiting for me with her lower lip caught between her teeth. Even in the tense circumstances, the visual of her chewing on her lip sends blood rushing to my cock. She’s always been undeniably beautiful, and tired, panicked eyes can’t detract from that.
Recalling the reason for her uneasy gaze, I ask, “Who is this man?”
Melody’s dirty blonde brow pops up high on her face. “I was hoping you could tell me that. That is why I reached out.”
I scrub my hand along the scruff on my jaw, hoping it will conceal my lips when they respond to the smugness on her face. “Smart-ass.”
Guilt for making light of the situation smacks into me when Melody’s playful chew of her bottom lip turns lethal. She bites down hard as she fights with all her might to trap the sob I see in her eyes in her throat.
“I am sorry. It is late. I am being an ass.”
