Page 2 of The Bodyguard Affair
“Andi Lenora Zeigler!” He shouts my full name heartily, brows raised, as though my existence on earth delights him. Ever since we broke up, he tries a little too hard to be congenial in public. Excessive arm pats, laughing way too loudly at my jokes. “I never got to congratulate you on the new gig.”
“Oh. Thanks. And congrats to you, too. I know communications was your dream,” I say, barely hiding my cringe. We sound like coworkers by the watercooler, not exes who dated for nearly a year and shared a dingy apartment above a dim sum place in Chinatown.
The crease between his brows deepens in a dramatic show of sympathy. “Don’t worry, you’ll join us soon. Once you do your time as household staff.” He says it so quickly, I’m too caught off guard to respond. Household staff, aka my new role as the prime minister’s wife’s assistant, isn’t exactly considered prestigious or desirable.
I wait for him to fully disappear toward the bar before squeezing in next to Laine, who uncharacteristically averts her gaze to her lap the moment I make eye contact. I contemplate telling her what Hunter just said, but then I remember the one rule: Never put Laine in the middle. She’d never take sides anyway. Instead, she’d come up with endless explanations:
You know Hunter, he doesn’t have a filter!
He didn’t mean it like that, Andi. He has a good heart. The best. Did you know he volunteers with Big Brothers Big Sisters?
“Some guy just walked into my stall while I was peeing,” I announce instead, keeping my head low.
Laine’s brows shoot up to her hairline. “You didn’t lock the door?”
“I thought I did, but it was broken. And that’s not even the worst part. The guy saweverythingbecause I had to take this whole thing off.” I motion to my onesie.
“Full bush?” she asks, because apparently that’s an important detail.
“Not full. But overdue for a wax.” Not that I’m planning on getting one. No one’s venturing downtown anytime soon. No point in subjecting myself to socially sanctioned torture just to impress a man.
Laine erupts in booming, witchy laughter, following it up with a smack on my thigh. She does that when something particularlyamuses her (which is most things). Her tendency to feel every morsel of emotion with her whole body is one of the things I love most about her. Her intensity is what makes her excellent at her job. When she’s finally collected herself, she turns and pops her head over the back of the booth like a gopher peeking out of its burrow, scanning for predators. “Who was it?”
“I don’t know. I was too mortified to get a good look at him.” Aside from his eyes.
She slaps the back of the booth like she’s at a high-energy sporting event. “Andi, is that him?”
I duck my head even lower, chin to chest, making a triple chin. Highly attractive. “Not looking.”
“Code red. Code red. He’s coming over. And he’s kind of…hot. Not really your type, but—”
I shrink inward, averting my hard stare to the ring of condensation pooled on the sticky table. I will not make accidental eye contact with whoever just saw me nude, hunched over on the toilet. I refuse.
“Uh, hey.” It’s definitely him. It’s the same deep, rough-around-the-edges voice that yelledShit!in the bathroom. There’s a weight to it, a grit that stops you in your tracks.
I don’t look up. If I can’t see him, he can’t see me.
After three of the longest seconds of my life, my theory proves false.
“Andi? He’s still here,” Laine informs with a sharp poke in the ribs.
Death, please take me.
I begrudgingly lift my eyes, raking them over a pair of dark-wash jeans, a gray Henley T-shirt covering arms more muscular than I’ve ever seen up close, a prominent Adam’s apple pokingthrough a dark, neatly trimmed beard. His face is boyishly cute, with a slightly bulbous nose and ears that stick out a little from beneath overgrown waves the color of dark roast coffee. And then there’s those blue eyes, crinkling at the corners, twinkling even in the dim bar lighting.
Laine is 100 percent right. He is not my type. And by “not my type,” I mean aesthetically superior to me in every way, face and body.
Before I can slither under the table and disappear forevermore, those eyes latch on to mine. He raises his hand, fingers hesitating in midair, like he hasn’t decided if he’s committing to a wave or a handshake. Apparently, he decides on neither, shoving both hands into the pockets of his jeans.
“Uh, hi?” I say.
“Hi.” He stops, the apples of his cheeks turning a touch pink above his beard. “Sorry. I already said ‘hi.’ Um, I think we, uh, just met in the bathroom?” He jerks his thumb back in the direction of the bathrooms, squinting adorably at me with one eye.
“Yup. We sure did,” I yelp.
“I wanted to apologize and make sure you were okay.”
“Oh, uh, thanks? I’m okay.” Asokayas one can be mere minutes after a stranger inadvertently saw their naked body.
