Ethel touches her heart and winks at me. “Your secret is safe with me, sweetie. I’ll leave you both to discuss.” She shuffles off towards the living room.
Omega would be fucking doubled-over laughing if they were here. I look to Thatcher. “You’re not my type, Moretti.”
“That’s fine, but we also don’t need to waste fucking time giving her a biography of your life.”
“I could’ve easily ended that conversation just as fast with the truth,” I tell him. “We really need to extract you from the Cobalt Empire and their dramatics. Shit, you’re over here pretending to be my boyfriend.”
His brows pull together. “I’ve always been like this, even before I started living at their mansion.”
I nod a couple times. “Makes sense why it took us so long to be friends.”
Thatcher actually laughs, and then he glances around the apartment. “What do you think about the place?”
“It’s not half-bad.”
He nods. “But I don’t like the optics of the hallway.” He goes into more security measures we’d have to take.
Four apartments and an hour later, we end up with the same conclusion. En route to the fifth and final one, Ripley is nonstop bawling.
“I think he needs changed.” I unbuckle and crawl into the backseat, confirming that Ripley, indeed needs a new diaper. Thatcher pulls into a gas station, and I unclip Ripley from his car seat. “Can you hand me…?”
Thatcher is already reaching for the diaper bag.
I lock eyes with him. “You and Jane talk about babies yet?”
“Yeah.” Thatcher unzips the bag. “What do you need out of here?” He looks confused as fuck.
“Man, just give me the whole thing.”
He passes it back. “We’re not trying for them until after we’re married.”
I ditch the dirty diaper in a sealable bag and wipe Ripley clean. He smacks his lips, less fussy. “Jane’s not worried her cats will get territorial?” Cats have a habit of hating babies. Or so I’ve heard and read, since Ripley will be around all seven of Jane’s cats when we all move back in together.
“Hell yeah. She’s worried.” Thatcher runs a hand through his thick hair. “Which is why we’ve put a pin in it for now.”
I look him up and down after getting the new diaper on. “Honestly, you’re good for her. For each other.”
Static fills my eardrum from the radio. The low chatter turning to something more incessant. “George to Farrow. George to Farrow. Um…I have a problem.”
The temp in charge of Maximoff is radioing me with a fucking problem. And that right there is a problem. Thatcher sits up straighter, listening to comms.
I click my mic with one hand and zip up the diaper bag with the other. “Farrow to George, what’s going on?”
“Um…uh…so we lost them.”
My stomach nosedives. “Repeat.”
“We lost Jane and Maximoff.”
What the fuck.
“What do you mean?” I sneer over comms. “Maximoff is at the aquatic center.”
And Jane should be having lunch at her mom’s office. Afterwards, they were both going straight back to the secure gated neighborhood.
The temp bodyguard doesn’t reply to my question. Static fills my ear. I grind my molars, and I try calling Maximoff and Jane. Neither goes through. Their phones might not have service wherever they are.
What could be worse: high volumes of people can cause no service and jam a signal. Their safety is at serious risk in large crowds without a bodyguard.
I swiftly clip Ripley into his car seat. Moving fast.
Thatcher clicks his mic. “Thatcher to George, you better roger the fuck up in five seconds.”
George’s voice fills my ear. “Maximoff and Jane wanted to go shopping. We’re at the mall.”
On his line of the radio, I pick up background noise: screaming echoes like overwhelmed preteens meeting a superstar.
I can protect Maximoff easily at the mall—but I’m also one of the best bodyguards. For these new temps, I can’t even see them handling a food court crowd.
George continues, “The people, the—the crowds got overwhelming, and they vanished. I’m here with Ashton.” Jane’s temp.
I crawl into the passenger seat, ire blistering my nerves.
Thatcher reverses the SUV out of the parking lot and growls in his mic, “You better fill us in. Every last detail. And get your asses through those crowds. Disperse them and find our clients. Now.”
He drives to the mall while George’s annoying drawl gives me a migraine. All the while, I hear how Maximoff and Jane asked their temps to keep their locations private. Even from us.
They’re probably shopping for us.
And I can’t even blame them because the irony is real today. We’re keeping our whereabouts just as much in the dark from them.
The difference—they were put in danger.
We weren’t.
I rip out my earpiece after George stops speaking. My body practically vibrates with anger. “Fuck, these temps are driving me up the wall.”
Thatcher shakes his head. “Training them takes time that none of us have right now. Akara’s pulling double shifts—”
“I’m not blaming anyone,” I clarify.
Akara, Thatcher, and Oscar have pulled the most weight training the temps, and I appreciate not having to deal with that headache. It’s just frustrating. This company is brand fucking new. A stark contrast from Price’s 20-plus-year well-oiled corporation.
Still, I wouldn’t ever jump back.
“In a year or so, it should all be smoothed out,” Thatcher says.
A year.
It seems long, but I know it’s really just a blip.
We reach the mall. Crowds congest the front double-doors. Even more overly excitable young girls and boys climb out of vehicles and race across the parking lot, trying to enter the building.
We’ll need to find another entrance.
I check the backseat where Ripley hugs his stuffed parrot. Thatcher follows my gaze. We’ve already radioed the team. No one else is close enough to make it here for another thirty-minutes.
Too long.
We don’t know where Maximoff and Jane are—and every second counts.
“Stay here with him,” Thatcher orders.
“Like hell,” I retort. “I’m not staying behind.” Maximoff is without a bodyguard in a crowded mall, and here’s the thing, I know that I’m not just decently good at what I do.
I’m better than most.
Greater than average.
And I can protect him and protect our baby. This isn’t manufactured confidence. It’s real and accurate, and I’m not fucking budging.
His nose flares. I think he’s going to argue with me, but he says, “Then I have to be your bodyguard.”
Brittle air goes down my lungs. Fuck no. The day I need a bodyguard is the day I can no longer do my job. That’s just not happening in my lifetime.
“No, you have to be my baby’s bodyguard. Cover him while I carry him.”
Thatcher nods once, not wanting to waste time. Neither do I.
20
MAXIMOFF HALE
We’re trapped in a pretzel kiosk.
Welcome to my strange Sunday afternoon. I’m sitting on the floor with my best friend. Hidden with our backs to the display. Want some hot mustard? Yeah, me neither—dammit, I swallow back pain.
Physical pain, and I try not to shift too abruptly again.
The only employee—our one ally—already locked up his register and left to go hunt down mall security.
With zero cell service, I’m counting on him.
You might be wondering: how in the hell did we get separated from our temp bodyguards in the first place? I keep replaying the events over and over. We have a few things on our shopping list, and Jane wanted to pick up some new eye shadow palette for her little sister.
We exited Sephora.
And it was chaos, norma
l chaos, but for some reason, our bodyguards got pushed away like they were floating out to sea.
Hands grabbed at me.
At Janie.
I tried to shove them off her, and we made a run for the kiosk.
I breathe measured breaths through my nose. Muscle around my collarbone sears. Someone wrenched my arm in an awkward direction. Usually my shoulder would pop. I dislocated it at the FanCon, but this feels different.
Maybe because this is the same surgically repaired collarbone.
I just hope nothing is broken, and I’m glad Janie is okay.
Shouting and screaming pitch the air and echo off the high mall ceilings. “MAXIMOFF HALE! MAXIMOFF! JAAAANE! WE LOVE YOU!”
I almost smile.
The passionate love feels better than the passionate hate.
I hear pounding at the doors of an Armani store. It was one of our pit stops. Maybe they saw us in there earlier and think we went back inside.
Janie has a few shopping bags hooked on her elbow. “We made a critical error somewhere along the way, I suppose.”
I force myself not to risk a peek above the kiosk. Even though I’m dying to see what’s happening. “Or maybe this is just one giant throwback adventure.”
“Rien que nous deux. Comme au bon vieux temps,” Jane says brightly in French. Just the two of us. Like old times.
“Si jeunes et innocents,” I quip. So young and innocent.
She smiles. “Visages frais et yeux écarquillés.” Fresh-faced and wide-eyed.
I want to smile too, but a sharp pang shoots in my arm. I swallow hard. “We aren’t that different, are we?” It doesn’t feel that long ago, when it was just me and Jane conquering the world.
But then again, the time without Farrow feels like decades long past.
Jane rests her head back, our eyes meeting with this quiet nostalgia, existing inside the fan-crazed madness. “I think all the changes about us are awfully good ones.” She lists out a lot, like our careers and friendships, and she ends with, “I’m engaged and in love, and you’re getting married in two months. And the ones who would’ve believed least in that possibility, would’ve been us.”
I think about that.
Janie is way smarter than me, in case you didn’t already know. Shouting pitches, closer than before. She angles her head a bit.
“WE LOOOOVE YOU!!! MAXIMOFF!! JAAAANE!”
“Merde,” she curses. “It’s loud.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if the amassing fans resemble people at festival concerts. Crowding the stages.
On a normal circumstance, we’d be signing autographs and snapping selfies. But neither of us feels comfortable taking that risk without security. We’d be paranoid and too alert the whole damn time. I’d probably look distracted in photos.
And I tweaked my arm.
I’m not prepared for anyone to pull on my shoulder, and I don’t want to be an asshole or make someone feel bad.
I check my watch, barely raising my arm. We have to get out of here. “The pretzel guy has been gone for ten minutes. He should be back by now.”
Jane contemplates this. “Maybe we should make a run for it. I’m not as fast as you, but I think I can keep up.” She scrutinizes my stiff posture and shoulder. “Or perhaps we shouldn’t try.”
I can’t reply as voices project louder only a couple feet from the kiosk. We wait for footsteps to drift. Caging breath, and my heart rate speeds.
Jane scoots closer, and I whisper, “We probably should’ve told them where we were going.”
They is just understood as Farrow and Thatcher.
“No.” Her blue eyes pinch like that’s not a regret we should accept or feel. “We wanted to surprise them, and though it’s hard to surprise bodyguards, we tried and that’s important too.”
We didn’t have an occasion to give them gifts.
It was just because.
Like all the romantic movies, you know. Like when I first got with Farrow, and I gifted him the Asshole Merit Badge.
Gone.
Lost in the fire with the leather jacket he attached it to. And I don’t know, I thought that maybe I could double-down on this surprise gift.
Do it over.
Do it better.
I told Janie, and she loved the idea. So we were planning to gift our men new designer suits. Armani. There are plenty of occasions in our family where they’d need one, whether off-duty or on-duty.
Today, the opportunity sprung up to go to the mall without them knowing, and we took it.
I strain my ears for the sound of the pretzel employee. Come on, man. I’m antsy, and I want to storm out of here. But I can’t.
We can’t.
I know that.
My phone buzzes, jolting me, and while I pull out my cell, I bite down as pain jackknives my shoulder. Fuck me.
“Cell service came back?” Jane whispers in surprise and checks her phone.
I press my cell to my ear, using my not-in-pain arm.
“Where are you?” Farrow’s tone is somehow calm, while also carrying a heavy level of concern and urgency. Or maybe, I just know he’s probably worried right now.
“Sunbathing off the coast of Florida,” I joke. “Scorching hot. Probably gonna get burned—”
“Maximoff, your sarcasm is adorable as always. But where the fuck are you?”
I actually feel bad for kidding. “Currently, we’re hiding out at a pretzel kiosk. Near the Armani store. We’re cool. Fine. Nothing to worry about.” My collarbone throbs at the lie.
“We’re coming to get you. Stay put.” He hangs up before I can ask about Ripley.
Another five minutes pass and the mall detonates in excitement. Like mega-watt screeching. My ears ring from the shrill sound of pure shock and glee.
But no one is crawling over the kiosk like ants diving into their hill.
Curiosity shimmers in Jane’s blue eyes. She motions that she wants to stand up. One peek, she mouths to me.
“Jane.” Thatcher’s deep voice is unmistakable. He’s careening over the pretzel warmer. Christ, he’s tall. I’m not that used to being on the ground while he’s towering.
“Oh…” She glances up.
Farrow hops the kiosk, and I stand off the floor, about to reveal myself to the mall and—holy shit. The decibel rises as soon as the sea of fans notices me and Farrow side-by-side. All of our names are being yelled in frenzied elation, and Thatcher is physically blocking bodies from hurdling the kiosk.
I’m not checking out the crowds that long.
My focus zips and zones in on the wiggling five-month-old strapped to Farrow’s chest. Shocked he brought him here. “What’s that?” I ask.
He raises his brows at me. “Our baby.”
Our baby.
My heart bursts. I blink a few times. Wondering if I knocked myself out and I’m in some in-between state. Like Babes in Toyland—and I’ll wake up in a second.
Any second.
I don’t want to wake up.
“You’re fucking with me,” I say under my breath.
Farrow looks hurt, his lips fall and part, and that fucking crushes my chest. He shakes his head, assesses our chaotic surroundings—I do too, and he steps closer. So I can hear him as he says, “He’s our son right now.”
Our son.
I love him like he’s mine, and he deserves that. He deserves all of what Farrow and I can give him. Even if we have to say goodbye.
I take a breath, not as surprised that he brought Ripley. I realize—really fucking quickly—that this little guy was me.
Twenty-three years ago.
I was attached to my mom in a mall.
In a park.
I can’t stow my kid away and hide him from this strange life. This is going to be his normal like it was and is mine.
“Why are you bracing your arm to your abs?” Farrow asks me, his attention cutting a million directions like mine. Jane is on the phone with more security.
“Feels good,” I say
tightly. We need to leave.
“Back up!” Thatcher yells, his arm-span shielding us.
Farrow lightly touches my shoulder—fuck. I wince and pull away from him.
“Shit,” he curses, his concern flaring.
Ripley sobs louder than before. Seeing me hurt.
My muscles are flexed, and that just kills my fucking collarbone more. “I’m fine,” I lie through gritted teeth. “We need to leave. Let me carry Rip.”
Farrow gives me a look like I’ve lost sense of reality. “You can’t carry him. You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine,” I say again. “He needs to know that I’m fine.” Or else he won’t stop choking on his own tears.
“MAXIMOFF! FARROW! WE LOOOOVE YOU!”
“MARROW!” I hear our ship name.
“THATCHER JANE THATCHER JANE!” Chanting begins.
I move closer to unclip Ripley from the carrier, and Farrow puts his hand on my jaw. “I can’t tell how badly you’re hurt yet.”
“It’s not broken.” I don’t think.
Our eyes lock in a tense beat. He knows that I can carry Ripley, even with a torn, shredded muscle or a hundred broken bones. But Farrow is looking out for my health, my body.
For me.
I think he’s about to tell me to step back. He touches my shoulder one more time to assess the injury, and I grit down, the spot enflamed and angry.
Farrow ends up unbuckling the carrier from his body. He’s letting me hold him. And this is one of the infinite reasons why I love him.
We make quick work, having done this plenty of times. But this exchange might just be the first time in public. Cellphones aim at us, recording every second. Even the crowds have quieted down, some louder fans telling the others to hush so that they can hear us.
We’re not talking anymore though.
In another quick minute, I have the carrier strapped on, and Farrow buckles Ripley into it, his little fingers gripping onto me for dear life. But as soon as the weight of the baby sinks down, I involuntarily cringe.
Farrow notices.
His eyes flitting to my collarbone. He gives me a hard look. If it weren’t for the hundred-plus cameras aimed at us, I’m sure he’d call me stubborn right now. Or maybe strong-willed.
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