by Amanda Perry
I reach behind me, grab my pillow, and proceed to toss it at his head. “No, smart ass. I’m single.”
“No siblings or anyone else?” Maverick continues to frown.
It puts me on edge. “Why are you so worried about my family situation?”
“Because you should have a big family with lots of people around you. Maybe if more people were around you all the time, you’d be safer.” His statement surprises me, and at first, I assume he’s kidding. Studying him for a full minute, I conclude he truly believes his logic is justified.
I can’t help but laugh at him. “Just because my circle is small doesn’t mean it’s any less amazing. I’d rather have the few close relationships I do have than a dozen or more fake ones. Besides, I technically have parents, and I know other people I’d consider friends or acquaintances. I just don’t see those relationships as important enough. Most, if not all, of those people probably didn’t even realize I was gone, so I’m not about to go calling everyone I’ve ever met and tell them my sob story.”
“Okay, okay,” Maverick puts his hands up in a surrender gesture, “I get it. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t,” I assure him. “Most people think it’s odd I don’t have much in the way of family. It used to bother me, but I love the family I’ve got, and I’d never change them for anything.”
“You said you’ve got parents, technically?” Allistar asks, his brow scrunched. “What do you mean by that? Are they not in the picture?”
“Nope, not really.” I sigh, leaning back on my hands. “My father was some twenty-something kid with a drug addiction and a thing for teenage girls. He and my mother started dating, and she took off with him when she was eighteen and her parents couldn’t stop her. She got pregnant fast, and he told her to get rid of me. She couldn’t do it, so here I am.”
“She wanted to keep you, and he didn’t?” Marak reiterates.
I laugh humorously. “She totally didn’t want to keep me.”
Marak’s brow draws together in confusion. “But you just said—”
“I said she couldn’t get rid of me,” I repeat slower. “It wasn’t because she didn’t want to. She was all for it. She just didn’t have the money and neither did my father. By the time they were able to steal enough to pay for the procedure, she was too far along, and the clinic wouldn’t allow it. If what she told me when I was younger was true, she tried other ways, like drugs and alcohol, but it didn’t work, obviously.”
“That’s really fucked up,” Syn breathes, his eyes wide with surprise. “But did they at least change their ways and become loving parents or some Hallmark bullshit?”
“Not even close.” I roll my eyes at the idea. “My father took off not long after. I know he’s in and out of prison right now for drug charges. Grumpy keeps tabs on him and updates me occasionally, but I don’t care much. My mother shows up from time to time. She pretends to want to be in my life and be a good mom, but then she asks for money or steals it, and she’s gone again.”
“Why would she do something like that?” Allistar shakes his head in disbelief.
I shrug. “How do I know? She’s screwed in the head. This is the same woman who came to my Grammy’s funeral, her own mother, and caused a scene when she was told she wasn’t in Grammy’s will. She was taken away by cops because of the fit she threw. Grammy left everything to me and Grumpy. My mother was livid. It’s the last time I saw her.”
“I could understand why your grandmother didn’t leave anything to her. She sounds like a total bitch,” Syn spits out. His anger isn’t directed at me, rather for me, which warms me.
Maverick elbows Syn hard in the side. “You can’t just call her mother names. It’s still her mom.”
“Oh, no,” I put up a hand to stop Maverick, “he’s right. She’s a total bitch.”
Syn and Marak laugh with me. Allistar rubs his mouth, hiding a smile as well. Maverick drops his head back in exasperation. “Even if you agree with him, he can’t go around saying shit like that.”
“I can’t be the only one with a messed-up family,” I prompt, hoping to take the spotlight off me and learn more about the four of them. “Some of you must have some crazy relatives.”
“Not me.” Allistar shakes his head and crosses his arms. “My family is annoyingly normal.”
“How can a family be annoyingly normal?” I want to know all about Allistar and his family.
While his friends snicker at him, Allistar’s cheeks darken slightly. “My parents are completely stereotypical. My mom is a homemaker, my dad is a lawyer. They both come from nice families. My grandparents are amazing, and they’ve always gotten along great. I have a ton of aunts and uncles on both sides who are all married with two or three children each. My mom had me first, then two years later, had my little sister.” He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “We grew up in a nice house, going to good schools. We had the dog and the white fence. It was like living in a sitcom.”
I raise a brow in disbelief. “And that’s bad?” His family and upbringing sound great to me, but maybe there’s more to it.
He shakes his head quickly. “No, it was great. I love my parents, I love my whole family. My childhood was great. It was just sort of boring, I suppose. It’s why I joined the military right out of high school instead of going straight to college. That and Maverick, but that’s another story. I needed some excitement. It didn’t take long for me to realize that military life wasn’t for me, and then I was recruited for SWAT and never looked back.”
“Wow.” I blink a few times. “You did have a pretty boring life.”
The snickers from the other guys turn into full belly laughs, and I join them. “I’m sorry, Allistar, it just sounds like a horribly dull sitcom from the eighties or something.”
“It does,” he agrees with a small grin. His eyes light up as I laugh with his friends, and I can’t force myself to look away. The unique chartreuse green color demands to be studied in great detail. It may make him uncomfortable if I get up close and personal, though.
“Ms. Lewis?” The sudden and unfamiliar sound of my name has me jumping in my seat. I pull my gaze away from Allistar with guilt rising in my chest, though all I was doing was looking at his eyes. I shouldn’t feel guilty about that. Of course, I was kind of starting to picture what he’d look like all up close and personal, but he can’t have known that and neither could the newcomer calling my name.
The strange older man stands in the doorway of the room with a briefcase in hand. He nods politely at me and the guys before introducing himself. “I’m Roger Whitehouse. I’m the sketch artist someone called in?”
“Oh.” Marak hops off the counter and greets the man with a firm handshake. “Hello, Mr. Whitehouse. I’m the one that called you. Thank you for getting here so quickly.”
“Not a problem at all.” He waves Marak’s thanks off. “I would like to get started now, though. The sooner I get to it, the more accurate the sketch usually ends up.”
“Fair enough. We’ll go grab some coffee or something and let you work.” Allistar gets to his feet, and Maverick and Syn follow suit.
Panic rises in my chest at the idea of being left alone with a strange man. He might work for the guys, but I don’t trust him worth a damn. Something about him doesn’t sit well with me. I grab Syn’s hand before he can fully make it off the bed and give him a hard tug, causing him to fall back onto the bed. He spins around and stares at me in wide-eyed disbelief.
My fear must be clear because understanding dawns quickly. “Actually,” he mutters, adjusting himself back into place on the foot of the bed. “I’ll hang around. I’ve had too much coffee anyway.”
Maverick eyes Syn skeptically for a few seconds, but when Syn gives a minute shake of his head, Maverick simply leaves with the others. The artist, Roger, sits in Maverick’s vacated seat and sets his briefcase down. He pulls his supplies out and settles in.
“Okay, Ms. Lewis,” he taps the end of his pencil on
his sketch pad, “are you ready?”
“Yeah, I suppose.” I don’t particularly want to remember the sick bastard, but if it means saving other girls and myself, then I’ll suck it up and deal with the memory for a while.
Roger proceeds to ask me question after question about the man I saw. He asks me to recall every part of his features. At some point during the process, Maverick, Marak, and Allistar return with coffees and a Diet Coke for me. It’s a mystery to me how they knew I needed one, but I don’t have a chance to say more than a quick thank you before Roger is back to his questions.
Over an hour later, Roger sets his pencil down and studies his work. “Alright, Ms. Lewis, is this the man you saw?”
He spins the book around, and I ready myself to see the man's face again. Except the man Roger drew isn’t even close to the one I saw. I wrinkle my nose at the image and shake my head. “No, that’s completely wrong.”
“Are you sure you’re not getting confused now?” Roger snaps, pulling his sketch closer to his chest. “This is who you described to me. Maybe it’s been too long, and you can’t recall what he looks like now.”
“Watch yourself, Mr. Whitehouse.” Maverick’s voice is hard and clear, and he stands stone still beside my bed, his arms crossed over his chest.
While I appreciate Maverick sticking up for me, I don’t necessarily need him to. My bitchy side rears her ugly head, and I give Roger a sickly-sweet smile while I hold my hand out for his sketch pad. “May I?”
He fumes silently, but hands over the book and pencils. At first, I attempt to rework his sketch, but it’s completely hopeless. Instead, I flip to a new page and go about drawing the face burned into my memory. Maverick watches for a while before Syn leans awkwardly over the pad to watch me upside down. Marak and Allistar allow their curiosity to lead them over to me, and soon, I’m surrounded by four incredibly sexy men, causing me to have a hard time concentrating on my work. It takes me twice as long to finish the job as it should. I’ll never admit aloud I savored every minute of four hot men surrounding me.
When I’m happy with my sketch, I hand it to Maverick. My hands shake as I let the book go, and I need to look away from the horrible face on the pad. “That’s him.”
Maverick tears the paper out with a quick nod and leaves the room. I want to thank him for taking it away. It may only be a drawing, but it makes my gut twist and my heart squeeze to look at.
Before Roger storms out of the room to follow Maverick, he throws me a hateful glare—as if it’s my fault the guy sucks at his job. Allistar hops to his feet and follows after him, calling out for Maverick to wait for him.
“Get some rest, Red,” Marak murmurs softly as he pats my blanket-covered leg. “You’re tired. We’ll stay with you.”
Even as I lay back in the bed with a big yawn, I challenge him, “How do you know if I’m tired or not?”
My eyelids grow heavy and close without my permission as my head hits the pillow. I hear Marak chuckle even as I snuggle down into the blanket. “It’s just a guess.”
7
Taylor
The next time I wake, it’s morning, and Grumpy is back in his chair with a fresh newspaper in hand. “Morning, Tayter-Tot,” he calls as I roll out of bed and head for the bathroom.
I mumble a semi-coherent hello and drag myself to the bathroom.
He simply chuckles. “Yer a peach in tha mornin’.”
I stamp down an overwhelming urge to flip him off. He’d ground me for it, which is bullshit since I don’t even live at home anymore. Before I shut the door, Grumpy shouts out to me, “Them crazy friends a yers packed ya a bag a crap. Told ‘em ta stick it in there.”
My mood perks up when I spot the blue duffle bag. After sifting through it, I confirm Evelyn and Michelle thought of everything. My comfy clothes, some undies, slippers, my tooth brush and some toothpaste, and my shower stuff. I stop digging when I find those things because I only want a shower right now. I’ll search through the bag for what else they packed after I’m clean again.
My shower takes longer than I planned, the pressure of the spray relaxing my muscles. Normally, I don’t hang around in the shower. I get myself clean, and I’m done. Not this time. It takes effort, but I reluctantly switch the water off and go about drying and getting dressed in my soft pink and black leggings and matching pink tank top. It’s my favorite for lounging because of the built-in bra.
After discarding my horrible hospital gown and robe, I search for my hairbrush in my bag and find multiple other things shoved into the pockets and zippers. My makeup, which I put on to appear slightly human again. I only ever wear mascara and eyeliner, but it always boosts my confidence.
Searching deeper, I find my phone and charger. I try to turn the phone on, but the battery is dead. The girls threw a bottle of Diet Coke into the bag also which makes me laugh—they know me too well. My brush is tucked in a side pocket, and I find my mini hair dryer as well. Evelyn and Michelle are getting the biggest Christmas gift ever this year for remembering everything. I brush my teeth, dry my hair, and add a little bit of leave in conditioner to my naturally loose waves.
Once satisfied with my appearance for the first time in weeks, I stuff my things back into the bag, grab my phone and charger, and exit the bathroom. I stop short when I survey the room and find all four sexy as hell SWAT men. When did they show up?
Marak notices me first, his eyes widening when he spots me. He clears his throat twice before speaking. “Hey, Red, have a nice shower?”
“Erm.” My brain short-circuits for a second as a mischievous smile plays on his pouty lips. “Oh, yeah, it was good.”
I’m saved from further embarrassment when Dr. Lenny strolls into the room with pep in her step. “I have good news for you, Miss Taylor.”
I shuffle across the room, plug in my phone, and sit on the edge of the freshly made hospital bed. I hope to high heaven someone who works here came in and did that. If one of the guys changed my dirty sheets, I might die. “You won the lottery, and you’ve decided to donate the winnings to me?”
“Not even close,” she scoffs. “You do get to go home today, though.”
“Hallelujah!” I jump back to my feet while fist pumping the air and do a little dance before remembering the men in the room and stop mid hip shake. “I mean, that’s cool.”
“Ya know, Tayter-Tot.” Grumpy folds his newspaper, sets it on the small table in front of him, then stands. “Maybe it’d be a good idea fer ya ta come ‘n stay with me. You’d be a heck of a lot safer back home.”
Folding my arms in defiance, I shake my head. “There’s no way in hell I’m letting that douche nozzle scare me away. I’m going back to my apartment.”
“It’s not a terrible idea, Taylor,” Allistar presses. “We don’t want to scare you, but we want to keep you safe.”
“Nope, not happening. I like my apartment. I like my job. Most of all, I like my freedom. I’m not going to move back home and have Grumpy babysit me.” Pointing to Grumpy for emphasis, my voice grows a little louder. “The man is a tyrant when it comes to crap like that.”
“The hell I am!” he yells back. Of course, the guilty expression he fails to hide gives away his lie.
Ignoring him, I lower my accusing pointer finger and place my hand on my hip. “I won’t even be able to pee alone.”
“Now, yer just bein’ dramatic, lady.” Grumpy rolls his eyes and drops back into his chair. “I never followed ya ta the damned bathroom fer cryin’ out loud.”
I spin around, facing Grumpy completely. “You stood outside the bathroom door when I sprained my ankle, Grumpy. It’s basically the same thing. I cannot pee with an audience.”
“Okay, enough,” Maverick pipes up, his tone demanding everyone to shut up and listen. “Taylor is an adult, and she can make her own choices.”
“She ain’t hardly legal,” Grumpy mumbles indignantly.
Maverick continues before I can yell at Grumpy for his comment. “My suggestion is for us to
have an officer drive by her house a few times per day as a precaution.”
“That ain’t gonna do crap ta protect ‘er,” Grumpy argues. “What’ll happ’n between tha drivin’ by? She’ll be all alone and ain’t no one gonna be ‘round ta protect her.”
“What if we had an officer sit at her house?” Syn’s suggestion breaks the tension in the room, and he expands on his idea, “It’s the best solution, I think. Someone would be able to watch Taylor at all times without having to be in her space. She can stay at her place, and no one has to worry about her being unprotected.”
“I’m good with that plan,” I relent easily. The small bit of protection would put me at ease, and I’d maintain my freedom.
Grumpy huffs and puffs for a few minutes, but finally agrees. “Fine, I ain’t gonna get tha girl ta agree ta nothin’ else, anyhow. Stubborn brat.”
I gasp, firing back quickly, “Grouchy bastard.”
“Tayter-Tot, I swear I’m gonna end up pickin’ ‘at switch fer ya ‘n I’ll pick a real flimsy one that’ll leave a good mark.” Grumpy stands once again and shakes his finger at me.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I roll my eyes and turn my attention to Dr. Lenny who has been waiting patiently for us to finish our disagreement. By the amusement twinkling in her eyes, I think she enjoyed the show. Most of her attention goes to Grumpy, though. I’m not sure I like her attention on him. “Can I leave now?” She turns back to me.
“Not right this second, Taylor.” She chuckles. “We have a bit of paperwork to get done, but after that, you’ll be able to go home. Just sit tight for a bit longer.”
Syn pushes himself off the wall he was leaning on. “I’m going to go make a call and get an officer on your place, Taylor. I’ll need the address, though.”
I jot it down quickly on the pad of paper he holds out to me. He disappears through the door with his cell phone in hand. I may or may not have checked out his ass on his way out. It isn’t illegal to check out a hot man’s ass. I’ve watched enough episodes of Cops to know my rights.