Student Bodyguard for Hire

by Callie James

  “Thanks,” Sam said, one shoulder lifting in a shy shrug. “It happened a while back.”

  Determined to get him out of this interrogation, I took the first noisy stair down, pulling Sam’s eyes to mine. His gaze dropped, traveling over my outfit and back up.

  Warmth seeped into my every pore and I smiled back at him as my family turned to see me descend the remaining stairs.

  “You don’t drink, do you Sam?” my dad said, turning back to Sam.

  “Daddy!” I clomped down the stairs, trying not to break my neck in heels in my attempt to intervene.

  “For a movie, Dad?” Ryan said. “Really?”

  “Alcohol?” Sam said, breaking eye contact to turn to my dad. “No. I don’t. She’s safe with me.”

  “Good. Midnight then?” my dad said.

  “That’s one o’clock,” Mom corrected him. “Our daughter is eighteen, if you’ll recall.”

  Dad cleared his throat and gave her his stern expression that suggested they’d be talking about the issue later.

  “Don’t do anything crazy,” Ryan said to me softly before drifting into the living room.

  “Come on,” I said to Sam, looping my fingers around his elbow and turning him to the walkway. I gave Mom a bug-eyed look behind his back.

  “Stay out of trouble.” Mom winked at me and closed the door.

  Sam had texted me earlier and asked me to pick a movie. No guy had ever done that, so I’d taken my time and reviewed trailers until I found a movie a boy would like. Something with a lot of action, shootings, and people beatings.

  Big mistake.

  My stomach continued churning as we left the theater, and I promised myself never to make that sacrifice for a boy again. Drug cartels did horrible things to people. Disgusting, awful things.

  Sam offered to drive us to the Perks Express Cafe, the mall’s best coffee shop, but I suggested we walk the colonnade instead, hoping he’d hold my hand. Clearly, I was getting desperate. The temperature had dropped and my three-quarter sleeve blazer did nothing to keep me warm as the wind blew against my bare legs.

  “Did you like the movie?” I asked, walking with him.

  “I’m not sure. I spent half of it wondering why you picked a movie you couldn’t watch. You closed your eyes through most of it.”

  That meant he’d been watching me. “Sorry. Violent movies make me queasy. I have to close my eyes.” I pressed my palm to my stomach. “The sounds of this one were …ugh, horrible.” I tried to smile because I didn’t want him to know I loathed violence. He might be into that fight club thing and I didn’t want it to matter. Besides, I had no place to judge. If my project took off, I’d essentially be recruiting good students to threaten violent students with violence to put a stop to violence. Whenever I thought about my project’s mission statement too long, it messed with my head. “Did I embarrass you?”

  “No, but you didn’t have to pick a movie you couldn’t watch to get on my good side,” he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Trust me, you’re already on it.”

  I smiled, wishing I could read him better. He’d said several sweet things tonight, yet he avoided touching me at every turn. Maybe he’d changed his mind. Maybe this chemistry was all one-sided and I didn’t know it. Others I’d dated had tried groping me somewhere between hello and do you like popcorn. Nothing to wonder about there. Not that I wanted Sam groping me, although I’d feel a little better if he didn’t treat me as though I had smallpox.

  I stepped closer and looped my hand around his arm, noticing the definition of muscle under my fingertips, even with his arm extended and relaxed. “I felt bad for you spending the entire week saturated in Mansfield Park.”

  “You feel bad easily,” he said.

  “So … were you ever going to tell me you’d read the book?”

  His gaze drifted to the pavement. “I hadn’t planned on it. How did you know?”

  “Your review went way beyond my notes. I just don’t get why. I thought you wanted to pass it, not ace it. Which you did, by the way. Ms. Campbell is still in shock, I think.”

  A shy smile curled his mouth. “I just needed to clarify something. That’s all.”

  “About what?”

  He shrugged. “Just something.”

  I squeezed his bicep. “What?”

  He paused. Glanced at me. “You.”

  “By reading Mansfield Park?”

  “You said you could relate to the heroine.” He shrugged. “So I was curious. Although I still don’t see any similarities between you and Fanny Price.”

  I couldn’t believe a boy would read an entire book to figure out a girl, especially a book he hated. It went beyond flattering. Maybe he liked me after all. “Fanny is pleasing,” I said. “My mother says I’m pleasing.”

  He turned to me. “Pleasing?”

  “It’s a nicer way to say I conform to whatever setting I’m in and I don’t make waves.”

  “That doesn’t exactly sound like a compliment.”

  I sighed. “It’s just that … someone has to be on my dad’s side. You know? He cares what people think. Unlike my brother, who rocks the boat wherever he goes. My mother doesn’t help by encouraging Ryan to question everything. She’s quite the independent thinker and she can be rather extreme. Almost antiestablishment. My dad is logical. A rulebook kind of guy.”

  “And they’re still married?”

  I grinned. “Exactly. They argue more than they get along. I love them both and hate the constant tension. So I became the peacemaker. Fanny often plays the same role and I can relate.”

  “Pleasing,” he repeated. “It’s still not the word I’d use to describe you.”

  I’d have to be dead not to ask. “What word would you use?”

  He grinned. “Let’s save that one for another date.”

  “Did you just ask me out again?”

  His arm flexed tight beneath my fingertips. “I think so, yeah.”

  I laughed at the surprise in his voice. “You may change your mind when you see the video someone made of us.”

  “Vanna and I saw it last night.”

  “You did?” I turned to see him smiling. I did, too. “I thought you’d be mad at me.”

  “Why would I be mad at you?”

  “It was my fault. I stopped you that day.”

  “You really do guilt easily, don’t you?” He frowned. “Actually, Vanna cracked up through the whole thing. Even her part. She especially got a kick out of my emphysema laugh.”

  The pervy laugh. “That’s a relief.” His eyebrow arched. “I mean, I needed you to watch the video so I could ask you a question, but I wasn’t sure how to mention it. Now that you’ve already seen it, I guess I can ask.” Only two blocks from the coffee shop, I could already smell freshly brewed coffee. “I’m creating a website and I’d like to use the title Student Body for Hire. I didn’t like it at first, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense for the nature of my website. I can set the meta tags so my website comes up whenever students do a browser search for that video. Makes for free advertising. And at least something good may come from the video.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “My Projects class. The gist is to match bullied kids with students willing to protect them. They pay a fee. Not to me but to the protector. It’s like a dating site, but serious and nonprofit. If you don’t mind me using the name and the list you started, I could publish the website in a few days.”

  “Wow, so you’d pay the fees and do that much work just for a class?”

  “Sure. I want a good grade obviously. But I’ll be doing something for the greater good. You know? Bullied students who fear coming to school will finally have an option.”

  He stayed quiet.

  “What?” I finally asked. “Bad idea?”

  “No.” He shrugged. “I’ve just …never met anyone like you.”

  “Like me. How should I take that?”

  “Someone who does nice things for other
s without an agenda. It’s so rare I almost don’t believe you.”

  I shivered. “Says the guy who defended my brother without a single thing to gain.”

  “Actually, I was trying to get into your pants.”

  I giggled, too afraid to comment.

  He grinned. “You do this website, and you may have to say goodbye to all your free time. Think of all the action movies you’ll miss. All that blood and gore.”

  Sam acted like such a different person in private. Funny and sweet. I was beginning to adore him. “I’d make time for action movies,” I said, turning from his curious gaze. “It’s …important to me that the class does well. It’s a seniors-only pilot. If they have it again, it’ll give the entrepreneurial types a step up. Maybe they can even skip the college experience.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “I’ve thought about it, yeah. I mean, who wants to start life in massive debt? I love Mr. Smith’s motto, too, although it’s technically not his. He says to do what you love, and you won’t have to work a day in your life. It’s a novel idea …until you try to apply it to the assignment.”

  “What do you like doing?”

  “Programming. Problem solving. Community work. My mom is the do-gooder in the family. She’s a psychologist and social worker and big on everything community. She recruits Ryan and me into her cleanup and save projects.

  “Save projects?”

  “Save the beach, save the ozone, save the spotted owl, etcetera.” We started walking again. “I wanted to do something constructive like that for my project. The assignment is to find an untapped market, find a way to deliver the product using technology, and advertise the product using social media.”

  “So you found a way to combine the two. Programming and … sort of community work. Within high school walls, at least.”

  “Thanks to you.” I smiled. “We were getting desperate, too.”

  “We?”

  “Adam and me. He was trying to help me come up with an idea. He’s way more creative than I am and a better programmer. He’s also the only person I can call at four in the morning when I can’t sleep because a formula isn’t working right.”

  “I’ll bet. So why do you need my okay?”

  “Linking the website with the video by using a similar title will give the website more exposure, but it could go the other way, too. The video is bound to get more hits. You’re on it. Savanna is on it. I can get over the attention if you can, but it’s only fair of me to ask you.”

  “Sure,” he said, turning to me just outside the Perks’ door. “You and I both know I owe you for those notes. You may have helped me make it to graduation. Finally.”

  Did he think I’d buy that? Others in his position would have picked up their GED and moved on. Anyone determined enough to go back to high school a fifth year, especially someone who clearly hated school, didn’t need my help at all. “Then we’re even,” I said, watching three people leaving the coffee shop. “I helped you pass your review and you helped me with this.”

  “Because I agreed on a name? No one with a conscience would let you call that even.” He grabbed the door and held it open, his hand brushing my back when I went first. “So yeah,” he said, “I still owe you.”

  The brief contact created goose bumps across my skin. He’d only touched my back, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it as we waited for our chai lattes, and later, after he drove me home and we talked until one in the morning.

  He’d worked all day, looked exhausted, and we both had work tomorrow. But he continued asking me questions as if he didn’t want the date to end. I didn’t want it to end either, unless it meant he’d finally kiss me. When I delayed past one o’clock, the front porch light flickered, illuminating the driveway.

  He glanced over my shoulder. “Not an electrical short, I take it?”

  I looked at the front door. “No, it’s my mom. She stays up late watching old movies. She has an emotionally stressful job and that’s how she decompresses.”

  I turned to mention we didn’t need to rush, but Sam had already hopped out of the car. One second he’d been sitting next to me, the next he opened my door.

  I got out and pulled my purse strap over my shoulder, leaning against the Impala and shivering while trying to look like I wasn’t. He ducked into the passenger side.

  “Sam?”

  He reemerged with the leather jacket and closed the door. “Hm?”

  “Are you avoiding me?”

  “Avoiding you? This is probably the longest conversation I’ve ever had with a girl.”

  I dropped my gaze. “Not avoiding me, necessarily. Just not…touching me.” I glanced at him. “Because it’s noticeable. Like leprosy noticeable.” I shivered from the cold night air and the intensity in those brown eyes.

  He stepped forward and stretched the heavy jacket behind me and over my shoulders, engulfing me in the smell of warm leather. “I’m not avoiding you,” he said, pulling the coat together before dropping his hands. “I’m giving you space.”

  The jacket was warm from his car, and I never wanted to give it back. “Space?”

  “Something Cooper said made me think you’d need it.”

  “Adam?”

  Sam dropped his forearm to the car, leaning casually next to me while his fingertips rested on the vehicle. “He said you don’t do third dates. That you don’t need the hassle. I figured someone might have gotten a little too hands-on in the past and thought I’d give you space. You know, wait.”

  I couldn’t believe Adam told him that. “Wait for what?”

  He stayed quiet, those fingertips lightly grazing my shoulder while his gaze followed, as though he were imagining skin under his fingertips instead of leather. I imagined it too, and a nervous tremble ran through me, causing those dark eyes to pivot to mine.

  “I have a history,” he finally said, “of messing up almost everything I touch.”

  I turned into him until our cloudy breaths merged in the cold air. If one of us moved even a little, we could be kissing. I’d never stood this close to him and couldn’t stop myself from fixating on the thin scar splitting his lower lip at the corner. “Almost everything?”

  “Yeah.” The buzzing streetlight overhead made his tanned skin appear blue, his eyes black. I probably appeared the same. Ethereal, like a dream.

  His thumb trailed a line against my cheek. “Why are you so nervous?”

  “I’m not,” I whispered, my voice trembling.

  A smile tugged his mouth. “You’re a terrible liar. Your voice changes.”

  Nervous shivering. Voice trembling. I had to be the most transparent person in the world. Heat crept up my neck to admit it. “I told you I wasn’t good at lying.”

  “I remember,” he said, his gaze dropping to my mouth. When his head started to lower, my heart jolted into a pay-attention rhythm. His eyes closed, mine did too, and then he was kissing me.

  His lips felt warm and hesitant, which surprised me. I’d expected him to be rough like his reputation, but he kissed me softly, his fingers gentle as they brushed my jaw and tilted my face before he kissed me a second time.

  This time I kissed him back.

  Nothing about Sam felt cautious the second time as his hands pushed through my hair. He had strong lips. The knee-weakening kind. I pressed my palms flat to his abdomen, pulling back when the definition of muscle startled me. But I reached out again as his tongue grazed the space between my lips before he deepened the kiss.

  I tasted the sweetness of cinnamon and ginger from our chai lattes. Breathed in the spicy scent of his aftershave and leather jacket. I loved the so-soft way he stroked my cheeks with his thumbs. He kissed me again, and again, until his hands slid down my sides and his hard body pressed me against the Impala.

  My breath caught and he broke the kiss, pulling back.

  I opened my eyes in a daze while working through the strangest sensation that I’d landed on the moon. The overhead streetlight hadn’t stoppe
d buzzing or turning everything within its reach a variety of blue hues. The street. My house. Sam. He leaned over me now, his forehead a few inches from mine as his gaze lingered on my mouth. I wanted him to kiss me once more but a harsh cold crept over my shoulders and forced a shiver through me. That’s when I realized his coat had slipped behind me and now hung between my waist and the car.

  “Your parents are expecting you,” he said.

  I blinked. Remembered my parents and dropped my hands from his waist to clasp them together. “You’re right. I should go in.”

  He leaned behind me, grabbed the coat, and placed it over my shoulders, but this time when he pulled the jacket together, he gave a soft tug until we stood toe-to-toe. He dropped his hands, smiling slightly as he tilted his head. “Can I see you again?” he said. “Like this?”

  I tried not to grin like a fool. “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “School. Next weekend. Tomorrow.” I stopped babbling and pulled in a nervous breath, hoping he planned to kiss me again. The porch light flickered, startling me into pulling away from him. “I have to go,” I said, turning and hurrying across the street.

  “Peyton.”

  I turned to him, knowing when I woke later that I wouldn’t believe this had happened, that I’d wonder if it had all been an ethereal, blue dream.

  “If I can work it out with my schedule, how about that dinner next Saturday?”

  I smiled, my mouth still tingling from his lips. “Only if you kiss me like that again.”

  He slowly grinned. “Consider it worked out.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sam

  The plan had been simple; keep my hands off her until the third date. But when she’d looked up at me with those eyes the color of blue flame, I hadn’t been able to stop myself. I should have left it at that. A soft kiss to end the date. Nice and safe. Nothing to freak her out.

  Then she kissed me back.

  This thing had already become way too complicated. The more I got to know her, the more I understood why Cooper and Ryan acted the way they did. Peyton was sweet and trusting in an endearing way that made me want to keep her that way. She brought out my better side, my protective side, which didn’t work out in my favor because I still wanted to sleep with her.