Parker Security Complete Series

by Camilla Blake

  “Well,” Sarah said, “I’m going to have to give this some more thought before we reach any final decisions. Appreciate the two of you coming in to talk; we’ll be in touch.” She stood up, gathered her things, and gave us a brief nod before exiting the room.

  “Thank you so much for coming in,” Amanda said. She did come over and clasp Teagan’s hand, and then she shook mine. It was hard to read the expression on her face but it seemed like she wanted to apologize for the way Sarah was, but of course she couldn’t do that because Sarah was her boss.

  Teagan was in no rush to hang around, and she hurried out of there. “Wow,” she said when we finally stepped outside. “I need a drink. Or at least an ice cream or something.”

  “Well, I can’t drink on the job, but an ice cream doesn’t sound half bad. I think there’s a place a few blocks over.”

  “Was that, like, super-intense? Or was I just imagining it?”

  “It got a bit intense at times. Who knew book publishing could be so cutthroat? That Sarah woman was... interesting.”

  “I get what she’s saying—she’s got a business to run. She wants it to do well. I totally understand that. But she obviously wasn’t that interested in making a book out of my posts—which is fine—I was just under the impression from Amanda that everyone was totally behind this.”

  “Whether that’s the case or not, you did great in there.”

  Teagan looked at me, a little suspiciously. “Are you just saying that? Because you don’t have to. I know I pretty much bombed in there.”

  “No way,” I said. I shook my head. She didn’t really believe that, did she? “You totally handled it in there. You did great. And you would’ve done just as well if I hadn’t been there. Especially that last part, where you put Sarah in her place.”

  “Please don’t say that,” Teagan said, flushing. “I really don’t even know what came over me in there, and I hope I didn’t come across as a bitch.”

  “You didn’t. But you did come across as someone who isn’t just going to be a doormat. That woman could’ve been nicer.”

  “I just wasn’t expecting that. Everything that I’d heard from Amanda made it sound like everyone there was on board and really excited about the project. So it was kind of a surprise to get there and basically hear Sarah start trashing the thing before it even exists.”

  “That might be her tactic,” I mused. “To try to suss out who’s really serious.”

  “It’s a pretty good one, then, although I have a feeling she’s probably scared off some pretty good ideas.”

  The ice cream place I had been thinking about was actually soft-serve frozen yogurt. We each got a cone and then sat outside, neither of us saying anything for a few moments while we enjoyed the sweet treats.

  I didn’t want Teagan to feel like she had done anything wrong in that meeting; Sarah had obviously had some sort of vendetta from the get-go and probably knew she wasn’t going to publish Teagan’s book. It annoyed me that she couldn’t have at least been a little nicer about it, but there wasn’t really anything I could do about that.

  “I’m just not going to think about it,” Teagan said. “If they get back to me and want to do it, great. If not, it’s really not that big of a deal. I would never have even considered such a thing if they hadn’t gotten in touch with me about it first.”

  “They’d be fools not to do it,” I said. “In my opinion, anyway.”

  She took a lick of the frozen yogurt and stared off into the middle distance. “It must be nice, in a way, not to have any social media accounts or anything,” she said, glancing over at me.

  I smiled. “You know, if you really feel that way, you could just get rid of yours.” I knew it wasn’t that simple, of course, especially for someone like her, who made her living from what she posted online. I didn’t know how much she made, but I had overheard Cole talking about it before, and knew that there were some people out there who could make tens of thousands—if not more—a month just by posting things to their accounts. Which was mind-boggling, it really was. It made me feel old and out of touch, and like I wasn’t evolving with the times. Plenty of people my own age used the Internet all the time, had their own social media accounts. I used the Internet, sure, but it was mostly for work or looking things up. I never went online just to browse, or look at other people’s pictures. Mostly, I felt good about my choice, though occasionally I’d wonder if I was missing out on some sort of aspect of human life in the twenty-first century.

  “I’ve thought about it,” she said. “Maybe not so much now, but in the beginning, when my account first started getting popular. I wasn’t expecting that at all, and it seemed a little overwhelming. Most of it was very positive, but there are always some people who are going to have something nasty to say, and I just wasn’t used to that.” She shrugged. “I’m still not, even though I try really hard to ignore that part of it.”

  “It seems like it’s a lot easier for people to say things on the Internet that they would never dare say to someone’s face. It just doesn’t seem trustworthy, the way that you can present yourself however you want online in a way you never could in person.”

  “That’s the thing. The longer I have my account, the more I feel like I’m two different people. Like, the me that people see on Instagram is not the me in real life.”

  “Really?” I asked, surprised. “I admit I did look at your account. It seemed... way more authentic than a lot of the others. And now that I know you a little better, I can say that the person I see on that account and the person I see in real life are definitely the same.”

  “You really think that?” Her eyes searched my face, looking for any clue that might suggest I was just telling her what she wanted to hear. But she wouldn’t find that, because what I was telling her was the absolute truth.

  “I do,” I said.

  She smiled, and I felt a rush of happiness surge through me. Such a simple thing—sitting on a bench outside with a beautiful girl, saying something that could elicit a smile like that. What a feeling.

  Chapter 10

  Teagan

  Mom stopped by the day after my meeting at Gemini Books. I hadn’t heard anything back from them yet, though I knew it was probably too soon to be expecting a response. The whole meeting had not gone at all how I’d expected, but I was trying not to think about it. And thinking about how nice it was to be with Ben, and how he had cheered me up afterward, when we’d been eating our frozen yogurts, was a good distraction.

  “I saw Lauren Porter when I was out getting the mail,” Mom said, “and we started talking and it somehow came out that you now have a bodyguard. She couldn’t believe it.”

  I winced. Lauren was a neighbor, the mother to one of the popular girls I had gone to high school with. I hadn’t been teased as badly as some of the girls, but Lauren’s daughter, Madeline, seemed to resent the fact that she lived next to me, as though her proximity to me could somehow make her less cool than she already was. Now, I only knew what Madeline was up to because my mother would sporadically inform me; she’d never admit it but she and Lauren had a bit of an unspoken competition going on when it came to daughters, of which they both had two. Both Madeline and her sister Kira were married, had kids, had careers. My mother would relay these accomplishments wistfully, insinuating how much it would mean to her if only Aoife and I would follow suit.

  “…Is she famous?”

  “Huh?” I looked at my mother, realizing that I’d been daydreaming and hadn’t heard half of what she’d just said.

  “That’s what Lauren kept asking me,” my mother said. “About you. Is she famous. Because really, only famous people have bodyguards.”

  “And... what did you say?” I finally ventured, not sure I actually wanted to know what her response had been.

  “I said I guessed so. That it was some sort of Internet fame, that it wasn’t like you were a Hollywood star or something like that. But Lauren seemed very impressed. She even asked me what your
Internet name was so she could look you up. I couldn’t remember, though, which she seemed to think was the worst thing in the world. I told her I didn’t have a single social media account and I didn’t plan to start anytime soon.”

  “Ben doesn’t have any social media accounts either,” I said, smiling as his face appeared in my mind.

  Mom looked at me curiously. “Ben? Who is Ben?”

  “Oh. He’s the guy from the security company. I thought I told you what his name was.”

  “I don’t believe you did. No social media accounts at all? Sounds like a smart guy. I just can’t imagine living my life tethered to my phone all the time. Caring what people think like that. Isn’t life hard enough as it is?”

  “I think some people would say that having phones like we do is supposed to make things easier.”

  Mom snorted. “That’s a load of you-know-what.”

  “I might be putting out a book,” I said. It hadn’t been part of my plan to tell Mom anything about the book until I had a better idea about what was going to happen with it, but I couldn’t stand the way she was looking at me, like I wasn’t good enough or something. I wanted to tell her something that she could be proud of, that she could understand.

  “Putting out a book?” she repeated. “What does that mean, exactly? Is that different than writing a book?”

  “Well... no. It’s going to be based on my social media account, though, so a lot of what is going to be printed in it has been written already.”

  “What does that mean? I’ve never gone onto your social media account before, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re going to make a book about your social media account? Who would want to buy that?”

  It felt, in a way, like I was back sitting at the conference table with Sarah, and she was peering down at me over those glasses of hers. I could understand having to explain myself to her, but it didn’t seem right that I should have to explain myself like this to my own mother.

  “Can you ever just be excited for me?” I asked. “Is nothing I do ever good enough for you?”

  She stared at me. “Excuse me? Are you saying that I’m not supportive of you? I’ve always stood by you, Teagan. Just because I don’t understand something or am not familiar with it doesn’t mean that I don’t support you.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly, “but it doesn’t seem that way. It seems like anytime I try to tell you something good that’s happened to me, you find the negative in it. I know that you don’t get the whole social media thing, and that’s fine, but you act like it’s this awful thing, that I happen to make my living that way, and now someone wants to put out a book. I mean, couldn’t you just be excited that I might have a book out with my name on it? Whose pages are full of photographs that I took and words that I wrote? Is that asking for too much?” With each word I spoke, my voice rose, until I was basically yelling, which was something my mother wasn’t used to at all.

  She continued to stare at me, scrutinizing my face, as if she, too, couldn’t believe that I was raising my voice with her.

  “Are you finished?” she finally asked, her tone cool, clipped. “Because if you are, I think I’ve got to go. I certainly didn’t come over here to be chastised by you.” She snatched her purse off the table and started to go.

  “Mom,” I said. “I’m not chastising you. I’m just trying to let you know how I feel. And it just seems like you’re never really happy for me, or proud of what I’ve done. That’s all. I’m not trying to start an argument with you—”

  “Just as well. I’ll be seeing myself out.”

  She breezed past me, refusing to look me in the eye. There was a definite chill in the air, and I knew there was no point in calling her name again, or going after her and trying to talk. And there was a part of me that didn’t think I should have to—I had just wanted to share something with her that I thought she might actually be interested in, but I probably should have known better.

  ***

  When my phone rang ten minutes later, I set my magazine down and got up off the couch to get it from the kitchen counter where I’d left it. As I walked out to the kitchen, I felt a little bit of vindication—my mom was calling me to apologize. She had realized that it was actually kind of shitty of her to be so unsupportive about this project—whether or not it ever came to fruition—and she would tell me, in her own words, that even though she might not understand exactly what it was I was doing, she was at least happy for me.

  This feeling lasted for another second and a half until I picked up my phone and saw that it wasn’t my mother at all; it was a number I didn’t recognize.

  “Hello?” I said.

  It was a woman, though she was speaking so fast and sounded so out of breath that I couldn’t understand what she was saying.

  “Hold on,” I said. “Who is this?”

  It wasn’t Aoife, I was pretty sure. I heard the person take a deep breath. “It’s Meredith,” she said after a minute.

  It took me a second to remember who Meredith was; I so rarely got phone calls, and usually I never picked them up. Meredith. James and Meredith, my fellow Instagram stars.

  “Hey,” I said. “Is everything all right?”

  “Well, no, not really. I’ve been arguing with James all day about this, but I figured I’d just call you. I’m calling you from his phone, though, because mine is currently sitting in a bowl of rice, hopefully drying out.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “Whatever. I have insurance on it. That’s how badly James didn’t want me to call you, though—he ripped the phone out of my hand and threw it in the sink, which happened to be full of disgusting scuzz water because he’ll never wash any dishes. Anyway. That’s so beside the point.”

  She continued to talk, while my mind tried to figure out why on earth she was calling me. It’s not like we had one of those friendships where we’d call each other up and talk about problems or anything. I didn’t really have that sort of relationship with anyone, except maybe Aoife, but that was only because we were sisters.

  “I’m really sorry you guys have been fighting,” I said when she took a breath.

  “Huh? Oh, that’s not why I’m calling at all. You didn’t hear?”

  A shiver ran down my spine and my stomach twisted. No. I couldn’t deal with hearing any more bad news about someone getting killed.

  “No one’s died,” she said, as if she could hear my thoughts, “but someone came close. I want to talk to your bodyguard. I liked him. And I think we need his services, more than ever.”

  “Who?” I said. “Who came close to dying?”

  “Alex. This just happened last night. We’re still in shock about it, to be honest.”

  “Was he... was he shot?”

  “No. But beaten pretty badly. He was coming out of a bar. James and I were supposed to go with him and Amy, but we ended up just staying in. James, of course, is a total wreck over this, because he thinks that if he’d been there, he would’ve been able to prevent it. Which I don’t necessarily think is true; I think he probably would’ve gotten his ass beat, too. Listen, Teagan. I’ll be candid with you, because I feel like I can be: these guys, they want to think that they’re these tough manly men, but they’re not. They don’t have real-world experience like that. They’ve never been in a real fight before. Well, I guess you can say that Alex has, but he didn’t fare so well.”

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  “Yeah, eventually. He’s got a fractured skull, broken ribs—all sorts of injuries.”

  “Do they know who did it?”

  “No. It was a group of people, according to Amy, and they took off before the police showed up. I know that James and Alex were totally against the idea the night we were all hanging out, but I’ve been thinking about it more and more. The world is a scary place. Part of what we do is put our lives out there, to inspire other people, but it’s also putting a spotlight on us that might not be good, either. It’s not just people who like ou
r pictures or want to be inspired; it’s crazy people who are going to try to hurt us. Because they’re jealous, or they have nothing better to do, or... I don’t know what! Does it even matter? I’m not going to go hide under a rock, but I’m also not going to not take precautions, like you have. I think that was really smart—I don’t know if I told you that or not.”

  “You did. And you’re right—it can be scary out there. And sometimes I wonder if the tradeoff is worth it, if it might just be better to give up the social media, or just use it personally, you know, with people I’m actually friends with, because—”

  “Oh, I’m not saying I’m giving it up!” Meredith laughed. “No. That would be like admitting defeat. Like letting the crazy people win. Do you know how many people out there have social media accounts? Millions. Hundreds of millions. And we are the top one percent that is making a living off of it. That’s not something to be ignored or just tossed away like it doesn’t matter. Our Instagram account has generated more money in two months than I used to make in a year at my old job, and it wasn’t a low-paying job. We don’t have to talk specifics or anything, but don’t think for a second that I’m talking about giving up my social media account. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I hope you’re not really thinking that, either. Do you know how many people would kill to have a following like you do? Not only that—how many people truly find your posts so inspiring? You wouldn’t only be doing a disservice to yourself; you’d be doing it to all of your followers. It would leave a void in their lives. You can’t do that.”

  Was she being serious? A void in their lives? Like I was some sort of deity or something? The whole conversation was starting to make me feel a little uncomfortable, and I wanted to get off the phone, but she was still talking.

  “So, you want me to give you Ben’s information?” I managed to ask when she paused to take a breath.

  “Yes,” she said. “His personal phone number would be great.”