The second I heard Bruno Mars, I knew I was sunk. Sadie was right. I’d seen the Elite perform before, but nothing like this. Marry You. How do you compete with that? The song was basically one big proposal. Add to that a dancing “Woo”—Koi was really getting down out there—Sadie, who’d grown up on ballroom, and one groom who was willing to embarrass himself and his friends. No wonder Snow hadn’t been impressed with my crappy karaoke.
It was like a Broadway show. Obviously, they’d hired Sadie to help with the dancing, which they did pretty well. No surprise. The rhythm it must’ve taken to do those martial arts sequences carried over—to everyone except Snow and Bae Bae. I didn’t know who looked more awkward. My ninja girl was toughing it out, but she almost tripped over her own feet, twice. Bae Bae did trip this one time when he went the wrong way, knocking right into a flailing Koi.
Looking over, I offered Min-Hee a napkin. Her eyes had been watering since the first sashay.
“Thanks,” she said and blew her nose. “God, I love him.”
“And he obviously loves you,” I said.
“He does.” She sighed then wolf-whistled as the Academy members shook their butts to the music. Not gonna lie. My eyes shot straight to Snow in those tight jeans.
Nara looked horrified. “This has got to be the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Looks good to me,” I said, smile widening, as Snow glared. One of Koi’s elbows had nearly taken her eye out, but she ducked at the last second. My ninja girl. Ready for anything, even rogue jazz hands.
When they finished, Bae Bae was on one knee, Snow and the others posed behind him.
“Min,” he said then cleared his throat. “Will you—”
She didn’t even wait for the question. “Yes!” Min-Hee said then threw herself into his arms. “I love you so much, Oppa. The answer’s always, yes.”
“Thank God,” Bae Bae mumbled and kissed her. The crowd went crazy.
“Alright kids, let’s try to keep it PG-13,” Koi said, stepping to the front. “But seriously, all couples to the floor. It’s time to celebrate Min-Hee accepting Bae a second time. Grab your honey, and let’s get this party started!”
Thumping bass and disco lights. In a blink, The Singing Fish was back to business as usual. Snow walked to the table, getting pats on the back and hugs from guys I didn’t know but disliked instantly. For hugging her. It made me want to do something violent. The fact that every one of them probably had a black belt and could wipe the floor with my ass didn’t even enter my mind.
“Hey,” I said, stepping up to Snow.
“Hey,” she said back.
“I didn’t know you could dance.”
“I can’t. Without Sadie’s help, I would’ve fallen on my face.” Snow frowned. “I almost did fall thanks to Koi. God, I hope no one was recording.”
“It wasn’t that bad.” I didn’t tell her there were at least twenty phones capturing the whole thing. She looked embarrassed enough as it was. “I thought you were great.”
“Thanks,” she said and looked away. “Where’s Smith?”
“He’s around.” Actually, I hadn’t seen him since I went backstage, but whatever. The election was two weeks away. Dad was still in the race. There were more threatening letters, but nothing beyond that. “I wouldn’t worry about him. Smith can take care of himself.”
Snow rolled her eyes. “It’s not him I’m worried about.”
“Oh yeah?”
Another guy from The Academy came up, wrapping his arms around Snow from behind. “Hey, Snow, great job out there.”
“Thanks,” she said as the jerk slipped away. “You, too.”
That was it.
“You want to dance?” I asked.
She looked startled. “But I just told you I can’t dance.”
“Is that a no?” I picked up her hand and twined our fingers together. Her eyes widened. “Come on, ninja girl, you’re breaking my heart.”
I played it off, but my nerves were tingling. God…what if she said no? I’d always considered myself a confident guy. But Snow was unpredictable. There was a fifty-fifty chance she’d shoot me down.
“Hey, Ash, I thought that was you.”
Barbie Buchannan appeared out of nowhere. Like seriously, just flowed out of the crowd and ended up standing beside me. I shivered. I swear the girl was a complete stalker.
“Hey,” I said, trying to be polite. “What are you doing here, Barbie?”
“Well, someone told me this was the place to be,” she laughed, running a finger down my chest. Creepy. As. Hell. “Seeing you, I guess they were right. Why’re you here?”
“I’m a friend of Min-Hee’s.”
“Who?”
“The bride-to-be.” When she still looked confused, I added, “This is an engagement party.”
Barbie sniffed. “Really? Here? I guess there’s no accounting for taste.” She flashed her too-white teeth. “Daddy would never let me hold my engagement party in a place like this. Wrong side of town, little too ethnic, if you know what I mean.”
Snow scoffed.
“Barbie, what the hell?” Of course, wherever there was Barbie, her brother was only a step behind. Buddy Jr. looked livid. “I told you to stay away from Stryker.”
“We were just talking, Buddy.”
“Bullshit,” he said.
I closed my eyes and prayed for patience. All I wanted to do was tell the Buchannan spawn to beat it and dance with Snow. But that would be rude. My Southern manners prevented me.
“You shouldn’t hang around losers, Barbie.” Buddy again. “It’ll rub off on you.”
“Ash isn’t a loser,” Barbie said.
“Not yet, but his family’s on the road to ruin.”
Opening my eyes, I grinned. “Last I checked, my dad was kicking your dad’s ass in the polls.”
Buddy Jr. smirked. “There’s always been a Buchannan in office since the early 60s. That’s not going to change now. Your father’s going down, and so are you.”
“We’ll see.”
“Just remember: Glass houses fall the hardest,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Before he could answer, Barbie was tugging on my arm. “Ash…why are you holding her hand?”
“What?” I asked, following her eyes down to Snow’s hand in mine. I hadn’t realized until that moment how tight Snow’s grip had become. Though her face was expressionless, the stuff about Min-Hee had obviously gotten to her. It’d gotten to me, too.
“Ash?” Barbie asked again.
“We were about to dance before you came over.”
“Dance?” Barbie laughed. “I thought you guys were cousins.”
Even Buddy Jr. looked a little pained at that. She’d said it so seriously.
“That,” Snow said, leaning into the other girl, “is because you’re a racist idiot.”
Barbie’s mouth was opening and closing as Snow dragged me onto the dance floor. Her grip was cutting off my circulation, but I couldn’t have been happier.
“So, I guess that’s a yes to the dancing?” I said.
“I had to get away from her.” She stopped once we were in the center of the crowd. “Gah, that girl makes my skin crawl.”
“I know what you mean.”
The song suddenly changed from fast to slow, and she looked around at the other couples who were latching onto each other. The blush was back on her cheeks as she met my eyes.
“What now?” she asked.
If it was possible, the question made me like her even more. Taking her hands, I placed them around my neck and brought my own to her waist. The song gave me an excuse to get close, so I did. Snow was so much smaller than me. I felt like a giant, looking down at her.
“You really thought my song was sappy?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I liked it.”
“Liked?”
“Hmm.”
“Not loved?”
A paus
e. “Maybe a little.”
I grinned. “I can handle that.”
She bit her lip to stop herself from smiling, which did strange things to me. Something in my chest leaped; my grip on her waist tightened. It also reminded me that I was still 0-2 on the kissing front. My eyes lingered on her lips.
“Stop it,” she hissed.
“Stop what?” I asked.
“You know what.”
“But I want to kiss you.” I dropped my voice. “God, I want to kiss you, Snow.”
She swallowed. “You can’t. It’s unethical.”
“Screw ethics.”
“Ash, we can’t. You’re my client,” she said as if it should matter. Right now, her being my bodyguard was the last thing on my mind. My thoughts were fully occupied with trying to remember if her lips were as soft as they looked.
I stared into her eyes, watching for the truth. “Don’t you want me to kiss you?”
“That doesn’t matter,” she said, looking down.
“It does,” I said, tilting her face back up. “And you do.”
It was in the way her eyes kept moving back to my lips. It was in the way her pulse jumped as my fingers trailed down her neck. Leaning into her was the only thing I could do. The only thing I wanted to do. I pressed a light kiss to the corner of her mouth.
“Ash…” she tried one last time, but I was gone.
My nose brushed the side of hers. Our lips were inches way when—
“Ash, we have to go.”
I pressed my forehead against Snow’s. “Smith, unless you’re dying, you better back away.”
“It’s not that,” he said. “It’s your house. We need to leave now.”
My ninja girl sighed in disappointment or relief. Couldn’t tell which. I tried not to take it personal when she backed away first.
“Ash...look.” The concerned sound in her voice made me open my eyes. She was pointing to the TV above the bar where everyone else was looking. On the flatscreen, there was a house. My house. There were police cars everywhere, yellow tape surrounding the front yard.
“What the hell?” I said, taking it in. The headline running along the bottom said: Attack on Senator-hopeful leaves Crispin County shaken. That was when I noticed the glass in the front yard, shining shards everywhere as if someone had broken a window—or five.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Smith said.
He waited until I looked at him then put a hand on my shoulder, the serious look in his eyes so un-Smith like it scared me a little.
“They got the house. Mrs. C wants you home ASAP.”
I shook my head dazed. “Snow, I…”
“Go,” she said, pushing me toward Smith. “Don’t worry, Ash. It’ll be okay. Really, it will.”
I nodded and let Smith lead me out. One minute, I was dancing with Snow, the next, my house had been attacked? I remembered that thing Buddy Jr.’d said about glass houses and couldn’t believe it. The asshole had been right, and I hadn’t even gotten to kiss Snow.
This night sucked.
CHAPTER 17: SNOW
“Last night rocked—for the most part.”
My breath came hard as I pushed through those last 100 crunches. I’d already done 25 lifts per leg, 20 pushups, three minutes of plank, my daily wake-up routine nearly complete.
“I mean, what happened to Ash’s house sucked, but the party was freakin’ awesome. It was so cool, Bruce. You should’ve seen Min’s face. She was so surprised.”
Party cleanup had taken forever. I’d crashed right when I got home, so I hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to him until now. But, as usual, Bruce was the perfect listener.
“Bae Bae’s face was priceless,” I went on. I could still picture him colliding into Koi, kinda like an unintentional chest bump/full-body hug. It hadn’t been pretty. “Seriously, he dances worse than me. Do you know he was worried Min wouldn’t like it? I mean, it’s got the two things she loves best: romance and drama. Of course, she loved it. And Koi nearly took my head off, but whatever. At least I didn’t fall on my ass.”
Bruce stared back.
“What?” I said, rolling to my feet, hopping up onto the bed.
His fierce gaze seemed to say: Isn’t there something you’re not telling me?
“Everyone had a great time. There was dancing and singing and…”
And?
I rolled my eyes. “Well, there was this…almost kiss.”
It was impossible, but I could’ve sworn the poster’s lips twitched.
“But it was no big deal,” I said quickly. Bruce looked like he didn’t believe me—or maybe I was the one who didn’t believe me. My dreams last night had been full of one thing: a boy with blond hair, green eyes, and a mouth that drove me crazy. “Anyway, Ash—you know, the guy I told you about?—well, he was at the engagement party. And he…sang to me.”
Bruce waited.
“It should’ve been lame. It really should’ve. His voice was pretty terrible—almost as bad as mine. He looked like he was about to puke the entire time, but…it was actually the un-lamest thing I’ve ever seen.” I sighed, couldn’t help it. The sound just escaped, and I knew Bruce would never tell anyone. “Bruce, it was amazing. Ash sang to me, and then he asked me to dance, and he would’ve kissed me if his bodyguard hadn’t interrupted.”
And thank God he had, I thought. I’d never been so happy to see Agent Smith. If Ash had kissed me there—in the middle of the dance floor at Min-Hee’s engagement party—with Bae Bae and the guys and my mom watching? I shuddered. Yeah, I would’ve never heard the end of it.
“Part of me’s glad,” I said, plucking at a loose sting on my pants. “But the other part…”
The other part was needy and frustrated and had me aching all over. Just the thought of Ash’s lips—I shook my head, trying to snap out of it. Come on, Snow. Bruce wouldn’t let a little almost kiss get to him. No way. Bruce would be badass about it, like he was about everything.
“Well, anyway, we didn’t kiss,” I said like I didn’t care. “It’s probably for the best, all things considered.”
“I strongly disagree.”
My head snapped up so fast it made my neck hurt. For a second, I’d thought it was Bruce talking, hoped it was him. But I wasn’t that lucky.
“You know he can’t hear you, right?” Ash said as he propped his shoulder against the jamb. I really needed to start closing my door. “If he could though, I’m sure Bruce’d take my side. I wanted to kiss you. You wanted to be kissed. Us getting interrupted? Yeah, ninja girl, I can’t think of anything more tragic.”
I scrambled to my feet, doing a quick mental rundown of my talk with Bruce. This didn’t look good. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Not long,” he said, but his grin told a different story. Ugh. Great, he’d heard everything. Gesturing to my outfit, he said, “Nice PJs. I sleep in boxers myself, but I guess ninja kitties are the next best thing.”
“They’re comfortable,” I said defensively—definitely not picturing Ash in his boxers. “What are you doing here anyway? Who let you in?”
“You mom.” He shrugged. “She said I could sleep over.”
“What?!?”
Ash winced at the shriek, but I couldn’t help it. Omma would never agree to that. She’d never let a boy, particularly this boy, sleep over. This had to be a joke.
“What?” I repeated in a more reasonable tone.
“She said I could stay while my mom and dad do some last minute campaign runs.” He readjusted the strap of the backpack slung over his shoulder. “It’s only for one night. They’re downstairs talking about it now if you don’t believe me.”
I didn’t.
Striding past him, I made my way into the hall and down to the lobby. Mr. and Mrs. Stryker were talking to Omma, Evers and Smith standing a few paces behind, when Ash and I got there. I spotted more bodyguards standing outside the window, one waiting behind the wheel of a large black Escalade, two others casing T
he Academy’s perimeter. Holy crap.
“You know, there was a time we didn’t think we’d even need security,” Mrs. Stryker was saying. “Agent Evers and my husband were friends long before his bid for office. It was only natural to bring him on when Wesley started getting the hard court cases.” She laughed, but it didn’t sound as light as usual. “No one likes a lawyer who actually works for the people. So, we brought Evers’s company on, and they’ve been guarding our backs ever since.”
“But this has gone too far,” Mr. Stryker said, taking his wife’s hand. “Mrs. Lee, they went after our home.”
He paused as if that fact still shocked him, like it really hadn’t sunken in yet.
“I thank God none of us were in the house. We can’t let Ash stay there by himself,” he added. “He could come on the road with us, but we think it would be safer if Ash stays here with you.”
“Of course,” Omma said gravely. “So, there was no footage of the attack?”
Mrs. Stryker shook her head. “There was a gap in the tapes as usual. Our agents are still trying to recover the data, but it doesn’t look good.”
“That’s too bad.”
Mrs. Stryker took a step forward and lowered her voice. “Henry is Wesley’s best friend, but we can’t sacrifice the safety of our child for friendship. Ash is too important. If and when my husband is elected, we’ll have to upgrade our security. Henry understands.”
I looked to the two bodyguards, standing only feet away. Agent Evers, Mr. Stryker’s lifelong friend, would’ve given Bae Bae a run for his money, his face was so unreadable. But Smith wasn’t as good at bullshitting. He looked pained, his mouth a tight line, body rigid. It was clear he’d heard her whispers and didn’t understand a thing.
“Will you take care of my son, Mrs. Lee?” Mr. Stryker asked.
“Yes,” Omma said. “I assure you, nothing will happen to the boy under my roof.”
“Thank you.” Mrs. Stryker hugged my mom, who went stiff but managed not to retreat. Omma wasn’t big on hugs. Looking up, Ash’s mom noticed me. “I hope you don’t mind a little extra bodyguard duty, Snow. Naturally, I’ll include a nice bonus in your next paycheck.” She winked. “My baby boy can be a handful.”
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