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“Really?” I say. “Wesley wasn’t that awful.” I tuck my hair behind my ear—no, never mind, I catch air. My hair is in a low pony. I smile at myself.
Charlie taps his finger against a glass of Scotch. “You think he wasn’t awful because you didn’t hear the shit he said about you.”
Maximoff glares at the wall. This must have been in high school, and I don’t ask what rumors Wesley spread or what terrible things he said because I don’t want to award him any space in my brain.
I try to send my brothers a pointed look, but I’m sure the alcohol has dulled its effect. “Will Rochester isn’t Wesley. The sins of his brother aren’t his own.”
Charlie takes a hot sip of Scotch. “We all bear the sins of our parents every day we breathe, and so why aren’t the sins of a brother or sister or cousin the same?”
“Because,” Maximoff says, “being a dick isn’t hereditary.”
We reach no real conclusion on the subject, and I’m not sure that Charlie or Beckett will ever accept Will, the older brother of someone who has wronged me. Maximoff is far more forgiving, and I see that in how he’s let Thatcher back into his life and my life and his fiancé’s life.
My brothers go to the bar for new drinks, and like the seas have parted, I have a clear and direct line to the sofa.
To Thatcher.
I sip my drink.
He tries to scout the pub, but his narrowed gaze returns to me in a flash. I’m drawn to him, and I practically float towards my boyfriend.
“Jane,” he greets deeply. I’m only a few feet away.
My bones ache for him. I want to feel him inside me. I want the emotion, and I barely see concern tighten his eyes.
Climb him, Jane. “I want you,” I whisper.
“Jane.”
“Thatcher.” I’m a drunken fool, but Flirty Jane doesn’t give a damn. I’m one second from straddling Thatcher when hands clasp my waist.
Farrow pulls me back, and Thatcher shoots to a stance, his concern still on me. But the world rotates and blurs, and I try to cling to all the voices that pitch around me.
“Did she just call you Thatcher?” O’Malley asks.
Tony laughs. “She’s just drunk. Aren’t you, Jane?” He thinks he’s being cute teasing me, but he’s nothing more than a patronizing prick.
And I hope I’m glaring at him, but the pub is a smear of multi-colored twinkling Christmas lights. Farrow is still behind me, I think.
Thatcher in front. Isn’t he? I hope.
Voices pile on each other. I blink for focus.
“How am I an asshole?” Tony rebuts. “I don’t care that she mixed ‘em up. It doesn’t even matter what anyone calls them. Banks responds to both names.”
I wish I could defend my boyfriend, but I’m fighting to grasp my bearings.
My cheeks roast, uncomfortable that I’m too uninhibited and not put-together among people who should meet my iron walls. I’m lost, but I feel hands on me and voices in my ear. “Thatcher?” I trip over my feet and try to right myself.
I touch something hard. A chest?
I haven’t been this drunk in a long, long while.
“Thatcher?” I’m scared. “Thatcher?”
“Jane—I’m right here.” He cups my cheeks.
It alarms me, more than anything, that I didn’t call for Maximoff.
I called for him.
For a man I…
I love him.
I hold onto his biceps, unsure of where my whiskey glass even went. “I’m fine.” I speak, not even sure what he asked me. I try to strong-arm my drunken-self and not slur. “I think it’s just hitting me…harder all of a sudden.” Because I moved. I walked and now I’m speeding rapidly through Sloppy Drunk Jane to Black-Out (SOS) territory.
God, help me.
A translation comes through my brain: Thatcher, help me.
20
THATCHER MORETTI
Swiftly and easily, I lift Jane off the glass-shattered ground and into a front-piggyback. She just dropped her drink, whiskey soaking the floorboards, and she almost went down with the liquor. She can’t stand on her own, and right when the glass broke, the team stopped yelling over each other.
I’ve never seen her this plastered, not even through the six-and-a-half years I’ve been a bodyguard. Jane Cobalt is notoriously composed when she’s drunk. She’ll do cute things like trip over her own feet and call me Mr. Moretti—but she’ll right herself up with some type of poise. When the matchup is Jane vs. Whiskey, I’d put my money on my girlfriend every time.
And I’d lose that bet tonight.
She blinks a hell of a lot, panic behind her blue eyes.
I tuck her to my sturdy chest. Protective. One of my hands is lost in her blue skirt. Really, I’m cupping her ass, an effortless hold, and I press my other palm to the back of her head, whispering against her ear, “I have you, honey.”
She eases into me.
“Here.” Farrow passes me a glass of water.
“Is she pale?” Maximoff asks, voice hard-edged but he looks concerned. He’s probably seen her this wasted. Hell, I know he’s held her hair back while she’s puked.
Before I came along, he’d be the one holding Jane, and the fact that he’s not upset that I’ve taken over—it means we’re making good strides.
For once I’m not trekking twenty klicks in the wrong fucking direction.
Is she pale?
“No,” I answer him.
Her cheeks are somewhat ashen, but she’s breathing normal and the longer she realizes I have her, the more she smiles and smooths her lips together.
Blushing.
I’ve been around harder, more shit-faced partying and seen a fellow infantryman wake up buck-ass naked in his own piss and vomit. She’s nowhere near that level of fucked, but if you saw her best friend, you’d think she’s a foot in the grave.
“She’s not dying, wolf scout,” Farrow says matter-of-factly. “She just needs fluids.”
Maximoff nods, then slides off her feather purse that slips down her arm. I nod to him in thanks, and he tells us, “She doesn’t usually go down this hard, this fast.”
I try to catch her drifting gaze. “She probably didn’t eat enough today. Food should sober her up.”
Maximoff is already moving out. “I’ll go find some at the bar.” He leaves while Farrow stays to help me.
“Jane,” I say, seizing her gaze. “Water.”
“Mmm.” She smiles up at me.
My lip almost rises. “Drink this.”
She bats her lashes dazedly.
“Copy?”
“Mmhmm.” She nods firmly. “Yes.”
I put the glass to her mouth and tilt. Her big blue eyes planted on mine, she takes small, slurping sips like a fucking kitten. Even hammered, she’s an adorable drunk.
While she contemplates taking another sip, I assess the perimeter on instinct. Christmas lights blink in the darkened pub, and ear-splitting chatter and music meld together.
Omega tends to integrate with the older famous ones like friends—especially after the FanCon tour—but we’re all on.
Alert.
Always.
No bodyguards are posted at the entrance or exits, so we’ve all been scouting the pub at various intervals. We’re in a town with a population of 50. I hate to think it, let alone believe it, but the bigger threat to Jane is another bodyguard.
In my peripheral I see Tony scrutinizing me. He stews behind the sofa and sports an insulted expression. Like him and I are white-collared-wearing, cubicle-sitting employees and I stole his coveted office project.
My jaw hardens, and I lock eyes with Farrow.
He exchanges a strong look with me. One that we used to never share, but it comes naturally tonight and says, we’re on the same side and I’ve got you. There’s a chance that Tony will insert himself in this situation.
And I need someone to have my six so I can have hers.
I’m not as territorial as Farrow,
but when it comes to my girlfriend being scared or panicked, my spine would have to be obliterated in a hundred places before I let another man carry her to safety. Especially Tony.
“Done?” I ask Jane after she takes another sip.
She nods. “You’re…” She hiccups.
I almost smile, and I hand the glass to Farrow.
Oscar uses comms, his voice in my ear. “I’m taking a piss. Don’t let Beckett hang around my baby sister.” He stands off the sofa where Quinn and Joana laugh at something. The Oliveira family has been together most of the night, and we’ve all been intersecting Beckett’s path to Jo.
I don’t know if he’s bored or if he has a fucking death wish.
Farrow clicks his mic. “Can’t hold your bladder, Oliveira?”
“I’m trying to save all the adult diapers for Donnelly,” Oscar quips.
Donnelly laughs on comms. “Appreciation and all that.”
I tune them out as Jane perches two hands on my shoulders. She tries to straighten up and compose herself, drawing out one blink. “I’m…”
“I have you,” I say strongly. “You don’t need to do anything tonight.” She can be a drunk mess.
She hiccups into a smile. “You’re…”
“Moretti!” Tony calls, approaching us. “She’s not your responsibility. Take your hands off my client.”
Like hell.
I grit my teeth.
Stay professional. I need to stay fucking professional on-duty. In Tony’s mind, I’m Banks, and my brother doesn’t deserve a tarnished reputation because of my bad calls.
Don’t punch him.
