AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Wait here,” he says again, not even looking at me, completely ignoring his accidental boob graze.
He gets out of the car and I internally sigh. All this waiting is going to annoy the crap out of me. But I do it anyway, because this is his job, and that’s what he’s getting paid his precious money for. After a few minutes, he opens the door again, telling me it’s safe to come out.
Even though I don’t need help, he offers his hand to help me down from the car. I reflexively take it, and yet again regret it as soon as I do. My hands aren’t dainty or small, but in his hands, they sure feel that way. The calloused pressure of them has me wanting to squeeze my thighs together at the thought of them all over my body. Shit, now I need a cold shower.
As soon as I’m on the ground, I pull my hand away and start to walk. Liam lets out a grunt but follows behind me, thankfully not scolding me for darting off. Once we’re in the elevator, I feel like I’m in one of those action movies or something. The air is tight with tension, and I can sense Liam’s anger or whatever the hell he’s feeling rolling off him in waves. I know he wants to say something to me, but he doesn’t. Good, he’s taking his ground rules seriously. I have nothing to say to him, and he shouldn’t have anything to say to me. Instead, I take a moment to study his profile, the sharp slope of his nose and the cut of his jaw. He looks tired, but for just a moment I can see the sixteen-year-old boy there.
His eyes flip to mine, and he scowls. He doesn’t say it, but if he did, I think he’d be saying, “Enjoying the show?”
I straighten and turn my eyes from him just as the elevator doors open. He stops me from walking again, and this time I feel the tension in his arm. He’s pissed I’m not following his orders.
He walks off in front of me, scanning the area before motioning me to move. It doesn't take long till we’re outside my suite, and I take out my room key. He places his hand to stop me yet again and produces his own key.
“Me first.”
“I’m sure my room is fine,” I grumble.
“You have no way of knowing that Ms. Wilder. Now step aside.”
Begrudgingly, I do. Before I know it, he’s opened the door and is sweeping through all the rooms in the suite. He even checks under the bed and in the shower. Once he’s satisfied, he moves to the suite door again.
“All clear,” he informs me, and I stop myself from saying,No shit, Sherlock.
“I leave for the venue around six,” I tell him.
He gives a curt nod before making his way to the door. He stops right before he leaves, turning to give me one more good stern stare. “Make sure you secure the swing bar lock behind me. And text me if you want to leave to go anywhere. Even the ice machine.”
I roll my eyes. “Yes,Dad.” I swear I see a smirk flash on his lips but it’s so fast I could have imagined it.
God, why did I let him stay?
ten
Liam
It’seasytoforgethow boring being a bodyguard is. And I need better shoes with how much standing I’ll be doing. For the next two months I’ll be spending most of my time outside of Birdie’s doors and making sure nobody gets near her.
Since she’s currently safe in her room, I take the time to grab a quick shower and a bite to eat. But not before sending a text to Ben to let him know I’d seen Birdie and she’s mad as hell at him and Wren.
Naturally, he just sent a thumbs up. A fucking thumbs up. Ben is used to dealing with girl stuff, so I guess he thinks Birdie is going to get over it. And maybe she will. I heard her little conversation with her team, and I admit I’m surprised she told them to treat me well. I thought she’d revel in her friends taking cheap shots at me.
I groan, shedding my suit jacket and button-up, hanging them to keep everything free of wrinkles. I look down at my forearm, the one that accidentally grazed Birdie’s ample chest. I scratch it to try and rid the feeling of her shirt and the weight of her breasts lingering there. Even though it was just for a moment, now my mind is wandering to thoughts of the elevator ride and the tension between us.
Immediately all my blood rushes to my downstairs brain. I didn’t expect seeing Birdie again to cause such a “rise” in me. Now I really wish I could go work out, but I can’t leave her alone in the other room. Not after what happened earlier.
When Eric filled me in on the Times Square incident, I was furious. She should never have gone to such a busy place with him. He’s a big dude, but he’s not trained. Today could have been bad, and by the look on Eric’s face, he knew it too.
He mentioned that Birdie didn’t seem to think much of it, which made sense given the way she just tried to walk everywhere without me scanning the area first. I’d have to make sure to do more perimeter checks with the band's venue security before and after all shows and sound checks.
For how famous the woman is, she sure doesn’t have any self-preservation. Which we need to fix if our time together is going to work out. The anger I feel when she doesn’t listen is going to make my head explode if I’m not careful. She shouldn’t anger me so much, but ever since we stopped being friends, I couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of animosity toward her.
I promised her during our Instant Messenger conversation that we’d always be friends, no matter what she said, but she’s the one who couldn’t stay friends with me. She’s the one who ended whatever friendship was between us, not me.
I didn’t deserve her anger, which I think is what ultimately pissed me off the most. And that only grew every year that I had to see her walking around school with my friends—laughing, joking, having a good time. Well, I wasn’t having a good time, and I needed a friend like her back then and she wasn’t there.
I scrub my hands over my face a couple times. The rational side of me knows that I should just let our sordid past go. That we should move forward as the adults we are now, instead of who we were back then. But she hasn’t let it go either. We have some unfinished business, and I just don’t have the capacity to dig it up and discuss it. I don’t know if I ever will.
So that brings me back to just doing my job and ignoring the way that Birdie Wilder gets me riled up in more ways than one.
