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Chapter 21
Lindsay
The gentle tap on the door seems too timid for a true emergency. I’m naked, we’re sticky, and my mouth is dry, like someone blotted all the moisture out. Forgetting momentarily about my broken shoulder, I start to sit up, then let out a tiny scream.
Drew is off the bed, feet on the floor, hand on his gun in under a second. He holds it pointing down, but every muscle in his naked body is flexed, ready to act.
“What? What’s wrong?” He’s so precise. It’s shocking. As he scans the room, he’s so serious, so deadly, the laugh dies in my throat.
Drew stretches up, body honed in on the hotel room door, where someone on the other side says, “Drew? It’s Adam. We have a situation.”
“Who’s Adam?” I ask as Drew shoves his feet into his suit pants, skipping underwear, buttoning the pants but not bothering with the belt.
“Old buddy,” he says as he marches to the door, gun tucked into the waistband of the pants. I almost laugh, because it looks so weird, right there above his hot, hard ass.
The door opens. I sit up, feeling exposed and vulnerable, my shoulder such an obstacle. The two have a conversation in low voices, then Drew says thank you, closes the door, and comes into the room.
Holding an iPad.
“Your parents are waiting to FaceTime with us, Lindsay,” he says.
I point to the iPad with my good hand. “You mean now?”
He shakes his head slowly. “Yeah. Gentian tried, but apparently Harry figured it all out pretty quickly. Someone at the license bureau knew who you were and called him, wanting money to hold off on going public. You know how it works.” He’s cynical. He should be.
I do know how this works.
“My parents are live on that?” I point to the iPad.
“Yeah. I’ve got them muted.”
“Oh, Mom must be flipping out.”
He turns the screen to me. I pull the covers up, making sure I’m decent. Mom is screaming at the screen, her perfectly-coiffed blonde head like staring at a cream-colored snowball on fire. She’s in a red rage.
I can’t help it.
I start laughing.
Drew sets the tablet on the nightstand, face down. “Let’s get ourselves set up,” he says, offering me a few pillows as I sit up. “Do you want a shirt?” he asks as I settle in, propping up my slung arm on an extra pillow.
“No,” I respond, pulling the covers over my breasts, tucking the sheet under my arms. “Screw it. Screw them.” I hold out my ringed hand and he takes it. He’s wearing a simple gold band the Elvis impersonator sold us for fifty bucks. I like how our hands look together.
“Okay.” He looks at his own unclothed chest. The light smattering of hair across his pecs is just enough to make me want to touch him, to feel it tickle my palm. I hold back. His bruises are fading, like mine, but they tell a story.
They’re memory in the body, stored until it can heal. Then the memory moves on, living solely in the mind.
“Ready?” he asks. We’re next to each other on the bed. Drew turned on the nightstand lights. We hold hands. He takes his knees and props them up, placing the tablet on them.
“Ready.”
He hits unmute.
“ -- you are crazy! Lindsay, you get right back here now. This makes it abundantly clear that you need psychiatric help! Who runs off and gets married like this? Only an unstable, traumatized woman who has been manipulated by her -- ”
“Hi Mom!” I chirp, waving with my good hand, moving slowly so she sees the rings. “Thank you so much for your blessing.” I grin, nice and wide, ignoring my split lip.
Drew giggles.
