TAG (5 page)

“Don’t mention it,” he interrupts me as he pulls his bag out from the overhead compartment and turns toward the exit.

I walk through the jetway and find myself in an empty airport. My eyes drop down to my leather-braided watch and I twist the hour hand forward three hours. 5:00 a.m.

I pull my fleece out of one of my bags and drop my stuff onto one of the many empty seats before curling up in one of them. I slide my
sunglasses off and pull my phone out of my pocket. After I power it back up, I see I don’t have any messages yet, which means I have
nowhere to go. Dad always sets up a safe location for me to stay. But nothing yet. I look around again. Nothing is even open. I lean my head back and close my eyes, still feeling slightly numb from the
Valium and vodka cocktail I ingested six hours ago. I’ll just sleep until my phone buzzes.

 “I don’t think there are any connecting flights down here?” I
open my eyes and I see Tango exiting the restroom.

“I’m not connecting. Just waiting,” I say flatly.

“Me too,” he says.

Who would he be waiting for outside of a closed terminal? Although I guess he’s probably wondering the same thing about me.

“Mind if I wait over here?” he asks, pointing to the chair across from me.

“It’s a free country,” I smirk.

“Is it now?” He reaches down into his bag and pulls out his phone. He types something, looks at the screen, and fumbles with
his watch to change the time. He drops his phone back into his bag, crosses his arms behind his neck and stretches his legs out in front of him. His
eyes close, allowing me to take a better look at this very chiseled,
very beautiful specimen of a man.

Is this guy trying to play me? I lift my bags and pull them up to my lap. I stand up, looking around for a place to go, and my eyes settle on the light flickering on inside of the Dunkin Donuts.
Beautiful
. Coffee.

As I non-verbally confess my love for coffee with a simple look, I
amble toward the little shop, hearing, “Large iced with cream and sugar,” from the distance. I turn around, bewildered by his nerve. His
eyes are still closed, but a smile is dancing across his five o’clock
shadow. I roll my eyes at him. But he doesn’t see.

I move up to the counter at Dunkin Donuts and place my bags down to pull my wallet out.

“What’ll it be?” the cashier asks. Her eyelids are hardly open and the black circles under her lashes tell a story of a night that must have ended only hours ago. Her hair is piled up into a messy bun on top of her head and her shirt is wrinkled and buttoned in the wrong
button holes. My response takes longer than she appreciates, and she rests her elbows on the counter as her chin falls into her hands. Her eyes open a little more as she looks up at me, waiting for my decision.

“A medium hot coffee with cream, no sugar.”

“Will that be all?” she drones.

I glance back over my shoulder. His eyes are still closed, but I swear I still see a smirk tugging at his lips.

“I’ll also have a small hot coffee, black.”

She hands me both of my coffees and my change. “Hope your day runs on Dunkin,” she recites, ending with a yawn.

I walk back over to the seat I was sitting in and find his seat empty.
Ass
. Now I have two fucking coffees. I should have known
better. I sit back down and reach my hand with the small coffee over to the trash bin beside me.

“Whoa,” he gasps, walking up from behind me.

“What, are you playing hide and seek?” I mutter under my breath.

“No. Peek-a-boo.” He pulls a bag out from behind his back. “Cinnabon?”

“Those things are evil. The calories in those will eat you alive.”

“Eh, it could be worse,” he winks.

 “Coffee?” I hand him the small hot coffee rather than the large iced coffee he asked for.

“This isn’t what I wanted.”

“Oh. It isn’t?” I arch my eyebrows to play confused. “Oops.
Sorry,
complete stranger who asked another complete stranger for a
coffee.”

“I’m not a stranger. I already bought you a drink.”

“A nip hardly resembles a drink.”

“Well. Then, we’re still strangers.” He hides the Cinnabon bag behind his back, making me secretly drool over the delicious scent of those sinful things.

“Oh well!” I hand him his coffee. “I better start moving.” I check my watch again. Where is Dad with my damn housing information? This guy is clearly getting a little too comfortable in my presence. And I can’t have that.

“I thought you were waiting for someone?” he asks, sounding as if he doesn’t care. But if he didn’t care, why would he ask?

I did say that. “I was wrong.”

“No. That’s what some call lying.”

“What do you care?” I snap back. I wrap both hands around my cup and take a sip of the steaming deliciousness.

“I’m kidding. Relax.” Is he laughing at my hostility?
Asshole.
“You always so hard-edged?”

“Do you always act like you know people after talking to them for five minutes?” I retort.

His eyes widen and his brows rise, giving me a look as if
I’m
a
lunatic—which I am, so I’ll give him that. He drops back down into the seat across from where I’m sitting. “If you want to be technical, I talked to you seven hours ago on the plane.” He takes a sip of his coffee, his hand almost completely concealing the cup. Actually, he kind of looks like a grown man taking part in a tea party. I guess I
could have at least gotten him a medium. “So, no. I don’t always act like I know people after five minutes. It’s usually ten or twenty.” And we have a stand-up comedian here.

It’s getting harder to seem unfazed by him, probably because he
fazes me. Nevertheless, we both know in about ten minutes we’ll
never see each other again. Well, at least
I
know this.

“Well, it was kind of nice of meeting you, Tango,” I say, getting ready to make my official exit from this uncanny encounter.

“What about that text message you’ve been waiting for?” he asks.

Oh, for God’s sake. Dad fucking sent him.

“Daddy send you?”

“Quick one, aren’t ya?” He furrows his brow with a look of degradation. “He was worried about your recent—“ he fake coughs. “You know . . . you convinced your sister’s rapist to commit
suicide?” He shoves his hand into his coat pocket and pulls in another sip of
his coffee, causing an awkward silence. “Impressive if I do say so
myself. But drawing that much attention to a girl as pretty as you, won’t do well for keeping you safe.”

“Look, Tango, if that’s even your real name, which I doubt, I’m sure you’re a nice security guard and all, but I don’t need one.”

“Cool. I understand. We’re still going to be roomies and besties,” he says in a ridiculously girlish voice.

“What if I don’t want to live with you?” An amazingly sexy man, who will see me in my freaking pajamas with no make-up, all while shoving pizza into my mouth at eleven o’clock every night.

“I guess you can stay locked in your room all day, then.” He
shoots me a cunning grin.

Fuck. Why me?

“Let’s go, my dark princess,” he teases in a breathy voice.

“Freeze, Iron Man.” I place my hand out to stop him. “I have a rule about name calling.”

“Well then, Miss Carolina, shall we?” He juts his elbow out for me to loop my arm through. This guy is a real piece of work. I can’t imagine where Dad found this one. Although I can’t ignore the
temptation
that’s dangling in front of my face—this is the first bodyguard who looks like he was born in the same decade as me, and he’s apparently a charmer. But he’s still a bodyguard. Rules are rules,
even if I made them myself.

I shove his arm away and lift my bags over my shoulders. “I’m not going with you. How do I even know my dad really sent you?”

“That’s fine. You’re welcome to sit here for . . . ah . . . forever and wait for a text message you won’t receive. Or, you can come with me. I’ll pretend to leave the option up to you. How about that?” He
smirks, or winks, or maybe both. Whatever he did makes my stomach twist into an apprehensive knot.

I really thought we were done with the bodyguards. I figured he
would have learned after the last one. But as usual, Dad wants to
keep me in a bubble.

“What’s your story, Tango?” I ask before I slip inside of the revolving door, pausing the conversation briefly before the frigid
Boston air slaps me in the face. When he steps out, I continue. “So? Wrestler, ex-cop, ex-con? Those are my dad’s favorites.”

“None of the above.”

I stop and look at him. “Then, what are you?”

“Your friend. That’s it.”

“You aren’t my friend. I don’t do friendships with bodyguards.”
I turn back around and drop my bags to the ground so I can wrap
my
arms around myself. My clothing is suitable for California, not
Boston. Another brilliant move today. Yesterday. Whatever day it is.

CALI

A WHISTLE BLOWS
from behind me and a glistening silver sedan
screeches to a halt in front of us. Tango jumps in front of me and
opens the door. “Ladies first,” he gestures for me to slide in.

I grab my bags and sweep past him, knocking into him on
purpose as I drop my things into the opened trunk. I’m so irritated right now.
I can take care of myself. I’m twenty-two and I don’t need a
babysitter. He can call it whatever he wants, but that’s all this is—babysitting.

I slide into the car and stop at the first seat, forcing Tango to go around the other side. If this is the way it’s going to be, I’m not going to make it easy. I’ll drive him away. I’ll make him go running for the hills, wishing he didn’t accept this offer. My previous attraction to him is gone or hiding from the guard who has taken his place.

I fold my arms over my chest and pull my sunglasses back over my eyes. I don’t have to hide here, but I don’t want to face reality either.

Tango drops his bags into the trunk and slips in through the opposite side, settling into the leather seat. He gives me a once over
and smirks. I’m glad he finds my presence so amusing.

“Aren’t you going to tell me to put my seatbelt on now?” I say in a childish voice. That’s what all of the past bodyguards have done—treated me like I was five.

“I don’t give a shit if you put your seatbelt on. You’re the one who will go through the windshield if we’re hit. Your problem, not mine.”

I throw my head back and close my eyes. The driver closes the trunk and hops into the driver’s seat, sealing this deal. The car guns
away from the curb and takes each turn at least twenty-five miles per hour.

We’ve been driving for more than fifteen minutes, which is
quickly putting a kink in my quick escape plan. Normally, I don’t like to be
this far away from the airport. And it looks like we’re heading to
suburbia, which is even worse. A twenty-five-minute ride drops us into a newer development filled with apartments. Hopefully, I’ll be
living in one, and he’ll be living in another. But I know well enough that that wouldn’t be the case.

We step out of the sedan and I wait for the trunk to pop open so I can pull out my own bags. I don’t need someone carrying my shit for me too. I hear the pop, and I wrestle with the trunk to force it
open at a
quicker speed. I yank my bags out and throw them over my
shoulder.

“Where to, Jeeves?”

Tango effortlessly pulls his bags out of the trunk and holds them both out in front of him, accentuating his largely defined triceps. He nods to the driver and heads toward the closest building.

With much reluctance, I trail behind. We drop our bags in the center of the capacious living room, and I glance around,
familiarizing myself with my new living quarters. The smell of fresh paint mixed with a
vacuum soap smell drifts through the air. The floors are covered in a light-colored carpet, which offsets the similar but darker shade of paint on the walls. Basic furniture lines the perimeter of the room and a small oak coffee table sits perfectly in between the round of
furniture.

I look into the two bedrooms and drop my coat on the bed in the
larger bedroom. The room is staged with the essentials: bed, closet,
and desk. Looks like a dorm room.

I pull out my phone and send a message to the last random number Dad sent me:
Thanks a lot, Dad.

I throw my phone down on the stripped bed and return to the living room for my bags. I find Tango in the corner of the room popping some pills into his mouth.
Hmm.
I groan silently to myself
while wondering why his striking presence is becoming more infuriating by the minute. I thought I just told myself I was over the good looks. He’s a guard, not a model. I don’t like guards.

I snatch up my bags quietly, careful to avoid any further conversation for the moment. I need some time to digest all of this.