Page 121 of South Beach Bodyguards

“Whatever works for you, man.”

“So give me a few days on this. We’ll see what we can find out about your brother. If he’s alive, we’ll find him. There is no such thing as off the grid in today’s world. I don’t care how fucking smart you think you are.”

Max thought he was pretty damn smart.

But it was time for my brother to stop being a pussy and come out and play with me.

The last time I saw Max I had cried over leaving him to go on tour. I was going to be gone for eight weeks and it felt like years of separation. I wasn’t used to touring yet. Max had smiled and tweaked my nose and told me not to worry. That time would fly by.

In a sense it had. It had been five years now since that fateful tour and the phone calls I had made frantically looking for Max. I was no longer twenty-five and still immature for my age. At the time I started touring, I had never been anywhere outside of Miami without my family and I hadn’t left Max’s side since we had started dating. I was sheltered and naïve in the beginning.

Not any more.

Not even after a year into my relationship with Max.

He had a way of doing that—of drawing people in, rattling their world, and sauntering off. I knew that. But he had never been that way with me. That was what frustrated me so much about everyone’s opinions on Max and where he might be. No one knew that man like me. No one.

I sat across from my best friend from high school, Zoe. We were at her parents’ house because they had a pool. In high school I had spent hours and hours here. Before I met Max and found out just how much I loved being his sidekick, enjoying his attention and protection.

“So you legitimately just asked Alejandro to give you a baby.” She was staring at me like she couldn’t believe I had actually gone through with it.

I nodded. “Yes. Only I screwed up. I just blurted it out without any warning or prep or anything and he turned the tables on me, Zo. Big time.”

Her mother had laid a brunch spread out for us and Zoe popped a grape in her mouth. “How? I mean, it’s kind of a yes or no question, right? Take my sperm or hell no, you can’t have my sperm.”

Except there was a third option. One that made me feel warm from more than the South Florida sunshine. “He said he’ll only help me out if we actually do it. Sex.” Just in case that wasn’t clear. “Like make a baby the old-fashioned way.”

Zoe stared at me. “Hello.” She was tan with dark hair that she kept pin straight. I had always envied that her skin tone allowed her to wear virtually any color or pattern. Today she had on a yellow bikini and she looked relaxed, confident, at ease.

One of the best things about coming back to Miami was going to be that we could hang out in person again. She had a boyfriend but they were still new-ish in their relationship and weren’t spending every waking moment together.

“So are you going to boom boom with Alejandro?” she asked, raising her eyebrows up and down.

She wasn’t acting as outraged as I had expected her to. “You don’t think it’s weird that he asked that? I mean, it’s not really appropriate.”

“Don’t be a prude. You’re asking him essentially a huge favor. Hey, let’s make a baby, but then you stay the fuck out of it. I don’t blame him for at least wanting to get off in the process.”

At moments like this, I always felt like I’d been born in the wrong decade. I was pretty sure that I was supposed to be a 1940s chorus girl who went home to her midcentury modern home and cooked dinner for her delightfully charming husband, who wore a skinny tie. I was a woman who liked to be in a relationship. I wanted equality for women, for sure, but with feminism came the right to choose the life I wanted—and that was to be a veritable domestic goddess. I didn’t want to hit the party scene and hook up with guys on dating apps. It just wasn’t me.

And I didn’t want to have sex with Alejandro just to give him five minutes of pleasure in return for something as amazing as giving me a child. That was not a fair exchange and it felt trite. Cheap.

“Any woman can get him off. He doesn’t need me to get laid. Have you seen him lately?” I asked her, adjusting my chiffon cover-up printed with pineapples. “He’s hot. He’s built. And he can have any woman he wants.”

“Sure. I saw him like six months ago in the Grove at a bar. He is super hot and yes, women were falling all over him.”

I wasn’t sure I really wanted her to confirm it for me. I shoved a piece of bacon in my mouth and chewed. “Exactly.”

“But apparently he wants you. Which is intriguing.”

“It’s actually really terrifying.” It was. “Because I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to make him angry so that he won’t help me.” But I wasn’t sure I could have sex with him and not get emotional or feel weird about it.

“If he gets angry that you don’t want his dick in you to create a baby then he can go fuck himself. Sperm is everywhere. Every guy has millions. It’s not like his is so damn special.”

Actually it was. Sometimes when I least expected it grief kicked me in the gut. I had gone to therapy. I had moved on, in theory. But I still missed Max and the messy connection we had had. I couldn’t help it. And Alejandro was my last connection to Max.

“Oh no,” Zoe said. “No, no, no. Don’t do that. Don’t get all weepy and googly-eyed over Max. It’s been five years, Mandy. He doesn’t deserve you sitting around doing Hail Marys and shit.”

“Hail Marys and shit?” I asked, annoyed. “Do you want me to go tell your mother what you just said?”

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