Page 49 of South Beach Bodyguards

Until now.

This was a Grade A fuck up.

I might recover but it was going to take some time.

I also sincerely hoped Juan Carlos rotted in prison for the next ten years or so. But that was bad karma so I tried to dismiss the negative thoughts. Instead, I just dug my fingers into Buster’s fur and bent my head over to kiss him. At least he loved me. Buster licked my face.

Whoever said diamonds were a girl’s best friend had never had a dog.

“If you are going to move out I want Ryan to get you a gun,” my mother said.

I stared at her, incredulous. “Are you nuts? I’m not touching a gun. That’s what got me knocked on the head and kicked in the ribs.”

My mother gasped.

“And if I did decide I wanted a gun, I wouldn’t ask Ryan. He wants nothing to do with me.”

My mother pursed her lips.

I sighed. “What does that look mean?”

“Nothing.”

Exactly. Nothing. That’s what me and Ryan were.

I was so close to the man pointing a gun at our client I could see that he needed to trim the hair on the back of his neck. He didn’t know I was there, watching him through the blinds, on the other side of the exterior wall. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I felt a rush of adrenaline. I wasn’t scared. I liked this- that rush of danger, the realization that I was protecting someone. I didn’t care about my own safety.

My father hadn’t wanted me to take this assignment. He was worried about me. He thought I was taking too many risks. Which I was. But it was a form of punishment and I knew it. I was punishing myself for putting Isabel in danger. For leaving her alone in that hotel room, like the world’s biggest prick.

It was with a certain sense of fucking glee that I went back down in a crouch and maneuvered around the side of the building. Our client was one of my dad’s sketchier acquaintances, involved in illegal off-short gambling and a little side racketeering. This wasn’t normally the type of job I liked, but now I was getting a rush out of walking straight into danger. It was like I was trying to prove that my job was so shady I was right to leave Isabel in that hotel room like that.

But I wasn’t right to do that. And I knew it. So I was doing stupid shit in order to avoid facing that. I had been punishing myself over and over every day for the last two months and it was getting worse, not better.

This guy had gotten inside the house from a back door that was being guarded by a co-worker of mine, who wasn’t willing to risk his life. He would be better off on assignments that involved escorting celebrities to events inside of something like this. But whatever. I would handle it. I relished the idea.

I didn’t know who the intruder was, only that he clearly wasn’t wanted as my client had his hands up. It clearly wasn’t law enforcement either, which was all I needed to know. I came in through the kitchen door, making sure I didn’t click the lock back in place. Stealthy isn’t easy when you’re six foot five but I was actually pretty light on my feet from boxing at the gym. I had the guy on the floor and contained before he even knew what the hell hit him.

He was still holding his gun, I yanked his arms hard, rolling him on to his back. The curse was cursing me and I had no idea if there were bullets in that gun or not. I wasn’t sure I cared. A red haze of anger seemed to have settled over my eyes, my nostrils flaring as I grinned down at him, my knee in his gut. “What?” I said. “You want to shot me? Go for it, motherfucker.”

Whatever he saw in my eyes made him stop swearing. Though when I grabbed his wrist and jerked it to knock the gun away, he did spit at me. The wet spray hit my chin and neck and I pushed harder on his gut, swearing some of my own choice words. Quickly I made sure the safety was still on his gun, which it was, and I tucked it in my waistband. “Get up.”

“Make me.”

“My pleasure.” I stood and yanked him to his feet. Then I pointed my own gun in his face. “What are you doing here? What the fuck do you want?”

“None of your business.”

“It’s okay,” my client said from several feet away where he was straightening his suit jacket. “This is my cousin.”

“For real?” I eyed the client, trying to gauge if he was playing a game or telling the truth.

But he just nodded and he looked sincere.

What terrified me is that I was actually disappointed. I lowered my gun.

When I went home that home I waved to my neighbor, went inside my lonely apartment and stared at the refrigerator. I had beer in there, but I wanted something stronger. I decided to walk to the store for a bottle of whiskey. The streets were getting more and more crowded by the day as we inched our way towards spring break and the peak of high season. In North Beach, a lot of the tourists were South American, and for once, I actually appreciated that I didn’t understand Spanish. There were no conversations to snag my attention, just private moments between strangers I couldn’t understand as I walked, angry and appalled with myself.

This wasn’t good. I wasn’t on a good path. Self-loathing wasn’t going to fix shit. The irony was that I didn’t want to be my dad or my mom and yet, I had freaked the fuck out over staying a night in a bed with Isabel and had abandoned her. Just like I had been abandoned. I had done it a second time by not calling or visiting her after she got knocked out by Juan because I couldn’t deal with the fact that I had let her down.

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