Page 53 of The Bodyguard

I frown. “Okay. Where’s this coming from? It was only a few days ago you were telling me I was better off where I was. With my parents.”

“Things have changed.” There’s something in his eyes I can’t read, and I can’t look away from him, which is fine, because I don’t want to. He has really nice eyes. Clear blue with almost silver-like flecks, it’s a colour you don’t see that often. “And I wish they hadn’t, I don’t do this shit, Lena. I don’t. But you…” He breaks the stare; bows his head, and shakes it. “No. Forget it. Forget I said anything.”

I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do that. “Why?”

He looks up, but he remains silent. And I know – I can see it, he wants to say something, but he’s stopping himself.

He downs a mouthful of beer and turns his head away, and his face is a mask of frustration, his jaw clenched. And then he faces me again, and his eyes are harder now. Colder.

“I have a job to do, Lena, and you have no idea…”

Once again he dips his gaze, and I watch as his fingers tighten their grip around the bottle of beer he’s holding.

“No idea about what? Bodie, you said you wanted to talk to me. You told me you think I should move back home, why would you suggest that when…?”

“I want to be alone with you.” His head snaps back up, his eyes burning into mine, so fiercely I fall back into my seat. “I want it to be just you and me, some time to ourselves when I don’t have to think about…”

He sighs, so heavily his entire body sags with the weight of it.

“Think about what?”

He keeps his eyes down; drags a hand through his hair. “I don’t want to put you in any danger.”

“I’m alreadyindanger, apparently. That’s why you’re here. Isn’t it?”

“In a way.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

He raises his head, and his eyes are warmer now, the coldness that had been there before, that was just a front. Something to hide behind, I know it. I feel it. And I don’t know whether that’s exciting or scary or both. Probably both. But I’m also a little confused, what he’s saying, not all of it is making sense.

“I can’t afford to be distracted.”

“Is that what I am? A distraction?”

He’s trying hard to suppress a smile but I can see it playing at the corners of his mouth. “You shouldn’t be. I tried to fight it, I really did…”

He’s not great at finishing sentences today, and I reach out and touch his hand with my fingertips, a small gesture, but I just want to touch him, to be honest.

“Is there someone else? I know you said you didn’t have a girlfriend or a wife but there might be someone…”

“There isn’t. There’s no-one.”

The second he says that, he shifts his gaze again, and I think that, yeah, okay, maybe there isn’t anyone now, but there has been. Might have been. Whether he likes it or not he’s showing more than he probably wants to, as far as his emotions are concerned. But I’m not going to push it. If there’s anything he wants to talk about, he’ll bring it up. And right now, we’re nowhere near that level of closeness. We may never be, ever, and just thinking about that fills me with a brutal, sweeping emptiness.

“It’s getting harder to pretend,” he murmurs quietly, almost as if he’s saying it to himself. He still isn’t looking at me. “But we need to keep doing that.” His eyes are back on me, and there’s a steely determination in there now. “We need to keep pretending, Lena.”

“I know.”

His fingers slide between mine, and I feel my breath catch and my stomach flip, and I never thought I’d feel like a walking, talking cliché but that’s exactly what I feel like. And I’m okay with that. I’m so okay with that.

“So, when you said you think I should move back home…?”

“I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry. It came out because for the past couple of days all I’ve been able to think about is you; what we did. How it made me feel…”

His phone ringing out stops him in his tracks, and I can’t help but feel annoyed at the person who’s trying to contact him. Their timing sucks!

“I need to get this.” He lets go of my hand and gets up. “Stay there. I won’t be long.”

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