Page 2 of The Baller

Millie caught sight of Jake’s face, let out a hearty snort and stood up, flashing her perfectly straight, Hollywood smile his way. “Let’s go, Robin.”

His face remained impassive as usual, and I almost felt bad that my mom had switched him from her detail, but it was the only way she’d let me leave D.C. He would never complain, but moving from protecting the President of the United States to babysitting her teenage daughter had to feel like a downgrade – though dealing with Millie was likely preferable to the lunatics surrounding my mom day-in-day-out.

Six of one and all that…

“Hey, you guys, you know Jake doesn’t like it when you gang up on him,” I joked quietly, stepping in line behind Meg.

“He’s just in a mood because he had to sit through Women and Victorian England this morning.”

I coaxed out a small laugh, forcing myself to look as natural as possible so that everyone watching us leave could report absolutely nothing of interest about Radley Andrews when they told their friends/parents/anybody who’d listen that she was sitting next to them at lunch.

Because when the story was repeated, I’d always be sitting next to them.

Instead, what I was really doing was my best to ignore the way the heads of everyone who’d also chosen to have their lunch at Mickey’s 24-Hour Sandwiches twitched in that way that meant you were trying to get a good look, but didn’t want to get caught doing so.

“Someone needs to remind Millie that I’m armed,” Jake muttered under his breath from close behind me as we passed through the diner’s kitchen.

Two more special agents were standing at either end of the narrow alleyway we stepped out into. Millie closely missed a puddle of soapy water as she startled away from a cloud of steam shooting out from a pipe in the wall, and I had to bite down on my lip to stop the laughter at the way her face screwed up. Because it was either laugh or cry.

I was getting better at laughing.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, taking her hand.

Her warm fingers wrapped around mine as she squeezed me gently. “Nothing to be sorry for. Front doors are overrated.”

“Copy,” Jake held down his earpiece and looked at me. “Okay, we’re good to head to the bookstore. Ava is waiting there for you, and you’ll be pleased to know it’s quiet. But we have to go that way…” he pointed down the alley to where Special Agent Ethan O’Leary was standing.

My brows shot upwards, and I thumbed behind me. “The store is the other way, though.”

“Yeah, but we’re going this way. Unless you want to get in the car?”

I could almost hear the pleading in his eyes for me to take the vehicular option, but I wanted to walk, and Jake knew it. The deal I had with coming to Columbia and getting out of D.C. was that as long as I had reasonable protection, then I would I live as normally as I could. My mom and I differed on our opinions of what constituted as reasonable, but it wasn’t an argument I won.

Even though he’d been with the Secret Service for thirteen years, his youthful appearance – or Baby-Face Jake as Millie had taken to calling him, against my strong objection – meant he could easily pass as a fellow student, instead of the thirty-five-year-old he was. He’d perfected the Columbia University post-grad aesthetic, albeit a post-grad student whose jacket hid a SIG-Sauer pistol he could shoot dead-center from twenty-five yards.

His team was equally as deadly.

While I fundamentally opposed my freedom being curtailed in the way that meant every minute of my day was monitored, it was hard to be mad at Jake, Meg, Ethan, Ava Hernandez – or any of the guys who switched out for night duty – when they were just doing their jobs. Especially when their job meant taking a bullet for me.

Or stepping in to stop an overzealous frat boy with an iPhone, as was more likely.

Therefore, I kept my mouth shut, and went about my days trying to cause as little trouble as possible, especially as I’d already caused enough.

Throwing an apologetic smile at Jake, I hitched my backpack up and looped my free arm through Millie’s, leading her out of the alley. Ethan waited until we reached the sidewalk, nodded, and walked ahead without a word, knowing we’d be behind him, ambling under the Columbia University flags flying from each streetlight.

With the other agents close by, Millie and I were now in a protective little circle. To the untrained eye, we were two college girls walking down the street, heads together while we gossiped and laughed, and made our way to collect the textbooks our professor had requested we order. If you looked closer, you’d see we were probably the two safest girls in New York City.

It didn’t make me feel any better though, especially when my entire body stiffened at anyone approaching us on the street, even though they always walked straight past.

I gripped Millie as a guy jogged toward us, sighing deeply as he continued on. “Mills, do you think I should have stayed in D.C.?”

She inched closer to me as we stepped off the sidewalk to let a mom with a stroller fit through. “Waddya mean?”

“For school, do you think I should have gone to G.W. instead of Columbia? Or deferred another year?”

She shook her head. “Nope, because then I’d have to be here by myself and I’d be forced to talk to other people, which we both know I’d hate.”

The first proper laugh I’d had all day rolled up from my belly at the ridiculousness of that statement. Millie might complain about people, but she was always the center of anyroom she walked, or more aptly,struttedinto, without giving a single care to anyone watching. Everyone loved her; they flocked to her because of her dry wit and a dirty, gravelly laugh which always made her sound like she’d been drinking bourbon at the back of a smoke-filled Nashville bar her entire life. Not to mention the way her face always lit up as she told a joke.

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