“I’m not playing.”
“You can’t not play,” Jane replies. “And you know I’m dreadfully serious when I use a double negative.”
Sulli bites into a donut and with a full mouth says, “Uncle Lo and my dad always have alternative rules for sober players.”
Janie perks up. “Take off an article of clothing every time someone screams.”
“Ce n'est pas une bonne idée,” I say in French so only Jane can understand. That’s not a good idea. Yeah, I came already today, and I can will-away an erection by sheer mental concentration. But not if I’m stripping beside Farrow. Look, there are some things that can’t be easily hidden.
My huge, rock-hard cock is one of them.
Everyone is staring at me but Farrow. He edges away from me, and then he leaves to the kitchen with his empty beer bottle.
Jane says, “Je n’ai pas d’autre idée que celle-ci.” I have no other idea but this one.
I glance at Sulli and remember her trepidation about the party failing. I don’t want to disappoint my cousin over a boner. I shut my eyes in a long blink. Trying to scrub away that last bizarre thought.
“Alright,” I say, eyes open. “Every other scream, I’ll take off an article of clothing but I stop before my underwear.” The room agrees, and Farrow returns with a new pale ale and one of Janie’s pastel blue blankets. He tosses the blanket to me and sinks back down.
Just as close as before. Shoulder-to-shoulder. His presence is a furnace, boiling me from head-to-toe. Don’t get caught. How’s that mantra? If I repeat it over and over, I should be able to avoid an erection. Definitely.
Don’t get fucking caught.
Janie presses play, and about ten minutes into the movie, Farrow calls out, “Akara, are you on the clock or do you just love Jane’s décor?” He must’ve been surveying the room.
An actress suddenly shrieks. Everyone drinks, and I pull my shirt off over my head and toss the thing aside. I lean back beside Farrow. He’s trying to suppress a smile.
That’s rare.
Jane keeps the conversation alive. “Akara, you love how I decorated this place?”
“I didn’t say that,” he says.
“My brother likes your decorations,” Quinn tells her. “He calls it Retro Granny Realness.”
Janie beams.
“I think it’s hella fucking cute,” Sulli tells her.
“Thank you, Sullivan,” Janie replies. “Will you be my new bodyguard?”
“Of course, I’ll protect you to the fucking death.”
“And follow me around everywhere I go?”
“Everywhere.”
“Heyheyhey,” Quinn cuts in, extending his arm towards Sulli. “Don’t take my job. It’s not for sale.”
Jane beams harder. Her last, retired bodyguard never voiced his enjoyment of being on her detail.
“Too bad you’re not in charge of transfers, Quinn,” Farrow tells him. “Only Akara can decide that.”
Sulli nudges Akara’s arm. “What’d you say, Kits? Put me on Jane’s detail?” Kits.
My cousin has a special nickname for her bodyguard. Off his last name Kitsuwon, but still, it’s a nickname. Farrow has a nickname for me. Two plus two equals…
Huh.
My mind needs to just stop for the night. I swear I’m going to reach a new circle of hell for paranoid souls.
Akara nods to Sulli. “When you can beat me in the ring, you can take Jane’s detail.” He sounds serious, but maybe he knows she’d never beat him. He was trained in Muay Thai since he was six.
Sulli crinkles her nose. “But I’m a lover not a fighter.”
His lips quirk. “Sorry, Sul. Gotta pass on you then. You’d make a shit bodyguard.”
Jane clutches her heart. “Say it isn’t so.”
“Drink,” Farrow calls out as the word sleep is said on-screen. The horror movie engrosses all of us for the next twenty minutes. I’ve seen everyone grab three refills.
Sulli is on her sixth beer.
Yeah, I’m counting.
And I have zero clothes left to shed. Down to my dark green boxer-briefs. The blanket was a tactical maneuver by Farrow in case I spring a boner. I’m fine. I stopped watching him swig his beer, and my brain and dick are cooperating with me for once.
Thankfully.
My phone pings a few times. I respond to my siblings. Most of whom are pissed they weren’t invited to Hallow Friends Eve.
Kinney is the most vexed.
You turd. You don’t even know what horror is – Kinney
We’ll do a Halloween movie night at mom and dad’s another time. Promise. I reply.
She sends a skull and cross bones emoji.
I don’t want them around alcohol yet. Not when I’m hanging out with men in their twenties. My sister is thirteen. She can stay thirteen.
And Luna—she’s walking a fragile line with our parents after the tongue piercing. I’m doing her a favor by not extending an invite.
Plus, if we invited Luna, we’d have to invite Jane’s two brothers, Eliot Cobalt and Tom Cobalt. Which would probably end with me calling the fire department or our on-call doctor.
So that’s pretty much why we made the “high school graduates only” invite stipulation.
“Sulli?” Her bodyguard’s concerned voice steals my attention. He leans over my cousin and cups her cheek. “Hold on…” He stands and easily hurdles the loveseat.
Sulli hugs her legs tighter to her chest, and then she rests her forehead to her kneecaps. She’s dizzy.
“Sulli,” I start, about to stand, but Akara returns with a new box of donuts.
“Eat this.” He hands Sulli a plain glazed donut. “You can kill your buzz with food.” He pries the beer out of her fingers.
“Thanks,” she mutters and lifts her head enough to grab the donut.
Jane strokes her black cat Lady Macbeth. “The first time I got drunk, I puked everywhere,” she tells Sulli. “Moffy held my hair.” She rests her cheek on my shoulder. I wrap my arm around hers.
“First time I got drunk, I passed out in my own piss,” Quinn says. “Don’t ask.”
Farrow sets aside his empty bottle. “And now I’m going to—”
An object shatters the curtained front-window. Followed by quick, violent pop pop pop pop…
Pop.
24
MAXIMOFF HALE
FIRECRACKERS.
Are you fucking kidding me—I launch to my feet while all three bodyguards bolt into action.
“Farrow!” Akara yells and points to the front door, then he captures his radio off a sleeping bag. “Akara to Alpha. Akara to Alpha.”
Farrow is already sprinting to the exit, and I’m not far behind with hot pinpointed eyes, seething inside-out. Someone broke my window with the intent to harm my family. Those could’ve been gunshots. It’s all I feel.
And I see red.
Farrow grabs the knob, but he suddenly whips around on me. He puts his hand to my bare chest, stopping me from reaching the door. Ire blisters his vigilant gaze in a way that I’ve never seen directed at me.
“Quinn, don’t near the window, there’s glass on the ground!” Akara yells. “Take the girls and Moffy upstairs to the bathroom and lock the door!”
My raging pulse hammers in the pit of my ears.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Farrow sneers at me. “You can’t follow me.” I spot the briefest flash of concern, of trepidation, before his gaze mortars hard and hot again.
I clench my teeth. I need to help. I have to fucking help. The intrinsic need bangs at my head, my ribcage, my heart, and I don’t know how to turn away.
I don’t know how to hide in a bathroom and wait.
“I see him!” Quinn suddenly yells. He charges towards us. Storming through Farrow and me to fling open the door, he runs urgently into the pitch-black night. Paparazzi who’ve been camping out on my street awaken like dormant fireflies and hornets.
Bright in the dark. And ready to sting.
&nbs
p; Quickly, Farrow warns me, “Don’t. Follow.” Then he bolts outside, tracing Quinn’s hurried footsteps. Farrow’s caustic voice scalds my fucking ears.
He’s trying to protect me. It’s as simple as that.
My hands stay balled in fists, but I turn to find Jane and Sulli, to keep them safe—
“CARPENTER!” Jane screams bloody-murder, the sound lancing my heart. Everything happens fast—she tears back downstairs and out of Sulli’s grasp.
“Jane!” Sulli yells, almost falling down the staircase after her, but Akara grabs Sulli by the waist. “KITS!”
“You have to stay here!” Akara shouts. “JANE!”
“MOFFY! CARPENTER!” Jane screams, alarmed tears already soaking her cheeks. I try to shut the door, keeping the cats inside, but she shrieks, “HE’S ALREADY OUTSIDE! HE’S OUTSIDE!”
Walrus, the other kitten darts past my ankles, and I reach to catch him, but he scampers into the night. I don’t waste time. I chase the fucking animal down.
Running outside.
These indoor cats are her babies, and we live in the city. Where cars constantly speed by. If one dies—she’ll be gutted. It’s all I think.
All I know.
I fucking run. Onto the sidewalk, towards the street parking. I see Walrus scampering beneath a parked car.