Mostly, yeah, I do. It’ll be a good time, and I like to strive towards those good things. Happy things. Lucky things. The things that make you stretch your arms out wide and breathe.
Old Donnelly would just pick someone up at the bar. Bring ‘em along. Not caring that they’d likely end the morning crawling out of bed and wishing they hadn’t slept with me.
New Donnelly isn’t as interested in that.
I don’t know why.
And then I do. I just don’t want it to be true. Because life is easier if I just move along without considering Luna Hale in everything. I don’t need to be thinking about her. Wondering what she’s doing.
What she’s up to.
I’ve never really been friends with a girl. And she’s the first girl that’s just a friend to me, and it’s been fucking me up, honestly.
After I send a text to Xander, telling him I’m here, a low growl lifts my eyes.
A fluffy, black-furred dog is guarding the Hales’ staircase. At least she’s not baring her teeth at me, but the deep rumble against her throat is telling me to get lost.
I’m not scared away that easily.
Think that must’ve been a pro in my bodyguard resume. Paul Donnelly is gonna stick around through all the terrifying things.
“Salem.” I gently greet Kinney’s dog from afar. She’s big. Weighs probably a buck-ten, and she’s considered a puppy. Not even two-years-old yet, the Hales’ four Newfoundlands are still growing.
I take a step (not even in her direction), and Salem arches her head. Growl deepening.
I freeze in place. “Still not liking me?” I look her over. “You know your whole litter has no problem with me. Arkham, Orion, Erebor—they all love me. Except you. What gives?”
Drool drips off the Newfie’s mouth and wets the hardwood.
Slipping my phone in my back pocket, I slowly crouch down to pick up the second coffee off the floor—every inch lower, she growls and twitches like she’s close to charging. “Vested by the power of Wawa. I come in peace.” I make a quick grab, both coffees in hand again.
She doesn’t lunge.
I smirk. She might not like me, but I still love her. “We have something in common, you should know. We’d do just about anything to protect the Hales.”
Salem lets out an uncertain growl.
Protecting this family might be my job, but there’s something about being a bodyguard that has never felt much like a job to me.
It’s not work. Not when it’s my whole world—when it’s something I look forward to day and night, something I know I’d miss, something I’m trying tooth and nail to preserve.
I guess it’s more like a purpose.
For once, I get to help people. I get to help them survive tomorrow. I get to be relied on and depended on and trusted upon, and I know I can do it. I’ve done it for six years already, and I’m pretty damn good at it, if I do say so myself.
Salem shuffles side to side, further blocking the staircase. Wasn’t going up there anyway. I’m just waiting down here for—
“You.”
I go cold at the sharp-edged voice.
My face drops with my smile, dread snaking down my spine, and I lift my gaze off Salem and to a different sort of threat.
Loren Hale has emerged from the kitchen, the door swinging shut behind him. Like always, he looks like he wants to annihilate me.
2
PAUL DONNELLY
Goal: Don’t run into Loren Hale Failed.
New Goal: Don’t let Loren Hale scare the shit outta me.
“Me,” I nod to him. “You. Morning.” I don’t say sir. Not after he scolded me for using sir on him some years ago. This was all after I tattooed Luna.
His daughter.
In total, I’ve inked her three different times.
1.) The tour bus. I tattooed song lyrics on her forearm and the cutest flying saucer on her ribcage. Sorta close to her bra line. That’s where she wanted it, but if it was a bad placement, I would’ve said something.
2.) Closing hours at Superheroes & Scones in the backroom, right after the FanCon tour ended. I tattooed a shooting star near her hipbone.
3.) Her bedroom. I tattooed a fine-line galaxy from her hip, down her thigh, stopping at her knee. Best work I’ve ever done, honestly. I made sure of it.
Four tattoos altogether.
Got chewed out every time her dad found out, but it was really during the second verbal lashing that he started getting to me.
I always knew he had the power to get me fired, but it was only then that I realized how much he really wanted me gone.
Tattooing Luna a third time—the galaxy leg piece—after I told her dad I wouldn’t was a choice. My choice. Questionable? I dunno.
I’d do it again.
How about that?
I’ve run a bulldozer right over his trust in me, and I know the only reason I’m still a bodyguard is because his youngest son loves me. That love is probably what bothers Loren Hale the most. Because if Xander just felt meh about me, I wouldn’t be here.