Tingles covered my whole body like little kisses as all my fear melted away. Only a small knot in my stomach tortured me. Two awesome guys were coming to my rescue, and I had to be the luckiest girl alive. The fear of running into Senator Randolph flitted away. I felt like jumping up and down and clapping. Luckily, my body was too tired to do that, and besides I’m sure Alex and Rick would have turned around and run away in embarrassment, if I had. Total dorkdom. I imagined splitting in two and running to each of them, kissing their soft lips and holding them tightly—a very strange sensation.
I knew what I needed to do about the mess I found myself in with these two guys, but Alex looked confident and stunning, while Rick looked open and charming. I felt my conviction waver. How could I let them go? Maybe it could wait. We only had a few days left together. Maybe I could just let it slide.
It made me nervous thinking about being alone with the two of them, though. What would happen? What would we talk about?
Kira and Marybeth surprised me by jumping out from behind the guys and running toward me. .
“Surprise!” they yelled in unison. I jumped, drawing in a deep breath. The guys both looked back, as if they weren’t aware the girls had been there, either. Why were they so happy to see me? Just yesterday they were upset with me. Fickle girls.
“Did you really faint in front of all of those people?” Kira mocked me, her eyes darting to Rick and then back to me. My face flashed hot. I guess they weren’t happy to see me, after all. They just wanted to make fun of me and try to make me look bad in front of the guys.
If she only knew why I’d lost it in that meeting, she wouldn’t have been so smug, and she certainly wouldn’t be trying to gain points with Rick by ridiculing me.
Marybeth eyed my bandaged head. “Does it hurt?” Her concern, at least, did seem genuine. I doubted she knew how to be anything but genuine anyway. I just hoped she hadn’t told Kira about Rick in a weak moment.
“I’d have to kill myself if that had happened to me,” Kira continued, the sharp edge to her comments cutting like a knife. I had been teased my whole life, it wasn’t anything new, but I had found something different here on this trip, and Kira was ruining it all.
I knew Kira was insecure because of how Rick treated me in front of her, but I didn’t realize she could be so vicious. I thought she was my friend. Then again, I guess I hadn’t been the best friend to her, either. Even though kissing Rick hadn’t been planned, I had kissed him, after I told her I was totally not interested. Maybe I deserved to be treated poorly.
The spicy smell in the air told me the guys had finally reached me. Rick stood behind Marybeth, looking at my head and then sweeping my whole body with his eyes. I kind of wanted to hide, but I loved the rollercoaster sensation it gave me to have someone look at me that way.
“Are you okay?’ he mouthed, without a sound.
I nodded. My heart beat faster at thinking he cared about me.
I felt fingers brush mine and turning the other way, I saw Alex smiling, his eyes sparkling. He could be so mischievous. A waft of his cologne hung in the air. I giggled quietly, enjoying the lingering tingle in my fingertips. His attempt at being sneaky excited me. I was glad he hadn’t grabbed my hand in front of everyone. It would have been extremely awkward. The logistics of being liked by two guys were complicated.
Kira rambled on about her intern shadowing experience as we got into the elevator. Rick stood next to me, and I could feel his warm arm pressing against mine, keeping the blood rushing through my veins. I didn’t see Alex get in with us. When we stepped out of the elevator, I realized Alex’s cologne wasn’t in the air any more. Where had he gone?
Unfortunately, we were on our way to sit through another dry, boring question-and-answer session with Mrs. J. Just thinking about it made my whole body shift into low gear. I started feeling fuzzy, like I couldn’t and didn’t want to try to stay awake. I looked at the huge clock on the wall. Oh, man! I couldn’t sleep for another forty-five minutes. This was going to be a long forty-five minutes.
Rick walked behind me, his gentle hand ushering me to our table.
“I’ll get you something to eat,” he said, pulling a chair out for me.
My head told me to go with him, that it wasn’t a good idea for me to rest yet, but all my body wanted to do was sit. My legs felt like rubber and I could hardly feel my hands. The few steps more I took to my seat seemed off, like I was walking on a tilted floor. I hadn’t realized that not sleeping last night and hitting my head could produce such silly feelings. I wanted to bust out laughing, but chose to sit instead.
As I leaned forward to rest my head, a familiar, spicy smell returned. Alex! I sat as upright as I could. He carried two trays, stacked high with all sorts of food. I guess he had hurried downstairs to get me dinner. He was too much. He unloaded the trays onto our table and then walked away. I looked at the food and heard my stomach rumble, but I didn’t know if I wanted to eat. I decided it would take too much energy and pushed my plate to the side and laid my head on the table, closing my eyes. Having no sleep last night was catching up to me. I felt strange, fuzzy all over. My body buzzed now, almost asleep. I really wanted more of Alex, but was too tired to go for it.
“Hey, sleepy head.” Alex’s voice sounded too far away to be important. He pulled my shoulders up and my head lolled to the side. Somewhere in my mind I heard Alex laugh. “I brought your dinner, Christy. It’s time to eat,” he said, trying to hold me up and sit down in his seat at the same time.
Someone grabbed my face, moving it gently side to side, and said, “Wake up, Christy. You only have forty minutes left. You can do it.”
I peeked and saw Marybeth’s face looking down at me. “There you go,” she said. “Just open your eyes a little bit further.”
I didn’t think I could, but then a loud slap jolted my eyes open. Kira, who laughed now, had slapped her shoes together to make the noise. She thought it was so funny. I felt dizzy, like I was about to fall off of a very high mountain, and I swayed to the side. Alex slid his chair closer to me, pushing his side against mine to prop me up. He was so warm but I tried to stay awake, like the doctor wanted me to. My eye lids weighed a hundred pounds, and I didn’t have the strength to lift them. Certainly, forty minutes would not make or break me. I’d never been so tired before, so out of control—but then again, I’d never been up all night before, either.
“Christy! Alex said in a loud voice. “Here’s some chicken.” He held a forkful of chicken in front of me. I moved toward it, my mouth grazing the fork carrying it. I chewed dutifully and swallowed. I could hear distant snickers and laughs all around me, and I wanted to laugh with them, but couldn’t.
They soon gave up on force-feeding me and I didn’t have a care in the world. The fuzziness I’d been feeling got more intense, and it felt good. I had to laugh. It started with a quiet giggle, and it turned into a full-on loud laugh.
Someone put a hand over my mouth; I tried to swat it away, but never made contact. Next thing I knew, it seemed I was flying and had to laugh some more. The flying stopped and I felt a familiar pillow under my head. I snuggled into it and gave into the blackness.
I bolted upright and looked around the room, breathing hard, like I’d been running for miles. The room was lit, and I looked around like a child who’d lost her toy.
The pattering of water in the shower made me look at the clock. Six-forty, five minutes before our regular wake-up call. I lay back down, my head feeling a bit tender when it touched the pillow. I reached up and felt a bandage and sat up again, memories flooding my mind.
I did see the Senator, and I did fall. I was taken to his office and there had been a doctor in his lair. It hadn’t been a dream. My head spun as I tried to make sense of all the things flashing through my brain.
I needed to talk to Jeremy. Why had the FBI let this happen to me? Gaping holes in their “protection” stared me in the face. Did they even know that I had been in the Senator’s office? Couldn’t they hav
e kept me from working on the bad guy’s team?
It had been a strange thing to see the Senator again. He didn’t seem like the cold-blooded killer I had pictured in my mind. He looked kind and even spoke lovingly about his children. He had objected to his friend’s murder, but what was he doing with the scary Middle Eastern guys? Was he simply a pawn? He didn’t seem to be pressured into passing the bill he’d mentioned. He freaked out only after his friend was beheaded. He hadn’t liked the consequences of his choices.
Even I knew at my age, you play with bad guys, you get bad things.
I pulled clothes out to wear for the day when Marybeth opened the bathroom door and walked toward me.
“Christy, you’re awake,” she stated the obvious.
“Yeah.” I said, charging past her to the bathroom.
She reached out for me, “Are you alright?”
“Yeah. I’m super hungry, though and want to hurry.” I was super hungry, but that wasn’t the whole truth. It seemed to be getting easier for me to lie or tell half-truths, which, I guess, truly are lies, just disguised to make people feel better about telling them. I wanted time with Alex.
“Do you remember last night?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
I stopped short, holding the bathroom door half open. “Not really.”
“Well,” she said sighing. “I could fill you in….”
I took a moment to think. Did I make a total fool out of myself? Or what? Did I want to know? Marybeth’s eyebrows were still lifted, and she boasted a huge smile, convincing me I wanted to hear. I did want to hear, but I needed a shower. I made a move toward her, but thought better of it. Focus.
“Hold that thought,” I said. “Give me ten minutes, and I’m all yours.” In my haste, I accidentally slammed the door shut.
“Ooops!” I called out, before jumping into the shower.
I made it out of the bathroom, dressed, still brushing my hair in nine minutes flat.
“Tell me,” I said.
“You simply won’t believe it,” she began. “I couldn’t believe it, and I was there. What’s the last thing you remember?”
I was sucked into the memory of the Senator that I wanted to forget. A shimmer of panic rushed through me. I decided to start at our hotel.
“Let’s see, I was waiting for you to get back. I saw the bus outside and told my chaperone, Mrs. Whatever, that the bus was here. The four of you were walking down the hall when we left the rec room. We took the elevator and then it gets sketchy after that.”
“That’s where it starts getting good,” she said, moving in closer to me, her eyes sparkling. “When I got to the table with my food, Alex was sitting next to you, trying to keep you awake. I tried to help, too, when you started laughing hysterically. I tried to cover your mouth, because everyone was staring at you. The question and answer session had already started. . .”
My stomach lurched into my throat and my cheeks flamed. Why the heck had I been laughing hysterically?
Marybeth must’ve noticed my red cheeks, because she paused and said, “Don’t be embarrassed, Christy. You had a huge trauma, ya know?”
Which was also embarrassing in more ways than you could imagine. Was there a hole I could crawl into?
She forged forward, ignoring my ever brightening face. “Mrs. J walked calmly over to our table and asked if I would watch over you in our room, until a doctor could get there. She tried to remain calm. You should have seen her face. It was hilarious.” She laughed lightly and continued. “Alex said, and I quote, ‘Would you like me to carry her up to her room, Mrs. J?’ My eyes almost bugged out of my head. Alex was going to carry you to our room.”
I was sure my eyes were bugging out of my head now, but I swallowed, trying not to show any emotion, even though inside my body, every nerve was on high alert.
Had he carried me again?
“Mrs. J said that would be great, and then she mumbled something like, ‘She only had twenty minutes to go.’ She walked away, talking on her cell phone, I guess to the doctor. Alex carried you all the way to our room and stayed, sitting next to you on your bed, until the doc came. Which wasn’t long at all. Alex waited out in the hall while the doc checked you out. You were a-okay, by the way. He called someone on the phone, probably Mrs. J, and said you were fine and just needed to sleep it off.”
I couldn’t help but ask, “Did Alex come back in?”
“Yes!” she almost shouted.“He stayed for a few hours and slept, yes, slept next to you, until Josh came to get him, said he needed him for something. Just wait,” she paused, making me want the information even more. I found myself leaning even closer to her. My pulse quickening.
“I left to get a drink, and when I came back, he was lying next to you, holding your hand.”
I looked at her, speechless. I trembled inside, but tried not to show it. She didn’t know about Alex and me, and besides, maybe it wasn’t real between us anyway. I couldn’t stand her mocking me, because I thought it was. He had kissed me, though. Didn’t that mean anything?
“He must like you,” she squealed. My mind raced, thinking about the implications of what she had said. After about ten seconds, she added, “And that’s not all.”
What more could there be? Alex had held my hand. How gentle. How sweet. Why did I have to be totally out of it the whole time?
“Like I said, Josh came about a half-hour later, and Alex left with him.”
And…I gave her a so-what look.
“Someone knocked on the door a few minutes after that. I thought it was Alex coming back, but it wasn’t.” She raised an eyebrow and leaned forward a little. “It was Rick.” She paused for several seconds, letting it sink in. I looked at my shoes. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the rest. My heart beat so fast that I thought I might die.
“He asked how you were, and I told him you were sleeping and then he asked if it was all right if he came in. I said, ‘Sure, why not.’ and he walked right over to you, looking down at you. He ran his fingers down your arm, very slowly and then he leaned over, right in front of me, without even checking to see if I was looking, brushed your cheek with the back of his hand—I was dyyying—and then he leaned down and kissed you on the forehead.” Her mouth gaped and her eyes were huge. “Then he held your hand, rubbing the back of it. What’s going on, anyway? Did you kiss him again? Are you with Rick or not? ”
She wanted answers, but I had none I wanted to give her, so I shrugged my shoulders, trying to act as surprised as she was.
“Kira’s going to freak when she hears about Rick,” Marybeth said. “Not only did he kiss you, he came to take care of you. She’ll be devastated. He is the most decent guy here, after all.” She flipped her hair behind her shoulders and put her elbows on her knees, staring wildly at me.
“Please, please, Marybeth,” I said, reaching out quickly and taking her arms in my hands. “Please don’t say anything to Kira.”
Marybeth looked at me like she was going to be betraying Kira if she didn’t.
“I don’t expect you to lie or anything,” I said. “But we only have two more days here and I want them to be fun, not stressful.” Her face softened, I could tell she was thinking about it. “If you don’t tell her, she’ll never know. I’m sure Rick won’t tell her, and I sure as heck am not going to tell her. It’s not like there’s really anything going on between us anyway. He was just checking on me. It didn’t mean anything.” To make my words valid, I needed to tell Rick and Alex what I’d decided yesterday.
“Fine,” she said. “But if it gets out somehow, I won’t lie. And it did mean something. Rick’s in love with you. I can tell. And maybe Alex, too.”
Could she be right? Deep heat settled in my gut. Two guys would never be in love with me. “Thanks,” I whispered. It was all that I could hope for.
“How is it that you have two awesome guys after you and you don’t seem to even know it?”
Instead of answering, I rushed to finish getting ready. As we were leavi
ng the room, I remembered that I hadn’t written a note to the FBI boys about the apparent lack of protection, so I yelled to Marybeth, who was already at the elevator, “Go down without me. I’ll catch up.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN