Burn: A South Beach Bodyguards Book (12 page)

I was psyching myself out.

Needing a distraction as I walked down the sidewalk, I pulled my phone out and checked it. I had a text from Brandy, which I answered.

Julia? Really?

I know
, I typed back.
I can’t explain it.

I also had a text from Juan.

Hey, how’s it going?

I wasn’t sure I even wanted to bother answering him. He had been super pushy, asking to go home with me after two dates. Not my thing. Obviously.

Shoving my phone back in my pocket, I realized Ryan was talking to someone. Turning around, I saw there was a girl in step with him smiling up the long length of him and laughing. He was nodding.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Ryan glanced in my direction, and shook his head slightly. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. I wasn’t well versed in silent bodyguard communication. Determined to be normal, whatever that was, I called my mom. We had been texting, but I needed to hear the sound of her voice.

“Is everything okay?” she said as a greeting.

“Yes, I’m fine. I’m going to class.”

“Where is Ryan?”

“He’s trailing me. It’s weird. Do I really need to do this?”

“Yes. Listen to what he says.”

For some reason that made my cheeks heat up. I was going to blame it on the hike across the campus. But I knew that was crap because I went running almost every day. “I am, Mom. But this is just all insane, seriously. Did you know Mickey does stuff that is illegal?” I lowered my voice to a whisper.

“What? I can’t hear you. By the way, why on earth were you calling yourself Julia?” she asked.

“How should I know?” I lied. “I hit my head, remember? Maybe I thought I was Julia Roberts.”

“In which movie? Pretty Woman? God, I love that movie.” My mother sighed in delight. “Why didn’t that ever happen to me? All those years on the pole I only had millionaires buy me drinks and jewelry. I never got carte blanche at a designer clothing store and a marriage proposal.”

“You’re doing better than me, Mom. All I’ve gotten in the last year is a couple of dinners and a picture of Juan’s penis. No millionaires.”

My mother snorted. “What a pig.” Then curiosity crept into her voice. “Was it a good penis?”

“I’m not really sure,” I told her truthfully. It was an ugly son of a gun, that was certain. But what constituted a good penis versus a bad penis? I didn’t know. Given what I had seen of Ryan naked, his was bigger, but he had a good six inches or more on Juan height wise, so that wasn’t unexpected. Width wise it was hard to say. There had been nothing in the picture of Juan to give me the proper scale. And of course, I didn’t have much experience with penises in person. I’d seen a couple, but I hadn’t lingered.

“I would say send it to me, but maybe that would be weird.”

“Yes. Yes, it would.” I loved my mother, but sometimes she forgot that I wasn’t her sister, I was her daughter. Boundaries. I needed them. So I circled back to the movie comment. Watching romantic comedies was our thing. Given that it had always been just the two of us my mother had loved to put me on the couch with her, our feet soaking in plastic tubs full of bubble bath, facial masks plastered on, while we ran through every romantic movie ever filmed. “I think I was Julia Roberts in Sleeping With the Enemy.” I didn’t really believe that, given that according to my hazy memories and Ryan’s confession, I had kept stripping off my clothes in a ballsy move more reminiscent of Julia as Erin Brokovich, but it would distract my mother.

“What? No! That’s terrifying. That only confirms that someone hurt you, because she was an abused wife in that movie.”

Great. That was not my intention. “But she escaped.”

“I suppose. Plus she met a cute neighbor guy. Too bad we don’t have any cute neighbors. The man next door is about a hundred and twelve years old and his kids are ingrates who never visit him.”

“Yeah, I don’t have hopes on the neighbor front.” I darted a glance behind me. Ryan was there, just a few feet away. The girl had disappeared. “But I have other hopes.”

My mother was silent. Then she sighed. “You’re talking about Ryan aren’t you?”

“Yes.” There was no pretending otherwise.

“That’s not the man I see you with. You need a nice boy.”

That offended me on Ryan’s behalf. “He is a nice boy.” My voice was low, so he wouldn’t hear me.

“He is. I’m not disputing that. But some men can give you their heart but not their loyalty. Some can give their loyalty but not their heart. Ryan is the latter. He would never cheat on you but he will never give you his heart,
princesita
.”

My mother was serious when she called me little princess. It was a childhood nickname she rarely trotted out now. It didn’t make me feel any better considering she was telling me precisely what I did not want to hear. “That’s why I want to just go home, Mom. And I have to go. I’m at my class.”

It had been a mistake to call her. She made me feel melancholy.

After ending the call, I turned to Ryan. “This is my building. You can’t go in with me.”

“Don’t use the restroom or go in any empty classrooms or hallways.”

That amused me. “There are dozens of people around me. I’m not in an alley at three in the morning.”

“Be serious,” he said. “This is a big deal.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall by the doors. “I’ll be right here when you get out.”

My eyebrows shot up. “You’re just going to stand there for fifty minutes? That’s not at all weird or creepy.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Are you calling me creepy?”

“Yes.” I fished around in my bag. “Here. Hold a book. You’ll look less conspicuous.” I shoved my microbiology book into his hands.

It didn’t help. He looked awkward as hell. He didn’t know what to do with it. He kept shifting it back and forth between his baseball mitt hands. I burst out laughing. “See you later.”

His nostrils flared. “Have a good class.”

“Thanks.” I quickly moved into the building, determined to make it through the class, even though my head was pounding. I should have eaten something. I wasn’t the girl who ‘forgot to eat.’ I liked my meals regular.

By the end of class I was hating myself and all my choices. My head hurt so bad I could taste bile in the back of my throat from fighting the urge to vomit. It was like a clam was trying to crawl up from the recesses of my stomach, and I was seeing black spots behind my eyes. The second the professor dismissed us, I rushed out of my seat and shoved the door open. I was hoping for fresh air, but that was a futile desire. The hallway seemed like chemical cleaner.

I rushed past a dozen people, breaking into a run at the bottom of the steps. I was going to throw up, there was no way around it.

But I didn’t. When I slammed open the front doors and barreled through, I skidded to a stop at the bushes and bent over, but instead of puking, all the blood rushed into my head and my vision went black. I reached out for the wall, but caught nothing but air, and I tried to lower myself to the ground, but I couldn’t see anything and my knee went down hard. Then suddenly my weight was being lifted up and I could hear Ryan’s voice.

“Isabel, look at me.”

The blackness receded and his face came into focus in front of mine. “Thanks,” I murmured. He had me by the waist and was holding all my weight. My legs felt like jelly. “I’m okay. I just have a headache.”

“You shouldn’t be at class. I’m taking you home.”

“Okay,” I agreed readily, just grateful that I hadn’t thrown up in the bushes in front of everyone or taken a facer. “I’m fine, I just need to eat or something.”

I was still half hunched over but without warning Ryan scooped me off the ground and into his arms. “Oh, my God, what are you doing?”

“I’m taking you home.” Still a little woozy, I swallowed hard, gripping Ryan’s T-shirt and staring up at his chin, confused. “I’m pretty sure that I can walk.”

Ryan didn’t say anything, just started walking. My butt bounced against his stomach. I suddenly had the urge to laugh. It was like I’d fallen into one of the movies my mother loved so much. I was Whitney Houston to his Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. Which had been filmed in Miami, actually. My thoughts were ridiculous, but even more so was what he was doing. Refusing to look at anything other than him, because I did not want to see people staring at us, I giggled against the cotton of his shirt.

“What the hell is so funny?” he asked, sounding bewildered.

“I was just thinking about something.” I giggled again, then moaned when he shifted his arms and I was jostled. “My head hurts.”

“Close your eyes, Isabel.”

“Why does it seem like you’re always telling me that? And you’re always putting me to bed for the wrong reason.” Life sucked when you never got what you wanted. I was a good girl, damn it. I was nice, and I was punctual, and I worked hard, and I never yelled at my mother. I went to church and I gave blood and I never had road rage, which was a huge accomplishment when you lived in South Florida, and yet, I just wanted this one little thing. This one little big thing.

And I couldn’t have it.

It wasn’t fair and I knew life wasn’t fair and that I was fortunate for so many reasons, blah, blah, blah, but there was an ache in my heart and didn’t anyone understand that?

Unrequited love should be illegal.

Final answer.

C
arrying Isabel across campus back to my car, I was fighting the strangest feelings. Like protectiveness. That was cool. It made sense. I could deal with it. I always had a thing for the underdog. Puppies, tiny lizards on the sidewalk, babies with glasses. They all made me feel protective. So Isabel, quiet, sweet, quirky Isabel, with her head injury, made me want to shield her from pain and suffering and danger. Not a big deal. But I was also feeling something that I was terrified was a lot more like caring. Like genuine interest. That went beyond sexual. I hadn’t even had sex with her and I was feeling post-sex tenderness.

This was bad. No good. Not helpful. I was losing my edge. Going soft. Sucking at my job. If it had been any other client, I would have just followed them into class, but I hadn’t wanted to embarrass Isabel. Her feelings mattered more than they should.

She was still giggling, which was unnerving. I didn’t get it. I decided to ignore her comment about me putting her to bed.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked. I was curious what went on in that little head of yours. I was starting to realize she had complicated thoughts and was super intelligent. Why hadn’t I ever known she was planning to be a vet? I didn’t want to be like Mickey. I didn’t want to be self-absorbed. I wanted to listen to people, get to know them. I had failed to do that with Isabel.

I wanted to change that, fix it.

“Movies. My mother and I used to always watch anything that could be considered a chick flick.”

Now I wasn’t sure what to say in response to that. I was well aware of the fact that everyone around us was staring, but I didn’t give a crap about that. Being a tall guy in a place where Latin men tended to be more compact, I got stares and lots of passing comments. Let them think whatever they wanted about why I was carrying Isabel, and no one could see her face anyway. I considered and discarded several comments and finally settled on the safe, “What is your favorite chick flick?”

“Love, Actually. Colin Firth is the character who never really wins, you know, and he and the housekeeper fall in love. It’s so romantic. She learns English so she can talk to him.” She sighed against my chest.

Clearly she assumed I’d never seen the movie, and she was right. I didn’t watch a lot of movies. I had some issues with sitting still. “Maybe we can watch it tonight.” I kind of would rather stab myself in the eye with a fork, but I wanted her to be comfortable, happy.

I got to the car, and gratefully dropped her textbook on my car roof. That thing had been awkward as hell to hold while I was carrying her. I set her carefully down on the ground, still holding her at the waist. After opening the car door, I helped her in. She gave me an amused smile.

“I’m okay now. I’m not going to faint or anything. I’m also not that fragile.”

She seemed pretty fragile to me in general. “Okay.”