“The Haunt. You know where it is?”
“Yup.”
Apparently we were back to one-syllable conversations. Fine. I scrolled through my phone and gave him the silent treatment for the entire eight minutes it took us to get to the bar. I had a feeling he didn’t mind.
He parked around back and I climbed out of the car super fast, but he was already at my side by the time we reached the door. “You’re coming in?”
His hand on my lower back was all the answer I needed – and it wasn’t a kind, romantic hand but rather one that shoved me in the right direction. So much for feeling kick-ass and in control tonight. It felt more like I was a kid with a chaperone.I’m gonna have to talk to Grace about this whole bodyguard arrangement.Honestly, it seemed entirely unnecessary. I’d lived in D.C. for almost a year. I could take care of myself.
Remy was already inside, waiting for me at the bar. She waved, and by the time I made my way over, she realized I wasn’t alone. “Well, hello,” she said to Rafe. “New boyfriend, Vic?”
“New bodyguard. This is Rafe.” He grunted in return.
“A bodyguard?”
I ordered a martini, then lowered my voice. “For that job I was telling you about.”
Her brows lifted.
“Not that it’s dangerous. More like it’s protocol.”
Rafe disappeared across the room and leaned against the far wall. I could see him scanning the shadowy bar, his gaze resting on each of the exits. I wondered if he was ex-military. Or ex-law enforcement.
Remy hadn’t stopped ogling him. “Is it protocol to sleep with your bodyguard? To get to know him better?”
I almost spit out my drink. “I doubt it.” In fact, I was pretty sure Grace would frown on it.
“Damn. Because that man isfine.” Then she brightened. “Well, he’s not my bodyguard. So I could sleep with him, right?”
“I guess so.” But I almost told her not to waste her time, because she’d never get anywhere. Ice filled that man’s veins. It was probably necessary for his job, but still. It would’ve been nice to have a bodyguard I could actually joke around with. Or even have a normal conversation with.
“Should I order him a drink?”
“Don’t bother.”
“Not even water?”
“He’s the devil. It might kill him.”
“Oh, Vic. Tell me how you really feel.”
But I didn’t have time, because it was eighties night at The Haunt, which meant some of the greatest music ever, and after we’d both finished two martinis we hit the dance floor. I loved dancing, and this was one of the best places to cut loose. I closed my eyes and let Bon Jovi and Aerosmith and Whitesnake and Guns ‘n Roses take me away. The whole bar pulsed with song, with life, with other people joining us and singing along because we all knew the words even if we hadn’t grown up singing them.
Remy ordered us another round, and I had enough sense at one point to eat some nachos and chicken wings. I looked over at Rafe a couple of times, and it seemed like maybe he nodded at me in acknowledgment, but that was it. He didn’t move, didn’t drink, didn’t eat, didn’t smile. He stood there like a statue, watching the room like it might catch fire at any minute.
“He is kind of sexy,” I confided to Remy sometime after my third martini, “if you don’t consider his personality.”
She looked at him archly over the rim of her glass. “He’s really that awful?”
“No. He’s just…” I didn’t know how to explain. “He’s so serious. All the time.”
“He’s a bodyguard. He’s supposed to be.”
“I guess. But he never smiles. He never says, ‘Hey, Vic, how’s it going? I love what you’re wearing, by the way.’”
Remy laughed.
“He calls me Victoria. Like I’m someone’s grandmother.”
