Between board games, walks on the beach, and more sex, it wasn’t hard to keep my mind off of just how much my perspective on life had shifted in such a short time.
The sound of the windows opening drew my attention just in time to see Maverick stepping inside from his afternoon run.
My gaze took in his sweaty form with appreciation, lingering on his glistening biceps and shaggy dark hair that was still unkempt from this morning.
As if feeling my eyes, he glanced up at me, his lips pulling up into a smirk as he pulled out his ear buds.
“Haven’t you had enough today?” he asked as the other alphas continued to bicker about Uno.
I shrugged. “Have you?”
Maverick’s honey brown eyes darkened, answering my question.
But before he could scoop me up, my phone started to ring in my pocket.
Frowning, I pulled it out to look at the screen.
No one had called or texted us all week, leaving me to recuperate from my ‘flu’.
And now my grandmother’s name was lighting up as the phone continued to ring.
A sense of unease filled me, leaking down my shared bonds with the guys as the living room fell silent almost immediately.
I answered the call and put it on speaker.
“Grand—” I started to say but her panicked voice cut me off.
“Sweetheart, have you seen the news today?”
I looked at Maverick who was already diving into the conversation pit for the remote to the TV on the wall.
“No? Why?”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry… I thought everything was going smoothly because nothing was in the news but it looks like whoever took the picture was waiting for a lull in the news cycle…”
“Grandma, stop, please explain what’s going on!” I practically shouted into the phone as Maverick finally managed to get the TV on, switching the channels until he made it to a news station.
A very serious-looking news anchor sat at his desk as a headline that made my world freeze began to scroll at the bottom of the screen. “The top story this afternoon. A few weeks ago we reported the rumored relationship between the president’s daughter and her Secret Service detail, well today the associated press received these images…”
There, in 4k, were pictures of me in Zeke’s arms as he carried me out of the bathroom in the hotel lobby the night of my mother’s donor gala. My face was flushed and I was smiling up at him like he hung the moon.
The other guys were surrounding us, on the lookout and failing to see the camera that was taking the picture that was going to be used to expose us completely to the world.
“Do these people have nothing better to do than this shit? Aren’t there wars and famine going on for them to report on?” Brooks asked from behind me, sounding disgusted.
“This is an election,” my grandfather’s voice came from the other end of the line, making me jump. “Lennon knows that better than anyone. They will use anything they can and I can assure you the other camp paid a pretty penny for these pictures.”
“Grandpa…” I trailed off, feeling ashamed.
“I’m not saying that to make you feel bad, Lennie,” he said, his voice soft. “But this is the situation at hand. Your mom has been blowing up our phones since this started dropping an hour ago. I’m pretty sure she knows we’ve been helping you.”
“And where you are, sweetie, Marine One took off from D.C. an hour ago.”
I groaned, putting my face in my hands. The information was coming at me too fast and I wasn’t sure where to even start to deal with all of this.
Dallas stood up quickly, hurrying over to the front entry way to look out onto the driveway. “The SUV has a tracker on it.”
“So we can assume she’s coming straight here,” Brooks said, his face suddenly looking pale as he glanced at the rest of our pack.
