I definitely should have apologized after that first comment, but I figured my foot was so far in my mouth that there was nowhere else to go but forward.
The attendant’s eyes darted in between me and Lennon before he scurried off as the next person took the stage to give their speech.
“Dallas, you good?” Maverick’s voice filled my ear.
“Yeah,” I replied as Lennon took the tiniest sip of her water and I was filled with the urge to tip the damn thing up so that she actually got some into her system. “Flicker isn’t feeling well. Too much sun. I’m going to give her a few minutes before heading out to you guys to take her to the bus.”
“Do you need us?” Maverick asked, sounding concerned.
“Nah,” I said, turning to look at Lennon who’d grown pale again. I cursed inwardly. “I’ll let you know if I do.”
“Copy that,” Maverick said as I turned to look for something to cool Lennon off with so she didn’t pass out on me again.
If I never returned to Arizona in the summer again it would be all too fucking soon. No one should live where you could fry an egg on the sidewalk and I’d stand by that.
Chapter Five
My vision was hazy again as I tried to sip and hold the water down as wave after wave of nausea rolled through me.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Dallas said as he dug through the bins that were lined up against the wall, his glasses slipping down his sweating nose only to aggressively be shoved back up again. “All this shit back here and there’s no first aid kit?”
Against my will, my lips curled up into a weak but disbelieving grin. I’d rarely ever heard any of my Secret Service detail curse around me, so it was a bit like spotting a unicorn or finding a potof gold at the end of a rainbow and Dallas seemed content to let the expletives fly as he tried in vain to find a first aid kit.
I was still kicking myself on the inside for not drinking enough water or getting enough sleep last night. I always made sure to hydrate and sleep the night before a big speech, but I’d never felt such a huge push to do well at one tour stop after another.
The last time my mother ran for election I had been twenty-two and had given up my final year at Georgetown and my parents had hovered around me like worried mother hens whether out of guilt for making me give up my senior year or because they still saw me as a child, I wasn’t sure.
This time, however, I had been given my own tour stops and I was largely on my own.
I didn’t want to mess any of this up… which meant I wasn’t taking as good of care of myself as I should have.
Usually I had Livvy constantly buzzing in my ear, pushing water bottles into my hand and taking away my laptop if I was up too late before an event.
But Livvy was back in D.C. and my temporary assistant, Alan, seemed afraid I was going to bite his head off at any moment.
Livvy was trying to keep in the loop of things, but was also technically out on short-term disability which meant that she was going through Alan for everything and he still looked like he wanted to cry every time he had to ask me to do, well,anythinglet alone remind me to hydrate myself.
I reminded myself harshlySomething you should be able to do for your damned self,as another wave of nausea rolled through me and I leaned forward trying to ward it off.
Fingers slid my hair away from my neck and it was quickly replaced by something ice cold and wet.
“What is that?” I asked with a ragged gasp, forcing myself to remain bent over instead of flinging the cold thing off of my neck and away from me.
“Ice from the ice chest wrapped in a paper towel,” Dallas told me with a wry voice as he stood in front of me and continued to press the icy mass to the back of my sweaty neck. “We need to get your temp down or else you will need to make a trip to the hospital.”
“It’s going to get my outfit wet,” I complained as I felt droplets of water rolling underneath the collar of the purple blazer I was wearing and down my back.
“It’ll dry,” Dallas said simply as he shifted the paper towel from side to side and into the base of my scalp where all of the heat seemed to accumulate. “Give it two seconds under this hot ass sun and everyone will be none the wiser. Hells, I could probably dunk you in the ice chest and you’d be dry by the time we made it to the bus.”
I was only half-listening to him as I worked to hold in the moan of relief that was bubbling up in my chest. The ice now felt heavenly against my fevered skin and my vision had finally stopped spinning.
My knees still felt wobbly, so getting up definitely wasn’t in my cards yet, but at least I was sure I wouldn’t yak all over Dallas’s too shiny leather shoes.
“Drink some more water,” Dallas urged softly as he reached down with his free hand to tip my forgotten water bottle back toward my lips.
After I’d taken another swig, I glanced up only to find his expression softer than I’d ever seen it.
For the past two weeks the alpha had walked around with a constant RSCF—resting storm cloud face—it was like he hated every single minute of every single day that he had to follow me around and protect me.
