“He’s having a bad day,” I said as I returned to the fridge, more determined than ever to cook a meal for everyone in the suite. That was all I could do at this point to turn this absolute shit-show of a day around.
“Well, tell him to get in line,” Lisa, her hair stylist said as she moaned about Lennon’s wet hair. “Because I havenoclue how we’re going to get this back into shape by event time. My darling, why would you wash such beautiful curls out of your hair?”
Clearly the style crew had been out of the loop about the events of the day.
“I got vomit in it,” Lennon told her honestly as they drew her into the other room.
“Vomit?” was the last thing I heard before the door clicked shut.
Despite everything that had happened in the past few minutes, I couldn’t help but laugh.
Zeke quickly joined in, leaning over at the waist as he covered his face at how ridiculous things had gotten.
Hells, even Maverick cracked a smile as he shook his head.
“Did you ever think we’d be dealing with something like this?” Zeke asked once he got a hold of himself.
“No,” Maverick answered immediately. “It almost makes me miss checking for car bombs.”
I shuddered at that. That was one thing I didnotmiss about working abroad in less-than-stable countries.
Truth be told, I didn’t like all of the risk that came with working with the state department, but I disliked being separate from Dallas more.
When he’d signed up for the military I’d jumped to sign up for the same branch and when he’d left to join the state department I’d gone too.
I couldn’t stand the thought of being away from him and the only time I’d briefly considered it had ended in a broken heart and Dallas’s heavy distrust for omegas only growing stronger.
A distrust that I thought he was finally starting to get over until today.
Everything that had happened today had triggered him, I’d seen it from the moment that Carter had shown up looking worse for wear and then when Lennon stepped out of his room covered in vomit.
It was a too-familiar scene, one that Dallas had probably dealt with and that I’d learned to block out.
For me it was easier to forget. But Dallas felt like he needed to remember everything in high definition or else we’d risk falling back into the same patterns all over again.
Shaking off my suddenly negative thoughts, I turned my attention completely to dinner. That, at least, was something I had control over.
Chapter Ten
“Voila, beautiful again!” Landon, my makeup artist exclaimed as he stepped back to appreciate his work. “Not that you aren’t beautiful without makeup, my dear, but even the cleanest canvases look beautiful with a portrait painted, no?”
The man had been born and raised in New Jersey, but he had a penchant for dipping into a French accent when he was in his element. It used to make me giggle as a child but now it just made me feel affectionate toward the older man as I watched him pack up his tools.
Like most of the people around me, my ‘looks’ crew had been with me since I was small, graduating from dressing me in stockings and adorable pinafore dresses and into the more mature style that I was wearing during this election cycle.
Landon was no different. He’d gone from being my mother’s primary makeup artist to retiring with me and loving every minute of it. Probably because he got to use glittery eyeshadow. He really loved his glitter eyeshadow.
Apparently it was a fashionfaux pasto use glittery eyeshadow on the leader of the free world, so half-retirement it was, only coming out for me when I had events.
“And her hair is at least curling nicely despite being sopping wet,” Lisa picked up for Landon like a dance that they’d been practicing their entire lives—which I guess they had. They were a part of the same pack, though I wasn’t sure about the dynamics seeing as I was pretty sure Landon wasn’t into women. “We’re geniuses, aren’t we, Lan?”
“Absolute geniuses,” Landon agreed as he took pictures. “We’ll have to send these to everyone to brag.”
I sank into their chatter, letting it soothe my frayed nerves.
Carter was fine. They’d managed to pump what was left of whatever pills he’d taken from his stomach at the hospital and they were keeping him for a few days for monitoring before he would be transferred to the rehab facility my grandfather was getting set up for him.
Just the thought made me want to crawl into the fluffy hotel bed with the padded nest bumpers and hide from the world for a while. My inner omega was practically begging for it… but Icouldn’t.
