“Apparently,” Maverick said, looking as exhausted as I felt as he scrubbed a tired hand over his face before taking a long swig of his energy drink. “The guy blew a 0.18. He’s worse off than any of us. Broken nose, leg, and a smattering of broken ribs.”
“Serves him right,” Brooks said as he let out a low whistle.
I didn’t disagree with the alpha. Especially after seeing how banged up Lennon had gotten and how scared she had been tonight.
Thankfully there was a doctor inside of her room now, monitoring her health and making sure her vitals were okay. The cut on her forehead had required some stitches which wasn’t ideal, but it was smaller than we initially thought after the accident when it had been bleeding all over the place.
“Okay, but what are the chances of some drunk guy in a souped-up F-150 T-boning the SUV of the only daughter of the president of the United States?” Dallas asked with a snort as he shook his head like he couldn’t believe it.
Out of the four of us he was the only one with a visible wound because he’d been sitting directly across from Lennon when the other car hit. He was sporting a pair of lovely black eyes and was low key looking like the Hamburglar from McDonalds.
Not that I would ever tell him something like that out loud—not unless I wanted to match him and I was far too pretty for black eyes.
“I’m just telling you what I know, so maybe lay off the conspiracy theories before I make you a tin foil hat,” Maverick told him with a roll of his eyes as he shoveled a forkful of stir fry into his mouth. “This is good by the way, B. Even if it’s ice cold.”
“Thanks, man. I even got Lennon to eat almost an entire plate of it earlier before we left for the event,” Brooks said proudly, puffing out his chest as he held his half-eaten plate up like it was the ambrosia of the gods.
We all froze and looked down at the stir fry which seemed to hold a new meaning. Getting Lennon to eat a whole plate of anything in one sitting was a rarity.
“Speaking of Lennon,” I said, glancing over at our team leader and asking the question that had been on my mind since we’d been trapped in the SUV earlier. “What happened earlier, Mav?”
We all turned to look at the leader of our team who was mid-bite.
He took his sweet time finishing his bite, chewing slowly before finally answering. “What do you mean?”
I glanced at Brooks and Dallas who seemed to be silently urging me on with their identical green eyes. “You comforted her.”
“Yes, and…?” Maverick impatiently gestured for me to get to the point.
“You comforted her like an alpha comforts an omega, Mav,” I said to him quietly, thinking about how as Lennon had thrown herself against the SUV door like a feral animal, Maverick had dragged her into his arms and started to speak to her in a way that I had never heard him speak to anyone before.
Truth be told, it had made me feel strange to watch him cradle Lennon in his lap like that.
On one hand, I was envious that he got to do something like that with her. I’d been fighting against my own instincts for weeks to do my job and stick to only doing my job when it came to Lennon Holloway, but after a day like today even I had to admit that I liked her more than just some celebrity crush.
She was whip smart, sassy, beautiful, and she always kept us on our toes—exactly what I had always imagined my future partner, if I ever had one, being like. If this had been any other situation than a job, I would have already asked her on a date a long time ago and courted her like an alpha courted an omega.
But being a part of her security detail complicated things and the other guys complicated things even more.
I’d been with them for years and considered them my second family. Hells, I considered them my pack even if we seemed to avoid that word altogether.
They were known entities to me, so much so that I knew when they liked a woman and they all seemed toreallylike Lennon… even if they wouldn’t admit it to themselves.
I’d been sure about Dallas and Brooks, even with Dallas’s outburst earlier. A man like him wouldn’t have gotten as angry as he did if he didn’t care.
The only one Ihadn’tbeen sure of had been Maverick.
At least not until he’d pulled her into his lap and purred for her.
I didn’t even think he or Lennon realized he’d been doing it.
Never before had I even seen Maverick interact withanyonelike that before. Sure he slept with women when we were off duty, but there was nothing deeper than physical relationships with him. He was all business.
Until tonight.
Tonight he’d looked heartbroken as Lennon had panicked trying to get out of the SUV, her wails triggering all of our alpha instincts, but surprisingly his most of all.
Which was exactly why my emotions were so damnedcomplicatedabout all of this.
