His smile was the brightest thing I’d seen since the phone call, like it lit up the dark space of the bar around us like a beacon of light. “You’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with so much of my personal life lately,” I mentioned as I took a healthy sip of my cocktail. “That isn’t what you were hired for, so I apologize for that.”
“It’s all good.” Van said between his bright smile. “I’ve enjoyed it, being there for you. I just hope it’s helped.”
“It has, believe me.” The glance I gave him maybe wasn’t appropriate for an employer and their employee, despite being off the clock together, but I wanted him to feel how grateful I was, even if it was only through my stare that he truly felt the words.
Just the whisper of blush decorated his cheeks, and it was adorable to see. Even cuter was the fact that he thought that taking a hefty swig of his tequila soda could cover up the reaction his face was having. I was just thankful to have Van in my life, safety reasons aside. He was a good guy. It hit me, and not for the first time, that I didn’t know much about Van. Now, with alcohol easing the inhibitions between us, was as good of a time to get to know him as any.
“You’ve learned a lot about me and my past.” I queued up the change in subject by downing the rest of my drink and swiftly signaling for the bartender to get me another. When the bartender gave me a nod while he was serving someone else, I turned back to Van with a tempered glare. “Tell me more about yourself.”
“I suppose it’s only fair.” He chuckled, staring into the confines of his glass, the clear liquid bubbling up when he swirled it around in his hand. “Well, I can start with something easy. Van isn’t my full name.”
Unable to contain my initial surprise, I glared at him. Not that I was really upset, I was just shocked because when I’dasked him for his name, he kept telling me repeatedly it was ‘just Van’.
“Well, don’t leave me hanging here in suspense.” I chuckled.
“I don’t usually go by my full name because it’s not exactly a traditional sounding name, and then there’s my work. So it’s just made it weird in the past.”
My intrigue level couldn’t have been higher after a preamble like that. “Okay…”
The bartender came over with an already made vodka cranberry for me, giving me a slight smile as he slid the glass over and retrieved the empty one from where I’d left it. I thanked him kindly and took a sip of my new libation.
Van looked weirdly out of sorts as he prepared himself to utter the name he’d been given at birth. I wasn’t sure why he was acting so nervous, like just me hearing the name was revealing too much about himself. But I waited patiently until it looked like he wasn’t riddled with apprehension.
“My full name is Vanguard.”
Vanguard. I didn’t understand his hesitation in telling me. It was a perfectly wonderful name.
“What’s wrong with Vanguard? It sounds strong.” I said, feeling the alcohol animating my reaction in real time. I was already talking with my hands more and waving them around like that somehow emphasized my point to him. “You’re a strong looking guy. I think your parents did a great job naming you.”
He just stared at me, like I wasn’t getting it but he was allowing me the time for it to come to me. So I rolled his name around in my mind a few more times. Vanguard. Vanguard. By the tenth time, I still wasn’t seeing the issue with it, but by the eleventh, my eyes went suddenly wide and locked on his. The truth must have been radiating from them, because he gave me a single nod.
“Wait, you’ve made a name for yourself in the field of being a bodyguard and you haveguardliterally in your birth name?”
“Exactly.” Van said, rolling his eyes and taking a final gulp of his drink. He quickly ordered another one as the bartender went by again. “After the third individual that hired me as security mocked me for it, I started going by Van from then on. As a child, my parents called me Van all the time, so it wasn’t something foreign for me to go by. I was just tired of the loose jokes thrown my way and the talks of ‘oh you were born to do this then’ and so on and so forth.”
That made sense to me. I didn’t know what it was like to have a name connected to the job you wanted to pursue, but I could at least understand the notion of being expected to like something because of your upbringing or where you came from. That’s why I was glad I was very rarely associated with my family.
“Also,” The bartender set down another tequila soda for Van and he quickly thanked him before taking another swift sip. “I was adopted when I was still a child. I never knew my birth parents or what happened to them. But the parents that chose me are wonderful, so I’m not lacking in the parental department.”
I mentally clutched at my chest. Van was being so vulnerable and opening up to me way faster than I would have thought. Maybe it was the alcohol flowing between us, maybe he was feeling guilty for how much my personal life had been bleeding into our professional relationship, but whatever the reason, I was glad to get to know him a little better.
Feeling a bit compelled to dive into my own woes a bit more, I tossed back the rest of my drink, downing it. If I was going to revel in the throes of the past, I needed to have way more of a buzz.
“You don’t need to tell me anything else, Alistair.” He said, seeming to read my actions like they were the back of his ownhand. Shaking his head, he palmed his drink. “I don’t mind sharing, but you’re entitled to your privacy. I know enough. You really don’t have to share more just because I did.”
With the stain of the vodka cranberry’s aftertaste clinging to my teeth, I dry swallowed both the idea that I needed to share and also the fact that he could read me well enough to know that I didn’t actually want to. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.” He beamed. “You’re entitled to have a few drinks without having to trauma dump.”
I didn’t know what to say as he savored his tequila soda. I think because my life had been so scrutinized so fast that I wasn’t used to someone letting mebewithout expecting to learn more. It felt…good, to just be myself. To just hang out with Van at this bar like I was a normal person. Like I wasn’t someone about to embark on their first headlining tour in just a week.
After I ordered yet another vodka cranberry (I was really going to have to pace myself, the last thing I wanted was to get sloppy drunk in public), I was in the middle of taking a fresh sip of my latest cocktail when a song started playing throughout the bar that was instantly recognizable.
Mainly because it was my own voice I was hearing.
I was still getting used to the fact that I was likely to hear my music when I was out and about, that wasn’t why I was shocked. What shocked me was the fact that the bar was playing a song of mine that hadn’t even been a single. It was one of my favorites off of my first album, a song calledHopethat talked about wanting a life outside of the one I’d been dealt upon my birth.
