4. Lauren
CHAPTER 4
LAUREN
A s far as Lauren was concerned, her evening with Wesley had given her one thing — the ability to work around his schedule. She needed some time to herself, time to think things through and work out a plan of how she was going to deal with her new shadow. He’d told her what time he was going to be there, so she got up an hour earlier, threw on her sweats, and snuck out the back fire exit to go for her morning jog without being tailed.
She had no doubt that she was not the target of her mom’s enemies. Her mom was just being paranoid and overcautious as usual. And the fact that Wesley had to invent a story just to scare her only made Lauren more sure that she was not in any kind of danger. In any case, what she had to worry about now was how she was going to manage auditions with a bodyguard without looking like some kind of nepo baby.
She needed this time alone to think, and she regretted nothing as she turned into the park and started on the trail loop she took every morning. The routine warmed her up to every day. She needed this. So it bothered her even more than it would most people when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man following her. It wasn’t so much the shadow itself but how that shadow made her feel.
For the first time in ages, Lauren found herself apprehensive about being alone in the park. She was… a little bit scared, actually. Apparently, Wesley’s stupid campfire story really had wormed its way under her skin. Damn him anyway. She ran faster, hoping whoever it was would just fall back a bit as a courtesy, but he didn’t. He matched her pace, and her adrenaline rose right along with her irritation.
As she turned a corner, Lauren took the chance to glance back at the person who was following her. As soon as she saw him, she lost all her fear and tripled her irritation. It was Wesley. But she’d left early! Had he lied about what time he was going to show up? Had he been waiting at the back door for her to make her escape? And the thing that irritated her more than all the rest — how had he predicted her so easily? She had to up her game somehow.
She decided to lose him and picked up her pace yet again. But he matched her too easily. She took an unusual turn, just in case he knew her usual route. Maybe that would throw him off. Unfortunately, the person it threw off was her.
The new route was not a paved one, and the dirt path was pitted and uneven. As soon as she’d gotten out of his line of sight, her ankle twisted into a large divot, and she was down. She hated herself for being so stupid. She hated herself even more for screaming from the pain.
Wesley was standing over her seconds later with a gun in his hands, turning one way and then the other, looking for the threat. “Who did this?” he said with what Lauren could only describe as a snarl.
She fell back and shouted two or three choice words. Then she answered, “The ground did it,” with an embarrassed groan. Her pants were torn where her thigh had hit a jagged rock, and there was a little blood as well. Her palms were scraped from trying to catch herself. She tried to push herself to her feet, but as soon as she put weight on the ankle she’d twisted, she fell down again.
She looked up at Wesley just in time to see his palm hit his forehead. He holstered his gun and knelt down next to her. “Looks like you don’t need protection from other people as much as you need protection from?—”
“Don’t say it,” she cut in.
He gave her a half smile, and defied her with one word. “Yourself.” He wrapped one arm around her back and slipped the other under her knees. “Come on.”
“Don’t you dare carry me,” Lauren snapped as he was lifting her.
“You’re not walking.” He settled her against his chest like some kind of cliché, action-movie hero. “Walking will make it worse. You need to stay off it.”
She crossed her arms and pouted, but it didn’t seem to matter. He didn’t need her help to carry her. This was the first time she’d ever been lifted by a guy she didn’t have to actively cling to. His arms against her back and under her legs were rock hard. She tried not to think about how fit he probably was under all that jogging gear. She tried to counter her attraction with snark. “I’d thank you, but you’re the reason I tripped in the first place.”
He broke into a slow jog while carrying her, which was even more impressive, unfortunately. “I was nowhere near you,” he said in an even and unemotional voice. He wasn’t even panting.
Lauren pouted harder. “I had to take an unpaved route to get away from the guy who was following me, which was terrifying.”
“I thought you weren’t worried about your safety.”
“Maybe not from my mom’s enemies, but New York randos? I’d be an idiot not to worry.”
His mouth broke into a smug smile. “So you were glad I was there.”
“I’m glad the New York rando turned out to be you. But I wouldn’t have had anyone following me without you there.”
“You can’t say that for sure. Maybe your stalker decided to back off because I was there.”
“I’ve never had a stalker on my morning run,” Lauren muttered.
“Correction. You’ve never had a bad stalker. A good one wouldn’t get caught.”
“Hilarious.” She rolled her eyes, and tried to ignore the throbbing of her ankle.
When they got back to her apartment building, she handed Wesley her key card and he carried her into the elevator. The concierge barely looked at them. “If I’m going to be doing this often, it might be a good idea for me to have my own key,” Wesley said after the elevator doors closed on them.
“Not a chance,” Lauren said. “Nice try, though.”
He shook his head like she was little more than a stubborn child and continued carrying her all the way to her apartment.
When he set her down on her couch, he leaned over her to examine her thigh. “Um… excuse me,” she said.
He ignored her. “These pants are ruined, right?”
“Obviously.”
Without any warning whatsoever, he put one hand on either side of the tear and ripped her pant leg the rest of the way down. Lauren was too shocked to speak. “The cut’s not too bad,” he said. Then he moved down her leg to her ankle. “This is starting to swell up, though. You’ll want to get an X-ray to ensure it’s not broken. Either way, we should control the swelling.”
“You don’t have to stick around, you know. You’re just a bodyguard, not an ER.” She said it, but she hardly meant it. Deep down, she wanted him to stay. The fact that he hadn’t shamed her or mocked her for sneaking out was making her appreciate him more. He so easily could have gloated or rubbed her humiliation in, but he didn’t.
To her relief, he said, “Don’t be ridiculous. I’d do this even if I wasn’t getting paid. You shouldn’t put weight on your foot right now. Someone’s got to help you.”
Lauren sank back into the couch, too conflicted to speak. She had always been hyper-independent as a coping mechanism. Without a real father in her life and with a practically absent mother, she’d had to make her own way in the world. Help felt like weakness. Logically, she knew it wasn’t, but she couldn’t seem to make herself feel any other way.
“Do you have any towels you don’t care about?” Wesley asked from her kitchen.
She told him where to find everything he would need, and he returned to her with an old bath towel, a bowl of soapy water, and a bag of ice. He lifted her injured leg to slip the folded-up bath towel under it, and she couldn’t help blushing. Then he positioned the bag of ice over her ankle, and started washing the wound on her thigh. Lauren gulped hard. The feeling of being taken care of was almost more than she could stand. And it was making her see him in a light she really, really didn’t want to be seeing him in.
When her wound was clean, he bandaged it, and then he took hold of one of her wrists and turned her hand palm up. “These need to be cleaned, too,” he said, eyeing the scrapes on her palms.
“Uh-huh,” she muttered. Her cheeks were surely bright red by now.
“I’ll take you to urgent care in a minute,” he said. “But I don’t think you need any stitches.”
The last thing Lauren wanted to do was get into a car. Her ankle hurt so much that she didn’t even want to move. “I don’t want to go just yet. Do you mind getting me some painkillers and something to do? The painkillers are in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.”
He cocked his head. “And what sort of thing do you want to do?”
She thought about it. She hadn’t really planned this out, but after a few moments of contemplation, she knew exactly what she wanted. “I want to watch a movie.”
“Where’s your phone?”
“Not on my phone,” she said. “On the TV, like I used to when I was a kid. I need a comfort movie. Under the screen, in the cabinet, you’ll find my childhood favorites.”
He went rummaging under her large flat screen for some DVDs. “Wow,” he said.
“Don’t start.” She knew exactly where he was going with this.
“So many princess movies.” He turned and grinned at her. “Princess.”
Lauren glared at him. “Well, I was going to try to choose the least objectionable one, but now I’m inclined to bother you more. So break out The Princess Bride , my number one, most favorite movie of all time. Now that’s a comfort watch.”
He shook his head and pulled out the movie for her. “You think you’re punishing me with this movie, but I enjoyed it as a kid, too. So maybe I’ll just stick around and watch it.”
“Maybe you should.” She crossed her arms like she was being stubborn, but it was all an act. She’d had the worst morning ever, and her best friend was definitely still working, so she had no one to call. The last thing she wanted to do was sit by herself in pain. Anyway, she was starting to enjoy Wesley’s company, if only in an ironic way. “Huh…” She thought a moment. “ Wesley . I mean, if you’re calling me princess , maybe I should start calling you farm boy .”
He hit play and headed for the painkillers. “I wouldn’t if I were you.”
She chuckled under her breath. Oh, this was going to be fun. “Farm boy,” she called after him. “Fetch me some painkillers.” She waited for his As you wish, or at least some sarcastic version of it… some twist. How clever was he anyway?
Apparently, he wasn’t clever at all. He brought her a couple of pills with a glass of water. “Here you go.”
She took it from him with an irritated sigh. “Really?”
“Really.” He sat down across the couch from her, about an inch from her feet, and Lauren couldn’t help remembering the way he tore her pant leg to get to her wound. Her clothes may as well have been tissue paper as easily as he destroyed them.
She sank further into the pillow behind her and fought her oncoming blush. Twenty minutes into the movie, she decided to try again. Maybe he’d just forgotten his lines. “Hey, farm boy,” she nudged him with the toes of her good foot. “Fetch me a snack.”
He barely even looked at her. “What kind?”
All her blushing had given way to pouting by now, and his attitude wasn’t helping. She’d set him up for a good in-joke twice. They could have bonded over it or something! But he seemed to lack the slightest sliver of a sense of humor. Boring . She asked for cheese and crackers, which he brought her without another word. Why were the hot ones always so devoid of personality?
When the credits were finally rolling, she decided to give it one last try. She gave him a sly smile. “Farm boy, fetch me some fresh pants so I don’t have to go to urgent care in these ripped ones.”
Wesley stood. “Do you have a preference?”
She frowned. “Something comfortable, I guess. Seriously, you can’t even humor me one time? I thought it was funny. Your name is Wesley, after all. I mean this scene practically writes itself, doesn’t it?”
“Okay. One, I’m not a theater kid. And two, your painkillers are hitting you too hard.”
He wasn’t entirely wrong. She’d taken some of the prescription painkillers she had left over from having her appendix out, and she was feeling less than perfectly sober. “So? Does that have to mean you can’t be any fun either?”
“Clearly, you weren’t paying attention to your own favorite movie.” He left to get her a pair of pants from her bedroom.
She called after him. “Why would I have to pay attention to something I practically have memorized?”
When he returned, he handed her the pants with a head shake. “If you have it memorized, then you already know why I’m not going to finish your joke. What does the line really mean, princess? I don’t say that sort of thing until I mean it.”
She took her pants from him and started removing the ones she had on before he could even turn his back on her. “You take yourself way too seriously.”
“I guess I do.” There wasn’t an ounce of shame in his voice.
When Lauren was finished changing into her unripped pants, he lifted her from the couch and carried her to her door. She grabbed her coat on the way out, and remembered to lock her door. Wesley never let her feet touch the ground.