Chapter Nine
“She’s not okay,” Zeke whispered to me as we continued to stare at the closed door to Lennon’s room.
It had been an hour since she’d gone in and an hour since an incoherent Carter Holloway had been wheeled out of the room by paramedics, clearly high on something.
The sight of it had sent a familiar shudder down my spine and I knew Dallas was feeling the same way because he’d refused to look up from his computer since coming into the hotel room—a sure sign that my twin was definitely not okay.
“Who would be?” I asked him, shaking my head and rifling aimlessly through the fridge. It was stocked—Alan the assistant made sure of it—I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to actually do with the ingredients inside.
The urge to take care of the woman inside of the bedroom was riding me hard, my inner alpha urging me to break down that damn door and pull her into my arms and protect her from a world that seemed hell-bent on bleeding her dry.
But what would that solve?
So instead, I would cook something.
As if my thoughts magically conjured her, the door to Lennon’s room opened and she stepped out into the living room with wet hair and dressed in a matching sweat set.
“My beauty team should be up in a few minutes, please tell them to come straight back into my room,” she told us, her voice measured and her expression neutral.
“For what?” Zeke asked, frowning from where he was perched on top of the kitchen island.
Lennon’s brows drew together with confusion. “For the event tonight? It’s in a few hours and they will need to redo my hair and makeup so there’s a lot to do.”
“You’re still going?” Dallas asked, speaking for the first time in an hour. “Why the hell are you still going?”
“It’s scheduled…” Lennon replied, her words trailing off.
“I’m sure you can cancel on account of your brother being carted off to the damn hospital,” Dallas snapped, causing Lennon to flinch.
“Dallas,” Maverick cautioned, his voice full of barely concealed thunder as he stepped in between the two and blocked their view of each other.
“We’re all ready on our end, you just worry about getting yourself together,” he told Lennon with a surprising amount of gentleness that appeared to soothe her because the tightness in her shoulders eased slightly.
She leaned around Maverick to look at Dallas, her wet, blonde hair falling over her shoulder as she shot him a tired look.
“Look, you might not agree with it. But the less attention on Carter the better. If I cancel tonight people will be asking why and that is not something my mother or I are willing to answer right now. Not that I even need to tell you any of this. You are my security. Act like it.”
Her words were harsh and Dallas wheeled back as if she’d reached out and slapped him.
“Fine,” he said, slapping his laptop shut and tucking it under his arm. “Guess I’ll be downstairs talking with Agent Shaw about the plan for tonight.”
Dallas turned to stomp out of the suite but I stopped him, “Dude.”
“What?” he asked, his question bit out through clenched teeth.
“You need to apologize,” I told him quietly. “You were out of line.”
We looked at each other, communicating in the way that we’d perfected after years of only ever being able to rely on each other.
I knew exactly why he was on an emotional roller coaster, but that didn’t mean he got to take it out on Lennon.
For a moment I thought he would do it, his eyes darting from me to Lennon who looked hurt despite her earlier words.
Then, like the stubborn ass he was, he just shouldered past me and out of the room.
With a sigh, I scrubbed a hand over my face.
“What an idiot,” I muttered to myself as someone else knocked on the door within seconds and I opened it to reveal Alan and the makeup crew.
“What was going on with Agent Wilson?” Alan asked as they stepped inside and immediately began to flutter around Lennon like bespoke butterflies. “He stomped right past us and ignored us like we weren’t even there.”
“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 have no clue 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 did not miss 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.