Chapter Eleven
“Adrunk driver?” I asked as we all sat around the kitchen island of the hotel suite picking at cold stir fry. “That’s who hit us? I don’t fucking believe it.”
I had the nastiest headache and desperately needed sleep, but I wasn’t sure if my body would even let me wind down enough to get a couple of hours in before we needed to be up in the morning.
Thankfully, the president had canceled our events for the rest of the week, giving us some breathing room while we tried to recuperate from the shitshow that was today.
Something she should have, in my opinion, done the moment Carter Holloway was hauled out on a gurney earlier.
There would have been no damned car accident in the first place if she hadn’t let her stubborn daughter go to that event. But Lennon had felt like she needed to go out of some misplaced need to protect her older brother.
But, then again, no one was asking my opinion, as usual.
“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 to really like 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 I hadn’t been 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 with anyone like 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 damned complicated about all of this.
I’d never considered that we would maybe be able to find the same omega that we all felt drawn to.
I had always just assumed I would have to eventually leave our team to find my own pack because, while they weren’t interested in omegas, I had always known that I wanted to have an omega and a family of my own.
“I was trying to calm her down,” Maverick finally said, his voice even, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“You sure as hell did that and then some,” Dallas scoffed. “You purred for her, Maverick.”
Maverick’s syrupy brown eyes narrowed at the other alpha. “What, like you wouldn’t have done the same if you were in my position? You were the first one to pull her hands away from the door.”
“Hey…” I tried to cut in, realizing just how quickly I was losing control over this situation and we were about to traipse into argument territory.
“Yeah? So what if I would have, I’m not the one who’s constantly lecturing the rest of us about professional conduct,” Dallas snapped, his face twisting with anger as he shoved his glasses aggressively up his nose.
“Guys,” Brooks tried, catching my look from across the counter.
Maverick drew up to his full height. “And I’m not the one who’s picking fights with everyone because I can’t regulate my own emotions long enough not to stick my foot in my mouth.”
I was about to step in between them to stop the inevitable fisticuffs when someone politely cleared their throat.
“Excuse me,” an older man’s voice cut through the noise and we all whirled around to find a well-dressed older man standing next to Agent Hollis who had been outside guarding the door.
“We knocked, but I wasn’t sure if you could hear us over the, ah, discussion you seemed to be having in my granddaughter’s suite. ”
I knew this man. I’d met him many times during my childhood and it also seemed like he remembered me too.
“Hello there, Ezekiel, or should I call you Agent Adams while you’re on duty?” Former Vice President Farrow Holloway asked, his gray eyes twinkling with amusement as he leaned on his ornate cane.
“Whatever you prefer, Vice President Holloway,” I said, rounding the counter to give the man a hug.
“I prefer you to call me Mr. Farrow, just as I’ve said every time I’ve seen you since you were twelve, young man. Now, perhaps if you are all done arguing you might show me in to see my granddaughter?”
Maverick hurried to join us, his expression completely professional again. “Of course, sir, this way.”
Farrow rolled his eyes. “You and Ezekiel are all the same. Treating an old man who is years past his political prime with too much respect. I’ll have to tell your grandfather to whack it out of you the next time I see him at chess.”
Maverick and Farrow disappeared into the bedroom, leaving me behind with Brooks and Dallas who looked confused.
“You know Lennon’s grandfather?” Brooks asked, frowning.
“My dad does. They’re a part of the same political party and now they play chess together.”
“Of course they know each other,” Dallas snorted, clearly still feeling the same urge to fight from earlier.
Brooks on the other hand looked hurt. “Why didn’t you tell us? We’ve worked together for almost a decade.”
“I didn’t not tell you, B. You knew my dad was a senator. It just never came up that he was close with Lennon’s family.”
“You could have told us when we were put on her security detail,” the other alpha pointed out. “You and Maverick.”
They were both looking at me differently right now and it made me think of all of the friends in school who had immediately changed when I told them who my father was.
Going to school in D.C. had been a nightmare growing up.
All of my older siblings had managed to graduate back in Washington state before my father’s political career really took off, but I’d been brought to the states after he had been elected and had grown up most of my life as the son of Senator Adams.
It was like having a stamp on my forehead growing up.
Children of other politicians treated me differently based on their parent’s political affiliations while others acted like any accomplishment I made was only because of who my father was.
It was exhausting then and that same exhaustion was creeping up the back of my neck now as I looked between Dallas and Brooks. They were two people who I considered my team. My family.
“Does it really matter in the end?” I tried, my voice cracking as I fought to keep my composure.
Dallas said nothing but shook his head once before gathering his plate and drink before heading for the door that connected Lennon’s suite with the one we shared.
“It might not to you, Z,” Brooks said quietly as he put his empty plate into the sink. “But we weren’t the ones being hugged by her grandfather.”
With that he turned to follow his brother, leaving me standing all alone in the kitchen to my own thoughts and the ghosts of my past which had come back to haunt me once again.