Chapter 16 Kelsey
Chapter sixteen
Kelsey
“Thank you, Stockholm! You’ve been amazing!” Jaxon yells from the stage as he lifts his black cowboy hat into the air and bows. The other four musicians on stage join Jaxon, the group all bending at the waist in sync.
“Team Two in position for encore,” Weston’s voice comes across my earpiece.
“Go for encore,” Carter repeats after using his computer to connect with Kevin near the stage.
Kevin waits for the confirmation from the show’s logistics team and then nods, Jaxon picking up the signal. Since Jaxon refuses to let us talk to him through his in-ear monitor, we make do with physical signals.
Jaxon waves as he leaves the stage, the musicians following like a waddle of black ducklings.
The crowd goes absolutely feral at his exit, and I scan the feed on my screens faster, my eyes trying to find any place the excitement has turned to destructive chaos.
Fans can quickly become a mob if given the right catalyst.
I can feel Carter next to me, his eyes scanning the arena in front of us and the monitors, making sure each and every one of the security personnel is doing the same.
My team, on the other hand, is scanning every image our system is pulling off social media pages, using the combined power of our state-of-the-art technology with our highly trained team to help identify anything that could be getting out of hand.
It’s amazing how people’s first reaction to something going wrong is to start filming it.
Despite the major mishap in Vancouver, the security team is running like a well-oiled machine.
While the first few concerts required Carter and me to be intermediaries between the boots-on-the-ground team and those acting as the eyes in the sky, they’re now working together, cutting us out of the loop to go directly to the person they need.
It’s how they would function if we were all one team, so I try not to be too upset about feeling redundant.
We go through the motions we’ve perfected over the last week, and with a final note, Jaxon closes down the sixth show of the tour.
“Steele is in the box,” Nash says through my earpiece, and I lean back into my computer chair with a groan.
“I thought you were going to talk to him about that,” I say to Carter.
“He thinks it’s hilarious,” he says, stretching his neck to one side and then the other.
“And…?”
“And Jaxon also thinks it’s hilarious, so I’m letting it go.”
“We practiced!” I yell in mock anger. “I spent forty minutes on the airplane listening to you rehearse how you’d tell him. I’ll never get that time back. I could’ve sent so many emails.”
“I used it to talk to him about Mikayla instead.”
“Did he cry?” I ask. “I can’t believe you didn’t wait until I could at least watch him get all flustered.”
Nash is the sweet golden retriever puppy of the team. He’s adorable, and everyone loves him, but he tends to chew up shoes if you don’t keep an eye on him.
Carter chuckles. “No one wants to see that, Kels.”
The nickname does something to my insides that I’m trying very hard not to think about. Carter and I are friends. Who are also rivals. For the most important contract of our lives. Nicknames fit into that…somewhere.
“I like making grown men cry, Cart,” I say.
“I think we need to workshop the nickname.”
“What did your Army buddies call you?”
“I decline to answer,” he says, turning away from me to pretend to do something on his computer. Well, maybe he’s actually getting everything taken offline and put away for the night, but I’m not going to let something like a prompt cleanup distract me.
“Why do you do this to yourself?” I ask, sitting back in my chair and crossing my arms over my chest. “You know if you just said something like Mitchell, I’d give it a rest. But you declined to answer. Which means it’s not just your last name.”
“It’s Mitchell. Obviously.”
I hold up a finger. “One: you hate the name Mitchell, so I can only assume that’s a lie, or they weren’t actually your friends. Two: you would’ve told me if it was something normal.”
Carter lifts one shoulder and drops it, shrugging.
I ranted yesterday on the plane about shrugging.
It’s Izzy’s go-to move, the shrug, and I can’t stand it.
It’s the most annoying gesture someone can gesticulate.
Either have the courage to flip me off or be ambivalent enough to simply ignore me.
A shrug is a pity gesture. A pity gesture that I don’t want.
So the shrug will be a no from me. I poke his shoulder, only taking one millisecond to appreciate the firm boulder my finger just ricocheted off. “Tell me.”
“No.”
“You’re being a child.” I jab my finger into his shoulder again, harder this time. “Tell me.”
“I’m being the child?” he asks as I brandish my pointer finger like a weapon in front of me.
“Yes. We both agree on that account.”
The computer in front of Carter dings, and he focuses his attention on the screen. I’m sure he’s not going to answer me, but he says quietly, “Puffin.”
“Puffin?” I let out a laugh. “Why?”
He shrugs again.
I try to tone down my eye roll, but it’s harder than I anticipated. I snag the hair at the back of my neck, twirling it as I stare at him. He watches my finger, mesmerized by the movement, it seems. Maybe I can hypnotize people like this.
“It had to do with a tuxedo,” he says, though the final syllable rises like he’s asking a question.
“It’s like you want me to call your bluff!” I say, laughing. The man is terrible at lying.
He shakes his head, a strand of hair dropping over his forehead. I reach out to push it out of his face, our eyes meeting.
I pull my hand back, shocked by my inappropriate behavior.
“Uh, sorry,” I say quickly. “You just had…hair.” I gesture to his general face region, not helping the situation at all.
“I appreciate the help.”
Now it’s my turn to use cleaning up as a distraction. We pack up the security room in silence, though not the awkward kind that it might’ve been a week or two ago. Carter and I move around the small room and each other in a flow so smooth, it might as well be choreographed.
“Why did you become a Mitchell?” I ask. “You don’t seem that excited about it.”
Carter sighs, and for a minute, I think he’s going to decline to answer.
But then he says, “I never wanted to be a Mitchell. I came into this world as an Anderson, and I wanted to stay that way. It was the name my mom gave me, the one I grew up with. When Wilson said he wanted me to legally take his last name, I said no. Or, to be honest, I screamed no, loudly, before stalking off like the surly fourteen-year-old I was. There was no possible way I was going to take the last name of the man who had ignored me my entire life. The man who married another woman when my mom was days away from giving birth to me.”
I continue to clean, making sure he knows I’m listening but not prying. “But then?”
Another sigh. “But then my mom told me Wilson was offering to increase his child support by a thousand dollars a month if I changed my name. I still said no. Like the petulant child I was, I said no, claiming I would work all summer and earn as much money as he would pay us.”
He coughs like his throat can’t handle saying that many consecutive words at one time.
“My mom’s laughter turned into tears as she explained that working breakfast rather than dinner meant she was bringing in less money in tips, and for the first time, she wasn’t sure where she was going to find the cash to pay our bills.
I offered to quit football and get a job after school, but Mom wouldn’t hear of it.
She knew all about my plans to get out of Wild Bluffs, and part of that plan was an athletic scholarship if an academic one didn’t pan out. ”
“I’m sorry, Carter. I…” I what? Didn’t know? We all assumed it was something like that. “I shouldn’t have pried.”
“It’s fine. But yeah, the day I formally became a Mitchell was one of the worst of my life.”
It’s silent as we both continue to pack our things.
“Are you headed up to check the comms devices?” Carter asks when we’ve both got our equipment packed and ready to be on a truck to Amsterdam in a few hours.
“I am.”
“Want some company?”
I feel the slow smile pull on my face. Company in general? No. Carter’s company?
“Sure,” I say. “If you want to.”
Shifting the backpack with my laptop and essential equipment onto my back, I mentally work through my checklist for tonight. The earpiece check should be the last thing I need to get done.
We’re in Tokyo in a week, so the equipment we used in Dublin has already started its long journey there.
Our gear from tonight will start the seventeen-hour drive south to the Netherlands bright and early tomorrow.
It’s a quick enough turnaround that I’m surprised we have a full travel day for it.
We’ll have almost twenty-four hours where only the executive protection team is working, and Carter plans to change them out fairly frequently to get everyone as much time off as possible.
It’s that twenty-four-hour stretch that made the conversation with Nash about fraternizing with the other agents a requirement.
“So what did Nash say when you talked to him about Mikayla?” I ask.
“He assured me nothing was happening between them.”
“But?”
“But he’s interested in her, and as much as it pains me to admit it, I think she might be interested in him too.” Carter runs a hand through his hair, the carefully groomed length on the top turning into valleys where his fingers pass through.
“Which means it’s an issue; it’s just not breaking the rules.”
“Why couldn’t he have fallen for one of your voices in his ear?” Carter asks. “There is no fraternization policy between teams.”
“We don’t actually have one at all.”
“Really?” he asks, his eyebrows shooting up as he swivels his head to look at me, never missing a step.
“I considered it, but as we’re rarely in person together, it’s not really necessary. It’s not like your team, where a relationship might cause Nash to pick protecting Mikayla over Jaxon.”
“So you think I did the right thing?”
“You followed the rules of the company you work for. Is it up to you to decide what your fraternization policy is?” I ask, making the last turn to the security storage room.
“No.”
“Then, there you go.”
I stop a few feet away from the room, knowing there is a chance someone will be in there collecting earpieces for me. Nash, bless his heart, has been quite helpful when it comes to being another pair of hands for me, since I don’t have anyone else physically here.
“But,” I say, “I also think there are less aggressive answers. Like, couldn’t you just make them disclose their relationship and then not have them be on the same detail? Or just turn a blind eye while they get it out of their system? Who is to say it’s a long-term thing?”
He lets out a soft chuckle, his eyes darting to the door that Nash is most likely behind.
He takes a step toward me, lowering his head to look into my eyes.
“If they never would’ve said anything and just hooked up a time or two before it fizzled out, I would be happy to live in ignorance.
Unfortunately, Nash felt the need to tell me there are real feelings there. Feelings that aren’t going to go away.”
“Give it time; that will change. Feelings don’t tend to stick around too long.”
He leans just a little closer, a sad grin tugging at his lips. “Some feelings don’t just fade, no matter how long it’s been.”
That clean scent of his is back, his deodorant my new favorite fragrance. The air between us pulses as my eyes flash to meet his. There’s sadness there, and something else I can’t interpret.
“Hey, guys.” Nash’s voice comes from my right as the door to the security room opens.
I blink, and the moment with Carter is gone. He’s stepped away so casually that I didn’t even know it was happening, and now I’m questioning if it even happened. Was that a moment there? And if it was, what could it possibly mean?
“Nash,” Carter replies, his voice friendly as he makes his way toward the room.
“I hear you got a talk about how not to spend your free time in Amsterdam,” I say, smiling up at the large man as he hands me a case with the earpieces already tucked nicely into their spots.
“I told Grandpa over there that he didn’t have to worry about me,” Nash jokes, crossing his muscular arms across the black Mitchell Security shirt he has on.
He and Carter could almost be brothers with their large frames and dark hair. Though Nash’s face is softer, his edges less defined. Carter gives a whole new meaning to strong square jaw.
“I think we both know that he very much does need to worry about you,” I say, setting the black case down on the table in the room and beginning my inspection of every earpiece.
Nash shrugs. “Or he could just choose not to. It’s not like I want to go out and experience all Amsterdam has to offer. I just want to take my coworker out for a nice dinner.”
“I think you mean date,” Carter chimes in, moving next to me at the table.
His arm bumps mine slightly, the warmth from the contact flowing through me as he reaches across me to grab the next earpiece in line. I shoot him a grateful smile, which he returns with a small one of his own.
“I thought only you were allowed to examine the equipment,” Nash says to me.
I look over my shoulder, seeing the teasing behind the question on his face.
He’s not wrong. After Vancouver, relying on someone else to check the earpieces should be out of the question.
I’m not sure why I’m so willing to let Carter help me, but I’m sure in a small room with two large men is not the correct time to try to figure it out.
“I just said that so you wouldn’t feel bad that I didn’t trust you manhandling them with those baseball mitts you call hands.”
“Carter’s hands are just as big as mine.”
Do not look. Do not—shit. My eyes fall to Carter’s hands where they gently grasp the small black device, turning it over as he examines it. I’m transfixed by the rough callus I can see on his thumb, imagining what it would feel like—nope!
Nash has a lopsided grin on his face when I finally drag my eyes back to him.
I narrow my eyes in response, but that just makes his grin widen.
“Well, I’m going to take my baseball mitts and leave this super important work to you two,” Nash says after I turn my attention back to my work.
He leaves us to it, and we fall into a quiet rhythm, both focused on inspecting, cleaning, and turning off each of the earpieces.
As we work, something settles in my chest, something that makes me feel a little less alone.