Bodyguards (2 page)

CHAPTER TWO

Brad

Every time the sunlight streaking
through the coffee shop window caught Brad’s tattoo, Vivien found herself
staring at it. It shouldn’t have been possible for ink to glimmer like that,
should it? She wasn’t an expert in tattoos in any way, but a few of her college
peers sported one or more, and none of them gleamed like the intricate spirals
drawn inside Brad’s left wrist, linked together to resemble a rough circle. It
seemed to come to life in the light, the long, tendril-like designs giving the
illusion that they shifted to better reflect the sun.

One of these days, Vivien would
ask Brad about the tattoo, whether it used some special ink and what it meant.
One of these days, she might even manage to have an actual conversation with
him. He was so shy that it was hard to get him to talk. Things were much easier
when they ran together; she didn’t have to try to find a topic of conversation
then. She only needed to keep up with his pace and try not to look at him too
intently and give herself away. But working with him on their political-science
class project, especially after Anabel had reminded her how transparent her
feelings could be at times, was a lot more problematic. Good thing they were
not alone.

“Do we all agree, then?” Clarice
asked, tapping her pencil against her notebook, a drumbeat urging them onward.

Vivien nodded along with Joe, the
fourth member of their group. She didn’t care one way or the other about which
of them started the presentation. She was ready, having done more than her fair
share of the research, and could have presented their topic—non-governmental
organizations and their social impact in third-world countries—on her own if
she had needed to. Of course, that would have meant not working with Brad and
that would have been too bad, his shyness notwithstanding.

Only after Vivien had agreed did
Brad follow suit. She had noticed before that he always spoke after she did,
invariably echoing her opinions. It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? She
wondered if it was another effect of his shyness and if he was trying to give
her a sign. Wishful thinking on her part, maybe, but she liked the idea.

The strange thing was, his shyness
only manifested toward her. Just a moment ago, he’d been disagreeing with one
of Clarice’s points, calmly countering each of her arguments with facts and
numbers until she had conceded he was right and had made a few changes to her
part of the presentation. Vivien wasn’t the only one who had researched their
topic thoroughly. Then again, she always tried to join groups in which the
other students were more interested in working hard than partying, like she
was.

“So, we’re all set, then?” Joe
asked in a deep voice that always seemed so startling, coming out of his lithe,
almost diminutive body. Without waiting for an answer, he closed his laptop and
began to stuff it in a messenger bag. “I’ll redo those slides and email you
guys a copy by the end of the day. Should we meet again tomorrow and run
through it one last time before the class? Same time?”

It was a plan. With a quick
goodbye, Joe hurried to his first class. Clarice followed soon after. As she
left the table, she looked back, her long braid swinging behind her. She winked
at Vivien over Brad’s shoulder. Vivien’s cheeks warmed suddenly, and she hid
her smile behind her coffee cup. Anabel wasn’t the only one who had noticed her
interest in Brad.

Vivien only took a small sip. The
coffee had long since lost its warmth. The flavor, at least, remained strong
and rich enough to wake any sleep-deprived college coed. She’d been drinking
very slowly, hoping without really admitting it to herself that Brad might
linger as well. She tried to peer into his mug of hot cocoa but couldn’t tell
how much was left.

“I’ve got another half hour before
my first class,” she said, glancing at the clock on the wall. “How about you?”

Brad shrugged and offered a small,
lopsided smile. “It started twenty minutes ago.”

She paused with her mug halfway to
her lips and set it down again, forgetting to drink in her surprise. “Why
didn’t you say something? We could have ended early if you had somewhere to
be.”

He ducked his head, looking down
into his mug as he slowly rolled it between his palms. “It’s all right. I can
afford to skip one class.”

Vivien only realized she was
staring at him when he peeked up at her with clear blue eyes. She quickly
looked away, letting her gaze wander over the coffee-shop crowd. The strong
aroma of slowly percolating coffee filled the room. Most customers at the
stainless steel tables looked like students; the coffee here certainly beat the
flavored water dispensed by vending machines throughout the campus, and the
prices were reasonable.

How many of the customers were
waiting for their next class as she was, Vivien wondered. And how many were
ditching to keep someone else company? Was it another sign?

How badly was she into Brad,
really, that she wondered if every little thing he did was a sign about his
feelings? She had tried to analyze her attraction to him and figure out what it
was exactly about him that made her heart flutter. He was good-looking,
certainly, his body toned, his features striking, and his eyes full of warmth
even though they were icy-blue, but she had always believed a man would need
more than looks to catch her attention. She couldn’t say they had a lot in
common, not when the only thing she knew for sure about him was that he enjoyed
running as much as she did. They’d taken lessons from the same fencing club,
too, but that had been years earlier. If only he talked with her as easily as
he did with other people...

When she looked back at him and
caught him observing her, she made up her mind. She had waited long enough for
him to take the first step—well, the second, if suggesting they jog together
had been the first. If he really was that shy, she had no problem taking the
initiative.

“What kind of music do you have on
there?” she asked, pointing to the MP3 player by Brad’s elbow on the table.

Rather than answering, he pushed
the player across the table toward her, inviting her to see for herself. She
felt a small thrill at that. She knew a look through her own playlists could
tell a lot about her, and she wondered if the same held true for Brad.

As she thumbed through a long,
unorganized list, all Vivien could tell was that Brad had eclectic tastes.
There was anything and everything on his player: classical music, country
songs, the latest pop tunes, golden oldies, even some rap.

“Oh, wow, is there anything you
don’t like?”

Brad smiled. “I’m still looking
for it.”

Laughing softly, Vivien thumbed back
to the name of a familiar band.

“Have you ever heard The Sound
Bytes in concert?” she asked, noticing Brad had almost all of the local band’s
songs.

“I haven’t, no. Have you?”

“Not yet, but I really want to.
I’ve heard they’re playing at a club downtown in a couple weeks.”

She stopped there, giving Brad a
chance to pipe up and invite her. When a moment had passed and he hadn’t done
anything more than take a sip of his cocoa, she figured she might as well forgo
subtlety altogether.

“It’s no fun going to a concert
alone. Would you like to go with me?”

Nervousness caused her last words
to come out in a rush of air. For a few seconds, Brad observed her as though he
hadn’t quite understood what she had said.

Then he frowned and asked,
hesitating on every word, “You... You don’t mean for me to go with you
like...like a date, do you?”

Vivien’s heart stammered. If her
face grew any hotter, she might self-combust.

“Actually I do,” she said with a
small smile. “I mean, we’ve known each other for a while now, and I like being
with you, and I thought maybe you liked being with me, too.”

That was Brad’s cue to tell her
that of course he liked being with her, that was why he had suggested they run
together, that was why he had joined her presentation group for this project,
and that was also why he was still there, sitting across from her in a coffee
shop rather than in a classroom.

Brad didn’t say any of these
things, however. Instead, he frowned a little more deeply and cleared his
throat.

“I’m afraid... I’m sorry, I don’t
think that would be proper.”

Vivien blinked twice, then stared
at him. If he had said he wasn’t into her, she could have accepted that. If he
had made an excuse about being busy, she could have graciously taken the hint.
But
proper
? What on earth did that mean?

Out of the blue, Anabel’s comments
about how Brad wasn’t for her came back to Vivien’s mind. Maybe Anabel had been
right, because Vivien certainly didn’t need anyone in her life who strung her
along before calling a potential relationship ‘not proper.’

“You know what?” She stood
abruptly enough that her chair started to fall back. She caught it with a
trembling hand. “You’re right. It was a bad idea. Sorry I brought it up.”

She slipped the strap of her book
bag over her shoulder and started to turn away, but changed her mind and looked
back. Stunned was an interesting look on Brad.

“By the way,” she added, hanging
on to her calm by her fingernails, “I won’t be able to run with you tonight. Or
tomorrow for that matter. Actually, I think I won’t be running for a while.”

This time, she didn’t stop or look
back, not even when Brad said her name. She’d been an idiot, but she did have
some shred of dignity left.

* * * *

The day dragged by, each class
seemingly twice as long as normal. She shared one of those classes with Brad,
and those two hours were the longest yet. He always sat in the back of the
room, and the entire time she imagined he was looking at her. What was he
thinking? Could he even understand why she had thought he was sending her signals
he was interested in her? Or was he oblivious to how his own actions could be
perceived, maybe?

When she gathered her things at
the end of the class, she saw him approach from the corner of her eye, his
progress impeded by a few chatting students. She didn’t know if he intended to
talk to her; she didn’t want to know. She’d felt enough humiliation for one
day. She hurried out, ducking into the first stairwell and rushing down the
steps.

She had planned to stop by the
library for an hour or so, but Brad sometimes studied there as well and she did
not want to see him, and talk to him even less. Only too soon she would have to
sit with him again; hopefully Clarice and Joe would run interference. She’d
make sure she wasn’t paired up with him in future projects, but it was too late
to change groups now. At least the presentation was scheduled for tomorrow
afternoon so things wouldn’t drag out much longer.

At lunchtime, she avoided the
sandwich shop where she usually grabbed a bite; it was one of Brad’s favorites,
too, and they’d sometimes waved at each other across the room or even shared a
table. Something else she had taken as a sign.

After her last class, she took the
bus home, sitting by herself in the back, her eyes drifting over the city
outside the window without really seeing it, like she heard the music from her
MP3 player without really taking it in. She had lived in this city for as long
as she could remember, but sometimes the urban landscape felt alien, as though
she were not supposed to be there.

Maybe moving out of her aunt’s
house wouldn’t be enough. Maybe she needed a complete change of scenery. It had
been pure luck that the local university had such a strong political-science
department when it was what Vivien planned to choose as her major. Maybe she
could transfer to another college, another place, meet new people, live on her
own...

A cheerful song by The Sound Bytes
came up next on her playlist. She fumbled with the player to skip ahead. She
didn’t feel like listening to that band at the moment, and even less to a happy
tune. She might not want to hear it for quite a while, actually, or at least
until the memory of how she had humiliated herself faded.

Abstractly, she knew she was
over-reacting. She had misread Brad’s interest in her, but that didn’t mean she
had to stop listening to one of her favorite bands simply because it was now
associated with a bad memory, or even that she had to transfer to a different
school so she wouldn’t see him on campus anymore.

Just the same, with the sting of
rejection so fresh in her mind, she had a hard time not feeling sorry for
herself. It had been a long time since she had had a boyfriend, and while she
refused to let her happiness depend on someone else, she couldn’t deny that she
had nurtured a few fantasies in the past weeks while she waited for Brad to be
ready to ask her out. What a fool she had been...

Caught in her thoughts, she almost
missed her bus stop, jumping to her feet to pull the cord at the very last
moment. The bus left her practically on her doorstep, and she walked up the
driveway with her book bag bouncing against her hip. As she came in through the
kitchen door, her gaze flew at once to the light above the closed door to the
front room. Lit, it signified that Anabel was with a client and that Vivien
shouldn’t disturb her.

Vivien went up to her room to set
her bag down and change into her running clothes and shoes. She had told Brad
she wouldn’t run anymore, but what she had meant was that she wouldn’t run with
him. There were other places where she could jog without risking seeing him.
She stopped briefly by her computer to check her email. As promised, Joe had
sent all of them the corrected slides for their presentation. Vivien left that
alone; she’d look at it later. Despite herself, she was disappointed that there
was no other email waiting in her inbox. A very small part of her had hoped
that maybe Brad...