Page 34 of Guarding the Star

“The left.”

“See? We're compatible. I always sleep on the right,” she says, and starts getting undressed.

Chapter 11

Iris

Alexandra Drummond's strategy is to play the silence game. Say nothing. Let the video I recorded do its job. Let people think whatever they want.

Meanwhile, Paula is still my partner in public so the press doesn't know what to believe. The idea is to turn a lie into a half-truth that nobody can fully tear apart.

It's brilliant in a slightly twisted way. It's also exhausting. Though it's easy to pretend to be someone's partner when you've been sleeping in their bed for two nights. No sex, but not exactly zero contact either.

After the game, reporters won't let up. Over and over.

“Iris, can you confirm whether your partner is security personnel hired by the club?”

“Iris, is there a threat?”

“Iris, who is @yoursecondskinseesyouforreal?”

I smile and answer with soccer.

“We won three to one. Does anyone want to talk about the goals? I've said what I had to say. If you don't want to talk about soccer, go watch the video again. It's free.”

The persistence of these people. They ask the same questions with different words like that's going to change my answer or trip me up.

With Paula, you never know. She's half bodyguard, half something else, because when she wraps her arm around my waist or runs her hand down my back at night, I don't think that's in her company's handbook.

In the locker room, things are weird. I should talk to the girls, explain the situation, but what do I say? Paula started as my bodyguard, that's crystal clear. Right now, I don't even know what she is. A friend? A woman I sleep next to every night who strokes my back but doesn't make love to me? The whole thing is bizarre.

At least the mole inside the club didn't take long to find. An accountant who stumbled onto the information through a screw-up at the security firm. A freak accident that turned my life upside down, because nothing has been normal since. He got fired, but the damage is done.

“I need to go out,” I blurt the second I see Paula after the game.

“No.”

“Come on, Paula, you've got me living like a hermit. Club to home, home to club. I'm used to going out at night. I promise I won't drink. Okay, I won't drink too much. Nothing's going to happen to me, plus you're coming with me. We'll have a good time, trust me,” I say with a wink.

“It's better if we don't,” she says.

“Listen. That psycho is going to keep writing garbage until someone catches him. I'd rather he didn't, but I'm not going to sit locked up until this is over, because I'm losing my mind. If I hide, he wins. If I stop being me, he wins. I won't give him that. Besides, the risk is mine.”

“The risk is mine too,” she says. “Because if something happens to you, it's on me.”

“No, Paula. If something happens to me, it's that psycho's fault. The guy who's stalking me. It's not on you. It's not on me. It's on him. And your job isn't to lock me in a cage so nothing bad happens.”

“Iris,” she sighs, dropping her voice. “I'm not trying to lock you in a cage. I'm just asking for a pause.”

“A pause sounds a lot like silence. And silence eats me alive,” I shoot back.

“I know.”

“You know? No, you don't know. You have no idea. You know I sleep with the TV on because I don't like the quiet. But you don't know what it is. You don't know what happens when you lie down and your own head becomes the loudest place in the world. You can't imagine how messed up it is that the only way to shut it up is to fill the room with outside noise until your thoughts drown. You have no fucking idea what it's like to live with that,” I yell, and push her away from me.

Paula doesn't answer. She just looks at me. She has no response. No protocol. No plan.

“I'm sleeping alone tonight,” I snap, and walk to my room.