Page 6 of The Bodyguard's Fall

She gave me one right back. “I can. That was nice of you to step in, but I can do this. I don’t want to be mean to him. I think he’s just shy and a little socially awkward.”

“A little?” I burst out. “He’s been staring at you all night.”

She acted like I hadn’t said a word. “I don’t need you to do anything else. This is Will’s wedding. I don’t want to cause a scene. Let’s just keep dancing. If we need a plan B, then I’ll let you grunt and hit your chest a few times. He’ll get the hint.”

“I don’t think he’s getting the hint,” I said, my eyes locked on him.

“I don’t want to be mean.”

“You were living your best life ten minutes ago. Now you have a wrinkle in your forehead right here.” I lightly touched the spot above her right eye that wrinkled when she was upset. “He’s the one being mean to you.”

“What if you tell him off and he goes crazy?”

“What if we don’t tell him off and he goes crazy?” I countered.

Her shoulders dropped. “Just…please. Let’s try my way first.”

I stared at her for a long moment, not liking anything about this but also remembering my promise to Will to not start a fight.

“Fine. We’ll keep dancing. But if he doesn’t leave in the next ten minutes, I’m going to talk to him.”

“Fine.”

He left eight minutes later.

In that time, I discovered that Liv was terrible at being undercover, and I spent most of it trying to loosen her up. I’d successfully gotten her to laugh three times. Will had given me no less than six warning looks, all of which I ignored. Leroy wasn’t going to leave unless we were more convincing. We did accomplish a halfway decent dip that made her blush pretty naturally, so I’m calling it a win. It was just after that dip that Leroy slunk out of the reception center. I made Liv stick close to me the rest of the night, feeling better having her within arm's reach.

Will and Meg danced. They cut the cake. She tossed the bouquet. Liv and I relaxed and got back into a groove of chatting with friends and family—at least, Liv did.

I was never able to completely shake the feeling that someone was still watching.

Liv

Plot Twist:

The female main character suddenly finds herself packing her bags in the unholy hours of the morning so her overprotective brother can spirit her away from the villain.

I didn’t normally narrate my day in third person. It was just…sometimes fiction could seem so convoluted. So unrealistic. Until you found yourself living a life more in tune to the pages of an overly clichéd screenplay. So, the third-person narration seemed fitting. It helped me imagine that I was some cool, tough-as-nails main character about to set out on her hero’s journey.

That sounded better, didn’t it?

Nobody wanted to imagine themselves as the twitchy side character with the pale skin and squishy arms, who backed away from danger instead of picking up a sword.

To be fair, in my twenty-seven years of life, I’d never had to fight anyone, so I was still holding out hope that if it did come to that, I’d surprise myself with a few moves that could rival any low-budget Hollywood movie.

I dumped the basket of clean laundry onto my bed and began fishing through the pile for matching socks.

I wasn’t sure which was worse: the fact that I was in enough danger to have to leave, or the fact that I could only take one bag.

Not that I had much to pack. One of the perks of having a stalker was that I did a lot of sitting at home in yoga pants, stained t-shirts, and fluffy, air-dried hair.

Will didn’t even have the guts to call and ask me himself. His buddy from the police station, Officer Rogers, called me just before bed last night. He used words like ‘official order’ and ‘police business,’ so here I was, packing a go bag at four in the morning while the rest of Montpelier, Vermont was sleeping. I wasn’t even sure Will could actually force me to leave, but I went along with it for one reason I would never admit to my brother.

I was terrified.

If my life were a movie, people would be glued to their TVs. It had started slowly, just like any good stalker thread. A random date. Then he showed up, creepy and unannounced, at a wedding he shouldn’t have known the location of. Tate Walker running him off. Me assuming it was over. And then…eighteen months later…the café. An anonymous bouquet of flowers sent to my door. Notes taped to my car in the grocery store parking lot.

And then the voicemails. That soft, nasally voice that gave me chills. The letters, telling me about our future wedding, with no trace of DNA. Knick-knacks sent to me from anonymous places. More voicemails, this time telling me how much he loved the blue shirt he’d seen me wearing that day.