Page 4 of Guarding the Star

“What?”

“I mean, if she's going to be my girlfriend…”

“I have no idea. I care more about whether she can do her job,” Alexandra says, and for the first time she sounds like she's losing patience with me. “You'll meet her tomorrow at nine.”

“Tomorrow at nine,” Hades repeats. “And seriously, show up sober.”

***

I drop onto the bed. A strip of light from the parking lot leaks through the curtains and draws lines across the ceiling. I've been staring at them for forty minutes.

I don't even feel like going out.

So here I am. Alone. With the silence.

I hate silence.

I always have.

When I was a kid, I fell asleep with music in my earbuds. In college, I slept with the TV on. Now I sleep with podcasts, playlists, the television, whatever fills the space between the mattress and the ceiling. If there's noise, there's no silence. If there's no silence, nothing can corner me into thinking.

And tonight I don't want to think.

Because if I do, I can't stop thinking about the photos. About the fact that someone has been following me for six weeks and I had no clue. I think about the parking lot shot, the one at night, and how they could've been ten feet from me and I wouldn't have known.

My phone buzzes. Tina posted another meme. Emojis. Laughing faces.

I pick up my phone. Open Instagram. Close Instagram. Open Spotify. Close Spotify. Open my messages. Close my messages.

Nothing works.

I stare at the ceiling. The line of light. The hum of the AC.

I think about Wesley. About how he pulled my ponytail this morning and told me I smell weird. About Zoe and Tessa, about the thing they've built together. I try to imagine what that feels like. Being so sure of something that you're willing to let everything else go.

I've never been sure of anything except that I know how to put a ball in the back of the net.

I roll onto my side.

I hit play.

I close my eyes.

The noise comes back. But tonight it doesn't work.

Chapter 2

Paula

“Sit down, Delgado,” my boss orders.

Jason Skelton, director of operations. Sixty-two years old, ex-FBI, busted left knee that makes him limp when the barometric pressure drops. Today he limps.

Behind his desk there's a photo of his wife and two daughters, a framed diploma, and a bonsai that's been dead for at least three months, though nobody dares throw it out.

He slides a brown folder across the desk. Thick. Stamped confidential.

“You ever heard of the Seattle Emeralds?” he asks, no preamble.