Page 7

Chapter 7

Invite Only

Xavier

The car picked us up from the airport and drove us to the vice president’s residence. It pulled up slowly to the front of Gilded Lily Observatory Lane.

Nice street name. Lilies had always been an important symbol in my life, which made this feel like a sign that things were on the right track.

A man dressed in a tailored suit of ink black stepped out and opened the door for Blake. He thanked the man and hopped out, followed by Warrick, then me.

A golden retriever lounged on the wraparound porch, tongue lolling out. I couldn’t blame him. It was the perfect spring day, the dry and oppressive heat of the desert being replaced by a fresh breeze that rustled the oak trees standing like sentinels on either side of the home.

Blake took a moment, looking up at the stately two-story home.

“Missed it? ”

Blake shook his head. “No. The opposite. Some really bad memories here.” He pushed forward, leaving his suitcase next to the front door before saying hi to the pup. Warrick crouched next to them.

“This is Luna. She’s a sweetheart,” Blake said. Luna gifted him with some welcome home kisses.

The heavy white door opened without a sound. The second lady of the United States, Cassandra King, stepped out to greet us. She had a warm, welcoming spirit to her. Right off the bat, she greeted us all with a shining smile and gentle hugs.

“How was the flight?” Cassandra asked. The same man in the tailored black suit began moving the few bags we had inside.

“Fine,” Blake answered. “I spent most of it playing cards with Warr.”

“Your son is brutal when it comes to card games.” My brother scratched the back of his neck. The forest-green scales on his forearm looked like a small patch of flourishing nature. It was no wonder Warrick was born a green dragon, with the power to manipulate the natural world around him. He had a deep love for all living things, regardless if it was a thorn-filled rosebush or a crying baby fawn.

“He gets that competitive spirit from me,” Cassandra said with a wink. “Come, let’s get you boys settled.” She led us into the stately home, the scent of fresh baked bread wafting in our direction from the kitchen. We walked down wide hallways with photos of the family placed up on the clean white walls. There were a couple of housekeepers busy with tidying things up, and a friendly tabby cat came to greet us as we stepped out onto the yard .

“The guesthouse is over there.” She pointed toward a smaller replica of the home we’d just walked through. “Warrick, you’ll be staying there. Xavier, we have a room for you inside, closer to Blake’s.” A large pool was being cleaned by a Marvel pool boy. He used red threads of mana to move two skimmers around the perimeter, lifting them up from the water and dumping the wet leaves and bugs into a bin next to him.

Blake’s stomach audibly growled. He winced. “I haven’t eaten in hours.”

“Well, let’s fix that,” Cassandra said. She pulled Blake into a side hug and kissed the top of his head. Blake smiled, his amber eyes crinkling at the corners.

My heart stung, like a bee had somehow squeezed its way into my chest. It wasn’t an intense pain. That had started to fade months after my mother’s passing. It was more of a dull pain, a constant reminder that I’d lost a piece of myself. Out of all our siblings, I had to be the momma’s boy. It wasn’t like our dad was really trying too hard to win me over to his side, but even if he had been, I still think I would have gravitated toward my mother instead.

“Are you boys hungry too?”

Warrick nodded. “Starving.”

Xavier glanced at me. The bee continued to buzz inside me. “I’m going to familiarize myself with the space. I’ll meet you guys for lunch later.”

Blake cocked his head. “Well, let me at least give you a tour, then.” He separated from his mom. “Come, let’s head inside.”

Our group split up. Warrick went to go stuff his face, and I had the grand tour with Blake. He seemed more tense now that he was back home. He appeared to be on high alert, which was quite different than how he’d been back in California.

“What about your childhood home?” I asked him as we wrapped things up inside the sunroom. We sat on either end of a very comfortable dark blue couch as light washed in from the row of windows surrounding us.

Blake smiled and petted Winston, the tabby cat, who purred loudly on his lap. “I lived in Sunnyvale, North Carolina. It’s a smallish town without any of the close-mindedness that usually comes with it. Our community was full of Marvels and shifters and fae, a few vampires, and just regular people. Everyone got along, and there weren’t any creepazoids or weirdos.” His shoulders appeared to relax a bit. Warm memories must have flooded back to him. “That place also didn’t have the same baggage as this one.”

The stalker. I’d heard the story when I was getting the rundown on the job, but it had come from his father. Not from Blake. I hadn’t talked about it yet with him.

“Want to talk about it?” I asked him.

“It happened right over there.” He pointed through one of the windows. There was a small garden full of purple and blue lavender bushes bordered by a tall fence. A round table surrounded by four chairs was placed in the center. “I was having a lunch date with my first serious boyfriend. I thought we were safe. Then, I hear a desperate shout. I look, and I see the guy running toward the fence, full speed. He had a huge knife in his hand. He managed to climb over the fence before the Secret Service got to me.”

“Nothing happened to you, though, right?”

Blake shook his head. “Almost. It was close. He was only a couple feet away from me, yelling about no one having me if he couldn’t.”

“I’m sorry. That must have been terrifying.”

“It was,” Blake said. “And then, I don’t know if this is worse or not, but it’s the aftermath that really kind of traumatized me.”

“How so?” I leaned in. Blake and I usually had an easy time talking, but we hadn’t shared a moment like this yet. I could tell there was a vulnerability to Blake that I wasn’t used to seeing.

He swallowed and continued to give Winston head scratches. “It was seeing my stalker be strung up by red mana and then turned to swiss cheese by the same thing. The Secret Service is mostly made up of Marvels, so they launched threads at him like projectiles. Blood sprayed everywhere. My date looked like he’d taken a bath in cherry juice. And my stalker still wouldn’t take his eyes off me. Even when they turned bright red.”

“Was that the first time you’d seen something like that?”

“In person, yes. My parents kept me sheltered for my entire life. I’d never even been in a fight.” He squeezed his hands together and gnawed on his bottom lip. “A short while after that, I was put in self-defense classes. It’s why I held my own the other day during the attack.”

“You really did,” I said. He lifted his chest a little higher. “You kicked that shifter’s ass.”

“Until you had to rewind time and save my ass.”

“It’s what I’m here for.”

Black chuckled. He looked good in this light. His blond hair glowed, matching the shine in his gaze. “I thought you were here to eat my leftovers and bug me about not putting the toilet seat down.”

My turn to laugh. “It’s one of my pet peeves. Sorry. And what else am I supposed to do? You hate leftovers. I don’t want them going bad.”

“I do hate leftovers,” Blake confessed. “Do you always get to know your clients so well?”

“No,” I said. I crossed one leg over the other. “I don’t normally have them live with me.”

“I’m a special case, huh?”

“Very.” I smiled at him. I didn’t mean for the word to come out so loaded, but for some reason, it had.

Blake looked back out the window. His cheek turned slightly pink. I could see the gears turning in his head, as if they were on overdrive.

“You’re an overthinker, aren’t you?”

He let out a scoff. “That’s an understatement. My brain never shuts off. I’m definitely a worrier. About the past, the present, the freaking future. All of it.”

“What are you worrying about right now?”

“Whether or not I’m sounding dumb to you.”

That caught me by surprise. I cocked my head and moved closer to him on the couch. “That’s a very silly worry, Blake. You don’t sound dumb in the slightest. I’ve never once thought that from being around you. You come across as one of the most well-read and sharp-minded people I’ve ever met.”

“Well, that’s a first,” he said. He had his eyes trained down at his sneakers. “I mean, I love to read, don’t get me wrong. Even then, I’m usually fumbling all over my words. Whenever I get nervous—which is often—I end up getting super awkward.”

“Being awkward isn’t the same as being dumb.” He lifted his gaze. I smiled at him. “And I happen to like awkward. I think being awkward is just moments when our true selves get so excited to appear that the energy gets tangled up. It’s just who you are, and that’s something to be proud of.”

“That’s a different way to look at it. I like that. Oh, fuck !”

Blake jerked backward as Winston leapt off his lap. There were eight tiny holes in Blake’s pants, right where Winston had been stretching his paws.

I couldn’t hold back my laughter. “That’s his way of saying I’m right,” I said as Blake rubbed his thigh.

“What happened to you being a bodyguard?” he asked jokingly. He leaned back into the couch, placing a gold velvet pillow on his lap. He fiddled with the tassels. “Anyways, you are right. I’m going to try and use that. Just to keep myself calm if I do feel myself spitting out word salad.”

Blake was such a fascinating mosaic. On the outside, he presented as a handsome and confident guy, the son of the Vice President, someone who had become used to playing a certain role in front of millions of eyes. That appeared to be a mask. Underneath was someone who lacked the confidence they projected, chewed away by anxiety and self-doubt.

Maybe I could help build it back up?

“You’ve said you love to draw, right?”

“I do,” Blake answered. He narrowed his eyes, unsure of where this was headed.

“Do you have your work here?”

“I do… ”

“Show me,” I said. “I want to see your masterpieces.”

“They’re hardly masterpieces.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” I stood up and offered a hand to help him. He took it, his grip closing around mine. My heart did a tiny leap that I tried to ignore. It happened quite often when Blake was around. But he was my client, and he had way too much on his plate to focus on the horny dragon fawning over him.

“Come this way, then. They’re in my bedroom.”

Oh… Maybe I should have asked him to bring the paintings to me.