Page 118 of Tangled Like Us

“Hell yeah,” he nods a few times. “Did you?”

“I did, immensely, and I really love that you enjoyed your first too.” Feeling that there was happiness in his life makes me happy.

He checks slight movement on his right, orange streamers blowing as the air conditioning kicks on, and then he looks at me. “Your first time didn’t hurt?”

I inspect a pair of black wings in a fallen angel costume. “A little bit in the beginning, but then it felt better.” I turn more to him. “The overall experience was illuminating and exciting, and now sex is practically a favorite hobby.”

He nods. “Sex feels different with you though.”

We both tense at his admission. Treading carefully.

“Good different?” I pry a little deeper.

“Beyond fucking good, honey,” he answers, inhaling strongly like my scent does him in and we’re only a few feet apart.

Heat pricks my nerves, flush ascending my cheeks.He’s on-duty, I remind myself, and I’m respecting his position as my bodyguard from now until forever.

He shifts around me, standing closer to the emergency exit as someone pounds on the door from the outside.

I flinch at the noise.

Thatcher’s indomitableI will annihilate anyone who tries to harm youpresence eases me considerably. Anyone who tries to hurt me will have to pass through his iron-will and brawn, and it won’t be an easy feat.

I hear a muffled, masculine voice. “It’s locked.” And then footsteps drift further away.

Thatcher turns to me. “It’s still safe here.”

I relax more, and he watches me examine the black angel wings. I manage to land on another question. “What were you like as a teenager?”

He’s a second from responding, but his phone rings. Security would communicate through comms, so I’m assuming this has to be his family in South Philly.

“Mannaggia,” he curses under his breath in Italian and digs for his phone in his pocket.

I asked him what the Italian-American word meant not long ago, and he said,Damn.

Thatcher narrows his gaze onto the phone screen. “Xander is calling me.” We share a look of confusion.

When Thatcher permanently transferred to my detail, I asked him repeatedly if he was positive, if he was comfortable, leaving Xander Hale: my fragile cousin, who Thatcher protected and saw grow up from nine-years-old to fourteen.

I love my cousins as if they were my sisters and brothers, and Xander needed Thatcher more than me. There was a giant place inside my heart that felt like I was stealing someone crucial and vital to Xander’s mental well-being and life.

Thatcher told me, “I need to leave Xander, and Banks is going to have to leave at some point soon too. And it’s going to be one of the hardest things we ever do.”

I didn’t understand at first, but he said, “It’ll be good for all three of us.” Thatcher explained that Xander relied on them to the point where he’d panic if they needed to take a day off and couldn’t be on his detail. If they needed to switch with a temp for an hour, he’d be more anxious and upset.

I think Thatcher felt like they made a mistake for five years in not helping Xander be more comfortable with other bodyguards. Becoming so dependent on them that only they could be his safety net—when they needed Xander to trust the entire team.

And so they had to help him move on.

Now Xander is calling him, and it’s a little out of the ordinary. Thatcher has been off his detail for almost a year, and if Xander calls anyone, it’s most likely he’ll dial his older brother’s number. Possibly he couldn’t reach Maximoff, but that’d mean something terrible is happening to my best friend.

Moffy is almost always reachable.

“Maximoff is still here?” I ask Thatcher before he answers the call.

“As far as I know,” Thatcher says. “But Farrow doesn’t always use comms if he changes locations.”

I wait to text Moffy.