Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
He keeps his hand cupped beneath his nose. “I’m alright, Sul.”
She inches inside as Donnelly and Beckett fill the narrow hallway to watch. Only three bodies max are able to fit in this cramped bathroom. Jane would be here, but she’s sleeping in a bunk with earplugs.
Blissfully unaware.
But the more onlookers, the more Maximoff turns his back on them, just to decrease their concern.
Shit, I need him to bend forward, pinch his nose, and face me. He sort of corners himself by the faucet and pretends like he has everything under control.
In one motion, I hop up on the counter. Sitting, but I’m still a few inches taller. And I seize his waist and draw him towards me. “Pinch your nose or I’ll do it for you—”
I smile at his immediate reaction, his fingers automatically pinching his nose and forest-green eyes automatically narrowing.
The guy doesn’t like being coddled any more than I do.
I hold his jaw and guide his head forward and a little downward. I can feel him watching me as I examine the bridge of his nose.
By sight alone, the break isn’t clear. His nose isn’t sitting crooked on his face, but it swells. Skin in the corner of his eyes also reddens, the start of bruising.
His voice is stuffed as he tells me, “It’s not that bad.”
I pop my gum. “That’s cute that you think I can’t tell if it’s serious or not.” I glance at the three spectators. “Get me ice.”
Sulli darts out. “Kits, where’s the ice?”
Beckett slips further inside the bathroom, clutching the neck of a beer, and he scans the trickles of blood along the stone tile.
Maximoff pulls out of my hand. “I’ll clean it later. Watch out, Beckett.”
“I’ve seen worse.” Beckett puts his beer to his lips. “You’ve forgotten that I’ve lived on my own in New York for the past three years. I’ve grown up. Independent and free.” He outstretches his arms before looking at me from head-to-toe. Sizing me up for the fourth time, and that’s just counting today.
See, what I know of Beckett Cobalt is mostly based on bodyguard-talk, and Donnelly told me that Beckett is anti-relationships from trust issues being a celebrity.
He’s cautious of me. Either he believes I’m going to fuck and chuck Maximoff or toy with his emotions. Both of which, I’m not subscribing to.
But I’m not about to convince a twenty-year-old that I’m “here for the right reasons” and prefer long-term relationships.
I raise my brows at him. “Question?”
Beckett licks beer off his lips. “Not at the moment.” Then he shakes his head at Maximoff. “She was one elbow away from me, and you were hit. You have the worst luck.”
“It’s the Hale Curse,” Donnelly says, propping his tattooed arm on the door frame and drinking a beer.
I roll my eyes and gesture Maximoff closer.
“The what?” Maximoff asks, his brows knotted, but he edges nearer and stands between my legs. I clutch his jaw again and inspect his nose.
“Don’t ask him,” I tell Maximoff. “Donnelly tattooed Cobalts Never Die on his knee. He’d create imaginary curses for any family but that one.”
Beckett grins into his swig of beer. “That’s true.”
Donnelly ignores his client and motions his bottle to Maximoff. “The Hale Curse. If there’s a Hale in the room: what could go wrong, will go wrong to the Hale. Statistically proven.”
The security team basically loses their shit whenever Beckett makes the face that he’s making now. It’s a scrunched-up, un-replicated you idiot, that’s utter bullshit face.
“Statistically proven,” Beckett says, “zero percent of the time.”
Maximoff starts smiling, even covered in blood.
I barely glance at Donnelly. “Looks like your client is smarter than you.”
Donnelly pats Beckett’s back. “Learned from the best. Me.” Such a buddy-guard.
Oscar squeezes through the hallway. “That’s a negative thing, Donnelly.” He skids to a halt by the door and winces at Maximoff. “Ouch.”
Quinn peeks his head in. “God, I know how that feels.” He points at the scar along his crooked nose. “Two years ago, right hook in the ring.”
“What’s that scar from?” Sulli wedges in and points at the tiny scar below his eye, and she tosses the ice baggie wrapped in a towel to Beckett. He catches it.
I’d really love for this unnecessary audience to evacuate the bathroom and hallway and stop distracting Maximoff. Who at this point has completely rotated his head away from them, and he stares at the wall.
“Skin split from another boxing match,” Quinn says. “I KO’d the other guy.”
Oscar and Donnelly start clapping in jest, and normally, I would’ve joined the mock applause, but I need these fuckers out of the bathroom.
“Okay.” I chew my gum. “I can’t do my best work with you bastards shadowing the light.” I’m not about to say, hey guys, Maximoff has trouble being vulnerable in front of people, so please kindly exit. No. I gesture to the Omega bodyguards. “Get the fuck out.”