Contingency Plan (Blackbridge Security 3)

“Okay, baby. Just get some rest.”

She frowns as her eyes flutter closed, and I lift the covers back over her head, smiling a little when she sighs in contentment.

She may not want me to call her parents, but at the end of the day, I’m here for work, and I have to cover my own ass. I find my phone on the living room table and press the contact to the office.

“Blackbridge Security,” Pam says when she answers the line. “How may I help you?”

“Hey,” I husk. “Who’s all around?”

“Hi, Flynn. How are things in New York?” she asks.

“Fine. They’re good. Is Deacon around?”

“He’s at an appointment with Anna. You have a choice between Wren or Ignacio.”

I don’t want to speak with either of them, knowing they’ll just give me shit, but I also don’t want to bother my boss while he’s with his wife either.

“Give me the geek,” I mutter.

“I haven’t said a word,” Wren says the second the line connects.

“I’m telling!” Puff Daddy squawks in the background.

“But,” Wren continues as if his psychotic bird didn’t just speak, “the boss man isn’t going to be happy finding out that you’ve been in a hotel room with your client for the last three days. I can’t hold him off forever.”

“I’m not—” I scrub my hand down the front of my face. “I’ve been sick.”

“She’s of legal age, so I wouldn’t exactly call it sick, but the business repercussions are—”

“Literally sick, you asshole. I’ve had the flu.”

My confession is met with silence.

“Flynn.” The tone is motherly and chastising. “You’re gonna have to come up with something better than that.”

And this is why I should’ve just left a damn message for Deacon to call me back.

“It’s the truth.”

“Not very believable.”

“I hate liars!” I vow to strangle the damn bird the next time I’m in the office. “You’re gonna get fired!”

“Wren,” I warn. “Get that damn bird under control.”

“He’s his own man,” Wren responds.

“You’ll end up in the soup line!” Puff squawks. “Please, sir, can I have some more!”

“Take me off speaker then,” I demand.

A few clicks later, Wren is back. “He’s cranky this morning. Simon pulled two feathers out of his ass last night. I told him to stay up high, but he didn’t listen.”

“I was assaulted!”

Normally, I’d laugh at the antics, but I still feel like shit, and at the moment, I’m not finding anything funny.

“I told you to stop antagonizing him. You never listen,” Wren snaps, arguing with the damn bird. “Serves you right.”

“Shit on your head,” the bird threatens.

“I fucking dare y—”

“Wren,” I snap. “Goddamn it. Can you focus for a minute?”

“Do you have a better story?”

“There’s no story. I was sick. I’m still sick, and now Remi has—”

“Remi? That seems cozy.”

“Remington is sick now too. She doesn’t want me calling her parents, but I know I need to check in.”

“So you’re checking in after checking into a hotel room?”

“Are you always so damn immature?”

“It’s one of my finer character traits.”

“A man can spend time in a hotel room with a woman and nothing happen,” I assure him, although I think things would be different had I not gotten sick. “Didn’t you spend a night in a hotel with Whitney not long ago?”

He groans. “The things we did to each other in that room—”

“Fuck, dude. Stop. I’m telling you nothing happened, and nothing is going to happen. She’s got the damn flu. I feel like I’ve barely survived a war zone. Let Deacon know she’s safe and not causing any problems. As far as anyone else needs to know, we’re at home.”

“Home?”

If I could send a virus to his damn computer and get away with it…

“Her house. For all anyone needs to know, we’re at her house. I’m fine. She’s fine. Every damn thing is fine.”

“Brooks said she’s more than fine. As a man in a committed relationship, I don’t have an opinion, but—”

Unable to listen to anymore, I hang up the phone, ignoring the immediate dick text message he sends right after.

Back in the bedroom, Remington is still curled up, from what I can tell, in the same position she was when I left her. The bed looks inviting, but I’ve crossed enough boundaries for one day. I settle in the chair in the small reading corner and keep my heavy eyes on the lump on top of the mattress.

Sleep is imminent, but impossible with the discomfort of where I’m sitting. I resist crawling into bed with her for a total of ten minutes—each second an eternity. It’s just sleep, I convince myself as I pull back the blankets.

“It’s just comfort,” I whisper when she inches toward me and places her hand on my chest.

And by the time I fall asleep, I convince myself it means nothing when she curls against my side. It doesn’t matter that she’s flush against me or that my arm is wrapped around her back holding her tight.