Infinityglass (Hourglass 3)

I was all hands on hips, blocking his way. “Talk to me. About anything. The NFL? The NBA? Heck, the WWE?”

From the way his mouth shaped itself, I thought he could be biting the inside of his lower lip to keep from laughing.

“Have you been lobotomized?” I spoke slowly, with perfect enunciation, and mimicked sawing my own head open.

He gave his head a slight shake and stared at the floor. This time he couldn’t stop the smile.

Gotcha.

“Look at that,” I said. “Signs of intelligent life.”

Maybe his brain muscle was as well developed as the rest of them.

“Are you going to your room,” he asked, “or back downstairs?”

“He has a voice!” A deep one. “Wherever you’ll follow. That’s where.”

“I’m your bodyguard,” he said in a monotone. “I have to follow you.”

“To the ends of the earth.”

“Your room or back downstairs?” he repeated.

In one quick movement, I reached up and pulled off his earpiece. It slapped down against his chest. “Turn it off.”

He clicked a button, and the green indicator light switched to red.

“I’m staying right here. You’re going to talk to me,” I said.

The downstairs door slammed shut. We both jumped, and his whole body tensed.

“Hallie?” Dad barked out the question.

“I’m here.”

“Come down.” Most everything Paul Girard said was a demand.

I didn’t budge. “I just finished class, and I’m still in my robe.”

“There’s a guard with you?”

“Yeah. The new one who looks like a linebacker and stares at me while still managing to avoid direct eye contact.”

He made it now. His grayish green peepers locked on to mine. The potential of disapproval from my father made him respond more quickly than any of my feminine posturing. I’d have to remember that.

Dad answered after a few seconds of silence. “I’ll be waiting in the library.”

“Library. Right.”

Dad’s fancy Italian loafers slapped across the hardwood floor. The sound echoed up the stairwell.

Once it disappeared, I stared at the male specimen in front of me. “Talk, or I’m not moving. I’m going to stand here until my dad comes looking for me. When he does, I’m going to untie my robe and back away from you like we’ve been doing something inappropriate. And just so you know, there’s nothing under this silk but skin.”

His Adam’s apple convulsed in his throat.

“There’s only one thing you can do to make me go in my room, put on my clothes, and get my fine ass to Daddy’s office.”

Silence.