Whenever they all assemble together, Omega inadvertently gathers. And very fucking soon, my role with the famous ones and security will shift drastically. I don’t try to predict how it’ll feel.
All I know is that I’ve never been afraid of the great unknown, but I’m definitely cautious going forward since I’m leaving more things behind than usual.
I pluck latex gloves out of a box. Every guy already wears a pair. Mail day is a minefield of the good, the bad, and the disgusting.
Oscar unfolds a letter. “Dear Charlie,” he reads. “Get Well Soon.” He crumples the letter and free-throws it into the hanging trash bag.
“Cold,” Donnelly says, reaching for a yellow mailer.
Thatcher glances up from a letter he’s been reading. “Charlie doesn’t want to read his fan mail?”
“The guy rarely does.” Oscar balls another letter. “I’ve been instructed to destroy all condolences.”
I snap on my gloves and tuck one-fifth of Maximoff’s mail under my arm. Drumsticks lie next to a carton of to-go coffees. I frown and pick up a wooden drumstick. “What’s with these?” I ask Akara.
He answers while texting. “Some teenage girl mailed them to me.”
That makes little sense. “How does the public know you were on the drumline?”
To my knowledge, most personal facts about SFO haven’t been unearthed. Especially since we deleted our social medias.
Then again, I haven’t been actively checking social media threats or keeping in touch with tabloid shit. When my relationship went public, I relinquished that responsibility to the tech team.
Just making that choice made me realize I was already pulling away from security.
Akara looks up from his phone. “Did you know Brock Carson from high school?”
“Never talked to that debate nerd, no.” I twirl the drumstick between my fingers.
“That debate nerd posted our yearbook on Reddit.” Akara returns to texting. “There’s a whole thread trying to find info on ‘Maximoff Hale’s boyfriend’ and they spotted me in the yearbook’s band section.”
I roll my eyes. Not thrilled that people are digging this hard into my past. I consider myself a fairly private person. Not many ever step into my business unless I let them. But I chose to be a public figure. I’ve known how invasive this could be.
Still, the creep factor is real.
“Let me guess,” I say, walking backwards to the open barstool opposite Oscar, “my senior photo is floating around the internet.” I had green hair in that picture.
“All over,” Akara nods.
Predictable.
I drop the mail onto the high-top table in a heap.
“Boyfriend’s going to love that photo,” Oscar says to me, being serious. I hold onto that fact and almost laugh.
I lean my ass on the barstool. “He’ll most likely save it as his lock-screen.”
And then he’ll make an excuse about how it’s because I hate the picture.
Oscar cuts a box open. “No, he’ll print that one out, Redford. Then he’ll frame it and hang it in every house you’re in for eternity.”
Eternity?
My brows rise at Oscar. He stares at me right in the eye, and I doubt anyone else but Donnelly realizes how he’s not joking right now. And then Oscar nods at me like he knows.
He knows that what I have with Maximoff isn’t temporary. Not just on my end, but on my boyfriend’s end, too. It’s not something he’s expressed before.
But I remember that Oscar was at the crash site. Holding an umbrella over us. He heard Maximoff and me. Saw him say his goodbyes. Saw us together, thinking it could’ve been the last time.
Raw emotion squeezes my throat.
I nod back.
We don’t need to exchange any words. I pass him an envelope addressed to Charlie that slipped beneath my stack.
“Thatch, anything good?” Donnelly asks.
“Thatcher,” he reminds him, folding a letter. “And it’s private.” Thatcher gently places the letter in a wicker basket labeled Jane.
I sort through six get well soon cards sent to Maximoff and save them. He’ll read each one, even if it takes him hours. The next envelope, I freeze on the return address and the familiar name.
“Oliveira,” I say, “why is your mom sending cards to my boyfriend?” I flash the envelope at Oscar.
“I have one for you. Hold on.” Oscar lifts a few boxes and grabs a letter. He chucks it at my face.
I catch it easily.
Oscar nods to me. “She didn’t know if she should send you two separate invites or one together. I went through seven phone calls in one hour, Redford. Just to reassure her that two were fine.”
I cock my head. “Did you tell Sônia that I wouldn’t have given a shit either way?”
“Yeah, I reminded her who you are.” Oscar grabs two more letters. “And then she pulled the Farrow has no mom on me. Look, she’s fucking frazzled that the Boyfriend is a Famous Boyfriend. Additional note: you both need to RSVP separately.”
“Sure.” I rip open the one addressed to me and read the invitation.
Please join us for the confirmation of our daughter Joana Raquel Sousa Oliveira.
My brows arch. For as long as I’ve known Oscar, I’ve only met his eighteen-year-old sister once or twice.
“I know,” Oscar tells me, “but it’s a big deal.”
I skim the details.
Location: a local Catholic church.
Date: a Sunday afternoon next month.
I frown.
Shit.
Probability that I’ll be stuck in the hospital working that day = extremely high.
What’s worse: years ago I couldn’t attend Quinn’s confirmation for the same reason. This’ll be the second time that I bail on the Oliveira family, and I’m not feeling great about it.
Maximoff will definitely want to go, and I would’ve loved to be his date to this. There’ll be others.
It reminds me how Maximoff has been planning our “first” formal date. In my eyes, we’ve been on a hundred-and-twelve dates already. In wolf scout’s eyes, they were all “semi-dates” since I had to keep up the bodyguard charade. I couldn’t eat dessert off his plate. Couldn’t kiss him. Couldn’t even hold his hand.
All restrictions are gone now, and honestly, I love how much Maximoff is treating this like it’s all new, all over again. Because there are very few feelings I love more than experiencing firsts with him.
I slip the invite into its envelope.
Oscar holds out two more cards to the guys. “Moretti, Kitsuwon.” Thatcher and Akara grab their invites.
I eye Donnelly who easily brushes off the rejection. Caring and loving parents worry about guys like Donnelly befriending their children. On paper, he reads like a bad influence.
In reality, he’s not.
I recognize the greatest benefit of having a father who really only cared about medicine. I was able to invite Donnelly everywhere. And Donnelly always said yes and came along.
I unsnap a rubber band off a package. “Joana is finally going through with it?” I ask Oscar since I witnessed the Oliveira family meltdown when she refused to get confirmed two years ago. I wasn’t raised in a religious household, but her decision appeared like a familial betrayal.
Quinn chimes in, “Only because our avó stopped talking to Jo.” He uncovers an alien plushie from tissue paper.
Thatcher pockets his invite. “If I’d been confirmed late, my grandma would’ve done the same to me.”
Oscar discards a Charlie Motherfucking Cobalt mug. “She’s lucky that I’m picking up our avó from the airport next week.”
I skim another get well card. “You volunteer for that, Oliveira, or were you selected for the slaughter?”
“My confirmation gift to my baby sister,” he explains, slicing open another box. “What’d I miss when Charlie went to the bar?” He means from tonight. We all joined in trivia with the famous ones, but we were also all on
-duty. Consequently, Oscar had to follow his client away from our booth.
I trash homemade chocolate chip cookies. “Just how Ben hasn’t been able to drive since the crash.”
Donnelly adds, “Jane said his foot keeps shaking on the pedal.”
Oscar mutters a curse. “I have fifteen years of driving experience on Ben, and I was having issues keeping the Range Rover on all four wheels that night.”
Quinn hurls an empty box at the fireplace. “Paparazzi should’ve backed the fuck off.”
“They won’t,” Akara says, flipping through a handcrafted Sullivan Meadows scrapbook. “The best the parents can do is keep filing lawsuits.”
But none have stuck yet. The Hales, Meadows, and Cobalts have also requested that the bodyguards drive for the younger kids until further notice.
Donnelly rattles his open mailer upside-down, and a lacy thong falls to the floor.
We all see it.
“Smell it, Donnelly,” I say with a rising smile. “Could be the mystery scent.”
He pinches the pink thong between gloved fingers and sniffs.
Quinn gags into his fist.
“Nah,” Donnelly says, “just smells like pussy.” He flings the panties into the trash and reads the card aloud. “Beckett Joyce Cobalt, I came in these thinking of you.” He smirks. “My guy has so many admirers.”
Silently, Thatcher dumps a ball gag and dildo in the trash. All mailed to Jane.