Nothing Left to Lose (Guarded Hearts 1)

“Good morning,” Ashton chirped, smiling as he spotted me.

I waved a hand in response. He grinned and nodded down at my legs for some reason as if trying to tell me something. My gaze drifted down, confused, until I spotted that I was only wearing his T-shirt. Heat flooded my face for the second time in a few minutes as I realised that they were all looking at me. I grabbed the bottom of the T-shirt, trying to pull it down further; it already came to my mid-thigh, but I felt exposed in front of the other two. I actually didn’t care if Ashton saw me like this. He’d seen me in much, much less.

“Um, hi. Sorry, I didn’t know you guys were here.” I winced, smiling apologetically.

“Don’t worry about it, Miss Spencer,” the new guard replied, looking me over slowly with an appreciative look on his face.

I frowned at his obviousness. “My eyes are up here, Agent!” I snapped acidly, pointing to my face.

Ashton’s body tensed as he stepped to my side, glaring at Peter warningly. I moved closer to him, trying to discreetly hide behind him as he spoke. “Agent Burnet, I appreciate that you might want to keep the relationship of bodyguard and client informal, but that shit stops right now, understand? Plenty of other Agents would love a cushy job like yours, so if you want to keep your position, I suggest you be a little more respectful,” he stated, his voice angry and full of authority.

Peter jumped, looking a little taken aback as he nodded in agreement. “Right. I’m sorry, Miss Spencer,” he apologised nervously.

I laughed uncomfortably. “Don’t worry about it,” I told Peter, waving it off. “But can everyone just shush, please?” I winced and looked longingly at the coffee, trying to decide if I could be bothered to make the four steps over to it to pour some for myself.

Ashton’s shoulders loosened as he smiled down at me before picking up a glass from the side and pouring me a glass of water. “Suffering after last night?” he teased, nudging me in the side and setting the glass of water and two pills in front of me.

“Thanks.” I smiled gratefully, swallowing them quickly.

“So, what’s on the agenda for today? Do I have anything I need to do, or can I unpack?” Ashton asked, as he poured me a coffee.

I frowned. “I don’t know. We need to go grocery shopping, I guess, but I need to unpack too, I don’t have any clothes for today. I mean, why the hell am I wearing your shirt?” I asked, looking at him curiously. All three of them laughed again.

“You were drunk. I couldn’t find your pyjamas, so I let you borrow my shirt,” Ashton explained, shrugging casually, but the tiny tightening to his eyes showed me how uncomfortable he was.

Flashbacks of me suggesting we sleep naked flashed into my brain, so I quickly averted my eyes from his. Dear God, what is wrong with me lately? “Right okay, well thanks.”

“No problem. So, if we unpack first, then maybe go grocery shopping this afternoon?” he offered. I nodded, liking the idea of having a few hours to chill in the apartment; hopefully my hangover from hell would be gone by then. “Did you want to go to that party tonight?” he asked curiously.

“Party? What party?” I didn’t know anything about a party.

He shook his head, smiling. “Tim, the guy who liked you last night, asked us to go to a party tonight at a bar. You had a whole conversation about it with him. There’s a band and DJ, apparently,” he explained, shrugging easily.

I frowned. A party invite didn’t ring any bells with me so I must have been more intoxicated than I thought last night. “Do you want to go?” I asked, watching his face. I didn’t actually want to go, but I knew that I needed to start thinking of him more. I couldn’t trap him in with me twenty-four-seven for the next eight months, he’d go stir crazy.

“I don’t mind, whatever you want is fine with me,” he answered noncommittally, finishing his coffee.

I turned to look at Dean and Peter. “Well, what about you guys? Do you mind if we go? I guess that means one of you has to go too, unless Ashton and I can go on our own and forget this whole guard business? After all, what my dad doesn’t know won’t hurt him. We could have a sweet set up here. You can do what you want, and so can I,” I suggested, suddenly excited for a little piece of freedom away from prying eyes.

Unfortunately, they didn’t look as if they were going for it. Peter gasped, looking at me in disbelief. “Are you kidding? What with everything that’s going on, there’s no way that’s going to happen, Miss Spencer.”

Ashton snapped his head around to look at him, giving him a warning look which made Peter shrink back and press his lips into a thin line.

“Everything that’s going on? What does that mean?” I quizzed, confused.

Peter cleared his throat. “I meant with the whole starting college thing. We still haven’t checked out everywhere. No one knows routines and stuff, that’s all,” he answered quickly.

I detected a measure of unease as he spoke, but decided to leave it. I didn’t know him well enough to start second guessing what he was talking about. “Oh okay,” I muttered. “Well, maybe we should go for a little while, just to see what it’s like,” I agreed. “I’ll leave it up to you three to sort out the details; I’m gonna go start my unpacking.” Before I turned and ran to the bedroom, I stole Ashton’s toast from his plate, laughing as he complained about it.

We spent the whole day just lounging around and not doing much. Lazily, I’d unpacked my clothes, arranging my room how I wanted it, with my photo of Jack right beside the bed as usual. After we’d unpacked, we’d headed to the grocery store to stock up for the week. Even that was actually quite fun. I’d only ever been when I was a little girl with my mom. Since my dad had climbed higher up in his job, we weren’t really allowed to do normal things and I enjoyed the day of just relaxing, and talking to Ashton about random things. He was incredibly easy to get along with, so easy that it almost frightened me.