I wake up to the sensation of someone gently stroking the hair back from my forehead and temples. I open my eyes slowly, feeling very heavy and exhausted. Like it’s the morning after a particularly vigorous work out. As I blink, the room comes spinning into focus. That blank ceiling with the circular light. Gray walls. And it all comes rushing back to me.

Eddie. The hotel. The mercenaries. The roof. The safe room.

Wes.

Us. Together.

I sit up straight on the twin bed, eyes wide. Wes looks down at me, his arms folded over his chest. “Merry Christmas,” he says flatly.

I groan, rubbing my hand over my face. “Yeah. You, too.”

“How’d you sleep?” he asks, his voice a little softer now. Kinder.

I yawn and stretch, feeling the ache in my back. This mattress isn’t exactly what I’m used to sleeping on. I shrug. “Okay, I guess. How about you?”

He walks away into the en suite bathroom. “I didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?” I ask, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

“Sleep. I’m your bodyguard, remember? We may be in a safe room but it’s still in my job description to stay vigilant and watch out for you,” he says.

“Oh,” I murmur, feeling guilty and uneasy. There’s something off in the air this morning. Something wrong. Like I’ve done something to tip the scales and now the whole world is just slightly off-balance.

Well, I think to myself, you did fuck your bodyguard last night.

Yeah. There’s that.

“So what’s the plan today?” I ask, getting up and walking over to lean against the wall next to the bathroom door, which is slightly ajar. I can hear Wes washing his hands, splashing water on his face. Probably trying to wake himself up and stay alert. I feel awful that he didn’t get to sleep last night. It doesn’t seem fair. If I had known he was going to stay up all night to keep watch, I would have at least offered to take the watch in shifts rather than just conking out for the night.

Wes comes out of the bathroom, drying his face with a towel. He’s standing so close to me. Only a couple feet away. And already I can feel that electricity crackling between us like a downed telephone pole. I step aside instinctively, trying to reduce that burning tension.

“We can’t stay here. I have a feeling your guy isn’t just going to call off his goon squad because we’re locked up here in this little hole in the ground. Hotel security has undoubtedly dealt with our two friends tied up on the roof by now. I wonder if they got to see Santa Claus last night from their vantage point,” he says, smiling wryly. I can’t help but smile, too. He’s such a sardonic asshole, but god, he’s gorgeous.

“Do you think he’ll have someone waiting for us when we come out, though?” I ask nervously. He walks over and at first I think he’s going to hug me, but instead he just pats my shoulder. Like he’s my father or my soccer coach or something.

“You know Eddie Arnold better than I do,” he says.

“Not as well as I thought I did,” I answer somberly.

Wes reaches out and gently takes my chin in his hand, tilting my face up. He stares into my eyes, searching them. “I’m serious. Think about it. I know it’s not what you want to think about right now, but if you have any insight into what that bastard might try next, you have to let me know. Okay?”

I nod, laying my hand on his and moving it to my lips, kissing it softly. He takes his hand back and turns away, walking over to the door. And just like that, the moment evaporates. Back to business, and I feel like an idiot. What the hell am I thinking, getting all sentimental and intimate with the guy hired to protect me? He’s not here out of some emotional obligation. He’s here because it’s his damn job.

Normally, I am the epitome of professionalism. I’ve shared on-screen kisses with multiple costars, posed nearly nude with other models, and yet I have never felt even remotely tempted to pursue a romantic or sexual relationship with any of them. And I’m talking devilishly attractive, perfectly-in shape, wealthy actors and swimsuit models. Guys most women would die to meet. But something about Wes just… grabs me.

Yeah, and you need to get over it, I scold myself. This is not the time, nor the place, for me to get all soft and mushy about some random guy who’s only here for a paycheck.

“Where are we going from here?” I ask, following Wes to the door.

He thinks it over for a minute, scratching at his beard. “I assume anywhere you normally frequent is going to already be on his watch list. If he’s as organized and determined as he seems to be, there’s a good chance he’s thought ahead. He’ll have your usual haunts completely staked out just in case you show up. Where do you normally hang out?” he asks me.

I can’t help but snort at this question. He raises an eyebrow.

“What’s so funny?” he says.

I shake my head. “I don’t really do a lot of ‘hanging out.’ I’m a workaholic. If I’m not at the gym or on location filming, prepping for table reads, having business meetings-- then I’m either at the gym, the boxing studio, the self-defense classes, or at home,” I explain.

“Okay. Well, that’s already more locations than I go to in a regular week,” Wes says. “Which will work in our favor, actually. The more places he needs to stake out, the more split up his people will be. Which means there will be less of them at any given location.”

“It’s crazy. I never even considered that Eddie might have, you know, guys on his payroll just waiting around to be sicced on someone like me. He just seemed so normal. Friendly, even. I mean, he’s always been a bit of a schmoozer, and he can talk anyone into anything. But this is just… so not what I expected from him. I’ve known him all my life, Wes,” I tell him sadly. “He’s been like an uncle to me, and it turns out I never knew who the hell he was all this time.”

“People can surprise you,” Wes replies. “That’s one thing I try to keep in mind, especially with this job. You may think you know somebody, but you never know what they might be hiding. Nobody shows their true selves anymore. It’s all tucked away behind layers and layers of bullshit.”

“Kind of a cynical perspective on the world, don’t you think?” I comment.

He shrugs and types a code into the door. It slides open and the two of us walk back out.

“Better a cynic than a sucker,” he quips back.

I can’t really disagree with him on that, especially considering how my life has changed recently. It kills me to think that my family has been duped by Eddie Arnold all these years, led to believe he’s a nice guy with good intentions. Jolly Uncle Eddie, always coming around to the house with little gifts and jokes and cutesy nicknames. Molly Pocket. Molly Golightly. Molly Pop. Acting like a big cuddly teddy bear when he’s really just a snake in the grass. That now-familiar shame comes flooding back to me. I should have known. I should have seen it coming. I should have been more careful, more suspicious of his reasons for wanting to take me on as a client. Nobody ever does anything for good reasons these days, it seems like. Everyone’s angling for some dark purpose.

Wes and I get in the special safe room-access elevator and take it to the lobby, where we quietly check out of the hotel and head outside into the brisk Christmas morning. We walk to the back parking lot and Wes brings me to his car, a black sedan with darkly-tinted windows, much like the car I arrived here in.

“Stand back for a few minutes. I need to check something,” Wes commands, holding his arm out to stop me coming closer. I hang back, confused, as he performs a full check of the vehicle. He looks under the engine, at the undercarriage of the car, inside the driver’s seat, behind the tires.

“What are you looking for?” I ask.

He stands up and brushes his hands off on his shirt. “Car bombs.”

My heart skips a beat. “Oh.”

“Looks clear. Let’s get going,” he says, climbing into the driver’s seat.

I go around to the passenger seat and slide in. As we leave the parking lot, I turn to him and ask, “So, you never answered me. Where the hell are we going?”

“Somewhere you’ve never been before,” he says.

“You could be more specific.”

He smiles. “You ask way more questions than most of my clients.”

“And you give worse explanations than most camera guys I’ve worked with,” I shoot back, glaring sidelong at Wes. He glances over at me, a spark in his eyes.

“We’re going to my place,” he says simply.

“Are you sure? What if those guys are tracking me and your house gets compromised?”

He shrugs. “I’m not too attached to my apartment. It’s nothing special. If I have to break a lease, I’ll break a lease.”

“How are you so calm about all this?” I ask.

“Well, apart from the fact that it’s my job, I’ve seen much worse shit than this.”

“Like what?” I press him. Wes sighs.

“Sorry. You have to get through about ten more layers of bullshit to get to that story,” he says. “It’s not a long drive, but if you’re planning on firing questions at me the whole time, it’ll feel a lot longer.”

“Jeez. Sorry,” I murmur. It’s so weird. Last night, the two of us were on fire. So intimate. Entwined in each other’s flames, desperate for touch, starving for closeness. And now, it’s like we’re back to how we were yesterday, snapping at each other like two kids scuffling on a playground at recess.

“God, I wish I could check in with Andie,” I mutter aloud, leaning my head against the window. I need to know how Christmas is going. How well my parents took the lie Andie was supposed to feed them.

“Andie?”

“My little sister,” I answer. “She’s supposed to be covering for me at my family Christmas get-together. I’m worried about it.” He nods.

“If you really need to, there are several burner phones in the dash compartment there,” he instructs coolly. “That is, if you have her number memorized.”

“I do,” I say, quickly leaning forward and popping open the compartment. Indeed, there is a pile of simple, silver cell phones.

“Plug it in, charge it here,” Wes says, gesturing to a long USB cord hanging out of the stereo console. I hastily attach one of the phones to the cord and turn it on. I wait impatiently for the load-up screen to pass, and then immediately fire off a text message to Andie. Her number is the only one I have memorized, purely because I use it so often.

“So… any particular reason you have a stash of burner phones hidden in your car?” I ask.

“Just because they’re in a compartment doesn’t make them hidden.”

“Okay. Any reason why you have a stash of burner phones not hidden in your car?”

Wes laughs, a low, rough sound that sends a thrill through my body. Everything he does affects me. Every tiny movement. Every expression. Every word. I hate the hold he already has over me. We don’t even know each other. Maybe this is just some bizarre offshoot of Stockholm Syndrome or something.

“My job requires a certain degree of secrecy, as you can probably imagine,” he explains.

“Makes sense. I’ll accept that answer,” I tell him, still staring down at the phone screen, desperately hoping for a reply from Andie.

“Good, because that’s the only one you’re getting,” Wes comments.

We fall into silence, and I spend the rest of the drive alternating between staring out the window and staring down at the phone in my lap. By the time we cross town, sitting through about an hour of awful standstill Los Angeles traffic, and arrive at the apartment complex Wes calls home, I still haven’t gotten a reply.

“We’re here,” he says, and we get out, walking up a couple flights of stairs to his apartment. Turning to me as he opens the front door, he adds, “Keep in mind, this is how the other half lives. My place makes that safe room look like Club Med.”

“Oh, whatever. I’m not going to burst into flames just because you don’t have valet service,” I say, rolling my eyes as I walk past him into the apartment. When we get inside, I realize that he was definitely exaggerating. This place isn’t anything special, nothing too showy or over the top, but it’s certainly no hovel.

“I work a lot, so this place isn’t exactly homey,” Wes explains. “More of a crash pad.”

“Still nicer than my studio apartment years ago,” I tell him with a wink.

It’s a small apartment with simple furnishings, unadorned white walls, smooth gray tile floors, and just enough furniture to make it comfortably livable. One bedroom, one small bathroom, a streamlined, simplistic kitchen. It suits Wes perfectly-- or at least, it suits whatever version of him I’ve seen so far.

“Well, make yourself comfortable. We’ve got nowhere to be and time to kill,” he says, walking into the kitchen. “How do you like your coffee?”

“Black,” I call after him.

“That’s what I thought,” he says in reply. I smile to myself and collapse on the sofa, still fiddling with the burner phone. The screen is blank. No answers yet. I try and urge myself to stay calm. There are a million reasons why Andie wouldn’t answer quickly. She’s at the Christmas celebration with my parents, and they, being the older generation, get a little grumpy when we get distracted by our cell phones during family time. She’s probably only able to check her phone when she goes to the bathroom or something. And then there’s the fact that she won’t recognize the number I’m texting her from. Maybe she’s just waiting to think it over and make sure it’s really me messaging her. She’s already doing me a huge favor by lying to our parents about where I am, so I shouldn’t pester her too much.

Wes appears in the doorway holding a spatula. “So you like your coffee black, but how about your eggs?”

“Well, you seem to like guessing. So guess,” I tell him playfully. There I go again. Flirting with this guy who’s just trying to do his job.

“Hmm. Over-medium with lots of black pepper?” he suggests.

“Wow. That’s really specific--”

“Am I wrong?”

I laugh. “No. You’re actually right.”

He makes a fist pump and grins, looking like a handsome goofball. “Twice in a row!”

“Congratulations, you’re officially psychic,” I tell him, giggling.

“Bacon or sausage?” he asks.

“Surprise me,” I answer.

“Adventurous,” he remarks, disappearing into the kitchen again. A few minutes later I hear the clanging of pots and pans, the sizzle of breakfast in the skillet. I stretch out on the sofa, cradling the burner phone to my chest. Apparently, I’m comfortable enough to fall asleep, because I’m woken up some time later by the sound of a dish sliding onto the coffee table in front of me.

“I see how it is,” Wes says, “You sleep all night and still catch a nap while I slave over a hot stove.”

“I’m sorry,” I say earnestly. “I have no idea why I fell asleep. I normally don’t sleep at all during the day.”

“It’s a really comfortable couch,” he says.

“You’re a great cook. And a fantastic bodyguard. I mean, I never expected a meal out of the bargain,” I comment, digging into breakfast. It occurs to me that neither of us have eaten in quite awhile, and my stomach growls plaintively. I check the time on the cell phone screen. It’s already past noon.

“Don’t get your hopes up. I’m pretty good at cooking breakfast, but lunch and dinner aren’t as gourmet,” Wes tells me. “I eat a lot of takeout.”

“Maybe I’ll cook dinner tonight,” I mumble.

God, this is starting to feel like some bizarro domestic partnership.

“So how long are we hiding out here?” I ask, changing the subject.

“Until I hear from your lawyer that the coast is clear. Could take some time. I hope you didn’t have any big work commitments planned out.”

I sigh, poking the bacon around on my plate. “Doesn’t matter. Eddie has all my offers on hold. I can’t do anything until this whole thing is settled.”

“Damn. He really fucked you over, didn’t he?” Wes asks, his voice serious.

I nod slowly, feeling the anger rising up inside me. “Yeah. He really manipulated me. Played me like a fucking fiddle. I didn’t see it coming, but I should have. I’m gullible. I’m an idiot. Is that what you want to hear?”

Wes sets down his fork and looks at me. Hard. For a second, I think he’s going to be angry with me. Pick a fight. Tell me to shut up.

But instead, he just gets up and quietly walks over to a record player in the corner of the living room, by the television. He takes an album out of the shelf nearby and places it under the needle. What the hell?

A moment later, the record crackles into a warm rendition of “Blue Christmas” by Elvis Presley. Wes disappears into the kitchen and then reemerges with a bottle of wine and two glasses. He pours a glass of red for each of us and then sits back down across from me at the coffee table. I give him a quizzical look.

“What’s all that about?” I ask, confused.

He shrugs and takes a bite of his eggs and bacon, then a sip of wine. “It’s Christmas.”

Despite my sour mood, I burst out laughing. “It’s not even one in the afternoon. Isn’t that a little early for wine?”

“So, you’re saying you wouldn’t like a drink?” he asks, one eyebrow raised.

I hastily snatch up my glass of wine. “No. Not saying that at all.”

“Look,” he begins, “if we’re going to get through this god-awful slumber party we’ve got ahead of us, we might as well try to make the best of it.”

“And the Elvis?”

“Setting the mood.”

I grin. “Just thinking about what you said earlier about how you can never really know anyone. You are full of surprises. I would never have pegged you for the kind of guy who would have an Elvis Christmas album in his collection.”

He shrugs. “I’m from Vegas. Of course I’ve got Elvis.”

As soon as the words leave his lips, his smile fades. Like he’s instantly regretting having told me that little tidbit of information. I want so badly to pick at it, ask more questions, dig a little deeper. But I won’t. It’s not my place to push him.

So I change the subject. “This is so weird. You know, this is the first Christmas I have ever spent away from my family.”

“How old are you?” he asks, a little snidely. He’s still defensive.

“Ha-ha. I’m twenty-one. It’s just that my family is really close. No matter where we all are during the rest of the year, no matter where work takes us and how busy we are, we always find a way to spend Christmas together. It’s our tradition,” I explain.

“That’s sweet,” he says.

“How about you?” I ask, and I can tell it’s not a great question to ask him. There goes my plan of staying away from tricky topics. “Do you usually go home for Christmas?”

“No. I haven’t been home in… a while. This is home now. Right here,” he says brusquely. I nod and sip my wine, feeling guilty. I never thought I was an overly inquisitive person until I met Wes. But something about him just interests me. Makes me want to know more about him. Who he really is.

“I don’t know if this year would have been much fun for me at the Christmas get-together anyway,” I go on. “Not with what’s going on.”

“Really? It seems like you would want to be with your family right now. Have your support system readily available.”

I nod, smiling sadly. “Yeah. Normally, I would. But things are… awkward with my parents at the moment. You see, Eddie is their oldest and best friend. He’s been like a family member for all my life. We all trusted him. Completely. And when I told my parents what happened between us, well… they had a hard time visualizing the event.”

Wes sets down his wine glass, frowning. “What does that mean?”

“Just that they, I don’t know, couldn’t quite believe what I told them.”

“You mean, they sided with him?”

I shrug. “Not exactly. More like they were just confused, I guess. And I was already so upset that when they didn’t immediately listen to me, I just kind of stormed out. I was so hurt. And angry. And now they probably think I’m skipping the Christmas party just because I’m mad at them or something.”

“You have every right to be mad at them,” Wes says forcefully. “They’re your parents. They’re supposed to have your back. Under any circumstances. Family is… everything.”

I’m a little surprised at the vitriol in Wes’s tone. He seems genuinely worked up about this whole thing. In a way, it’s validating. “Yeah. You’re right.”

“What did he do to you, anyway?” he pushes.

I idly swirl the contents of my wine glass around, trying to think of how to word it.

“Eddie?”

“Yeah, of course, Eddie. What happened?” Wes asks, leaning forward.

I can’t meet his eyes somehow. “He just made a move on me. That’s all. It’s such a stupid thing. It happened so quickly. We were just having a normal business meeting, and then suddenly, his hand was on my thigh and he was trying to kiss my neck and… I just got up and ran out. I couldn’t even process it at first. I kept thinking I imagined it. But I didn’t. It was real. It happened. And it’s all been downhill from there,” I describe quietly.

“Jesus, Molly,” Wes swears. “That’s…” He trails off, just staring at me for a long moment. Then he picks up the bottle of wine and refills both our glasses. I give him a smile of gratitude.

“Thanks.”

“You’re one tough woman, you know that?” he says, shaking his head. I blush. “I’m serious. Most women would probably have just let him do what he pleased. Suffered in silence. It takes a lot of courage to stand up to a guy like Eddie Arnold. Especially with his relationship to your family.”

“Well, thank you, I guess,” I answer, smiling weakly. “I just wish this shit would all blow over so I could get back to work and think about something else for a change. It’s killing me, just sitting around with a target on my back, just waiting to see what that bastard does next.”

There’s a long silence between us, the air trembling with the sweet sound of the vinyl album circling. Then, Wes speaks up. “You know. There are some things we could do to take your mind off of it. Just for a little while.”

I look up at him. Those eyes, blazing brightly again.

Coaxing me. Promising me bliss. Ignorance. A welcome distraction.

I shouldn’t. We shouldn’t. But god… I want to.