“All right.” He didn’t ask more.
Maybe he didn’t care what her surgery was. Good. She didn’t want to talk about it anyway.
“We have to leave here by six-thirty in the morning. Be ready.” Now it was her turn to order him around and she liked it.
“Not a problem.” He nodded before reaching for his cell and typing something into his phone.
“Who are you texting?” she accused. Panicking she took a step forward. “You can’t tell anybody. I don’t want this to get out.”
As he glanced up at her, phone still in hand, she stalked to where he’d sat and snatched the cell away from him.
When she looked at the screen, expecting to see a text, she saw instead a satellite view of the hospital and the surrounding streets.
“What are you doing?” she asked, confused.
“Checking where we’re going.”
She shook her head. “That’s not necessary. We’re taking the hotel’s town car, which comes with a driver.” She thrust the cell back at him.
“It is necessary. I want to explore alternate approaches and access to the hospital. I don’t want to bring you in through the main entrance, even that early in the morning. You’re too recognizable. A back way is preferable. Access from a covered parking structure would be even better.”
“Oh.” Again, she couldn’t bring herself to apologize, which was really not like her. She was usually a nice and polite person. At least she had been until she’d met him. But she did say, “Good idea.”
Mister Sarcasm’s brow cocked up as he said, “Thanks.”
His lack of anger and mean-spirited amusement at her expense had her scowling as she stalked back to her place on the sofa just when the door opened and Daniel walked in, carrying a cup of coffee.
Once again he hadn’t bothered to text and ask if she’d wanted something while he was out.
Dan. Kyle. Were all employees so problematic? Or just hers?
“Did you get a text from my mom?” Dan asked as he stared at his cell and scrolled through with his thumb without looking up at her. “She texted me to say you didn’t reply.”
“I saw one come in, but I didn’t read it yet.”
The less she had to think about the surgery, the better. And since she’d told her aunt about it, that had been the only topic of conversation between them. She’d made the decision, but it didn’t mean she wanted to be immersed in all things mastectomy.
“Well can you reply, please?” Dan asked, sounding annoyed. “Because now she’s sending everything she sent to you to me. Links to all sorts of things for after your surgery. How the hell she knows all this stuff about breast surgery I have no idea. What the hell is a port pillow?” He cringed at the cell. “Eew. There’s a description. She says you’ll need one after the surgery.”
“So order it. Order whatever she suggests.” Luna shrugged.
“There’s like shirts and stuff. Don’t you want to pick which ones yourself?” Dan asked.
“Not really, no.” She wasn’t looking to be fashionable in her post-surgery clothes. She just wanted to heal and move on with her life.
“All righty then. I guess I’m shopping for your clothes now too, in addition to all my other duties,” Dan grumbled.
“As if you have anything else to do right now while we’re not touring.” She shot Dan a glare.
“Spoken like the person who has no idea all the things I handle so you don’t have to.” Dan lobbed that shot back at her before becoming immersed again in what was on the screen of his phone.
Now that the bickering was done, Luna glanced up in time to catch the raised brow of her new bodyguard. He managed to look both amused and judgmental at the same time. All while pretending to look at his own cell phone.
She glared at him. “Do you have something to say?”
“Me?” He widened his eyes but still didn’t look as surprised or as innocent as he’d probably been trying for. He shook his head. “Nope. Not a thing.”
“You might want to tell your face that, then. Because it seems to have plenty of opinions,” she sniped.
To her disappointment, he let out a laugh. “Noted.”
She’d never hated someone so much. Not even her stalker. She just mostly feared him or her.
Thinking of stalkers was no better than thinking about the surgery so she went back to staring at the blank page in her notebook.
While she had downtime, she’d vowed she’d make the most of it, no matter what. She had big plans to write new songs. A bunch of them. Enough for an album. Her next release was long overdue.
Unfortunately, it seemed her creativity had left the building.
Letting out a breath she put the notebook down and reached for her cell phone. Maybe a little mindless procrastination would give her some inspiration. She tapped on the TikTok app and the first video filled the room with blaring music. She scrambled to hit the volume button.
That little incident earned her a glance from both Dan and Kyle.
Great. Now there were two men in her life to be disapproving. And she was paying both of them way too much for the pleasure. Wonderful.
Her smartwatch vibrated on her wrist and she glanced down.
It was the alert reminding her not to eat or drink anything after midnight in preparation for tomorrow’s surgery. With that all thoughts of the men in the room fled. All that remained were nerves and her mind-numbing fear.
ten
“Where are you again?”
Kyle smiled at his grandmother’s muffled question. “In the city. I told you. I got a job. And you’re covering the mouthpiece with your hand again, Grandma. I can hardly hear you.”
There was a lot of shuffling noises. Amid that, he heard her mumble something about stupid cell phones needing a handle.
He’d heard the complaint before. She wanted a cell phone with a handset like her old phone that used to hang on the wall in the kitchen. The wall phone that had what must have been a twenty-foot-long cord that seemed to always be tangled.
Finally, she said, “Oh, dear. Kyle, did you get fired from the military? Is that why you needed a new job?”
“No, Grams. I didn’t get fired.”
Yet. His future in the military had yet to be determined.
At that reminder, he rotated his ankle like the doctor said he should multiple times a day while it healed. “This is just a short-term assignment for while I’m on leave.”
“Well, that’s good to hear. You know your great-grandfather, rest his soul, retired after thirty years in the Navy.”
“I know.” His great-grandfather’s World War II combat boots were big shoes to fill.
Even though he’d been gone for years, the man’s legacy was still a looming presence in Kyle’s world.
“Do you know when you’ll be home?” she asked.
“End of the month.”
As soon as Luna recovered from her boob job and could fly home to Miami. Then he’d be dismissed and she’d hire someone local down there.
The surgery baffled him though. She had nice enough tits. Big enough for him to be happy at least. Not that he’d touch Miss Diva, not even with someone else’s dick, no matter how hot she was.