Noah became overwhelmed, momentarily, by a feeling of needing to lie down, of needing to rest a while while the room stopped spinning. Instead he walked back over to the chair and sat down, breathing a little ragged but under control. He leaned down and opened the mini-fridge, pulled out a can of soda. After all—he needed the sugar.
Noah Walker sat behind his desk. There wasn’t a whole lot to do without any clients, in the post-paperwork lull. It wouldn’t be too long, of course. The job was never slow for long, but few repeat customers in his line of work. If you got too familiar, if you were too compatible, if a thousand things, then it all went haywire.
Oh, the results were worth it, sure, if you could afford to cool a room by twenty degrees or cause a dozen frogs to appear in your desk drawer. But it was just too much for most folks. Noah was most folks, at least in this case.
He looked at the door, with the great glass panel and the text on it, in the 40s style, reading “NOAH WALKER” and then “Bodyguard” below in smaller letters. It was a perfectly respectable business, for those who were in the know. The sort of thing a man could tell his mother about, if he had to. Preferably, he thought, not if he didn’t.
And besides that, he was certified for protection. So if someone didn’t realize what his business really was, well, he could at least offer them that much.
He was lost in a web of social media and lazy news-checking when she walked up. They always seemed to, so that even though he’d thought the glass panel would be real neat, and let him see when walk-ups came in, they always caught him off-guard. Perhaps, Noah thought, it would be smart to invest in a secretary. But then he decided against it. Touched girls would want a freebie every now and then.
Oh sure, he imagined, it’s sex, too, but it’s just to recharge the batteries, nothing personal. And explaining to civilians would be a nightmare. ‘Bodyguard’ isn’t a synonym to ‘Escort’ in most minds. Then a long argument about professionalism ensues, sometimes a lawsuit, and it is just an utter mess.
So that’s why there was no secretary when a woman came up and knocked on the door. Noah almost fell out of his chair, scrambling to open the door. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he had a pang of anxiety. That was enough to put him on edge. It was always subtle when trouble walks through your door. Nobody ever sends you registered mail with the words ‘leave this one alone’ on it until it’s too late.
The woman had her hair pulled tight against her head, very vintage. Noah was beginning to wonder if perhaps the World War Two fashions were coming back into fashion, but he didn’t bring it up. She was blond and more than pretty, though he almost held her height against her.
“Can I help you?” He was nervous after that instinctive reaction, but he put on his business face and waited for another hint that the situation would be one to avoid. He opened the door a bit wider, stepping away from the door and letting her enter.
“You are Mr. Walker, isn’t that right?”
“That’s the name on the door.” The young woman didn’t laugh at the joke.
“I’m in need of your… services.” Noah sat down and picked up a pen. He pulled the notebook he kept on his desk open, tapped it twice with the butt of the pen.
“What do you mean, miss… ?”
“Jones. Jacqui Jones.”
“Pleased to meet you, miss Jones.” Noah leaned forward and offered his hand. She took the handshake, and that’s when he knew. There was no way that he was suitable for this woman. They were too close already. Probably, even having this conversation was making things worse by the moment.
“I’ve become… concerned, Mr. Walker. You’ll understand, of course,” she touched the side of her nose. “We can’t ignore those sorts of concerns. I want to be accompanied by someone in your line of work, so that if a serious situation were to arise, that I wouldn’t be caught on empty. You understand, don’t you?”
Noah didn’t write anything. It suddenly seemed as if the pen had been a waste of time. He frowned, unsure how to respond. Obviously if she was concerned about something serious, then turning her away would be difficult. She probably would want some sort of assurance that he could put her into contact with another escort, but he had enough experience to know that sometimes, it didn’t work that way.
It was rare, certainly, but sometimes at the end of the rolodex there was a different reason why every one of them didn’t work and so please, could you do me a favor. Then they’d turn on their charms, bat their eyelashes, and maybe cry if they knew what was good for them. And at the end of it all, Noah knew, he wouldn’t say no, after all that work. It was easier, in the end, to rip it off like a band-aid.
“I’m sorry, miss Jones, but I can’t help you.”
“I’m… Sorry? What do you mean?”
“I’m sure you’ve heard the horror stories about what happens if compatibility is too high?”
Jacqui bushed, looking at something that seemed suddenly very interesting in her lap. Noah’s gaze didn’t waver, a tired-but-steady look he had perfected so that he could look incredibly weary moments after waking and maintain it for the remainder of the day seemingly quite without effort.
“And you think—” she didn’t look up. She was downright Victorian, for someone who had come in for full service, to be embarrassed by the notion of compatibility with a man she didn’t know. “You think that we—”
“I know it, ma’am. I’m sure you can get some recommendations for another bodyguard, and if you can’t then I can give you a few business cards but that’s all I can do. I’m sorry for the trouble, honestly I am, but this is as much for your safety as it is for mine.”
Jacqui squirmed in her seat. He could see the nerves, anxiety that had eaten away at her for days. It was sad, really. He felt bad, though inside him a voice whispered that there was nothing that he could have done to prevent her situation, and he knew the voice was not wrong. Noah opened the drawer, pulled out three small pieces of card stock, and slid them across the table.
“Here,” he said softly, trying and failing to sound comforting. “I personally know these three, they all run a very professional operation. You won’t go wrong with them.”
He stood up, walking around behind her. He grabbed a coat, sliding it on while she sat in the chair looking at her hands. It was truly unusual that a woman would have such trouble with the idea. No longer was this a girl who read into things too deeply; he knew that there was something deeper. She wasn’t just a little bit scared, she was terrified out of her wits. When she said she was ‘concerned,’ that wasn’t even the half of it.
Noah’s shoulders slumped a little bit, but he managed to hang on to at least a shred of his self-control.
“Come on, miss Jones.” His voice was barely above a whisper, but he knew she would hear. “I’ll make sure you get to your car safely.”
She didn’t stand up, not right away. Noah waited silently, knowing that she would come in her time. Even if she didn’t get what she said she needed, she would get it sooner or later. The only option she didn’t have was waiting in his office until he gave up. That wasn’t going to happen, and both of them knew it.
When Jacqui stood, it was slowly. She drifted almost mindlessly across the room, a shell of a woman whose courage had broken but whose body continued. Then, step-by-step, he saw her bring herself back under control.
By the time the door closed was open and she had stepped into the hall it was as if he had imagined the entire thing. She had the same serious, sour expression that she’d worn when she stood outside his door.
She was an attractive woman, he could tell. It would be very easy to get the gumption to spend the time with her; it wasn’t rare that he enjoyed his job, but he knew that this time would be uniquely special.
It was disappointing that his professional ethics called for him to refuse her. His cock stirred at the very notion of seeing Jacqui Jones beneath him.
But he, like her, had an image to maintain, and a role to play. He walked a few steps ahead of her, not looking back, but taking solace in the sound of her heels on the hard floor behind him.
He was nearly to the door when the feeling hit. He had gotten a bad reaction before, predicted plenty of attacks that turned out to happen only minutes or hours later. But it had never hit quite like this, never so hard and never so fast. He turned toward Jacqui.
It all seemed to happen at once, though he saw it all, like it was slow motion. She saw him, and her eyes narrowed just the smallest amount. She didn’t know why he had turned. Then realization dawned, and her eyes widened, as she saw something. Noah didn’t take the time to wonder what it was. He didn’t wait to see her reaction either.
He had already started pushing against the floor, lunging toward her. He didn’t feel his shoulder catch against her chest, though his mind registered it.
The sound of the bullet shattering the window and thudding into the wall couldn’t have been separate sounds, but Noah could almost make them out individually, among the chaos. And then, as if to balance out, as he hit the ground time sped back up. His breathing wasn’t just hard, it seemed like he needed to suck all the air down for the rest of the day, to get ready for whatever was to come.