I'm just a bodyguard.

To all appearances Ronnie leaned against the wall and scrolled through her phone while the others explained. She might have checked instagram; her sister posted a long shot of Sunny in the park (adorable). But mostly she triple-checked their plans, their reservations, their invitations, confirmation emails.

“We have someone for that,” Stefan assured him, “Working the security cameras.”

“Looped static image,” Al said, grinning in excitement. He must have been the one to work it out. “Have it timed perfectly.”

“Miss Olivia—” Stefan smirked. “Will have a car sent around to pick you up from your hotel. You’ll know her when you see her, trust me.”

Ronnie put her phone away. “Anything else?”

Kennedy only shook his head after absorbing all the info. He could’ve chattered on, of course, but had already decided that it was not the time or the place for snark. Dumb muscle didn’t get remembered by shady heist men. 

With no more legitimate job-oriented concerns, he departed with a nod and a casual (and only slightly snarky): “Gentlemen.”

The hotel booked for him was quite a bit nicer than the planning hotel. Which made sense, he supposed. Keep the undercover personas separate from the grit and gears of the criminal plots. 

Miss Olivia sure took her time, though. Even relaxing a little with a shower and shave, he was ready to go fairly early. Dressed to the nines—or as close to the nines as bodyguards were expected to at events like this—and comfortably armed, he was left pretending to watch TV while he mostly paced. He almost jumped onto the phone when it rang, but managed casual ease when thanking the pleasant professional woman on the other end for letting him know a car was here for him.

“I gave him the file on the way over. His part isn’t the difficult one.”

“And how are we supposed to trust him?” Hatboy said. “Just because you do? Look at him, he’s neater than a glass of bourbon. If you got us a narc, I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Ronnie put on The Voice, staring him down. Turtleneck glanced up and quickly back down while the other two swallowed. “Need I remind you, gentlemen, that I am the one who reports in, so that makes me in charge of the story at the end of the job. Am I understood?”

Hatboy sank into a chair and made himself look small. There was some mumbling. “I said, am I understood?”

“Yes, Lola.”

“Good,” she declared, the tone sweetening just enough to emphasize the force of it. “Now run through the plan again for our new associate.”

They had the layout of the gallery, as well as the kitchen and area being used for catering. Al (Hatboy) would be their man on the inside, disguised as one of the catering crew; he would let the others, Stefan and Rich (Turtleneck and Sir Unnicknamed) in through the service entrance after retrieving Mike (Kenny), who would serve as lookout while they went upstairs into the gallery to do their magic. In, out, five minutes, nobody any the wiser until later.

He really couldn't fault Al's instincts. He probably looked like the worst-disguised cop in history with his military haircut and physical awareness of his surroundings. This was why he didn't do well with undercover work. “Inflexible” a brief partner had rather politely dubbed him. His idea of camouflage amounted to a tiger crouching in tall grass to wait for the right moment to pounce. He just didn't have the acting chops to work against his stereotype.

But pretending to be a bodyguard was almost hilariously easy. Even if this whole crew made him on edge. Not the least of which Lola, who cowed the whole room in a couple sentences. He smirked a little since it wasn't directed at him this time.

Glad I'm not the only one.

i know we’re not like everyone

She scoffed, looking over at him with a wry, crooked smile. Probably the last real one she’d have for a while. “Yeah, you’re only a slab of muscle, Carmichael,” she said flatly. If they could have done with an expendable hulking homunculus with an IQ of a room temperature glass of water, she knew plenty of those who didn’t require a flight out to LA. Kennedy could think on his feet and knew the difference between an order he should follow and an order to ignore so they wouldn’t get slaughtered. He’d also look considerably better in a suit next to her.

The hotel they stopped at rented by the hour as well as the day, and it looked it. The door hadn’t even been upgraded to a key-card system and still had proper metal keys to unlock it. Inside were three men who could, and did, very easily disappear into a crowd. “Everyone, this is Mike,” Ronnie introduced without preamble, waving between them. “Mike, everyone.”

“Where have you been?” the one in the hat, who’d been pacing, demanded. “We’ve been calling for half an hour!”

“Must’a not turned my phone back on after the flight.”

Another made an incredulous gesture at Kennedy as she closed the door behind them. “You said you were getting a bodyguard, not a fuckin’ male model.”

“I didn’t realize having a face like a sharpei was a requirement,” she replied, pulling off her jacket, “Although judging from your ugly mugs, I should’ve known better.”

The only calm one of them, who was wearing a turtleneck like a douchebag, hadn’t bothered to look up from his magazine. “They’re here now, and if Lola says he’ll do, he’ll do. You get a briefing on the job?”

Professional detachment aside, it was kind of fun to see how the other side lived. The nightmarishly flimsy hotel doors and quick exits. A thousand different ways to scatter if something went wrong. Shadows and secrets. He'd have to shift his paradigm to start thinking of gaps in security as escape routes instead of holes to be plugged.

Maybe fun wasn't the word. Challenging. Exhilarating. Okay, yeah. Fun.

It took serious self-control not to make a comment as the crew reacted. Even “Lola” only got a soft clearing of his throat. From the file he'd read in the car, he knew roles but not names. Trying to guess each person's entertained him enough he didn't snark or flirt or even laugh. He was professionalism itself.

“Briefly.”

Perfectly content with silence, he watched their surroundings, both walking through the airport and taking in the lay of the land as it sped past the car window. He’d flown in and out of nearly every major airport and it was reflex—almost instinct—to pick out landmarks, sketch out differences of time, and try to determine exact location and destination. 

He barely glanced at Ronnie, unsurprised. Not that he’d made any serious assumptions, but he also hadn’t been expecting a squad of Robin Hoods. That just didn’t happen in real life.

“Works for me. I’m used to being the dumb muscle.”

Oh good, a cocky one. At least he’d successfully distracted the would-be hitman and drawn him into the open. Damn the guy could hit, though.

Ronnie dozed a little before the food arrived—sliders with a side of coffee for her—and before everyone finished eating, she hauled herself up and went to the back to talk to Christie. An explanation was the least she deserved. She actually felt a bit better when she sat down, despite half her explanation being smudged or outright false.

He snuck a glance at her once or twice, trying and failing to judge if it was even remotely possible this lady was the mothering type. His instincts leaned no. The pictures were too genuine to be faked. It made him feel a little guilty for looking. Prying usually wasn’t in his nature. So he didn’t mention any of it, simply giving the tablet back when they landed and leaning in as the scramble to disembark began.

“Sure you don’t want some re-acquaintance time with your flight attendant?”