Page 31 of Rival for Rent
He didn’t answer.
“And your Wardrobes thing—that’s great too. I bet it helps a lot of families.”
Still nothing. He kept staring, lips pressed tight, shoulders stiff. He looked almost regal standing there like that. I caught myself picturing him in a crown and—god help me—imagined myself kneeling at his feet like some kind of medieval knight. I shook the thought off. My brain was short-circuiting today.
“Do you have a trans cousin or something?” I asked when the silence stretched too long. I knew he didn’t have siblings, but maybe there was someone in the extended family.
“No,” he said shortly, finally glancing at me. His tone was suspicious. “Why?”
“I was just wondering how you got the idea for the Wardrobe organization.”
“I don’t know. There was a need, and I could fill it.” He gave me a look so sharp it could cut steel. “You shouldn’t have to be personally affected by something to care about people’s human rights. It was the right thing to do.”
“Well, it’s cool. That’s all I’m saying.” I nodded. “You’re really doing something with your life. Making a difference in the world. Most people can’t say that.”
His eyes stayed on mine, and I felt a shift in the air.
“What about you?” he asked. “What are you doing with your life?”
That caught me off guard. I hadn’t expected him to ask. Or maybe he sensed that my answer would suck. I wanted to shift my feet under his gaze, but I forced myself to be honest.
“Not as much as I should be,” I admitted. “I’m unemployed, actually. I’m living with Dana right now.”
“But you’re not unemployed,” he said. “You’re a bodyguard.”
I shook my head. “I’m not. I’m just—sometimes Dana uses me to check out new clients. But I think that’s more out of pity than anything else.”
He frowned. “So that’s it? That’s what you’ve been doing since high school? Scoping out dudes who want to hire escorts?”
“Obviously not,” I snapped. His tone grated on me—like everything I’d done was dirty or beneath him.
“Well, what then?” he pushed. “Didn’t you get a football scholarship to Dartmouth or something?”
I shrugged, uncomfortable. I didn’t like remembering that. I’d never really fit in there.
“I did,” I said. “But I fucked up my knee sophomore year, and my grades slipped. They said I couldn’t come back junior year.”
There. I’d said it. My college experience wasn’t something I was proud of, but at least I’d been honest.
“Okay,” Kai said slowly. “But what about after that? That was still ten years ago.”
This was the part I hated. The part I almost never told anyone, because no one ever reacted the right way. Either they turned me into some goddamn hero—which I definitely wasn’t—or they hated me. Once, a girl I’d gone on one date with told me I was, ‘bootlicking imperialist scum.’
What made it worse was that part of me agreed with her.
I’d been in the military too long, seen too much, to buy into any of that shiny patriotic crap. I’d served with some good people—people who genuinely believed in what they were doing. For a while, I was one of them.
But I’d also seen what stress and violence did to good people. How it hardened and twisted them. How it taught them to see others not as humans but as statistics. As animals. As problems to be solved with force.
And I’d seen what it did to me. How my loyalty made me stay quiet when I should’ve spoken up. How my desire to keep the peace in my unit made me turn a blind eye to shit that should never have happened. How when I finally did stand up and said, ‘This is wrong,’ it was too late.
Kai was still watching me—eyes sharp, curious, waiting. I knew if I backed off now, he’d push. And he’d be right to. I was here trying to get him to take this threat seriously. If I started dodging the truth or glossing things over, I’d lose whatever moral standing I had left.
“I was in the military,” I said curtly.
He sniffed. “I should have known.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
