Double Team Read online

  reporters who had managed to find their way to the front of my house earlier today.

  My neighborhood wants me gone.

  Over the past month, I’ve gotten death threats, been called every name in the book, and been pretty much vilified in the national media. People have expressed their sympathies for my parents or declared them the worst parents in the history of the universe.

  I didn’t go to rehab, although it probably would have been better than hiding out for the last month in the “undisclosed location” my parents arranged. Yesterday, I was discharged and “requesting personal space in this trying time” as I recover.

  The truth is, the last month has been a terribly shitty one– but not because of all of the media craziness or because people in America think I’m either the sluttiest girl in the world or the epitome of sexual liberation, depending on who you ask. It’s been terrible because I’ve had to stay away from Noah and Aiden, despite wanting to email them or text them or call them and just say this was all some kind of awful joke and I’d see them at home.

  I wanted to call them a million times this month and tell them that I regretted going along with my mother’s plan to keep me under the radar.

  I also wanted to tell them that I didn’t regret anything that happened with them.

  Instead, I developed a slight obsession with Colorado football while I was away, watching the sports channels’ videos of their training camp and trying to catch a glimpse of them. I felt responsible when I read that Noah got angry and stormed out of a media session, and when sports commentators described Noah and Aiden's overly aggressive attitudes on the field.

  But tonight, my regret is magnified about a thousand times as I sit here inside my house that’s as silent as a tomb. I peer through the curtains that cover the window to my deck, momentarily contemplating going out to the deck and sitting in the evening summer air, the way I would have before.

  You need to get back to the way things were before, Grace.

  Get back to your old routine.

  Stop hiding.

  All sage pieces of advice from Vi, except that assumes everything can go back to what it was before.

  I try not to look at Noah and Aiden’s house, but it’s impossible not to, and of course the second I do, everything I’ve tried to suppress for the last month– everything I felt before– comes rushing to the surface. And in an instant, I can’t breathe. In an instant, my chest feels like it’s being crushed by an enormous weight, and I’m sitting on the floor trying to catch my breath.

  I can’t stay here. It was a stupid, stupid idea to think that I could just come back to my house– right beside theirs– and everything would be normal.

  I don’t know how long I sit like that on my bedroom floor with my back to the French doors before I hear buzzing, quickly followed by a gunshot. Before I even pull open the bedroom door, my bodyguard is tearing up the stairs and inside my bedroom. “You’re safe, ma’am.”

  “I heard–“

  “It was one of those drones,” he says. “The tabloids use them to get aerial views of their targets and take photos of them. It’s been neutralized.”

  “A drone,” I repeat numbly. For a second, my heart stops beating. No, it wouldn’t be Noah and Aiden. It couldn’t be. It would be a reporter. Thirty-three days ago, I basically told Noah and Aiden I wanted nothing more to do with them– not in so many words, but my actions were clear.

  “One of the other members of the security team is in the backyard with the evidence. The FBI has already been contacted.”

  “Can I just…” I shouldn’t even go outside. I should ignore what just happened, close up the house, and get out of here. I should have packers move everything and find a new place, somewhere far from all of this.

  Except I don’t.

  I walk out onto the balcony, even as my well-meaning bodyguard protests, looking down onto the yard where the drone has been blown to smithereens. And where there are– what the hell?- hundreds of little quarter-sized glowing circles scattered through the grass, an explosion of glow-in-the-dark…

  No.

  I squint at the grass before looking up at Noah and Aiden’s house. Their lights are on, but I don’t see any movement inside the house and I can’t see into their yard.

  Still, I ask anyway.

  “What are the… the things in the yard?”

  The bodyguard clears his throat. “They’re prophylactics, ma’am.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Condoms.”

  “Condoms,” I repeat flatly. “Glow-in-the-dark condoms.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Clearly it’s the work of someone mentally ill or–”

  Or…

  I look back over at Noah and Aiden’s house.

  “Was there anything else?”

  “Excuse me, ma’am?”

  “Anything else. Was there anything else that was left in my yard?”

  “Ma’am, you can trust us to do our jobs,” he says. “You hired us to protect you not only from threats to your safety, but also threats to your mental health. Our job is to intercept messages from the people who might be fixated on you because of–”

  “Yes. I understand.” My heart is beating a thousand times a minute now. “But was there anything else left? I need to know.”

  “There was a…” He clears his throat, obviously uncomfortable. “There was a doll. An inflatable doll.”

  “A blow-up doll.” I look over at Noah and Aiden’s house again.

  After all I’ve done to keep their identities secret, they wouldn’t dare jeopardize everything the first day I came home, would they?

  And worse, why does the thought of that make my breath catch in my throat?

  Why does it send hope surging through me for the first time in a month?

  “Yes, ma’am. Obviously, we’ll be intercepting some disturbing things as you get settled back into your routine, but my experience is these things do tend to die down fairly quickly, even if it doesn’t seem like it in the moment.”

  He’s trying to be encouraging, but the only thing I can focus on is the blow-up doll.

  “Was there a note?”

  “Pardon?”

  “With the blow-up doll. Was there a note with it?”

  “Ma’am, I really don’t think that knowing the details is a positive–”

  “Was there a note?” I snap.

  “I believe so, ma’am.”

  “Show it to me.”

  “Ma’am, in my experience, these sickos who send these kinds of things really–”

  “I want to see it,” I say, my voice shaking. “Please show me the note.”

  “It will be considered evidence at this point and– please don’t do anything rash.”

  But I’m already headed downstairs and to the front door, my bodyguard in tow. I don’t go to the backyard where the remnants of the drone and the condoms and the blow-up doll are. Instead, I walk down the driveway, ignoring the bodyguard’s advice to stay away from the gate and the road in front of the house.

  I don’t know what I’m doing. My thoughts are swirling around in my head as I walk. I’ve had an entire month to do nothing except think about what happened with Noah and Aiden, and why I did what I did.

  I had resolved to be okay with my choice to adhere to my parents’ plan.

  I rationalized it. I told myself it was the best possible decision I could make in a shitty situation.

  Except that right now none of that makes sense in the face of what has to be Noah and Aiden’s completely stupid attempt at reaching out to me.

  Now, my decision seems idiotic as I push open the front gate and ignore the guard posted there who tells me to stay inside.

  “I’m not a prisoner in my own house, am I?” I ask absently, looking around for any sign of Noah and Aiden.

  For a minute, I wonder if it’s all in my head. This could have been a sick person’s idea of a joke.

  Except that there they are.

  The gate to