Quaranteam Ch. 35

Chapter 35

When they sneaked back into the bedroom, Andy could hear the shower running, and he and Fiona stepped into the master bathroom, closing the door behind them. They each stripped and hopped into the running shower, where Niko was just finishing washing her hair. He leaned in and gave her a soft kiss before Fi moved to hug the smaller girl warmly.

"Thanks for being so welcoming, Niko," Fi said to her. "You've really been the best at welcoming both me and Moira. Not that any of the girls have been bad, but you were there to talk with us the whole time the treatment was going on, and it means a lot to me that you were willing to answer all our silly questions."

Niko smirked, leaning in and kissing Fi on the cheek. "Not a problem," she said. "I just wanted you both to feel as comfortable as possible here, and we all knew that if Andy invited you personally, you'd get along with everyone great. Which reminds me, Andy. I don't think anyone told you yet, but Moira will actually be passed out in the imprinting process for a significant amount longer than normal, but that's expected and nothing to worry about, so don't freak out when she sleeps through all of today, okay? That's exactly what's supposed to happen, and nothing's wrong."

Andy tipped his head a little in curiosity. "Why's the treatment taking to Moira differently?"

"Unlike everyone else in the house, Moira actually had dengue fever during her time working for Doctors Without Borders, and while she's fully recovered from it, the antibodies for that complicate the serum so it takes longer to settle in and take hold. It's a minor flap, and it won't have any impact in the long run," Niko said, as she stepped out of the shower.

Fiona stepped out after her, grabbing a towel as well. "She's lived a way more interesting life than the rest of us. You'll be astonished by some of her stories from when she was performing triage in warzones. It turns out people can be far more horrific than I ever imagined."

Andy turned off the water and stepped out last, grabbing the one massive black towel that was his and exclusively his. Andy sometimes wondered if Nicolette always had laundry running, what with all the people in the household. He knew she had a system of some kind, and had yet to give any woman someone else's clothes, so the last thing he wanted to do was jinx it by asking for details, though he had complimented her on it several times, something that always made her smile.

"Oh, some people suck," Andy grumbled as the hot air from the fan blew down on him even as he was lightly caught in the backwash of Niko and Fiona's hair dryers. "I've known that since I was a kid, and it's basically the backbone for the career of any writer. I'm sure we're going to hear a bunch more about that starting today, since we'll be adding an ex-spook to the family."

Niko nodded, as she flipped off her hair dryer. "She and Maya won't be showing up at the same time, either. Lexi will be here around lunchtime; Maya won't get here until late in the evening. People are passing through the base at such a high speed that we're just treating everyone as soon as they arrive rather than batching them like we used to."

She grabbed her clothes from the shelf and started tugging them on, clearly getting ready to head to the base. She'd been taking a lot of time off to meet new arrivals to the Rook family, but she was determined to get back into some sort of normal rhythm now.

"Lexi's a tough one to get a read on, but I think she'll warm up to you eventually," she said, giving him a firm hug. "She's had a pretty rough go of it for the last several years, so try and be patient with her. I know you always are, but a little extra patience here wouldn't go amiss, if you know what I mean. This is quite the severe change for her."

Andy nodded. "Of course I'll be patient," he said before giving Niko a soft kiss. "You liked her though? She seemed like a good person? You get to meet everyone before most of us do, so I trust your judgment on these kinds of things."

"She'll take care of you, and that's the most important part for a bodyguard. The rest we can figure out as we go."

While Fiona finished getting her hair dried and shaped, Niko got dressed and headed out. They would see her again in the evening, but people needed to start getting back to work. Lauren was already changed into her workout clothes and heading down to the cars, as she was heading off to training camp, something that Andy had just heard about yesterday.

Knowing full well there were going to be huge amounts of dead players, the NFL was preparing something truly unheard of. The following season would be the first co ed season played in the history of the league, and would be that way moving forward, so thousands of adjustments were being made, but the last thing the owners were going to allow to happen was the death of their livelihood because many of their players died.

The 49ers had asked Lauren to consider playing, but for the time being, she had insisted she only wanted to continue as a trainer for players. That just meant instead of training exclusively men, she was mostly training women with some men, mostly new incoming players from other countries.

Andy couldn't even begin to imagine how much restructuring and revamping of the game itself going completely coed was going to result in, but he imagined it would be no slight shift. They had nearly a year before the scheduled 2021 season would start, with the 2020 season already fully canceled, but the amount of changes they were going to be making meant they needed to get a head start on them, particularly so they could figure out how to start recruiting women to play.

It had come as a bit of a surprise to him that they hadn't just started recruiting men from other countries, considering the rest of the world hadn't faced casualties anywhere near as badly as the US, but the last time he'd talked with Phil, Andy heard that DuoHalo was flaring up again in many other parts of the world, as piss poor world leaders had convinced themselves the dangers had passed, and that they could just "endure" through the resurgences.

It would likely take a few more million deaths overseas to prove them wrong.

He wondered if there was a collapsing of other American leagues, such as the NBA and the WNBA, into one league. For non-contact sports, the changes would be exceptionally minor, but the recruiting would be the biggest challenge, although he wondered if entrenched sexism would impact more international things like FIFA or the Olympics. He suspected it would have to, eventually.

Most of the other girls were still either working from home or not working at all, so most people tended to be around the house for the majority of the day. Both Sheridan and Piper were getting up as Lauren left, however, the two getting ready to start their morning workout, although Andy suspected they might grab Hannah and Asha to join them. Andy had tried participating in their morning workout routine once, and had found himself unable to keep up with the girls, despite his best efforts. They were just in far better shape than he was. Lauren had also allowed Taylor to get dressed and had taken her to work, as she was training her partner to work with the 49ers with her.

By midday, most of the girls were up and tending to their own worlds, Sarah and Emily taking meetings with studio folks and their projects about upcoming agents, Ash working away on some project or another for Google, Hannah and Asha were both doing some coursework having enrolled in remote courses at Stanford until onsite learning could begin again. Tala and Jade wouldn't be up until late afternoon, so Andy spent the rest of the morning doing edits and rewrites on the draft of the newest Druid Gunslinger novel.

Everyone met up for lunch, however, as they usually did, and just as they were finishing up, the doorbell rang and Nicolette hopped up to rush towards the door before Andy could even get up. "Oh, let her have her moment," Sarah said to him with a smile.

A minute or so later, Nicolette entered the dining room with Lexi in tow. While Andy had spoken to her a little bit on FaceTime, it was their first meeting in person. He smiled, rising up and walking over towards her. "Hey Lexi, welcome to your new home," he said, extending a hand to her.

Lexi was an odd mishmash of styles, two differently contrasted vibes struggling for dominance in the woman's look. She had on tight blue jeans and a leather motorcycle jacket, but beneath the jacket she had on a pastel pink top that seemed a little frilly. The Latina woman's scars were more prominent in person, the right side of her face from the cheekbone downward warped and wrinkled, definite burn scars that had healed but had been severe enough that cosmetic surgery would prove difficult. He could see the scars covered almost half of her neck and disappeared down into the neckline of her shirt, so he assumed it spread over at least some of her torso. He knew it bothered her, but wanted to assure her that it didn't bother him at all.

She took his hand and shook it, certainly a different greeting than the other girls had gotten, but Andy wanted to give Lexi the space to settle in however she wanted. Their relationship hadn't been defined yet, and both Jenny and Katie had made it clear that they suspected it would blossom into something more than a professional relationship, but at first, that's what it would need to be.

"Let me introduce everyone. You know Katie and Jenny already, obviously, you met my fiancé Niko on the base, and you met Nicolette at the door," he said. "These are my other fiancés Aisling, Sarah, Emily and Fiona, and these are my partners Piper, Sheridan, Hannah and Asha. This is the house IT tech Whitney. My partners Tala, Jade and Moira are all still recovering from the imprinting process, and my partners Lauren and Taylor are both off at work. I know, I know, it's a lot of names to remember all at once, so don't worry, everyone will be happy to remind you for a while."

Lexi tried to shake hands with all of them, but many of the girls insisted on hugs, something that seemed to take the Latina a little aback, although she didn't retreat from any of the contact. "It's very nice to meet all of you," she said. "Mr. Rook? Would you mind giving me a bit of a tour of the grounds, just so I can get my bearings?"

"Not at all, Lexi, but please, you're welcome to call me Andy if you like."

She offered a brief tight lipped smile that appeared and was gone just as quickly. "Let's stick to 'Mr. Rook' or 'sir' for now, and we'll see where that goes, okay?"

He grinned, shrugging his shoulders. "Play it where it lies. C'mon, I'll give you the tour."

The two walked out of the room, and once they were down the hallway a bit, he could see Lexi visibly relax a little. "Sorry about that," she said to him. "That was a lot of people all at once, and I know they're all your family, and that it's part of the gig, but it's a ton of information to take in all at once. The longer I stayed in there, the more worried Jenny was gonna get about me, and that's all I need, is her up my ass worrying that I'm going to have another episode."

"Episode?" he said, as they walked out into the back yard. He figured he would give her a tour of the grounds first before doing the house, that way they would be a good distance from people, allowing her to have a bit of time to wrap her head around all of it, and to get to know him one on one before having to adapt to all the other people.

"We talked a little bit about this when we spoke earlier, but I do have PTSD, so from time to time, I can go through panic attacks, nightmares or even brief flashbacks, although nothing that should prevent me from doing my job, which is to keep you and your family safe," she said. There was a confidence to her walk, a sense of purposefulness, like she was always on task. "And I do want to stress that while I'll do my best to keep all of your family safe, you will be the primary protectorate, and that means your health and well-being will always have the highest priority. You seem like a good guy, and that may take some getting used to, but if I'm going to do my job properly, it's a thing you're going to have to get your head around pretty fucking quickly, pardon my language."

"Okay, first thing's first," he said with a laugh. "Never apologize for swearing around me. Ever. I happen to like women who swear, and while that may not be what you're used to, it's S.O.P. around here and you don't need to waste words on apologizing for things you don't need to."

She laughed a little, a genuine warm laugh, and that made Andy feel a little bit better. She'd been putting on a very cold exterior since her arrival, and Andy wanted to make sure she felt like she didn't need to be so guarded from the whole family. "Fuckin' a, then," she said, nodding to him. "But my point still stands. If it comes down to keeping you safe or keeping one of your women safe, I am always going to put your safety first. You don't have to like that, but you're gonna have to fucking accept it, because that is the way it's going to be. If you die, it sounds like there's a good chance that all of your partners die with you, and the protection business is about understanding the very basic math of it, which is that in a situation where I can let one of these women die or I can let all of these women die, I am going to protect you first, and will mourn the loss of the woman I couldn't save afterwards. I realize that may sound particularly cold, but I don't want you thinking about it like that. Trust me to do my job, and I will keep you safe with my last dying breath, if I have to."

"I can't imagine it'll ever come to that," he said, as they walked past the pool, heading out to walk into the large grassy field off to the side of it. "I get everyone wanting to make sure that I'm safe, knowing that their health is dependent on mine, but I don't live a high risk life. I haven't pissed off arms dealers, drug dealers or crime bosses. There aren't any foreign governments trying to kill me. I'm not in the line of fire for anything or anyone."

"Can I speak plainly, sir?"

"Always. In fact, you should never worry about saying something that will offend or anger me, Alexis. If we're out in public, maybe use some tact in conversations then, but when we're at home, and this is your home now, if you want it to be, just speak your mind."

She nodded a bit, walking along side him. "Copy. That's horseshit, sir, about you not being in the line of fire for anything or anyone. I spoke with Niko some yesterday, and as one security person to another, she told me that I should consider this Covington to be a hostile operator, and that should extend to anyone in his family or household."

"Arthur?" Andy said. "Sure, I bet he's pissed at me, and that man has a lot of resources he could bring down to bear on me, but I wouldn't think he's the kind of guy to hire a hitman to rub me out or anything. That sounds a little too 'Goodfellas' and not enough 'Trading Places,' for his tastes. He's an asshole, but I doubt he's up to out and out murder."

"I have to keep reminding myself that despite this house and your large collection of beautiful women, you're extremely new to this lifestyle, sir," Lexi said to him. "The ultrawealthy are almost exclusively assholes with no regard for human life or the well-being of anyone who isn't providing something of use to them. You may think Covington's harmless now, but at any moment, he could turn far more malevolent, and it's my job to ensure that he doesn't get to you."

"You know, I'm just going to trust your judgment on this, then. When I got an agent, I had to learn to let my agent to do all the things an agent should be doing. The same when we signed a five-book deal and I got an editor. I had to learn to trust the editor's judgment on what did and didn't belong in a story. So third time's a charm. If you take on the job here, then I'll defer to you in all things of this kind of nature, and if you tell me someone could be a threat, I'll consider them a threat."

"If I take the job here?" she asked, stopping in her walk as they neared the fence at the edge of the property. "I thought I'd already made it clear I accepted it."

"Well, you did, but up until you're imprinted, you can still change your mind," he said. "And I always give everyone up until that moment to reconsider if they want to. Jenny said she thought you were looking for your Prince Charming, and if you take this job, if you get imprinted to me, that effectively ends that search for you for the foreseeable future. That's a huge step to take, and if you have any misgivings about it, you shouldn't commit to it, to me, to us, to this."

"Well, Jenny established pretty clearly that I am absolutely disinterested in intercourse with any of the women in the house, right?"

"Absolutely. And if that's what you want, nobody's going to push. You and I can have our intimate time one on one without anyone else around, and if you like, I can even spend a night with you in your bed regularly. The key is that you're going to have to accept that I'm also attached to all these other women, and while I'm going to do my best to divvy up my time equally, I won't always be perfect at that."

"Anytime you go anywhere, I'll be by your side, so we will get plenty of time together, sir," she said with a little laugh. "A better question is how good have you been at not comparing your partners? I'm sure someone's got to be the best, which means someone's also got to be the worst."

"No bests and no worsts," he said sternly. "Everyone's different, and that's exactly how it should be. Hell, I think everyone's different enough that it makes comparisons nearly impossible anyway."

"Do the scars bother you?" she asked him, turning to face him directly as they stood near the fence, a big metal monstrosity that was far enough from the house that its appearance was mostly masked by trees. "At some point I could get cosmetic surgery, but up until recently, I've constantly been working, and there hasn't been any time for it."

"That's entirely up to you, Lexi," he told her. "I don't mind the scars. I think they add character and personality."

"You haven't seen how far they go," she sighed.

"Not yet, anyway, but I will when you're ready to show me."

"They go down to my ribs, and my right boob is scarred up like my neck here. Not very sexy, I know, but it's what I got."

He took her hand for a moment, which made her jump a little bit at the sudden contact. "Lexi, don't worry about it," he said emphatically. "You're a beautiful woman, and I do not mind the scars. If you want to have them corrected at some point, you are welcome to do so, but you do not need to think you have to do so on my behalf, okay? I'm going to trust you so I need you to trust me on this."

She looked down, drew in a heavy breath then sighed it out. "I got hit with a molotov cocktail in the jungles of Peru. The doctors there did everything they could to tend to the burns, but they were severe, and we were several hours away from a real hospital, so before I could get the best treatment, a lot of the damage had already been done. There's some nerve damage anywhere I'm scarred, so I have to be careful if I get into scraps, because I could be bleeding from there and not notice it. I also get phantom itches all the time, but I've mostly gotten the compulsive need to scratch under control at this point. Some people, a lot of people actually, have trouble seeing past the damage."

Andy's other hand moved to brush along the underside of her chin, touching some of the scarred flesh for the first time, forcing her to look back up and at him. "There's where they're going wrong," he said. "You don't look past the damage. You learn to see that the damage is part of what you're seeing, and integrate that into the whole. Everyone's damaged, Lexi. Everyone. Some people, they just have an easier time hiding the scars. But you are a beautiful, sharp witted woman, and anyone who gets fixated on the scars is looking at the wrong thi--"