Icarus | Z.M.

6 | Contemplation

Victoria Tomlinson

I refused to look at or even acknowledged Z's presence the entire time he drove me home from the cafe yesterday. I contemplated just throwing myself out of the car while we were going 70mph, because it seemed like a much better solution than sitting with him, knowing that he had heard the conversation about him.

I concluded that I must have done something horrible in a past life, like stepped on a family of bugs or maybe it was a punishment from that time I stole jelly beans from a store when I was younger. There was a reason I had to be stuck with him. I didn't like him, and I felt like I was never going to change my mind.

At first I really thought he could be a gentleman and that he was charming, but clearly he was the opposite. I hated the fact he only acted nice while in front of my parents, because it would get harder and harder to convince them that I wanted a new bodyguard. My dad knew I didn't want one in the first place, so if I started complaining about Z, he was most likely not going to believe me at all, because there was no evidence of him being a dick.

I wanted a bodyguard like Liam. Because Louis and Liam were already best buddies. They were already going out to pubs together and getting drunk while Liam was working.

But there was a part of me that was determined to get Z to at least tolerate me. He was stuck here, as my dad said, once he took the job, there was no turning back. So whether he liked it or not he was going to have to deal with me all day every day for who knew how long.

It was just before one in the morning, meaning Z had gone home for the night and it was only the night guards on duty right now. But the night guards usually just sat outside and smoked and chatted, because there was literally nothing else for them to do. Nobody was ever trying to break in.

Dressed in a sweater and sweatpants on top of the outfit I planned to wear to Niall's, I crept down the stairs on my tip toes, careful to not wake anyone in the house up because if I got caught it would end in my inevitable death.

The stairs lucky didn't creek when I walked down them and got to the bottom floor of the house and stood in the main hallway. An unnecessarily large round hallway with rooms going every direction. Tiled flooring with golden embellishments everywhere, paintings in golden frames on the walls, expensive chandeliers swinging from the ceiling.

It was nice, I would admit. But I despised how not homey it was. There was nothing comforting about the giant empty rooms, there were maybe one or two family photos in the living room, photos that had been taken when Lou and I were kids. We weren't allowed things lying around the house because my dad sometimes held meetings here and he needed everything to be professional, because apparently having a family wasn't professional to him. We moved around a lot too, so this place was the closest to a home I could get.

As soon as I grabbed the handle for the door to leave, the sound of a thud echoed through the empty hallway, coming from the living room.

I knew exactly what that thud was.

It was only a second before I heard the pattern of Cujo's feet on the marble flooring and I saw him bouncing towards me with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, letting out hoarse rough breaths.

"Hi baby boy,"  I crouched down to him when he flopped over so I could rub his belly. He was whining and grunting while wiggling his tail, being loud enough that I was scared he could wake people up. I stopped rubbing his stomach when I whispered to him, "You gotta shut up, alright?"

He closed his mouth with a soft whine when I told him to shut up.

"I'll be safe, I promise," I kissed the top of his head, "C'mon, let's get you back on the couch,"