The Bodyguard

chapter 14

A few minutes later, Camille came upstairs. She wasn't looking for the notebook. She was looking for Alexander's mother. She passed my room and noticed the door was open. Then she saw the notebook.

She stopped. Her eyes moved to the name written on the page. Alexander. Camille hesitated. She knew she shouldn't touch it, but curiosity won. She picked it up. She opened the first page. Her eyebrows lifted. Favorite coffee: black. No sugar. She turned the page. Hates crowded restaurants. Gets quiet when he's worried. Camille's expression slowly changed. She kept reading. Then she found the list. Things I still don't know about Alexander.

She read each one. Middle name. Favorite childhood movie. First girlfriend. Birthday. Camille slowly closed the notebook. That wasn't normal. Not after eight months. Camille knew all those things.

She'd known Alexander for years sure. After a couple months of being friends she new all of them. She put the notebook back exactly where she'd found it.

Then she walked downstairs. Her expression was calm. Almost too calm. I didn't notice anything when I came back into the room. Camille smiled at me.

Then she casually asked, "Hannah?"

"Yeah?" I look at her.

"What's Alexander's middle name?" I froze. Just for a second, but Camille saw it. I tried to think. Nothing.

"I..." I began.

"Matthew?" Camille smiled.

"Yes." I nodded quickly. I was unsure.

"Interesting." She smiled. Then she walked away. I watched her go. My stomach tightened.

Camille was starting to ask questions and if she kept asking them, eventually we'd run out of answers.

"What was that about?" Alexander came up beside me as he asked.

"I don't know, but I think she's starting to realize we aren't really together." I looked at him.

"Why do you think that?" His expression changed. He glanced toward the kitchen where Camille had disappeared.

"Because of the questions." I lowered my voice. "She must have found my notebook." I muttered.

"What?" Alexander's eyebrows lifted.

"I left it upstairs. It has all those things I've learned about you." I say with a shrug.

"Like what?" He stared at me for a moment.

"Your favorite coffee. Things you like. Things that annoy you." I paused. "And a list of things I still don't know about you." I say softly.

"Apparently my middle name is one of them." He gave me a small smile.

"This isn't funny." I frowned.

"I know." His smile disappeared. He reached for my hand. "Hey." I looked at him. "We'll deal with it." He says.

"Alexander..." I begin.

"Together." He states. The word caught me off guard. Together. He said it so easily like it was obvious and like we were actually a couple.

"When did we become a team?" I looked down at our hands and asked.

"I think somewhere between you stealing my coffee and pretending not to like my family." He shrugged.

"I don't steal your coffee." I laughed.

"You absolutely do." He rolls his eyes. It's true that normally I prefer my coffee sweet but lately I had been stealing his coffee.

"I take one sip." I argue.

"Every morning." He says.

I smiled. Then my smile slowly faded, because he was still holding my hand and I didn't want him to let go. That realization scared me, more than Camille, more than her finding the notebook, and more than getting caught. I was starting to fall for him. Not the fake boyfriend version of Alexander. Not the man I was supposed to pretend to love. I was falling for the real Alexander.

The man who noticed when I was uncomfortable. The man who remembered little things I said. The man who had given me a safe place when I had nowhere else to go. The man who had started looking at me like I was more than an assignment.

"What happens if she figures it out?" I swallowed.

"Then we'll tell her." Alexander's eyes stayed on mine.

"You make that sound easy." I shook my head.

"It won't be." He says.

"She could tell your family." I say worried.

"I know." He responds.

"And everything could fall apart." I start to panic.

"Then we'll deal with that too." His fingers tightened around mine.

"Why are you so calm?" I stared at him.

"I'm not." He states. I blinked. He gave me a small smile. "I'm terrified." He continues. I wasn't expecting that answer.

"Of what?" I ask.

He looked down at our hands.

"Losing you." He said softly. He looks down at our hands. My heart stopped. He looked back at me and for a moment, neither of us said anything. I wanted to tell him I was scared too. Instead, I squeezed his hand.

"I don't want to lose you either." I finally admit. His eyes softened. Neither of us moved. Then someone called Alexander from outside.

"Saved by my father." He sighed. I laughed. He let go of my hand. But before he walked away, he leaned closer. "We'll deal with Camille together." He says.

"Together." I nodded.

He smiled and walked away. I watched him leave and I knew I was in trouble because somewhere along the way, this stopped being fake for me.

---

Camille POV

I couldn't stop thinking about the notebook. I sat in my car later that evening with my phone in my hand. I stared at Alexander's contact. I knew him. At least, I thought I did. I'd known him for years.

Within a couple months of becoming friends, I knew his favorite coffee, his birthday, his middle name, and I knew the stupid movie he watched when he was younger.

I was his first girlfriend.

Hannah didn't know any of that. That bothered me but the notebook bothered me even more. It wasn't simply what Hannah didn't know. It was how she wrote about Alexander. Like she was studying him.

I opened my phone and went through the pictures I had of Alexander.

There were plenty. Family dinners, Birthdays, Christmas, and random nights out with friends. All pictures from years ago.

I started looking for pictures of Hannah and Alexander. There weren't any. That was strange. Very strange.

If they'd supposedly been together for eight months, there should have been some. I searched through social media. Nothing. I searched for dates, places, old posts and still nothing.

"Who are you, Hannah?" I leaned back in my seat. I said the words quietly.

Then I remembered something else. The coffee shop. That's what they'd told everyone. That's where they'd met. I opened my browser.

I started searching coffee shops around the area. Then I stopped. I was getting ahead of myself. Maybe there was a perfectly reasonable explanation. Maybe Hannah was simply private. Maybe Alexander hadn't posted much. Maybe— I stopped.

No. I knew Alexander. He wasn't secretive about relationships. Not with his family and not with me. There was something about the way he looked at Hannah. Something different. Something real.

I stared at my phone.

If they were really together, why did their story have so many holes?

I made a mental list. Where they met, their first date, when they started dating, Why there were no pictures, Why Hannah didn't know basic things about Alexander.

I smiled faintly. I wasn't going to confront them. Not yet. I wanted answers first and I knew exactly where to start. I was going to find out everything I could about Hannah.