Chapter Text
After her latest attempt to endanger her life and upset her father was unfairly frustrated by a new bodyguard, Lottie spent almost an entire week brooding by herself, rarely leaving her bedroom, thinking of a new plan. She might have thought a little too much about that mysterious new bodyguard too, but she wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone else. It just didn’t make sense to her. Natalie was about half the size and weight of the regular bodyguards her father hired, and she had approximately none of the professionalism of the rest. And yet, Natalie had succeeded in a way that the others rarely managed.
As the days passed and Lottie grew restless, she started venturing out of her bedroom and scouring the big empty house in search of inspiration. She hadn’t seen Natalie anywhere around, so she assumed the blonde either answered to specific calls from her father or the other bodyguards in turn, or she was hiding from Lottie right under her nose to surprise her when she least expected it. Lottie hated that she was giving that much thought to a woman she met only once. There was a chance Natalie had quit the job as soon as she realized how intolerable Lottie was or maybe her father had disagreed with her methods and fired her anyway. But there was a part of Lottie, something spiritual and indescribable, that let her know she would certainly meet Natalie Scatorccio again.
Lottie wouldn’t make it easy for her though.
She finally had a plan. She was eager to leave her house, so causing trouble in the property wouldn’t quite satisfy her. She couldn’t take one of her father’s cars because it would make it too easy for any of the bodyguards to notice her leaving and chase her. It was settled then. She needed a distraction. Her favorite one was called Jackie Taylor, the woman Lottie routinely called when she needed a party that would rattle the foundations of the Matthews’ state.
Jackie was genuinely a good friend, she knew how to organize a great party, she just consistently failed at keeping said events under control. The best part was that Jackie brought a few more good friends with her. Lottie made the most of the party and she kept up appearances right until a familiar car pulled into the driveway. The front of the house was a mess, people were coming and going, and a small crowd was gathered around each car. Surely nobody noticed Lottie exchanging places with the owner of one of the cars.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay? It’s your party, Lot,” Van said, leaning into the car to speak to Lottie through the rolled-down window of her car.
“Sorry, it’s an emergency,” Lottie shrugged, but she already knew her smile betrayed her.
Van sighed gravely and lightly tapped the roof of her car.
“Listen, I don’t want a single scratch on my baby, okay? Your family doesn’t have enough millions to repay the emotional damage,” Van said, pointing an accusatory finger at Lottie. “Bring her back in one piece, Matthews.”
“Yes, sir,” Lottie said with a bright grin and a playful salute.
She was moving her hands to the steering wheel when she felt Van’s hand on her shoulder.
“I mean it, Lottie,” Van said. Her voice was different though. Softer. She wasn’t talking about the car anymore.
Lottie felt cornered again. She couldn’t take the genuine affection and fear in Van’s eyes. Only someone who had known her this long, despite their vastly different upbringings, and still picked up Lottie’s calls, could have Lottie believing they cared about her. Van knew about some if not most of Lottie’s visits to the hospital and arrests that were quietly settled with her father’s money. When she asked Lottie to bring the car back in one piece, Lottie felt her desire to crash it as soon as she was out of the property get cut down at once.
Still, Lottie couldn’t make any promises. She nodded without meeting Van’s eyes again and glanced at the front door of her house.
“Tai’s waiting for you,” she said. Her tone was cold and miles away from the friendly jokes of a minute ago.
“Right,” Van said, cleared her throat, and moved away from the car.
A second later, Lottie was driving away from her party, her friends, and her bodyguards.
She tried to drive as recklessly as usual, but she could hardly shake Van’s voice off her mind. She slammed her hands on the steering wheel and cursed her friend and her earnest blue eyes. She thought that if she died, she wouldn’t be there to witness Van’s disappointment and pain. She thought Van and the others would be better off without her, not worrying about the rich kid who should have been too old to keep causing so many problems. But no amount of self-deprecating thoughts erased the knowledge that Van would still suffer if Lottie died that night driving her car. Jackie too. She would blame herself for losing sight of Lottie during the party. Even Taissa and Shauna might sigh, grit their teeth, comfort their girlfriends, and miss Lottie every now and then. But that was it, wasn’t it? They all had someone to comfort them and lives to get back to, and the sooner that Lottie got out of their way, the better it would be for everyone.
So, Lottie drove faster.
She wasn’t careful and she told herself she wouldn’t go out of her way to avoid a disaster. But she wouldn’t purposefully crash Van’s car either. This was her problem and her solution, she didn’t have to make it a burden for one of her only friends. Instead of thinking about one of the closest things she had for reasons not to self-destruct, Lottie opted for thinking about one of the things that genuinely made her want to die. So, she drove to her father’s office.
Well, that was a lie. His main offices were high up on a building he owned, right in the middle of the city, with too much security and too many witnesses. Instead, Lottie could throw a dart at a map of the city and it was very likely it would land on a property her father owned or at the very least had some investments in. On this occasion, she opted for one building on the outskirts of town, a half-abandoned warehouse where her father stored supplies for any of his diverse businesses and maybe some additional stuff from not-so-legal sources. She didn’t care enough to know.
As she approached the destination, Lottie’s foot on the gas pedal got a little heavier, and the memory of Van’s caring blue eyes got a little hazier, replaced by the tempting image of fire and smoke clouding her vision before she passed out. It was so tempting, and it would be so easy, and Van could get another car, and her father would be so upset about his sketchy warehouse…
And then, a motorcycle appeared virtually out of nowhere and passed in front of Lottie’s car. She screamed at the sudden intervention, hit the brakes, and brought the car to a screeching halt in the parking lot in front of the warehouse.
Lottie stayed in the passenger seat, hunched over the steering wheel, breathing heavily and trying to calm down her heart rate, until she saw that bike again. It parked a few feet in front of her, illuminated by the headlights of Van’s car. Lottie raised her head slowly and studied every move of the driver stepping down from the bike. She didn’t turn off the engine. In fact, she was tempted to try to run them over in retaliation, but that was a little too much trouble for her liking. She was impulsive, but not a killer. However, when the driver took off her helmet and revealed a mane of familiar bleached-blonde hair, Lottie considered rethinking her previous statement.
Natalie looked almost exactly the way she did when they met. Different shirt but the same leather jacket. Hair rustled by the bike ride, but her smirk was intact.
“Miss, can I see your driver’s license?” Natalie said when she reached the window of Van’s car, probably thinking she was so funny for it.
“Fuck off,” Lottie said, barely glancing at her.
“Hey, you could’ve run me over and you didn’t, so I’m counting this as a win.”
Lottie didn’t want to acknowledge that her instincts were still in good enough shape to kick in at the last minute to save herself and a stranger. She told herself it was her friendship with Van that saved them by making her avoid scratching the car. That was it.
“What do you want, Natalie?” Lottie asked, finally facing her supposedly new bodyguard.
Surprisingly, Natalie took a moment before replying. She blinked slowly and her eyes seemed to look at Lottie in a different way for a second. If Lottie cared enough to try to guess Natalie’s thoughts, she would’ve guessed the blonde wasn’t used to her clients remembering her name. But she didn’t care. And she cursed the fact that she even remembered. It just wasn’t her fault that the blonde knew how to make a strong first impression by saving her life, knocking a man unconscious for her, and annoying her like very few people ever had before.
“Well, personally, I’d like to return to that fantastic party your friends were throwing to help you sneak away from home,” Natalie said with a knowing smile. Lottie tried and, judging by Natalie’s smile, failed to hide how irritated and intrigued she was by finding out that Natalie had in fact been at her house and keeping a close eye on her without Lottie noticing. “Other than that? Just keeping you alive so I can get my paycheck,” Natalie added.
Lottie couldn’t be completely sure if that was the other woman’s intention, but Natalie’s words well and truly made her nauseous. She had known for years that, to her father, she was just another expensive marble statue to keep intact for the sake of everyone staring. Nothing more, nothing less. He didn’t keep her watched by bodyguards every time she left the house because he cared about her, but because somehow losing her would be bad for his business or his image, depending on the way she chose to go out. But to hear someone put it into words like that? There was only so much indifference that Lottie could fake.
Lottie sighed and gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white and her tears refrained from falling. She needed a distraction, she needed to focus on something else. When she turned her head to face Natalie, something in her expression must have revealed the stormy nature of her feelings, because she could have sworn the blonde flinched.
“Is that it?” Lottie asked her. Natalie only frowned and lightly tilted her head, so Lottie rolled her eyes, hoping that would get rid of the impulse of finding that gesture endearing. “I mean, is that your entire job? Protecting just… me?”
Lottie gulped and refused to look away, but something about her own words and admitting that this complete stranger was meant to protect her was threatening to make her blush. It was unclear if Natalie noticed, but she did smirk at her again and nodded nonchalantly.
“Prettiest cargo I’ve had to watch over, but yeah,” Natalie said. “Responsible for the physical wellbeing of Charlotte Matthews, etcetera, etcetera.”
“And nothing else of my dad’s properties?” Lottie asked.
“I mean… I’d argue you aren’t his property ,” Natalie winced, and finished with a shrug. “But, yeah, you’re the only thing mentioned on my contract. What’s with the interrogation though? Can we just go back to your Barbie mansion already? My contract doesn’t say anything about drinking on the job…”
Lottie shook her head to distract herself from the flutter in her chest at Natalie’s first words and the instinct to laugh at the rest of it. She pushed open the door of the car and delighted in the way Natalie had to hastily step back to avoid getting knocked over.
“Whoa, where are you going?” Natalie asked.
“Just taking care of some family business,” Lottie replied.
Natalie followed her closely toward the front door of the building.
“Listen, I won’t stop you because I doubt this can kill you,” Natalie said when they reached the front door of the warehouse and Lottie leaned down to take a look at the lock on the door. “But breaking and entering doesn’t sound like Matthews family business.
“You’d be surprised,” Lottie sighed, then stood back up and faced Natalie, crossing her arms over her chest. “My dad owns the building. Now, do you know how to pick a lock?”
Natalie just burst out laughing at that, but Lottie had already gotten a glimpse at the way Natalie could laugh while her eyes glittered with disguised hurt or danger. Lottie couldn’t tell the difference yet, and she was intrigued by both options.
“Why the fuck would you assume I know that?” Natalie asked her.
The edge in her voice and the way she stepped closer to her, although it wasn’t enough to make her back down, informed Lottie of why Natalie Scatorccio might be a bodyguard to be respected. Additionally, it let her know that even if Natalie knew how to do what she had asked, she wouldn’t do it for her, not at the moment.
“Fine,” Lottie said, undeterred. “Can you at least shoot it off then?”
Natalie scoffed, “And why would I do that?”
“Because I need to get in!”
“Doesn’t your daddy own the building?” Natalie said with a mocking exaggerated imitation of her voice and a pout, which disappeared as soon as she spat her next words, “Call him up and ask for the keys, princess.”
Lottie was losing her patience, but Natalie’s infuriating insistence on calling her a princess reminded her that losing her cool about not getting her way would probably only make things worse for her.
“Give me your gun and I’ll shoot it off myself,” Lottie said, as calmly as she was capable of.
Natalie laughed again, but this time it was sincere, if not curiously.
“Really? You shooting a gun? What if you break a nail or something,” Natalie said.
“You don’t know me at all,” Lottie said, almost amused if she didn’t suddenly feel so tired. She stepped forward and extended one hand expectantly to the other woman.
Lottie could’ve cheered when she noticed Natalie hesitating. At least she was thinking about it.
“I can’t in good conscience give you a gun, Charlotte,” Natalie said, and didn’t hide her smirk at Lottie’s grimace. “If you get hurt, I’ll lose my job. Hell, your family might send me to jail.”
“Probably,” Lottie said through gritted teeth. She didn’t want to think about whether Natalie was talking about Lottie accidentally hurting herself with the gun… or doing so very purposefully. Either way, she was desperate to just move this forward. “Okay, listen. Open this door for me, and I’ll make sure you stay employed. I'll even get you a raise.”
“Do you pinky promise?” Natalie said with such an irritating grin that Lottie had to tighten her hands into fists to keep herself from slapping that smile off Natalie’s face.
“Natalie!”
“Alright, fine,” Natalie laughed. “You owe me one, okay? If your dad finds out I had anything to do with this, I’ll kidnap you myself and ask for a ridiculous ransom.”
Natalie turned away from her to work on the door, so Lottie took the opportunity to quietly say, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Natalie.”
The bodyguard only grunted in response, but Lottie suspected she wasn’t entirely immune to whatever strange dynamic they were building up by accident and with terrible decisions. Regardless, after a loud gunshot that startled birds of neighboring trees but couldn’t have been heard by a witness due to the isolated location of the warehouse, the door was open. Natalie grinned proudly, Lottie avoided her captivating blue eyes, and together they moved inside the warehouse.
“You can wait outside,” Lottie said.
“No can do, Matthews,” Natalie replied. “You die here and-”
“And you don’t get paid, got it.”
Just like that, their back and forth returned to the cold trenches, but that was better for Lottie, who needed to keep a cool mind to think of how exactly she was going to ruin this little hideout for her father.
Natalie, apparently, still didn’t trust they were alone and safe in that warehouse. She kept her small gun out, ready in her hands. Lottie told herself she was not impressed. Natalie had told her she would change her mind when the short blonde and her gun saved her life but, so far, the weapon had only served that night to help Lottie get further into trouble. Sure, in a way that was more impressive to her, but Natalie didn’t have to know that.
Focusing on her surroundings instead of her reluctant bodyguard, Lottie tried to come up with a plan. There was a small cluster of offices, almost all of them locked and the rest filled with too many papers for her to attempt to sort through. So Lottie chose to stick to the front of the warehouse where, besides large boxes and containers, she happened to find a handful of cars under dusty white sheets, accompanied by all sorts of tools for them. If they weren’t at the stupidly large garage at her house, then there was something different about these cars. She decided to bet on the fact that they were special.
“Do you smoke?” Lottie asked suddenly, turning around to face Natalie.
This time Natalie didn’t flinch, but she lowered her gun and stored it in the back of her pants.
“I didn’t take you as the smoking type,” Natalie said, but she searched in the pockets of her jacket for a pack of cigarettes and her lighter.
“It wasn’t on the file you got about me?” Lottie retorted, without adding a smile but accepting the cigarette from the blonde.
Natalie chuckled, but refrained from adding anything else. Instead, she stepped forward to light Lottie’s cigarette for her.
But here’s the thing, that little scene not only felt a little too intimate, the closeness in that huge empty place, but it also felt like they were breaking their rules. For Natalie, because a sly enough lawyer, just like the type the Matthews could surely afford, would be able to argue that giving Lottie Matthews a cigarette went against her contract of protecting the young woman’s physical wellbeing. And yet, at the moment, she didn’t look like she regretted it for a moment. For Lottie, because her plan was meant to test her luck, damage her father’s business, and get rid of Natalie like she did with every other bodyguard. And yet, as she leaned down and lingered close to Natalie for longer than necessary, Lottie found herself daydreaming about the next time they got to do just that again.
Lottie felt distracted enough by Natalie to take the risk of assuming Natalie was at least half as distracted. Lottie was embarrassed to realize that was probably enough to take advantage of her in that small moment.
In the blink of an eye, Lottie’s right hand snapped up and grabbed Natalie’s hand with the lighter still in it.
“Did you hear that?” Lottie asked.
For a second, Natalie frowned and parted her lips and Lottie could almost hear her apprehensively asking “What did you hear?” But then the moment of innocence was over and Natalie’s smirk returned with full force.
“I didn’t hear shit,” Natalie said.
“Don’t tell me, tell them ,” Lottie said, tilting her head toward the back of the warehouse and lowering their hands between them. She almost smiled when she confirmed that Natalie really was better than the old-school bodyguards her dad had been hiring for most of Lottie’s life.
“I am not falling for your tricks, Charlotte. I thought we already established that,” Natalie said.
Natalie was clever, but she couldn’t read minds. She probably had more diverse experience than the regular bodyguards paid by the Matthews, but that experience didn’t include Lottie in particular. Natalie was too confident. She relaxed, pulled back, and let go of Lottie’s hand and her lighter without putting up a fight.
“You don’t have to,” Lottie replied, perfectly impassive. “If they find us here, they’ll figure out you helped me, and you’ll lose your job anyway.”
“We have a deal though,” Natalie replied. She was starting to frown and her eyes followed the smooth movements of Lottie’s hand as she fiddled with Natalie’s lighter as if she’d been handling it her entire life.
“And you think my dad had to resort to the desperate measure of hiring… you, because I follow through with my deals and never ever say a lie to anybody?”
Lottie managed to speak while keeping a perfectly innocent if not earnest face. Her harshness turned her brown eyes as cold as Natalie’s blue ones were fiery with her irritation. It was the first time that Lottie considered Natalie might have gotten that job because she could be as dangerous as the things she was supposed to protect Lottie from.
“God, I should’ve let you crash,” Natalie said through gritted teeth, reminding Lottie once again that she wasn’t your everyday polite and proper bodyguard.
“Don’t flirt with me, Natalie,” Lottie retorted, but her playful smirk was short-lived. “You work for my family. I’m your entire purpose, and my last name is on your paychecks. So you’re going to go to the back of the warehouse and make sure we’re alone. Now.”
Lottie could tell, from Natalie’s disgusted expression, that the blonde would do as she said. But first, Natalie took a quick step forward that nearly had Lottie breaking her facade and taking a step back.
“Keep playing your spoiled rich girl mind games, Charlotte, I don’t care,” Natalie told her. “Just keep in mind that whatever dumb shit you do from now on, you only get to do it because I choose to let you get away with it.”
Natalie walked away from Lottie then, but she didn’t even notice that she had just officially planted the seed of a new challenge in Lottie’s mind. Or maybe she realized, Lottie couldn’t be sure, and that drove her just a little crazier. Now it wasn’t just about her life and her dad, she also had to prove that Natalie Scatorccio could not predict her every move.
Lottie thought about that the entire time as she searched through the mess that surrounded the mysterious cars and, as expected, found more than a few containers filled with gasoline. The rest was easy. Douse the blankets that covered the cars, the cardboard boxes, and everything she could reach with gasoline. Then, making a trail to at least the first couple of doors to the offices. And finally, standing at the edge of it all and dropping Natalie’s lighter on the gasoline.
The flames were instantaneous. The fire illuminated and warmed Lottie’s face, and the sight of the chaos in front of her simply took her breath away. It was a little more than she was accustomed to. Usually, she was unconscious for the most disastrous parts of her plans. When the parties crashed and burned, she was already blacked out. When the paramedics pulled her from the crashed sports cars, she was already knocked out. When her mother fainted and her father threw a fit at getting a call from the police station, well, she was actually awake, but not there to see the consequences. This? Seeing the fire lick at her father’s prized possessions and inviting her in just like she’s always wanted? That was enough for her to zone out so deeply she didn’t even flinch at the sound of an explosion.
Distantly, she thought she heard someone calling her name, but it hardly mattered when she could instead watch the fire rapidly spread all around her, even coming closer. But then something changed.
“Lottie!”
Lottie finally turned around and saw Natalie running toward her, yelling her name. When Natalie reached her, she didn’t waste time in reprimands or interrogations. She grabbed Lottie’s arm and pulled her away, dragging her away from the fire and toward the back door of the warehouse. Lottie felt barely conscious, as if she was sleepwalking while stumbling after Natalie. With every step, with every foot she put between herself and the promising fire, her mind cleared a little. She barely had time to worry that the front door was blocked by the fire she started. When they reached the back door she found it open and waiting. The explosion she heard had been Natalie shooting the lock of that door before even seeing the fire Lottie started.
Once they were outside, breathless and too warm, neither of them was able to look away from the windows of the warehouse, showing bright red flames growing with every second.
“Damn, your dad should find himself less flammable secrets,” Natalie said, and flinched when she heard the engine of one of the hidden cars actually blow up inside the building. “Okay, fuck, that’s our cue. We have to go,” she said, but when she turned toward Lottie, she noticed the other woman was still staring at the fire, with her eyes miles away from the present moment. “Oh, shit. Charlotte? Hey? Come on. Lottie, look at me. Focus,” Natalie insisted, snapping her fingers in front of Lottie’s face and shaking her shoulders, receiving no signs that she was being listened to. She cursed under her breath again and brought her hands to Lottie’s head, one hand cradling her cheek and the other on the back of her head, forcing to meet her alarmed blue eyes. “Matthews, listen to me. We have to go, okay? We can’t leave the car or the bike here. Can you drive? Lottie, can you drive?”
Against all odds, Natalie’s voice broke through the fog in Lottie’s mind. Still speechless but finally focusing her eyes firmly on Natalie, Lottie nodded.
“Okay… okay, good,” Natalie sighed, even if she didn’t look very confident for once. “It’ll be okay. Just… drive carefully, slowly. I’ll be right behind you, okay? Park at the first service station down the road and we’ll figure something out there. Are you ready?”
Lottie’s heart was racing. Part of her regretted walking away from the fire, and part of her was tempted to incriminate Van by leaving her car there just for a chance to run away with Natalie on her bike. Every emotion she was experiencing at the moment was too powerful and contradictory. But Lottie was certain of only one thing,
“I’m ready.”