Chapter 5

I nervously wiped my hands on skirt, waiting for Wade to bring up the fact that I’d been rude to Holland. I quickly glanced at them but none of them seemed like they were about to say anything. I bit my lower lip and reached for my bag. If they weren’t going to be social, neither was I.

I pulled my sketchbook out and grabbed a pencil with it. I flipped the book open to the middle and started to draw. I’m not an expert artist, just little doodles that look like nothing. I tried to get the two circles for the eyes the same size, but it seemed like a lost cause.

It adds character. I inwardly shrugged.

I continued to sketch, oblivious to the fact that Wade and Holland were now talking. Their voices turned into background noise as I submerged myself in my drawer.

“Red,” the voice snapped me out of it.

I looked up at the two boys, confused.

“What?” I asked, my voice not being as harsh as I wanted it to be.

Holland raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to talk?”

“No,” I said. I tried to go back to my drawing but couldn’t. I slammed the book shut and dropped it into my bag along with the pencil. As I dropped the flap, I caught a glimpse of the letter.

“Why?” He asked. He leaned forward on the table, hands under his chin.

“Because I don’t want to,” I stared him down, hoping he would get the idea. He just stared back, brown eyes never blinking.

A server came out of the kitchen. “What do you want to drink?”

“A cup of coffee,” Wade answered.

“Tea,” I said, finally looking away from Holland.

“Tea, huh?” Holland asked, still looking at me. “I like it. I’ll have some tea too, thanks.”

The server nodded and ducked back into the kitchen.

“So why do you like tea?” he asked. When I just looked at him and didn’t answer, he continued. “I’m just trying to make conversation here.”

“You tell me why I like tea then,” I challenged.

He nodded. “Okay, let me think.” he rubbed his chin, thinking. “You live in London and Great Britain is known for its love for tea. You’ve been at your aunt’s school for ten years. You practically grew up in London. That’s why you have a slight accent. The love for tea has been infused into your blood.”

I looked at him and then at Wade. “Why does everyone know so much about me?”

“The Kyle’s are old friends of the family,” Wade explained.

The door to the kitchen swung open and a few servers came out, carrying plates. They set them out on the table and my stomach rumbled. Bacon, eggs, sausage, pancakes, syrup, strawberries, butter, and everything else that goes with it.

I immediately began dishing food onto my plate.

“I’m sorry about your dad by the way,” Holland said, dropping a pancake onto his plate.

I dropped my fork and leaned back in my chair. They both looked at me, eyes filled with confusion and shock.

“What?” Holland asked first. What a brave little soul.

“I’m sick of hearing how everyone’s sorry for my dad. No one should be sorry for my dad. We should be throwing a party instead of having a funeral,” I stopped myself, remembering what Wade had said earlier. People here respected my dad and it was basically treason for me to go around saying these kind of things.

Wade clenched his jaw.

Holland laughed.

“I totally agree,” he said.

I looked at him, disgusted and confused.

“Your dad may have been a good man at one time, but all the power and control went to his head. He wanted more and more for longer and longer,” he explained.

“Why do you think that?” I asked, leaning forward in my seat. Finally, someone else who agreed with me!

“Our families are very close. I’ve heard conversations between your father and my father that I wish I hadn’t heard,” he said. “I also hung around here a lot and spent some time with your dad. I knew what that man was capable of.”

“Okay,” I drew the word out. “So who would want to kill him, like totally take him out?”

“A lot of people,” he answered, cutting his pancake into perfect squares. “Your dad wasn’t loved by a lot of other politicians. Anyone of those people could have hired someone to knock him off. They’d know the layout of the White House and your dad’s schedule if they were close enough. They’d be able to slip a guy through security without so much as raising one red flag.”

I looked at him. “You’ve obviously thought about this.”

“I thought about this all the way back at the age of ten when my parents actually told me what happened to your family,” he answered. “It’s not impossible that someone with power did it.”

I looked down at my plate and we relapsed into silence. The rest of the meal, I spent in thought. I put myself on autopilot while my brain worked overtime. I thought. A lot. Holland had a good point. I was about to say so to him when Wade spoke up.

“Why don’t you two catch up a little after we’re done here?” he proposed.

Holland and I exchanged glances. I didn’t really want to ‘get to know this guy’. I wanted to be alone to think about what Holland had said but then again, I wouldn’t mind finding out more. He was obviously close to my Dad so maybe I could find out more.

“I’m down,” he said.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “I’m good with it.”

Wade smiled at me as if to say, “Thank you.”

I gave him a weak smile back and quickly finished eating. I pushed my chair back and stood up, swinging my bag over my shoulder. Holland stood up as well and politely pushed his chair back in. I rolled my eyes and made my way to the door.

“Is Holland allowed in the Oval Office?” I asked Cassandra who was standing by the door, gun by her side.

“Yeah,” she nodded. “If you’re okay with it.”

I nodded and turned to Holland who was standing a few yards back, hand in his pockets.

“We’re gonna go to the Oval Office. That way we can talk in private, dig a little deeper, you get the idea,” I stated.

He nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

Cassandra, Audie, and two other bodyguards followed us out of the dining room and down the hall to the Oval Office.

We walked in silence but then a question popped into my mind.

“Why isn’t your family here?” I asked. “Wade keeps saying they’re close friends.”

“They’ll be coming in tomorrow for the funeral,” he answered. “And then they’re leaving as soon as it’s over.”

“That’s kinda rude,” I remarked. “Not that I care. I’m just stating the obvious.”

“I agree,” he nodded. “They are rude. Just being around them for that little time is going to be terrible.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What do you mean? They’re your family.”

“They’re power hungry, they’re cruel, and they’re losers,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t throw a big fit when they sent me here for schooling.”

“Why’d they send you here?” I asked, pushing open the doors to the Oval Office. The guards stayed outside, leaving us alone in the room. Cassandra gave her normal, “if you need me I’ll be outside,” talk and we got to work.

“Foreign education looks better on anything,” he said in a high-pitched voice, pinching his nose shut.

“I’m assuming you’re imitating your parents,” I said, sitting down in the chair behind the desk. He sat on the edge of the desk, picking at his nails.

“Yeah,” he said. He was silent for a moment, a far-away look in his eyes. “I hate my family.”

“Why?” I asked. I loved my mom, sister, and brother; so it was kind of hard to imagine hating every single one of them—it was just my Dad that I had problems with. Who knows, maybe I loved him before everyone else died.

“I’m the second oldest son. I mean nothing to the family right now,” he began. “And I won’t until Dad dies. See the way it works is that when Dad ‘retires’, two-thirds of the job is passed down to the oldest brother. When Dad dies, I get his third and then when my younger brother comes of age, my older brother will give him a third.

“I’m not going to come into play for another fifteen or twenty years. Right now, I’m disposable, not of much use,” he gave a weak smile. “I like it that way. They don’t ever bother me or visit me, and it makes me feel better about myself to know that I’m not becoming like them.”

“How long have you lived in the States?” I asked, beginning to spin in the chair.

“Six years,” he estimated. “I don’t really know. It’s been a while.”

“Tell me more about yourself,” I prodded. I promise you I wasn’t interested. Okay so

maybe I was.

He glanced at me. “Well, you know the basics. I was sent off to school around the age of ten and have lived here ever since. I hang out here on the weekends, just wandering around aimlessly for twenty-four hours.” he laughed. “I live with a nanny and about twenty guards just a few blocks away.” He fingered the two dog tags around his neck and continued. “I hang out with my friends a lot, just being me.”

“Who’s dog tags?” I asked. I stopped spinning the chair and leaned back as my vision balanced out.

“A friend’s dad gave ’em to me,” he said. The edges of his mouth turned up as he continued. “He’s been in the war way back. When his son and I became best friends, he kind of took me in as an adopted son. He made a copy of his dog tags and gave the originals to his son and these—” he held up the dog tags. “—he gave to me.”

“That’s nice,” I said.

He nodded. “I think of them as my family more than I think of my real family.”

The distant look returned to his eyes and I let him sit in silence for a moment before talking.

“Okay, Holland—,” he cut me off.

“Dutch. You can call me Dutch,” he said.

“Dutch? Where’d that come from?” I asked.

“It’s my nickname. Dutch and Holland, all that,” he laughed. “Saying that out loud sounds really weird.”

“Dutch it is,” I said. I didn’t want to make him feel bad.

There ya go again, Red. Trying to protect people’s feelings. What’s getting into you? I mentally yelled at myself.

Maybe I’m trying to be nicer. I argued back.

Before I got into a deep argument with myself, I turned my attention to Holland.

“Okay, Dutchy, where do we start?”