Chapter 23 #2
Milton gave him a totally out of character hug before he regained his composure and directed Roy to the pool. DJ’s acoustic guitar and notepad were at one of the poolside tables, while he floated around in swim shorts on the unicorn raft.
He was wearing his fish necklace, and Roy saw Gilda’s charm bracelet with the trio of beaded ones DJ liked to wear.
Roy had on his Be Kind bracelet today. They were both in a nostalgic mood.
DJ’s hands were folded on his flat stomach, and he wore his sunglasses.
From his relaxed position, he was asleep.
The bruising on his abdomen looked better, a waterproof bandage over the surgical site where they’d had to go in and repair the damage. His two fingers were held with a brace and white tape.
DJ’s hair was damp, so it was either okay for him to be swimming, or he’d decided it was.
Going on an impulse, Roy shed shoes and socks, jeans and shirt, and entered the water in his black boxers. Moving like a shark, he slid closer to the raft, stalking his prey. When he was close enough, he prepared to slide him off the raft. Very gently.
Instead, he got a face full of water as the kid rolled off the raft and right into his arms. He managed to knock Roy off balance and dunk him for a few seconds.
Roy allowed it, because no way was he going to wrestle with him. When he surfaced, he pushed away. “That was taking advantage of your invalid state.”
“You bet. Gotta milk this stuff as long as you can.” Though DJ’s voice was casual, his eyes weren’t. He’d wanted to do more in that brief embrace, and so had Roy.
Neither of them had. The pool might as well be lined with eggshells.
As Roy wiped water from his face, DJ moved into the shallower end, his chest hair gleaming and skin beaded with drops. He sat down on one of the steps, breathing heavily, which made Roy worry, but his grin was genuine. In just the few days he’d been gone, DJ’s hair had grown out some more.
“Did you grab yourself a beer from the bar?”
“I might later.” Roy trudged over to him and took a seat on the steps as DJ leaned back, stretching an arm out along the concrete lip of the pool. “So the guardhouse told you I was coming?”
“Would they dare not to? Luis said you about ripped him a new one for letting you in without verifying you were on the list.” DJ gave Roy a long look. “How could you think you wouldn’t be, Roy?”
Two rare situations in the same timespan. DJ had gotten the jump on him, and he’d asked a question that left Roy at loose ends on how to answer it.
He was used to being sure of how something would play out. The way DJ was looking at him, so serious, his eyes hooded, wasn’t giving him anything.
“I mean, you saved my life,” DJ added. “You’ll always be on that list, man. Always.”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“You know…” DJ ran his palm back and forth over the surface of the water, watching the resultant ripples.
“Henry is retiring this year. It was already in the works, but he says he’s getting too old for this crazy shit.
I need a replacement. That boyfriend who tried to shoot me, that wasn’t even related to Paul.
And I get all sorts of weird mail. Moss wants me to do another world tour, and there’s a shitload of security stuff for that which could use eyes like yours. ”
Yes, Roy knew there were plenty of reasons to keep heavy security on him indefinitely.
But he was a fixer. They could bring in more experienced people to beef up DJ’s existing security.
Maybe Warren would be interested. His previous burnout on celebrity jobs, which had sent him to corporate work a decade ago, seemed to have been reversed by the job with DJ.
He’d been bitching about the corporate work and how much more fun it had been to work with a rock band.
Roy hadn’t responded, so DJ decided to address what he thought Roy’s silence might be about.
“I don’t want to cramp your style or stick you in a dead-end job with no challenges.
If you train your people to do what’s needed, there’s no reason you couldn’t take other gigs on occasion.
I was just thinking I could, you know, be your primary client. ”
DJ’s phone chirped on the table. Annoyance crossed his face at the interruption, and then another deeper emotion. “It’s an appointment reminder. Moss is bringing a new guitarist by to jam with me, see what I think of him. Trey went back to New Orleans, but Sy is staying.”
“Figured that was the way it was going to turn out. New guy look good?”
“Moss thinks so. The demos he sent are decent. Don’t want to do it, you know.” A shadow crossed DJ’s expression. “But I’m going to need another permanent guitar player, plus a temporary one until my hand’s back in action. You haven’t answered me, about the job.”
Roy met his gaze. “Let me think about it, okay?”
“Sure. But I can match whatever anyone else will offer to pay you. Keep you in your stock of identical suits. Can you hang out? Stay a while?”
“Gilda’s surgery is coming up. I need to get some things squared away at home before I go be with her for that.”
The flicker in DJ’s gaze, the slight tightening of his jaw, said it was a lame excuse, and Roy was busted for it. But when his face went smooth right after, DJ did what he’d done countless times to protect himself from someone getting close enough to hurt him. Assumed the facade.
As his Dom, Roy would have called him on it, but because he wasn’t acting like his damn Dom, even as they were both floundering in the things that weren’t being said, he deserved the emotional straight arm.
“That’s right. Thanks for the reminder. I’ll send her a basket of all her favorite things. Marjorie and she have become BFFs, so I guess that’s how I’ll hear how you’re doing going forward.”
The edge of the knife had slipped in. Roy’s own jaw tightened. “DJ…”
The sliding glass door opened, and Moss poked his head through it.
His gaze landed on Roy, sitting in the water in his shorts.
Because he wasn’t an idiot, he picked up on the tension.
“Uh, hey there, Roy. Good to see you. DJ, I’ll take Dillon to your home studio.
Let him get accustomed to the set up before you jam. ”
“Sounds good.” DJ held Roy’s gaze without looking away. The door thumped closed.
DJ got out of the water and reached for his towel, his back to Roy. “Guess we both have things to do, right?”
As he turned toward Roy, he was drying his chest and abdomen with the towel. Roy wanted to do that for him, explore the bruised area with a gentle touch to make sure he was doing okay.
“Yeah. I’ll probably spend a few days with her, help her with her recovery.”
“Makes sense.” DJ put the towel to the side, and offered Roy another one, his gaze passing over the neatly folded clothes Roy had left on the chair. “You should wear jeans more often.”
“DJ.”
DJ’s lips curved in a tight smile. “Guess you keep saying my name to remind me that you’ll never call me Dory again.”
“That’s up to you.”
DJ sent him a searing glance. “Really? Okay. Can you tell me what’s going on so we can stop doing whatever fucking bullshit we’re doing at the moment?”
Roy’s temper spiked, but he pushed it down. He reminded himself to be what he always was in moments like this. He used the towel and put on his jeans, grabbing the shirt and pulling it over his head. Putting on armor.
Then he turned and faced DJ, giving him his best, we’re okay, steady and in control look.
“This is difficult for both of us. You hired me for a job, and we got close during it. But the job’s over, and ninety-nine percent of the time, that means whatever we felt will fade away with it.”
“That’s how you feel? That all of it’s just gone? What we felt and did together?”
“No, not what I meant. I mean it tends to go in that direction. I care a lot about you, DJ, and I wouldn’t want to cause you that kind of pain.
In six months, if we feel differently, let’s revisit it.
But putting a pin in it for now makes sense, right?
Gives you time and space to know what you want. ”
While he and Roy had tussled, DJ’s sunglasses had come off, but he’d retrieved them before he sat on the steps. Even so, Roy could feel his stare through the tinted lenses.
“You told Luis you’re not my security detail anymore. But that’s how you’re acting.”
DJ stepped close, bringing them toe to toe, thighs almost brushing.
His damp, chlorine scent was in Roy’s nose.
DJ took off the glasses and stared into Roy’s eyes.
So close, that beautiful mouth, the long body.
Roy’s hands closed into fists. DJ’s gaze dropped, noting it.
He tilted his head, chin angling as he studied everything about Roy, starting at his toes and heading up until he reached his face.
“I’ve changed my mind, Roy. I’m withdrawing the job offer. I don’t want you as my security detail. Not if that’s all I can have.”
“What is it you want?” Frustration rose in Roy, a wall he couldn’t scale. If the kid didn’t step back…
He did, right before Roy would have reached out and touched him. DJ gave him a cordial nod.
“I want my Master back, Roy. You may be older and wiser, but you let me into your heart, and I let you into mine. Maybe you can call that circumstances and nothing that will last, but since the very first time we sat down at a table together, I wanted you, and you wanted me. It was deeper than our dicks, or even the fact I’m a sub and you’re a Dom.
Most days you think you’re smarter than me, and you probably are, but I think that’s the problem. Because this isn’t one of those days.”