Out Of A Fix (Torus Intercession #7)

One

I ’d never been to a fancier—or longer—wedding in my life. I could have died there.

The elbow into my side brought me out of my thoughts.

“Oww,” I grumbled at my oldest, best friend, Rais Solano.

“Stop fidgeting,” he ordered me under his breath. He was sitting to my left in the second to last row of the church we were in.

And we were in those last two rows because all the rest were filled.

Amazing but true, every single one. It was incomprehensible.

I had no idea Jared Colter even knew this many people.

Some of them were Owen’s friends—anyone younger than forty was probably his—but the majority were those who had stepped out of the shadows to be counted on the man’s special day.

Which was great and loyal and all that, but again, there was a sea of three hundred or so.

I was surprised when I walked in, and was even more so that no one had gotten up and left.

But when you were caught in a time loop, that perhaps wasn’t possible.

“Leave him alone,” Rais’s date, Sienna Donahue, chided him. She was a stunningly beautiful blonde, whom I’d liked from the moment I met her. “I’ve been to high school graduations with rambling valedictorian speeches that didn’t last this long.”

“Or mass,” my friend Cooper Davis, who was also hers, chimed in from beside her. “And I’m Catholic, so I know what I’m talking about.”

“We’re all gonna die here,” I muttered.

“You look like a grown-up, but you’re really not,” Rais scolded me.

“All of you, zip it,” Cooper’s husband, Ash Lennox, the very famous actor—and deservedly so—whispered harshly from next to Cooper, glaring at me, punctuating his words with hand gestures—the cut-it one with his hand across his throat—before leaning back.

“You’re going to get us in trouble, and I like your boss. ”

“I’m so bored,” Shaw James, another friend of mine, whined from my right. “And there’s a reception after this.”

“Shh,” his husband, Benji, chided, leaning forward so I could see him. He had to. Shaw James was not a small man. Between his height, his shoulders, and all the muscle, Benji appeared absolutely tiny in comparison. “You all need to keep it down and be respectful.”

“Your wedding wasn’t like this,” I grumbled.

“Shaw and I got married in his parents’ backyard,” Benji reminded me. “This is not that. This is fancy.”

“I liked that better,” I mumbled. “I am here under duress.”

“Stop saying that,” Rais warned me. “You’ve said that nine times already, and you know our boss probably didn’t want us here to begin with. We only made the guest list because of Owen.”

“That’s not true,” Sienna argued. “I’ve talked to Mr. Colter, and he treasures you all.”

“Oh, I’m gonna be sick,” Shaw replied.

“Stop speaking,” Benji ordered.

“I would have made the guest list,” Ash said flatly. “As would Nick.”

“Thank you.” Nick Madison, who was sitting behind us, leaned forward in the pew and put a hand on Ash’s shoulder. “That’s nice of you to say.”

“You’re very welcome.”

Nick Madison was a huge rock star. His tours sold out in hours, he had a Netflix special a while back, a crapton of Grammys, and any and every kind of other award you could think of.

He was also married to the—bar none—grouchiest man on the planet, my friend Locryn Barnes.

If you looked up snarly in a dictionary, Loc’s face would be there.

“When Jared Colter leaves his intended at the altar to come kill you all, I’m gonna sit here and let it happen,” the aforementioned Locryn Barnes growled.

“As though he would hurt your wonderful husband,” Ash said, sucking up some more.

“Or you,” Nick apprised him. “You’re a national treasure.”

Fuck. All.

He was an actor, for fuck’s sake; he hadn’t cured the common cold. And yes, he was an excellent actor, but still, the mutual-appreciation society was getting old.

“Seriously, shut up,” Rais directed.

Despite being in the last two rows of the church, we did need to be quieter.

And yes, we weren’t being that noisy, we were whispering, after all, but the father or pastor or whatever the hell he was—I hadn’t been listening at all by the time he was introduced—had begun addressing the assembly, and we were chatting.

We were going to get in trouble if we kept it up.

This was what came from promising someone you loved that yes, absolutely, you would make a date happen even if there was scary, death-comes-from-the shadows, black-ops work that needed to be done and you were, at least on paper, retired.

I knew it wasn’t going to happen on schedule as soon as Owen started talking about it.

The timing was simply too tight. No one was surprised when it had to be moved, and then again.

Originally, it was going to be June of last year.

Then it got rescheduled to May of this year, and then, finally, because Owen said things like, of course I understand , and no, really, it’s okay , Jared refused to let it go into year three.

That was smart. If you couldn’t make a wedding happen, what did that say about the long-term prospects for the marriage?

So Jared set a hard date for fall, which was why we were all here, on the first Saturday in November, being slowly, insidiously bored to death.

To be fair, death would probably not occur, we would just want it to. But Owen had been guaranteed the day he’d always dreamed of with the man he adored, loved, treasured—any gooey adjective was applicable—and by God, Jared Colter would make that happen.

I glanced at the men up there with him—Darius Hawthorne, standing on Jared’s right, and Dante Cerreto, standing beside Darius—and I was glad they were there for him.

I was thinking, between the two of them, that they had killed more men than malaria.

And yes, it was an exaggeration, but the fact of the matter was, they were both utterly lethal.

As hit men, they were used to sitting for hours waiting for their mark and were both exceedingly patient.

However, at the moment, Dante had started to very slowly, but I could still tell, shift his weight from one foot to the other.

It made sense. They’d been up there a long time already, and all of them, Jared included, had many, many old injuries that could kick in at any time.

The knees weren’t what they used to be. Someone could cramp from old shrapnel, scar tissue, or various parts that had been replaced.

“Why are you yelling?” Ash teased Shaw about his hoarse whisper, then turned to Benji. “And it was so nice of you to fly in for this.”

I’d missed something while ruminating on death from ennui.

“Pardon me?” Benji asked, looking at the actor. “Fly in for what?”

“Fly in for the wedding,” Ash clarified. “Cooper told me Shaw had to pick you up all the time from the airport, so I assume you don’t live here in Chicago like the rest of us.”

Ashford Lennox had left Malibu, California, earlier this year to live in the Windy City with the man he was going to marry.

It had taken him and Cooper a mere eight months of doing the bicoastal thing to realize they both wanted more.

The thing was, Cooper had a family, mother, father, sisters, nieces and nephews, who all needed him.

Ash had a flourishing career that he could do from anywhere, was highly in demand, and had a boatload of friends who loved to travel.

When weighed out, there was only one choice to be made.

The person who could move and not suffer was him.

Plus, from what Ash had told me at several dinners, he was ready to be out of Southern California.

He loved it, truly, but he was excited for the different seasons, and of course, more than anything, to sleep every single night he could beside the man he was madly in love with.

There were still times they were apart because of filming, promotional tours, and various appearances, but to have a home base where he and Cooper could be together, alone, was a gift he would not take for granted.

He was crazy about my friend, which to me was utterly mind-boggling.

Not that Cooper was lacking in any way, but how often did huge Hollywood actors fall for mere mortals? That was nuts.

They resided in Highland Park, which was a very nice—wealthy—area.

Ash had immediately fallen in love with the town Cooper lived in, but not at all with his house.

It was far too small for Ash’s needs and nowhere near as secure as it had to be.

Now Cooper lived in a mansion, with gates and motion detectors that an A-list star required for protection.

They also had a lot of houseguests at any given time, so that made sense.

You couldn’t have Nick Madison coming in and out of your house and not have a riot on your street.

“But I do live here,” Benji said, squinting at Cooper. “Why did you tell him that?”

“Why do you think?”

“Ohmygod,” Ella Guzman, who was sitting beside Ash, said under her breath. “You all need to stow this conversation until after the wedding.”

“Wait,” said her date, Marc Sanchez, a dancer at the Chicago Ballet Company. He put his hand on Cooper’s shoulder. “I want to know. Did you totally lie to my favorite actor?”

“Yes, I lied,” Cooper snarled at him. Marc had become a fixture lately, he and Ella seemed very serious, so it wasn’t a surprise that Cooper was himself with the man. He was sticking around, after all. “I wanted him to think a bicoastal relationship would be easy.”

“You lied to me?” Ash asked, trying for horrified but not sounding even a bit upset.

“That’s terrible acting,” Locryn muttered. “Not convincing in the least.”