CHAPTER TEN
"Alex, please sit down, you're making me tired simply from looking at you," his mom told him from the chair she'd claimed as hers ten minutes after they'd gotten here two days ago.
There was a rocking baby seat right next to her and Boo was thankfully asleep after a crying fit that had seemed never-ending even if it was probably only half an hour long. They'd done everything they could to calm Boo down, but in the end, he'd probably exhausted himself into sleep.
Alex, also exhausted, was kind of jealous of his son right now. Unfortunately, only one of them was way past his bedtime.
"Ian's going to be here any minute and I don't want him to turn around and walk out when he sees the state of this place in the wake of a Boo-tornado."
"You've hired him as a bodyguard, not a housekeeper, which means he's not going to care about any of that. It's not his mess to clean up."
Ain't that the truth, in more ways than one.
"It still needs to be done, Mom, and if I sit down, I'm not getting up anytime soon."
Alex tossed a green onesie into the decorative vase now doubling as a laundry basket, then he paused and ran a hand over his still-damp braid.
It was stupid to care about how the apartment was looking—or how he was looking.
Child-rearing hadn't been kind to him, with all the sleepless nights and such, and he'd been learning to let that go.
Yet now that he'd seen Ian, who looked as perfect as ever and who was about to come stay with them for almost two weeks, Alex wished he'd taken a little more time to get himself presentable after his shower.
Then again, there had been a crying baby to deal with, so.
Once he met his mom's gaze again, she was watching him with a soft expression on her face, and she opened her mouth, undoubtedly to say something that would make him blink back tears.
Before she could do that, though, there was a vibrating text alert on his phone.
I'm in the building already, heading to your door.
Taking a deep breath, Alex shoved his phone back into his pocket. "He's here."
He's here.
Ian had come to help him, even after everything, and Alex did not deserve him but was still incredibly, overwhelmingly lucky.
He'd be even luckier if his mother wasn't witnessing this, but too late for that now.
"Okay, then," he muttered to himself as he headed to the door, running a hand down his T-shirt that clung to his chest since he'd put it on too quickly after the shower.
He opened the door right after the soft knock, and there Ian was, sharply dressed and emanating quiet confidence even in the smallest of moments. Alex was at his most confident when he was loud about it—the theatrical style, the stage persona, the props.
He didn't know how to have what Ian had.
"Hey, thank you for coming," Alex finally said. "Come on in."
Ian nodded, then left his bag by the door.
"I've already checked the area and it seems fine.
No one lingering, nothing outside the norm for the neighborhood like this.
" He tilted his head towards the door. "The intercom is better than nothing, but I was able to slip inside the building easily when someone was leaving, so that's not great. "
He kept his voice low, adjusting to Alex's quiet tone, which Alex appreciated. Boo probably wasn't going to sleep for long, since he tended to wake up more often now that he was teething, but still, every bit of respite from the crying was precious.
There was a shuffling from behind him, and Ian straightened in his stance before Alex half-turned to nod at his mother, who approached them with a smile.
"Mom, this is Ian Torres. Ian, my mother, Edina Reed."
"Nice to meet you, ma'am."
"Edina, please." She beamed at Ian, which startled Alex. She usually wasn't this enthusiastic with strangers. "Nice to meet you, too. We appreciate your help."
"Ian, then. I promise to be as unobtrusive as possible, but I'm warning you in advance that you might not like me from time to time, when I have to put my foot down."
If possible, Alex's mom only smiled wider. "While I would normally take that as a challenge, I'll try not to. Safety of my family is what's the most important to me."
"And I'm here to ensure that, so we should get along splendidly, then." Now it was Ian's turn for a big smile, and, fuck, Alex had missed those dimples.
He'd missed a lot of things.
"I could show you around while Boo is still sleeping?" he heard himself say, and both Ian and his mother turned to him at once. Wow, okay. He cleared his throat. "You can take your things with you, I'll show you to your room, too."
"Of course." Ian took a step back and retrieved his bag. "After you."
His mom sent him a look Alex didn't know how to interpret—or preferred not to—before heading back to her chair.
With a sigh, Alex ran a hand down his T-shirt again. "Okay, let's start from the other side on this level and work our way up."
The apartment was spacious, but it wasn't a mansion or anything, so Alex expected the tour to be short. He should have known better, though, because he'd seen Ian work before, checking out hotel rooms and other spaces Alex was supposed to be spending time in.
Now, only the smaller guest room didn't keep Ian's attention for long, probably because it was going to be his room, which meant he could go over everything later. Other spaces took more time, with Ian checking the doors, the windows, knocking on a few walls and turning the lights off and on.
Standing with him in a dark room stirred something in Alex's stomach, but he tried to keep it together. The man was at work, and Alex had already blown his chances twice. He shouldn't be thinking of any of the things his mind was suggesting.
"There's nothing suspicious inside so far," Ian spoke up from his place by the window.
They were now in Alex's bedroom and Alex kept his gaze at the crib next to the bed to remind himself over and over what his life was about these days.
"I'd still suggest keeping the blinds down whenever you can.
Living room area can stay open during the day, since there's no reason not to let in natural light, but outside from that, using the blinds would be best. And, of course, keeping them down everywhere when it goes dark, because a lit up room brings attention in the dark and if somebody from the other side of the street gets curious, they could see more than you'd like. "
Thankfully, other than a few details like that, Ian was happy with the setup.
"Staying in the bedrooms on the upper level was a good choice," he added. "Making it harder to get to you from the outside and having an alternate exit route into the private corridor are the most important things in situations like that."
"I remembered what you taught me," Alex admitted. "My mom took some convincing, since she preferred to be closer to the kitchen, but she finally caved."
"Good, you saved me from having that conversation with her, then," Ian offered after a small pause. "If I had to evict her to take the bedroom downstairs for myself, I would've ended up on her shit list way too early into this."
"I'm sure you would've charmed her either way," Alex said without thinking as they were coming back downstairs, but before he could dig himself an even bigger hole, he heard sniffling noises coming from the living room area and quickened his pace.
His mom looked up at him from the armchair, Boo in her arms. "He started fussing a few minutes ago, but it's not the diaper, so he's either hungry or it's the teething."
"He shouldn't be hungry yet. His appetite hasn't been great earlier, so maybe he's catching up, but I'd bet on teething.
" Alex took his son into his arms and kissed him on the forehead the moment Boo leaned into him, melting his heart for about the millionth time.
"I'm here," he whispered, rocking back and forth.
"And teething's the worst, isn't it? Yeah, I know. "
He started humming when Boo slumped against him, face tucked against Alex's neck. Sometimes the sound and the vibrations were enough to calm him, but that usually only worked with general crankiness, not pain. It was as good of the first step as any, though, so it had become Alex's go-to.
Now, he knew he needed more than that, so he turned to head to the kitchen for something to soothe his son's aching gums, only to almost collide with Ian, who was standing right there, silent and watching them carefully.
Shit. For a moment, Alex had forgotten about Ian, his world constricting to nothing but his son.
Not for long, though.
He could never forget Ian for long, no matter how much he'd tried.
And here they were now—so close, and staring at each other, and Alex needed to introduce his son to Ian, but he couldn't breathe there for a moment, his heart flailing in his chest.
Boo wasn't having it, however. He grunted loudly in displeasure, and, as always, inadvertently pushed Alex to be braver than Alex thought he was capable of being.
"Right. Sorry. Ian, meet Boone Reed." He angled his body to the side, so Ian could see the baby better. "We call him Boo."
The noises Boo was making cut off at once as he lifted his head to stare at a man he had never seen before.
"Hey, Boo," Ian whispered, and Alex got to watch the gentlest, sweetest expression bloom on Ian's face, which caused his heart to take a twisting dive in the span of a second.
He couldn't even be mad. Hell, he should have known.
And maybe he had. Maybe he'd been afraid of this, right here, even more than of Ian rejecting him without so much as a conversation.
He'd had to do it, though, because Boo mattered more than anything else, and Alex had known from the very beginning that there was only one man he could entrust with his son's safety.
Unable to handle the look on Ian's face any longer, he glanced back at his baby, only to find Boo still staring at Ian with his mouth slightly open, transfixed into silence.
Alex would laugh if he wasn't also coming apart at the seams.
I know, baby. I know. I'm right there with you.