Chapter 9
Preston
I couldn’t stop staring at my phone. It’d been three fucking hours since Shane had left the apartment with that godforsaken ear, and I hadn’t heard a peep from him about him being home.
I’d even sent him a text asking if he was okay, but I got nothing.
He hadn’t even opened the damn message. It was just sitting on “delivered”.
“He’s probably not home yet,” X said when I glanced down at my phone for the umpteenth time.
I sighed and set it back on my lap. Poor X was trying to distract me by putting on my favorite Thai BL show, but even that wasn’t holding my attention.
Love in the Air just wasn’t doing it for me right now.
What I wanted was for Shane to stop dicking around and text me so I knew he was safe.
“Preston, baby—” X started, reaching for my phone to probably take it from me so I’d stop obsessively checking it, but when he did, it suddenly began ringing.
Shane’s name appeared on the screen. I snatched it off my lap and quickly lifted it to my ear.
X smirked and dropped his hand to my thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze.
I ignored his knowing look. So what if I’d sort of become obsessed with the man, too?
“Shane?”
“X near you?” he asked in lieu of a greeting.
I frowned. “Um, yeah. Beside me. What’s—”
“Can you give him the phone?”
I huffed, annoyed now. “Dick,” I muttered, then passed the phone to X.
X arched a brow at me since it was rare I got that crass but took the phone when I only shrugged at him. How the fuck was I to know what Shane wanted?
X lifted the device to his ear. “Yes, Ghost?” X asked. I frowned. Ghost? Where did that nickname come from? Wasn’t like Shane had ever tried hiding from us, so calling him Ghost didn’t make sense to me.
“Wait, what?” X snapped a moment later, his entire demeanor changing. He stood to his feet and prowled to the office. I hurried to get up and follow him, watching as he booted up his computer. “I’m wiping my computer now, don’t worry.” He paused. “I fucking know, Shane.”
“What the fuck is going on?” I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest, suddenly feeling cold and sick to my stomach. Clearly, Shane had found something out, and whatever it was wasn’t any kind of good news if X was wiping his computer completely clean. X never tried to hide…
Unless it concerned me.
My gut dropped to the floor, and nausea rushed through me. “X…” I rasped, and the shaking in my voice had him turning to face me as soon as he hit the button to wipe his computer clean. “What’s happening?”
“Yeah, yeah,” X said to Shane, his eyes never leaving mine.
“See you in a bit.” He hung up, then set my phone on his desk.
Quickly, he erased the distance between us and settled his hands on my hips, drawing me forward until his body was pressed against mine.
“That ear belonged to Rex. He’s missing, and Shane thinks he’s never going to be found again.
” Rex was the guy who hacked into the government database to find out what Shane did for the government.
I was going to be sick. “Shane is moving in here for a while until this blows over.”
“If it blows over,” I whispered. “If the government wants this buried, X…”
He’d really put us in the middle of a shit show.
He cupped the back of my neck. “I’ll never let anything happen to you, Preston. Never.”
I knew that, but what about him? What about Shane?
My life wasn’t somehow worth more than theirs.
I was nothing but a mere doctor. X was a fighter, and Shane was ex-military.
Special Ops. I couldn’t protect them. But if Rex was already taken out, if they dug further, they’d find X. And what would happen to him then?
“I can’t lose you,” I rasped, tears suddenly blurring my vision. I wasn’t built for shit like this, and I suddenly hated that about myself. I wanted to be as strong as them. Why was I like this?
X smirked. “Someone taking me out, baby? Unlikely.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“Let’s go back and watch your show. Shane will be here soon, and he said he plans to stay for a while.
At least until this blows over.” He winked at me, his smirk touching his lips once more.
“Maybe with enough convincing, we can get him to stay permanently.”
I laughed softly, then leaned into him, resting my chin on his shoulder. X banded his arms around me, squeezing me just how I needed. “I love you,” I told him quietly.
He pressed his cheek against mine, knowing I loved it when he did that. X wasn’t all that good at social cues, but he was really good at reading and memorizing me and everything I needed and wanted. “I love you in all the ways I can,” he promised.
And that was all I would ever ask of him.
Shane dropped a small duffel bag on the floor beside the end of the couch, then took in our place with the kind of sweeping motion only people who’d been to hell and back did.
I knew in that one look around our place, he noted every hiding place, every exit, and every vulnerable spot.
Finally, his eyes landed on me and X, where we were sitting on the couch.
“Where am I sleeping?” he asked.
“I mean… our bed is big enough for the three of us,” X suggested. I rolled my lips into my mouth to keep from laughing or smiling.
Shane shot him an unamused look. I smacked X’s thigh because while that idea was tempting, I knew Shane wasn’t anywhere near caving to what we wanted.
“The couch pulls out into a bed,” I told Shane.
Shane nodded once, then disappeared down the small hall. A moment later, I heard the bathroom door shut. I frowned up at X. “What?” he asked, truly confused.
“Shane is here to help us because you dug in places you didn’t belong,” I reminded him. “Can you not tease him? He’s clearly not happy with you.”
X rolled his eyes. “Shane hasn’t been happy with me since the moment we met.
Trust me, this is familiar territory for me.
” He booped my nose with the tip of his index finger, and I scrunched my nose, batting his hand away.
He chuckled. “I’ll annoy the shit out of him because that’s what I do, baby. You can coddle him.”
I rolled my eyes. “I am not going to coddle him.”
X leaned in, nuzzling my cheek before bringing his lips to my ear.
“Liar,” he whispered, then kissed the shell of my ear.
A shiver rolled down my spine. To the rest of the world, X was cold and indifferent, really only showing enough emotion to be an asshole and get people riled up.
But he was extremely affectionate with me, especially since he figured out I loved having his affection.
I’d had a good childhood. My parents weren’t overly affectionate, but they had cared.
They were just busy with Dad being a politician and all and Mom constantly having to be a politician’s wife.
But they’d spent what time they could with me, and when they couldn’t be around, I had doting and loving nannies.
I hadn’t been lacking in that department.
It was when I got caught on camera kissing another guy while in college that everything changed.
My parents were homophobic, and they didn’t support LGBTQIA+ rights.
I’d always hidden who I was, and I’d thought I was safe at that party in the bathroom, but someone had planted a camera there to catch me in the act.
I’d finished college on my own dime and hadn’t had contact with them since they cut me off. In a way, I’d always known their abandonment would come eventually. But it felt like sometimes, X was trying to love me extra in their absence, which I didn’t really mind.
I glowed under his attention.
“X will need to make sure you get to and from work safely,” Shane announced as he came out of the bathroom.
X leaned back from me, and I paused Love in the Air to give him my undivided attention.
“I’m cutting back to appointments only at the shop.
” He tugged his phone from his pocket when it began vibrating, then grunted and lifted it to his ear.
“What the fuck do you mean you’re cutting back to appointments only, Shane?” I heard a guy loudly snap.
Shane didn’t say a word, just walked past us and toward the apartment door. X’s lip curled in annoyance as he stared at the apartment door, which was closed once more.
“His boss?” I asked.
X nodded. “Zeppelin Hendrix. If you think I’m an asshole, just wait until you meet him. I lack certain emotions. Zeppelin just chooses to be a dick.” He looked at me. “He saved Shane, which is how they met. Stopped him from committing suicide. But I still don’t like him.”
I snorted a laugh. X had warned me of Shane’s past, but told me he was also now stable.
I just hoped that all this mess didn’t somehow set Shane back and make things bad for him again.
I wasn’t sure if I could live with the guilt of up-ending Shane’s world to where shit got bad for him again and he ended up back at square one.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” I asked.
X nodded and dropped a kiss to the top of my head. “Shane’s the kind of man who needs a purpose. Protecting you is right up his alley, baby.”
I hoped he was right.