35. Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mac
Six months later
“They finally brought me on full time.”
After enough silence to drive even a monk mad, my temp bodyguard decides now is the time to share this with me, as if I’d be as ecstatic about the news as he is.
Spoiler alert: I’m fucking not.
“I thought the roster was full.” I manage to ask him over the rim of my glass, a roach hanging by a thread from my lips to keep it from burning my skin.
Paul shrugs and helps himself to the bottle sitting by my elbow. “Guess they canned someone or something.” He speaks as he pours, completely ignoring the judgement clearly painted on my face when he shoots the alcohol back.
“Um.” Plucking the roach from my lips, I point at him with the two fingers that I pinch it between. “You’re on fucking duty.”
His repeated shrug sets my blood to boil, because while I might not like life right now, I’d still like to keep it in case it gets fucking better.
“I can’t celebrate?”
“Fuck no.” I swipe the bottle from his grasp when he attempts to pour another. “Not at the expense of my fucking life.” Slamming the glass against the table, I pin him with a glare that bows his shoulders in.
“Shit, Mac, I’m—"
“Sorry?” I fish my phone from my pocket as the words leave my lips. “You better not say you’re fucking sorry .” Hitting dial on the head of our security team’s number, I put the device to my ear, and pin the disobedient child of a bodyguard who slumps.
Slumps!
“What.” The clipped response begs for a smartass comment that I would have normally fallen into but I scoff into the phone.
“You know who didn’t drink on the job?”
“Jesus.” Ian’s string of curses that follow pull at the corner of my lips.
“Seriously?” I ask into the phone and blindly reach out for the bottle my fingers find and wrap around the neck of. “You leave me with this one? What the fuck?” I pin the remorseful guard with a stare that has his eyes shooting to the floor.
“I’m on my fucking way up.” Nodding when the line cuts off, I set my phone back on the high-top table I long ago took residence at and take a swig directly from the bottle.
Still, I keep my sight trained on my bodyguard who doesn’t bother to look up long enough to canvas the surrounding patrons. They’ve all been vetted, but that doesn’t mean his job is done. He doesn’t bring his gaze up from the fucking marble floor, even when the door at my back opens and Ian comes striding through the VIP section with a burning rage flexing his fists.
“Go back to the hotel.” Simple, yet powerful, Ian’s way of communicating is always clear and direct. Like a pissed dad to an unruly teenager, he lays down the law with the new guy.
So when my new bodyguard decides it’s the time to argue, it’s just fuel to the already lit fire.
“Get the fuck out of my sight.” In a rare form, with a red-faced and using his hands to speak, Ian gestures to the door, just in case Paul forgot the way in is the same way out.
Like a lost puppy, the newbie tucks his tail along with his head and does the walk of shame across the mostly quiet floor. When I watch his back finally disappear through the door and into the crowd of partygoers, I ask my questions to the leader of their group.
“What the fuck, Ian?”
“I can’t discuss this with you, Mac.”
“Bullshit. You can. And you fucking will.” Blue eyes set under a buzzcut stare down at me like I’m the one out of my mind.
“ Fine ,” Ian growls when I don’t waiver and slams his ass into the chair next to me, his eyes floating over the crowd behind me for a moment, then coming back to me. “We need more fucking hands.”
I scoff and take another sip from the bottle only to hiss when the roach finally burns down enough to burn my fingers.
Ian snatches the mini fire and puts it out with a boot to the floor.
“And that fucker is it?” I say when his eyes come back to mine. “It’s been years , Ian. Literal years that Jordan had my back.”
He shakes his head, his hand coming up to run across his short hair. “How can you…” His voice trails off when another patron walks close to the table but keeps moving past us. “Mac, you’re going to have to let me permanently assign you someone that isn’t Jordan.”
But I’m not in love with anyone else.
I don’t say that, though, because that’s almost as bad to tell his boss.
So, I settle with the other truths. “We knew each other. He got it. He didn’t fuck up once.”
“Except he has .” Ian scoffs and flags the bartender over to order a soda with no ice like a real fucking weirdo. “And Jordan’s the one that opted out of this.”
“You don’t know him, Ian. He would have come if you’d told him to.”
“And you fuckin do?” Fuck, maybe he’s right. I shake my head as Ian’s beverage is placed on the table in front of him and the man takes a hike.
“I know enough,” I murmur with my heart in my throat.
Thinking back, Jordan never wanted to share about his past. He said his family were good people, but then always took the first opportunity to change the subject whenever it came up. There’s always been an air of mystery around it— them . The holidays, and the fact that Jordan never takes leave.
But I know that Ian knows more than that. More than what I know based on my internet sleuthing.
Jordan’s biological parents died in a house fire when he was fourteen—the very same age I came out to Ma as gay—and there wasn’t any extended family left to take him.
He ended up in the system, got in trouble a time or two, but nothing much past age seventeen was online. At least not that a civilian could find.
It was me; I was the civilian, for fucking once.
“It’s more than you, Mac.” Ian sips his soda and nibbles the droplets from his bottom lip in thought. Eyes trailing slowly from the table back to me, he shakes his head.
“You mean Rex,” I correct and snag the bottle from the table.
My goddamn brother.
When Ian doesn’t respond, I know I’m spot on. I can feel it.
“Rex does not get final say in what happens here,” I growl, because while I love my twin, I’m also sick of his holier than thou attitude.
His butting in when I asked him to stay the fuck out of it.
Like getting us into this club with a basically empty VIP room for me to sulk in.
Okay, I do appreciate the privacy while still being able to be in public.
“It’s not that easy.”
“Bullshit!” I slam the bottle to the table, even though I’ve yet to take another drink. “It’s the band’s decision. Not Mac all by himself. Not Rex. Or Toby.” I growl and lean closer to the leader of the security team whose spine straightens him up taller than me. “The only one with any power to do anything without the consent of the whole group is fucking Leo .”
Ian’s jaw firms, his eyes turning to grey stone as his words cement the things I already knew would be true. “Except when it comes to security measures and the safety of this team.”
Gone is the sliver of understanding the man displayed. Gone is any warmth he allowed past his tough exterior.
“You mean you.” I sneer, my lip pulling up from my teeth.
“Damn right I do.” His chuckle is stark and holds no humor when it passes his lips. “Music wise, it’s all you.” His pointer comes out and pokes me in my adrenaline pumped chest. “Security is on me.” His thumb jabs back into his solid pec.
“ Fuck you, Ian.”
Pushing up from the table, I can’t help the sway to my step. Or the way I grip the table to prevent myself from meeting the ground with my face instead of my shoes. Ian reaches out to steady me, but I growl over my shoulder and shake off his hold. “Have a good fuckin’ day, sir. ”
“You can’t leave without me, Mac.”
I scoff.
“Bet,” I spit the challenge in his direction and swagger my ass to the door that leads out into the chaos.
Slipping through the threshold, I slam the thing in Ian’s face. He rips it right back open, scanning the crowd when I step into a dancing horde of sweaty bodies. I move to blend, allowing the sway of the music to guide my hips into a rhythm that the woman in front of me leans back against.
She bumps back into me, matching my glides and glances over her bare shoulder. She grins, sly and full of shit she’ll find me disappointing at, her ass grinding into my groin and her arms come up around the back of my neck.
Leaning into the disguise with my face to her neck, I put my hands on her hips and guide her so that she’s more swing and less dry humping. Purrs fill my ear when my hands slip and her ass slams back into my hips.
Ow.
Chuckling, I plant a kiss on her cheek when I see Ian move further into the crowd opposite me and turn her into another group of grabby hands. She gets lost in the horde after only a moment of eye contact and a wink that sends her on her way.
Rotating my body away from where Ian disappeared, I bump into a man close to my height and grin when he doesn’t immediately push away. The backwards hat reminds me of a specific someone I’d appreciate forgetting, even if for just a moment, but my chest aches with the scent of a particular musk filling my nose as our hips fall in sync.
Clean, like a fresh shower, fills my senses the same way that my former bodyguard used to, making my hands tingle to touch and tease my cock to life for the first time in what feels like forever.
He never knew.
He never knew that I stopped sleeping with anyone the moment he strolled in like he owned the fucking place. Never knew I looked when I shouldn’t have. Touched as ‘just friends’ more than any friend I’ve ever had.
But I did.
The laser lights flash like strobes against the darkness of the room, fucking with my eyes and making me feel even more intoxicated than I am. But my dance partner keeps my pace and doesn’t run for the hills when I slide my hands down his torso and grip his waist.
In fact, his ass pushes back into me and his arms go up to sway along with the beat. He opens himself up to me, pulling a satisfied growl from the base of my throat.
A rebound sounds nice right about now.
Even more when I recall the fucking hiatus my cock decided to go on without my consent.
I guess even he knows it’s fucking over.
Falling all in, I grind against my dancing partner’s ass and delight when their purr finds its way to my ear. Leaning back until my chest warms his skin, his arms snake around my neck and hold on for dear life when the beat changes, the remix of an As Above song kicking up the tempo.
Groaning when the song filters through the mix of club music, I think of Jordan as the lyrics tickle my ears and the dancer spins to face me.
Arms wrap around my shoulders, his head down, his face buried in my neck. Hands grab at my ass, his hard cock grinding into my pelvis, while mine sits limp behind my zipper.
People jump in unison to our music, bringing a lift to the corner of my lips until feet land on mine and elbows smash my shoulders.
My partner breaks away from me, the chaos of the floor too much to keep a hold. I reach out, catching just the tips of his fingers when the wave consumes him only to lose it all over again.
Lost, I search the crowd around me, pushing by bouncing bodies as I try to reconnect with the only person that’s made me feel a morsal of something since Jordan walked into my life and left me wrecked.
But he’s gone, just like Jordan .
And in his place is Ian.