Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Seth
I TEAR MY EYES away from Jacob. He’s still looking, but I can’t hold his gaze any longer as he describes the one man he can’t have.
Me.
The interview moves on, but the voices blur into a vague drone. They buzz around my head, but I can’t catch any of the words, too stuck on what Jacob said.
There was someone I was interested in, but he didn’t feel the same.
Little does he know I do feel the same. I have for a long time. But I can’t. We can’t. This is my job. This attraction isn’t merely unprofessional; it could be dangerous. If I’m too tangled up in personal feelings, I could miss something, putting not just Jacob but the entire band in danger. If I was focused only on Jacob because of my feelings for him, I could lose sight of my broader task. I simply can’t let that happen.
At least now I know why Emmett hasn’t fired me. Jacob clearly didn’t tell him. It seems like he hasn’t told anyone, not even his bandmates. They know I helped him into his apartment after his birthday, but they don’t realize I stayed the entire night. They don’t know about the kiss.
I’m not sure whether to be relieved or terrified. I don’t get time to sort it out before the interview is ending and the guys are heading backstage. I swing into motion, taking refuge in the familiar. I took the bus here instead of driving so I could be with the guys as they leave. It was a good call. The second I open the back door, the cameras and questions start. I usher the guys quickly into the car waiting for them, but then I have no choice but to climb in with them. Not only is it my best way home, but if anyone is waiting for them at their own homes, I need to be there with them to deal with it.
I know in the back of my mind that the most likely target will be Jacob, but I try to set that aside during the drive. I keep to myself, sitting apart from the guys while they relax and catch their breath. Jacob says nothing to me, and I do my best not to look at him as the car takes us away from the mob at the TV station and toward everyone’s homes.
Levi and Dan make it home without issue. There’s a small hubbub at Keannen’s place, which I easily guide him through. Then Shawn leaves, also quietly, and it’s just me and Jacob in the car.
We don’t have far to go. All the guys are somewhere in downtown Seattle now. Still, the silence that floods the car the moment Shawn exits is thick enough to choke me. I stay as far from Jacob as possible, and though he doesn’t close the distance, his eyes pick over me.
“Thanks for being here today,” he says.
I shrug. “It’s my job.”
“You keep saying that, but you keep doing way more than any bodyguard would be expected to.”
Finally, I sneak a look at him. He’s reclined, relaxed, vague exhaustion softening his face. It seems even Jacob’s bright, brilliant light can dim when the entire world is trying to leech it out of him. My chest constricts at the sight of him slouching and wrung out. An urge to shield him from all the things draining him this way rises, but I force it back down.
The car pulls up outside his apartment building, and Jacob groans. I turn to the window and immediately see why. There’s nearly as much press here as there was outside the TV station. Did they all fly over here when they saw us leave? I brace, preparing to barrel my way through them if I have to. I slide closer to the door, but when I grab the handle, Jacob covers my hand with his.
“I can’t take another God damn photo,” he groans. “Please don’t make me go out there.”
“Is there a back entrance?”
“There’s a garage, but they’ll see us enter it, and there’s no door or anything. They can walk right in. Just give me a minute.”
He flops back, throwing an arm over his eyes. It would be dramatic on anyone else, but Jacob isn’t doing this for effect. His breaths deepen as he gathers himself for the coming shitstorm, and my heart twists like someone has reached into my chest to wring it out like a wet towel.
The words leap out before I can stop them.
“You can hide at my place.”
He uncovers his eyes the moment I speak. I sit rigid, my throat tight, but I don’t take back the offer.
“Just for a few hours,” I say. “Then the driver can take you back. The paparazzi probably don’t know where I live, and even if they do, they don’t care. I’m not what they want.”
“That would … be really nice,” Jacob says, “if you don’t mind.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “It’s safer.”
A smile trips along Jacob’s mouth, wavering as he attempts to restrain it. I turn away to call out my address to the driver through the privacy window separating us from him. He acknowledges the change of plans and sets off, pulling away from the mob at the curb.
Jacob sits there smiling at me the entire way from his place to mine. I hold my face rigidly neutral and sit apart from him. This is merely practical, I assure myself. Jacob was distressed about the mob scene outside his apartment. He needed somewhere to go. I’m simply taking care of him like I’m supposed to.
Even I can hear the lie in my own reassurances.
My stomach flutters. Nerves prickle my palms. I text Mason to warn him, but he says he’s out for the night.
Damn shame, though , he says. I want to meet your hot, famous client!
It’s work, Mason. It’s not a social visit.
He doesn’t respond to that, and I’m not sure if I wrote it more for him or for myself. It doesn’t matter either way. What happened at Jacob’s apartment can’t happen again. I’m doing this because it’s my job, that’s all.
I’m a sparking livewire of anxiety by the time the car pulls up outside my house. I force myself to exit, and Jacob lets himself out before I can go around the car to get him. I watch the vehicle pull away like I’m stranded on a deserted island watching the last life raft drift off into the ocean.
It’s just me and Jacob now. No Mason. No band. Not even the disinterested driver.
“Come on,” I say. “It’s not very big, but it should be clean at least.”
I lead the way up the path. The grass is getting long. The wooden steps leading to the door are old, the paint chipped and wood warped. The floorboards creak under our feet when we step into the hall, the vanilla and wood scent of an old home wrapping around us. I’ve always liked that smell, but maybe Jacob hates it now that he lives somewhere so beautiful and modern and clean.
He toes off his shoes and steps past me. Stairs stand to one side, and a closet lies at the end of the hall. Jacob takes the first broad exit out of the hall, padding into the living room. I follow in his wake, watching as he takes it in. The couches don’t match. The bookshelf overflows with a mixture of books, mail and miscellaneous knickknacks. The coffee table is even harder to unearth under assorted junk. But when Jacob turns to me, his smile splits his face.
My heart jolts. The exhausted, pale ghost slouching in the car is gone. This is the Jacob I remember, the Jacob the world recently fell in love with, the Jacob they’re so eager to get their hands on. He’s here in my house, inexplicably smiling at me of all people.
“This place is so amazing,” he says, as though he doesn’t literally live in a brand new penthouse in the heart of Seattle.
“I’m sorry for the mess.”
Jacob shakes his head. “I love it. Look at all these books.”
He flits to the bookshelf, scanning the volumes, fiddling with the knickknacks. He pulls one volume free. “Oh wow, I love this book. My mother gave it to me when I was a kid. Is this yours?”
He holds up a paperback that’s barely clinging to its yellowed pages. It takes me a second to discern the beaten up image on the cover, but when I do, warmth washes into my cheeks.
“Yeah, it’s mine,” I admit.
Jacob hugs my destroyed volume of “The Hobbit” to his chest. “You’ve read it?”
About a million times, but I don’t confess that. I simply nod. Everyone in the military thought it was weird that I kept re-reading that one book over and over, but I didn’t care. It was the one thing I had with me from home, my favorite book since I was a kid. I could read about dragon-slaying adventures endlessly back then. It was probably the only thing that kept me sane.
“Can I see your room?” Jacob says.
That feels dangerous, but I agree, if only to avoid anymore embarrassing bookshelf discoveries. We creak up the stairs, where there are two bedrooms and the bathroom Mason and I share. Thankfully, I keep my room neat, so when I open the squeaky door Jacob finds my bed made and only a couple small items on my nightstand. The room is an irregular shape, like the builders added it at the last second, but the large window beside the bed lets in lots of natural light. A dresser is the only other thing I bothered cramming into the space.
Jacob takes it all in with wonder in those bright hazel eyes of his.
“It’s so warm in here,” he says.
“Warm?”
I follow him in, even though I know I shouldn’t. The room isn’t that big. We’re standing too close. When Jacob faces me, his smile is so close that my thumb tingles with the urge to trace the shape of it.
“Warm,” he says. Is he speaking more quietly? “It’s neat and sparse, but I can see you here. It’s … what is it called? Lived-in. It feels lived-in. I like it.”
Lived-in. Unlike that cold cavern of an apartment where he lives. Even the tiny mess on my nightstand is more sign of life than I found in Jacob’s apartment.
“Thank you for rescuing me,” Jacob says. “Again.”
“It’s my job.”
He smiles at the repeated deflection. The excuse feels flimsier every time I use it. Jacob takes a tentative step closer, his hands landing lightly on my shirt. He clings to me like he’s trying to hold me in place, but I’m not sure my legs would work right now even if I wanted to bolt. The entire world is gone, the full force of Jacob’s brilliance and warmth focused only on me. There’s no one to impress, no camera to pose for, no crowd to appease. There’s only me, yet he still wears that smile that lures me in like a beacon.
His lips part as though he might speak again, and that’s when I fall.
He’ll thank me again, I’ll deny it again, but what does it matter when we’re here like this? What does anything matter when I can wrap my arms around him, and Jacob will shudder in delight at my touch?
The whole world is searching for the man in my arms, but right now, he’s only mine. He’s the shining prince they all want. I’m the knight meant to protect him. And for this one perfect moment, we’re truly alone.
Jacob’s hands curl tighter in my shirt as my self-control shatters and I bend down to meet the laughing curl of his mouth.