Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Dawson stared at the front room of Seamus’s L.A. house, his eyes popping wide.
Shit, he’d known. He’d looked all sorts of shit up about Seamus to begin with, including a Hollywood hot houses thing in Architectural Digest.
But seeing pictures and being there, where they’d spend a night or two while they shot the hospital scenes at the set before heading out to whatever ranch they would be working at… Well, being in the place was different.
“Jesus, babe. This is overwhelming.”
“It has great views.” Seamus shrugged a little, his cheeks pink. “I don’t love all the decorating choices, but I haven’t had a lot of time to do anything differently. And I love the pool.”
He grinned at that. Seamus had proven at Coke’s that he loved outdoor living spaces.
“I do love me a pool.”
“And Nick adores the kitchen, even if that island is kind of Brutalist, and Aaron only lets him use one of the burners.”
Dawes knew from the article that was a kind of architecture and decor that used a lot of concrete and heavy stone and repeated shapes with monochrome colors.
Go him.
“As long as it has a coffee machine…”
“Oh, my God, yes.” Seamus grabbed him, pulling him close. The team had arrived with them, then scurried off like bugs when the lights had come on. “And a state-of-the-art smoothie blender.”
“Woohoo.” Dawson had to tease. Nick’s smoothies were good. Hell, he’d seen Dillon Walsh pay twenty bucks for one not even half as nice.
“Hey, buddy. Welcome home.” A big beefy man in a tank top and a pair of shorts so tight Dawes could see his pulse walked up and gave Seamus a huge hug.
“Les. Oh, how are you, man? How’s the puppy training?”
Ah, the married house-people with the dog.
“Shadow is so damn smart, and Aaron’s…” The big man seemed a tad cross-eyed. “He’s been amazing. I think we’re going to get a surrogate. I—Oh, sorry. You’re Dawson, I’m Les. I’m so damn glad to meet you. Welcome home.”
He got a huge hug too.
“Les! Gentle! He’s in recovery.”
“Oh. Opioids?”
Huh? “No, broken pelvis.”
Les blinked. “Oh, Jesus. Sorry!”
That man was absolutely…adorable.
“He’s fine. He’s staying in the bedroom.
He likes sausage and bacon, over easy eggs.
He’s not Keto, very pro-potato. Shirts and jeans go to the laundry, heavy starch.
Irish Spring soap, his boots need a polish, and we need to get him a code for the gates and the doors.
I texted you his number from the plane.”
Dawes blinked as the big guy nodded and took notes on the phone. Was this real? Could it be true?
Les left, just like he came, with a grin and a rush of energy.
“Wanna see the bedroom?”
He stood there for a second, took one more look around the front room, which had way more color in it than the pictures from the article, which must have been staged to remove all personality.
There was art on the walls and blankets on the couches in wild colors and a huge photo of a red planet-type landscape from Australia…
“Yeah. Show me where you sleep.”
They wandered through the house, holding hands as Seamus showed him one weird room after another.
There was a bathroom decorated in orange tigers, and there was a guest room filled with strange Egyptian statues from a movie set.
There was a rec room with a huge fireplace you had to walk down three steps to get to—a fire pit in the middle of the house.
They passed the game room which was literally jam-packed with things from action figures to gold records to Golden Globes.
And then finally, blessedly…the master bedroom, which was decorated in blues. Everything from the deepest darkest almost black to a sky blue walls, linens, art—the main event was a huge bed and remarkably normal-looking furniture.
Seamus beamed at him, seeming the slightest bit nervous. “This is my favorite room in the house—with the game room being a close second. And then the bathroom. Oh crikey, the bathroom.”
They dropped their luggage off, and then Seamus dragged him into this huge bathing area.
It came in stages.
There was one room with mirrors and lights and vanities and sinks. Then beyond that there was the toilet station and the bidet.
Thank God he knew what that was, because he didn’t want to embarrass himself, but whoa he’d never actually known a person who had one in their house.
And then finally, there was the— He wasn’t sure if it was a tub or a shower.
It was an entire room and it had a place to walk in, then walk down a step, and there was water and a drain.
“What the hell is this?”
Seamus bounced on his toes. “So, it can be a bubbly tub, it can be a shower, or you can just sit and get your feet wet and let the shower fall on your head. I love this room. This is why I bought the house. This room right here.”
“You’re a dork, do you know that?”
“Yeah.” Seamus didn’t seem offended. “Come see the pool.” The man flat dragged his ass outside, where there was a pool that seemed to hang off the edge of the hill, the deck chairs facing out to the view of the valley.
“Jesus.” The word burst out of him, and he turned to grin at Seamus. “You did good.”
“Right?” Seamus kicked off his shoes, then tugged off his henley.
Dawson’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?”
Those blue eyes sparkled for him. “Getting ready to skinny dip with you.”
“No shit? What if there’s some dude with a long-range lens?” He’d never experienced anything like the crowd of paparazzi that had met Seamus at the airport. He’d been mobbed by bullriding fans more than once, but damn.
“That’s what I have lawyers for, baby.” Seamus winked at him, kept stripping. “Also, that sort of thing pisses Topher right the hell off. And you haven’t met Stephanie yet.”
His eyes bugged out. “Stephanie?”
There were more?
“Yeah, she’s my manager-slash-agent. The giant harridan who assures nobody fucks with me. She’s my mom’s best friend. Trust me, my mom? Fierce. Stephanie makes her look like a pussy cat.” Seamus lifted his chin, eyes dragging along him. “If you’re uncomfortable, there are swim trunks.”
When in Rome, he guessed. Dawson started taking off his shirt. “So is your dad fierce?”
“My dad?” Seamus laughed, and the sound seemed to ring out over the city. “No. God, no. My dad is a dork — charming, funny, gentle, just really honestly the nicest guy you’d ever meet.”
“And he hooked up with your mom?”
They both slipped into the clear water, which was as warm as a bath, and Seamus moved right into his arms.
“Apparently they had this lurid affair. She was down shooting something in Sydney. He was hosting an awards show. They met at an industry event and ended up in the coat room doing the nasty. Next thing you know, my mom’s knocked up.”
“You’re not serious.” His folks were…just folks. They’d met in the City Market—Momma had been a cashier, Dad was a trucker. Nothing fancy.
“I’m dead serious. My mom’s like this fierce, wild, traveler, ambitious, take-over-the-world-and-bite-people-as-she’s-doing-it-woman.
And then there’s my dad who likes to play the guitar and gets his exercise playing pickleball.
He’s sweet to people, he’s funny, and people like to listen to him.
He makes people believe he cares about them, and he really does. ”
Seamus felt like heaven against him—and Dawson wondered if he was high, if this whole thing was a fever dream.
“So yeah, you’ve got these two. They don’t really want anything to do with one another, but now they’ve got me.”
“Was that weird?”
“It’s wonderful. They’re both good parents.
I like them both for different reasons. Nobody ever wants to just hang out with Mom, but if you have a problem or if you want to do something completely wild and you need some advice, she’s your woman, fearless.
Dad, you just hang out with. We go fishing. He loves to ride scooters.”
Dawson hooted. “That’s great, honey. Seriously.”
“It is.” Seamus nuzzled into Dawson’s neck. “What do you think of the pool?”
“I think I could spend hours in here as long as it was with you.” That was no lie.
But then he could do that in Seamus’s bed too.
“Mmm. Good.” They let the water lap against them, Seamus nibbling at him, licking his skin where the water hadn’t touched yet.
He had to grin at that. No one liked tasting chlorine or salt water or whatever this system was.
“So, what’s the plan?” Dawson asked, curious about this movie shoot.
“You mean with work?”
At Dawson’s nod, Seamus shrugged. “I have a meeting and script reading tomorrow. Then we shoot the hospital scenes.”
“Is it hard to do hospital stuff?”
Seamus shrugged. “The death scene will probably be a little emotional, but really a lot of it’s just me lying there without moving.
They had to weigh whether it was more expensive to make a fake me, CGI me in, or just let me lie there like a lump and pay me to do it.
I, of course, am rooting for pay me while I do it. ”
Dawson grinned at him. “You’re a dork.”
“I know, but it is what it is.” Seamus grinned at him. “So you never talk about you. What about you? What do you want me to know?”
Dawson shrugged. He didn’t feel interesting compared to Seamus.
“There isn’t much to tell. I grew up on a ranch.
My folks are decent. It wasn’t a big ranch.
I thought I was going to be a bronc rider.
Then I thought I was going to be a bullrider.
Then I figured out that I wasn’t any good at either one of those, but I really liked being in a rodeo.
So now I’m a bullfighter. Simple as that. ”
“Do your folks know that you’re with a guy?”
Dawson shrugged. “They know I’m queer. We lost my dad a few years ago to a heart attack. My mom lives with my sister and her kids and her husband in this very normal life. It’s very, very simple. They don’t understand why I’m always on the road.”
Seamus nodded. “Okay, yeah, that makes sense, I guess. I mean it does. I basically grew up on the road.”
“But you said you went to high school here?”
“That’s where I met Topher.” A shadow seemed to pass over Seamus’s face.
“Were you two friends?”
“Best friend I’ve ever had. Possibly the best friend I’ll ever have.”
“And?” There had to be a story there. Had to be.
Seamus’s lips tightened and so did those fingers on his body.
“We both went to high school here, and we were out and about—I mean, we were just sixteen and out fucking around, not doing anything illegal. Just being kids. I didn’t want to have security because what sixteen-year-old boy wants that?
We ended up getting kidnapped, me and Topher, both. ”
Seamus swallowed hard. “What you need to remember is I’d kind of been prepared for this eventuality, and I kind of knew it was a thing. Topher? He was only a kid, like, just a kid. His parents are both school teachers.”
Just a kid.
Dawson didn’t know what to say. Even worse, he wasn’t quite sure what to ask.
He had all sorts of questions— What happened? Did anybody get hurt? What happened with Chris? Did they pay their ransom? Who were the kidnappers? Did they ever catch him?
But Seamus usually told him everything—just everything that came into Seamus’s head came out of his mouth.
The details weren’t coming out of Seamus’s mouth, and that made him reluctant to ask questions. Maybe this wasn’t his to know.
Or at least not his to know right now.
He pulled Seamus into a hug, holding him close, tight, offering support silently. Sometimes hard conversations needed to be made without eye contact, so he gave Seamus the option.
When Seamus just sighed and leaned into him, he let it go.
“You okay?” he asked against Seamus’s collarbone.
“I am. It’s just hard to remember.”
“Then we can let it go, babe.”
Seamus’s cheek heated against his skin. “Yeah, it’s just…I hate that it was so hard. I hate that it was my fault.”
He nodded. He got that. Guilt was a fierce mistress. “And Topher wanted to become your security?”
“He says he doesn’t trust anybody else to do it, so yeah.”
“Wow, that’s a little intense.” But then Topher was a little intense. Dawes squeezed Seamus. “I’m glad you’ve got him.”
“Oh, I am too. And I’m glad that he has Nick.”
Now there was a question he’d been searching for a reason to ask. “So are they… together?”
Seamus settled against him, legs idly treading water.
“Yeah, they’re a little more on-and-off-than Nick would like.
Topher needs a lot of space, and you’ve met Nick.
Nick is not a hands-off kind of man, but Topher loves him, and he loves Chris, and I need them both, so whatever it is that makes them both happy, I’m all in. ”
Dawes thought maybe Seamus was scared to be by himself. Or maybe he was just not used to it.
One way or the other, Seamus needed folks close by. A team
And he had one, Dawson reckoned. “Well, you got me too, honey. Balls to bones.”
“I can’t believe that. I’m so fucking lucky. Not sure I deserve it.” Seamus ran his hands over Dawson, touching everywhere those long arms would let him.
“You don’t have to. That’s not how this works. You don’t have to earn me every day. Okay?”
Seamus pulled back to stare at him for a moment, that blue stare holding laser intensity. Then he nodded before pulling Dawson in for a scorching kiss.
Lord help them if someone was watching them.
They were about to get an eyeful.