Code blue, p.24
Code Blue, page 24
5:13 p.m.
The footage was in black and white but it was crystal clear. I guess that hefty price for the new HD state of the art cameras was worth it.
Thankfully there were no cameras in the family room. There’d never be footage of what we’d done on the couch earlier today, but there was also footage of our fight before Jeremy hit his head.
But the outside camera picked up the second Jeremy all but fell out the patio doors, drink in hand, staggering out. He was clearly angry, his expression hiding very little. Maddox followed him out, hand outstretched, and he said something. Jeremy spun around near the pool, stumbled, and went backward. He couldn’t get his footing, arms out. He tried to turn, went into the pool, and hit his head on the edge as he went in.
It made me feel sick to see it.
Maddox ran and dove in after him. I appeared on the screen one second later and dove headfirst into the pool. Maddox and I brought him up, Roscoe pulled him out of the water, and I lifted myself straight out after him.
I remembered it, of course. But to see it happen was something else.
We crowded around him, rolled him onto his side, and he vomited. The resolution was so clear, I could even see the blood pouring out of his head. I pulled my shirt off and pressed it to his head to stop the bleeding. Riko was soon there, his phone to his ear.
“Looks bad,” Jeremy mumbled.
Shit.
I hit Pause.
“Sorry. I hadn’t seen it and I . . . I thought you were asleep. Sorry. I should have asked you first.”
“Nah, it’s okay. Probably good for me to see it, to be honest. I missed the first part.”
“Want me to rewind it?”
“Hm.”
So I rewound it to right before the fight. “This is the part where we argued in this very room. You walked out, and that’s when you come into view outside.”
We watched it unfold again and it gave me a chance to look at the background, at the surroundings, to see if I might have missed something. Everything looked as it should.
“Can you stop it?” I did as he asked, and he was quiet for a long few seconds. “You and Maddox saved my life.”
“Maddox got to you first.”
“But you ran right in. Didn’t hesitate. Just dove right in. And you put your shirt to my head.”
“Maddox and Roscoe saw my scars.”
“I know. Maddox told me.”
Fuck.
“Riko gave me his shirt.”
He shuffled around so he was facing me and propped his head up on his hand. “I owe you a new watch.”
“No you don’t.”
“We should totally go buy one.” He frowned. “What time is it? I have no idea. I don’t even know what day it is.”
“You don’t owe me anything. The watch wasn’t even that expensive.” Well, it was expensive to me, but surely not to Jeremy.
“It’s not the point. It was my fault.”
“No it wasn’t. You tripped and fell. Rather spectacularly, I might add.”
“Shut up.” He put his head on my chest. “I was drunk. No excuse, but I don’t usually drink much. Alcohol isn’t good for me.”
I rubbed his back. “You don’t owe me anything, Jer,” I repeated. “I’m glad you were okay.”
He was quiet again, staring at the screen. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
He pointed to the screen. “That. Is that a bird?”
In the right corner of the screen, above the trees, was a small flat dot. No, not a dot. A rectangle . . .
What the hell.
A drone.
“Fuck.” I tried to sit up. “Hop up for me.”
We untangled ourselves and I sat up, pulling the laptop closer. I slowed each frame down, zoomed in, and sure enough, a freaking drone was flying over Jeremy’s house.
I pulled out my phone, scrolled for the number I was after, and hit Call. Of course it went straight to Message. “Gerald Dubrowski, this is Steve Frost. You did a new camera install for Jeremy Dalton. I need you to call me ASAP.”
How could I have missed that in the footage?
Because you’re too focused on watching Jeremy, that’s why.
God damn it.
Next number I hit was Ambrose’s. He answered on the second ring. “Steve.”
“We might have had a security breach at Jeremy’s house,” I said.
“What kind of security breach?”
“A drone.”
He was quiet for a second. “Goddammit.”
“Neil, it was when Jeremy hit his head and went in the pool. We were looking at the footage and Jeremy spotted something on the screen. It’s possible that this footage is out there.”
“Jesus.”
“I’m waiting for the security company to call me,” I said. “These new cameras are supposed to detect that kind of thing. He told me it can recognize drone registration numbers or something. I’ll forward anything I get on to Zielinski.”
“Good idea.”
“It could be nothing,” I added, giving Jeremy’s leg a squeeze. “But I’m not taking any chances.”
“How’s Jeremy?”
I met Jeremy’s gaze, knowing he could hear Ambrose, and gave him a small smile. “He’s okay. Still tired, and he’s sick of dealing with this kind of shit. And I’ll be honest with you, Neil, it’ll depend on what we find out about this drone before we decide if we’ll be in tomorrow at nine.”
Would he argue about that? He probably wanted to, but in the end, all he conceded was a sigh. “Okay. Keep me informed.”
I ended the call and Jeremy ran his hand over his shaved head. “Fuck this. Why me? What the hell did I ever do to anyone?”
“You didn’t do anything. We don’t even know if that is a drone or if it’s even related to your case.”
“You think it is.”
“I’m not taking any chances. Not when it comes to you.”
He sagged back on the couch and let out a frustrated sigh. “How come people can fly drones over my house, spying on me, but I can’t shoot them down? How is that fair?”
“You can’t shoot at anything in Californian airspace.”
“That’s fucked up. What about my rights?”
“You can’t shoot a drone. But they also can’t be flown over people’s houses trying to spy on them. That’s against the law. If we can find the serial number of the drone and hand the footage and details over to the cops, they can press some pretty serious charges.”
“If they can find the person,” he replied. “Or maybe she’s gone off-grid and not even the FBI can find her.”
“They will find her.” I gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry if I’m overreacting or freaking you out. I don’t mean to. I just need to be thorough.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “Because you’re not taking chances. Not when it comes to me.”
He hadn’t missed me saying that just now.
“Absolutely not. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Jeremy almost smiled. “I can’t decide if that’s sweet, hot, or a little bit creepy.”
I laughed, incredulous. “Since when is taking a bullet for someone creepy?”
“A bullet? Jesus.” Now he really stared at me. “Would you take a bullet for me, Steve?”
I looked him right in the eye. “Yes. If it was life or death, yes I would.”
“You answered that so easily.”
“If I hesitate, you could die.”
“Christ.” His gaze fixed on mine. “Would you kill someone to protect me?”
“If it was life or death. If someone tried to hurt you and it was either them or you, I’d take them down. Of course I would. But would I kill someone just because you asked me to, without a justifiable cause? No. Absolutely not.”
“Not even if I asked super nicely?” he joked. “Batted my eyelashes and used my very best manners?”
I gave him a nudge for being a dick. “No.”
“Not even when Maddox won’t share his M&M’s with me?”
I snorted. “I’m not killing Maddox for not sharing his candy with you.”
His smile faded slowly. “I want to go to the meeting tomorrow. I need to do my job. I need to get out of the house.” He studied my face, my eyes, my lips. “Can you let them deal with it? Please? I know you want to save me and protect me, and that’s great. I appreciate that, I really do. If someone comes bursting through the window, you can go all Jet Li on them. But I can’t deal with this shit anymore. I just want to shut it all out and pretend the outside world doesn’t even exist. Can you do that?”
He was asking me to stop being his security detail and to just be with him?
Like a tug-of-war between my head and heart, between what I should do and what I wanted to do.
It was never a contest. Not with Jeremy. My heart would always win.
“Yeah, of course,” I said quietly, trying to ignore the swarm of butterflies in my belly. “Anything you want.”
He grinned, the corners of his eyes creasing. “Anything?”
“Are you kidding me? Hell yes, anything.”
Now he laughed as he got to his feet. “Good.” He held out his hand. “Come with me.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“This is not what I had in mind,” I said.
Jeremy laughed. “I know what you had in mind. But I want you to show me how you do it.”
I put the chopping board on the kitchen counter and handed him the onion. “Dice.”
We had all the ingredients for his mother’s spaghetti lined up. He’d called her and written down the recipe while I emailed everything to Zielinski—the footage, the contact details for the security company, Gerard Dubrowski’s personal cell number, with requests for the FBI to follow up on the drone serial number.
If Jeremy wanted to block it all out and let them deal with all the details, then I was happy to hand it over. Not that it was my job. I knew that. But I had the footage. It was my job to hand it over and let the authorities deal with it.
My job was to keep Jeremy safe. And that meant in the kitchen too . . .
“Not like that,” I said. “Hold the onion like this.” I stood behind him, holding his hand over the onion, his other hand gripping the knife. “So you can’t cut your fingers.”
He hummed. “You just wanted an excuse to get all close.”
“True.” I kissed his neck and scraped my teeth along his skin. “But you want to cook, so . . .”
He put the knife down. “Fuck.”
I was about to step back but he grabbed my hand and pulled me against him and pressed my dick against his ass.
He held me there. I didn’t dare move, but I used my free hand to grip his hip. Hold him still.
Was he testing himself? To see if he liked it? Wanted it?
Was he testing me?
“You haven’t finished chopping the—”
He spun around and pulled me closer by the waistband of my jeans, and yeah, he was hard.
“How hungry are you?” I asked, my voice rough.
His eyes almost set me on fire. “Starving.”
He wasn’t talking about food.
“Your head? Is it sore?”
“Orgasms make it better.”
I chuckled. “Good.” I kissed him, and when I pulled back, he chased my mouth. I lifted his chin and sucked on his Adam’s apple. “First course first.”
He groaned. His knees knocked against mine. “God, Steve. What the . . .”
I smiled as I kissed up to his stubbled jaw and palmed his dick between us. “Bedroom.”
He nodded woodenly, and it was such a thrill to know I could turn him on like that.
I snatched up his hand and led him out of the kitchen, up the stairs to his room, and pushed the doors open. The blinds were still pulled down, the bed rumpled. I would have pushed him onto it if he didn’t have a wound on his head.
I had to be more gentle . . .
So I turned him around, the backs of his legs hitting the bed, and forced him backward. He went willingly, smiling, licking his lips, watching me crawl up his body.
I crushed my lips to his, driving my tongue into his mouth and rubbing his erection. I wanted to do everything to him, with him, but I had to tread carefully, take it slow . . .
I slipped my hand under his waistband and wrapped my hand around him. He shuddered, moaning into my mouth. But then he fumbled with the button on my jeans and my fly.
I wasn’t sure who was more stunned, me or him. He seemed to realize and stumbled a little. He took a second to catch his breath, searching my eyes before he continued. He undid the fly and palmed me through my briefs.
He wanted this. He wanted something . . .
I took his hand out of my jeans and pinned it above his head. He liked that. His whole body reacted, searching for friction, searching for more.
I stroked him a few times, kissing him deep. Then I freed my dick. Aligning our erections, I slid them both in my fist.
Jeremy gasped and closed his eyes, his head pushed back. I could’ve sucked on his neck, kissed him, bitten his ear, but so help me god, I couldn’t take my eyes from his face.
We were slick with precome. Mine, his, I wasn’t sure. It made the slide easier, wetter, hotter.
And when he came, the swell, the pulse, the sounds he made pulled me over the edge with him.
I imagined being buried inside him. I imagined him taking me in, taking what I gave him, every inch, every drop.
I came so fucking hard.
My senses came back to me with gentle scratches on my back and a warm chuckle in my ear. “You in there? Earth to Steve.”
“Fucking hell,” I tried to say. It was barely a mumble.
He laughed underneath me and rolled us onto our sides. He kept me close though, dusting soft kisses along my cheek, my nose, my lips. “I’ve never done anything like that before,” he said. “And I’ve done a lot of shit.”
I chuckled, trying to open my eyes. “Because you’ve never done it with a guy.”
He smirked. “Maddox always said it was hotter with a guy. Never believed him. And whatever you do, don’t tell him he was right. I’ll never hear the end of it.”
That made me laugh.
“He was already trying to give me sex advice today,” Jeremy added. “All kinds of advice, actually. Kinda horrifying. Not gonna lie.” He kept drawing circles on my back. “What did Roscoe say to you? When it was just you two. Did you talk about us?”
“Yep. He’s actually kinda knowledgeable when it comes to secretly fooling around with a world-famous person. He imparted some pretty good wisdom.”
He snorted. “Unlike Maddox’s nuggets of wisdom, which I’ll spare you from.”
I chuckled again and kissed Jeremy’s neck, his jaw. At least I had full use of my faculties back. That orgasm had wiped me.
Speaking of wipe . . .
“I should get you cleaned up,” I said, trying to get my leg out from between his.
“Or we could just do this,” he said, half sitting up and pulling his shirt off. Then he pulled at my shirt. “And yours.”
I didn’t like being shirtless, not around anyone. But Roscoe’s words came back to me. Trust him like he trusts you.
So I pulled it off by the hem and tossed it onto the floor. We fell back into each other’s arms, Jeremy’s head on my chest and shoulder. I rubbed his back and he worked gentle patterns on my side.
His fingers skimmed my scars, but they never lingered. He never made them a point of focus or attention.
I gave him a squeeze. “Feeling okay?”
“Hm, yeah. Bit dizzy. Three times in one day will do that. You?”
So much better than okay. “Yeah.”
“Still want to cook dinner with you.”
“Sure,” I said, then tried to get up.
He held me close. “Not yet.”
I settled back in, smiling as I kissed the side of his head. He sighed and we stayed like that for a while, just peaceful and quiet. He seemed so content to just lie there, and while I didn’t want to ruin the mood, we needed to start talking about whatever this was.
“Whatcha thinking about?”
He sighed. “Everything and nothing. I’m in that in between space.”
I rubbed his back and gave him another squeeze.
He was quiet again for a few minutes, his fingers skimming my side absentmindedly. “Can I be completely honest with you?”
Oh god. “Yeah, of course.”
He pulled back so I could see his face. “I still don’t know what this is,” he said, his eyes honest and searching. “But it’s the realest thing I’ve felt in a long time.”
Oh.
My heart knocked so hard against my ribs I couldn’t speak.
“I often think about what Maddox went through,” he continued. “That separation of reality, the struggle. I get it. I understand completely. This life doesn’t feel real. We can stand in front of a hundred thousand screaming fans at a concert, then go back to locked hotel rooms or our empty houses. It’s so freaking lonely. It makes it all feel so detached, and it’s easy to lose who you are.” He sighed. “For years I chased that buzz, ya know? The fame and the sex. And then I chased it just to feel something. In the end, it just made me feel . . . empty. I dunno. Used.”
“I noticed you stopped going to the clubs with Luke and Blake a long time ago. Not just on the last tour but before.”
“You did?”
I smiled. “Of course I noticed.”
“God, did you hate it when you’d have to take us to nightclubs to hook up with someone?”
“It wasn’t my favorite thing, but I understood.”
“I’m sorry.”
I cupped his face. “Don’t apologize.”
He slow blinked, his long lashes framing his eyes. “None of them were real. None of them meant anything. They used me like I used them.” He made a face. “Sounds terrible but it’s the truth. Until I just couldn’t do it anymore. I needed something more. Something real.”
I thumbed his cheek, too scared to speak.
“Something like you,” he whispered.
I swallowed hard.
“I don’t know what this is,” he said again. He shook his head and got a little teary. “And forgive me for saying this, but I don’t want to be gay. I’m not. I’m not sexually attracted to men—”
