by HJ Welch
“I guess I can keep working on the tracks from here and we can email,” Raiden said, proving Levi’s theory. Raiden brought the tea over to Pearl with a smile. Levi respected him putting on a brave face.
Pearl blinked, confusion lining her features as she took the proffered cup. “That wasn’t what I was suggesting.”
Raiden glanced at Levi, probably because he was the only other person in the room and Raiden needed some support. “Oh, sorry. Sure, what did you want to know?”
“How many other clients do you have right now?”
That was a bit invasive, Levi felt. But Raiden simply shrugged. “None, really. I’ve got the odd project here and there, but y’all are the only ones I’m working with seriously. Was, I mean.”
Pearl frowned, as if Raiden was making no sense. “I don’t get why you’re sad. This means you can come on tour with us and finish the record, like I hoped.”
Raiden sat back as Levi immediately considered what she was saying. Going on tour would be a security nightmare.
“What?” said Raiden. His eyes had lit up with happiness again, though, like when Levi had first taken him to work with Glittergasm. “Are you serious?”
“Of course.” Pearl took a sip of her tea. “The record label is loving what we’ve come up with so far. You’d have to arrange your own travel and accommodation, but I assume that won’t be a problem.” She glanced around at the house and the grounds beyond the window, then gave him a knowing smile.
Raiden chuckled. “No, that would be fine. Geez, I haven’t been on tour in so long.”
Fucking hell. Levi really didn’t want to be the bad guy. He knew his client’s safety was the only thing that should matter, but it was obvious how much this meant to him.
“Raiden,” he said, his tone resigned. “I’m not sure this is such a good idea. Not right now.”
Why did the way his face drop hit Levi like a damn sucker punch?
“Oh, come on, man,” Raiden said, slipping out of his seat. “You can’t be serious. I’m not going to stop my whole life because of these stupid threats. It’s not like there’s one psycho who’s targeting me more than all the others. It’s not like it was with Blake.”
He came and stood in front of Levi, resting his hip on the island. His hair was still damp from their run and he smelled very male from all the perspiration. It tugged unfairly at the parts of Levi that wanted to let him have his way and damn the consequences.
“What will it take for you to okay this?” Raiden asked.
“How about if he comes too?” Levi and Raiden both looked back at Pearl. She shrugged. “I also assumed that would be the plan. Sorry, it seems I’m jumping to too many conclusions.”
“Me?” said Levi. “Go on tour with a rock band?”
The grin returned to Raiden’s mouth. “I’ve heard crazier ideas,” he said. “Plenty of them.” He slapped Levi’s knee and hopped on his toes. “What difference does it make if you’re haranguing me here or in some hotel room? I promise I’ll be so good, I’ll do whatever you say. We can even share a room if it’ll make you feel better.”
The very notion had Levi’s gut twisting. He would not be sleeping beside Raiden.
The point was moot, anyway, because he had to say no. This was insane.
‘No’ wasn’t the word he heard coming out his mouth, though.
“I’ll have to clear it with my uncle,” he said slowly. Raiden threw his arms around Levi’s neck before he even finished speaking.
“Oh, thank you! Thank you!” he cried, quickly pulling away. Which was a very good thing, as inhaling so much of his scent in one breath left Levi feeling heady. For fuck’s sake, he needed to get his body under control. This lust or crush or whatever the fuck he was suffering from was getting out of hand. Especially if they were looking at spending the next few weeks cooped up together, even more so than they already were in the house.
“I’m not promising anything,” he warned. “I still have to convince my uncle.”
Raiden nodded enthusiastically, whereas Pearl just raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble,” she said with a smirk.
8
Raiden
“Are you kidding me?”
Raiden grinned up at Levi in the bright morning sunshine. “What?” he asked innocently, shoving another bag into the back of the Jeep. “I need all this stuff.”
“I can assure you, you don’t.” Levi folded his arms, showing off his muscles and tats.
Raiden assessed the situation and tucked his laptop bag into a convenient little nook between a few other bags. “You’ve never been on tour before.”
“I’ve done several tours,” said Levi coldly.
Raiden rolled his eyes, unintimidated. “Not with a band,” he said. “This is different. It’s part vacation, part work. I have to bring gear if we want to record anything while we’re writing. Clothes, toiletries and grooming products – it’s so easy to become a total bum on the road if you’re not careful. You have to make a home away from home. It requires a lot of stuff.”
Levi slipped the solitary backpack from his shoulder and dumped it in the trunk on top of all the luggage Raiden had already stored there.
“No,” said Levi. “It really doesn’t.”
He stalked off to the driver’s seat, leaving Raiden to bundle the last of his things inside the Jeep. He wouldn’t put it past Levi to start the engine and pull off without him, so he jammed the last couple of bags wherever they would fit and slammed the lid of the trunk down.
“See, it’s no big deal,” Raiden said as he slipped into the passenger seat, buckling up. “Everything fit just fine.”
Levi didn’t reply. He just turned the keys, bringing the car to life with a roar of the engine. “You got the address?”
Raiden tutted and fished his phone out so he could get the address for the hotel they were staying in later. The first gig was in Cincinnati. It wasn’t ordinarily a city Raiden would be this excited about visiting. But it happened to be the hometown of his former bandmate Blake and his fiancé Elion, and they were coming to watch the show. The tour would move them on tomorrow morning, but at least Raiden would get to see his buddies for a few hours. It had been far too long since he’d seen them both.
Levi copied the address into the GPS and handed Raiden back his phone. Then they were driving out of the grounds, heading to the highway.
Once they reached Ohio, they would check into their hotel, see the show, then hang out. At least that was Raiden’s plan, so he guessed Levi would just have to tag along. It was going to be harder to navigate this bodyguard thing while they were traveling. Between the two of them, they had got into an okay routine around the house. But out on the road, they would no doubt face a lot more challenges.
Raiden really wasn’t convinced he needed a bodyguard at all, but his parents weren’t taking any chances. In fact, they only agreed to let Raiden go if Levi was with him. It wasn’t like Raiden was a kid anymore. In theory, he could do what he liked. But his parents’ support meant a lot to him, so if they wanted to pay for this, he would behave himself and put up with it.
After Cincinnati, they had a couple of days before they needed to be in Pittsburgh. Raiden hoped he and Pearl could get some writing done before the next show. Progress on the new songs was going extremely well. It was like playing with electricity. Every time a riff or a harmony came together, Raiden got giddy. He didn’t think he could feel that way anymore, that he’d become too jaded. But when a song started forming with these guys it was like being a kid at Christmas again.
“Mind if I put the radio on?” he asked, not waiting for Levi to respond before he punched the power button. By now, Levi knew this was non-negotiable. But by asking each time, Raiden kept up the illusion for Levi that he was still in charge.
It was important for Levi to be in charge, he had noticed. That wasn’t all that surprising given his military background, but Raiden didn’t like being bossed around.
This way, he could fool himself that he still had a bit of control over the situation.
He sang along to Green Day. He wasn’t a total asshole: he always put on a rock station for Levi. But he hadn’t yet coaxed him into belting out a number with him. “Come on, Betty. Everyone likes Time of Your Life.”
“What’s with this ‘Betty’ shit,” Levi growled. “It’s not even funny.”
Sometimes Raiden could swear Levi grew up on another planet. It was like he was allergic to pop culture. It wasn’t like there was a huge age difference between them either. Levi was only three years older than him, despite how much he wanted to call him ‘kid.’
“You really haven’t worked it out yet?” Raiden asked.
Levi’s scowl intensified and he kept his eyes firmly on the road. However, Raiden felt like being generous and threw him a bone.
“What if I said that by being my bodyguard, Betty, that would make me Al?”
Levi frowned. “Isn’t that from a song?”
Raiden clicked his fingers at him and wriggled a bit. “Bingo! You Can Call Me Al.”
He took the small quirk of Levi’s mouth as a huge victory. “Okay, yeah, I get it,” Levi said. “Simon and Garfunkel, right?”
“Just Paul Simon, actually,” said Raiden, feeling triumphant. “But yes, that’s it. It’s a great song. Iconic music video as well.”
“Never seen it,” Levi admitted. But there wasn’t any rancor in his voice. Raiden took that as an even greater win.
“Oh,” Raiden said, shaking his head. “It’s so simple, but it’s genius. I’ll show you when we get to Ohio.”
Levi raised an eyebrow as if to say he had better things to do with his time than watch old music videos from the eighties. But he didn’t say no either, so Raiden fully intended to inflict it on him at some point over the next few days.
He enjoyed teasing and tormenting Levi. He really was too easy to wind up half the time. But he’d rather see Levi smiling at him than scowling.
Levi looked good when he smiled.
Levi looked good all the time. His hair was growing fast now he wasn’t buzzing it short every day, and he was already sporting an undercut that really suited him. There was no missing his hot body either. Raiden was somewhat fascinated by all his muscles and the way they moved. When they ran together, his legs were like pistons on a steam engine.
And then, of course, there had been his cock.
It wasn’t like Raiden had never seen another guy’s junk in his underwear. Hell, trying to make TJ keep his pants on had been trouble enough on tour. But something about seeing someone you knew with a hard-on, up close and personal, was sticking in Raiden’s brain. He couldn’t stop coming back to the image over and over again.
There had been times, late at night, where he’d idly speculated what it might feel like.
He’d definitely not wondered that before. Not about anyone specific, anyway.
Raiden wasn’t fussy with his porn. He watched anything that took his fancy, which could be wildly different on any given day. So he’d seen plenty of guys fucking each other. There was undoubtedly something hot about watching dudes bang, and porn stars always had big cocks. Naturally then, there had been times in the past where Raiden had got off to that, thinking about what it might feel like to have another guy’s dick in his ass.
But it had always been abstract. Until he saw Levi’s cock, larger than life in front of him, and now he had to be careful he didn’t dwell on how heavy it might feel in Raiden’s hand. In his mouth.
Considering his best friends were now out as queer and in serious relationships with other guys, it wasn’t surprising that Raiden might speculate on his own sexuality. Deep down, he felt everyone probably had the capacity to fancy people from their own sex or gender. He’d just never had the theory put to the test.
Being intrigued by Levi’s cock was not the same as being attracted to him as a person. But there was no denying the more Levi loosened up, the more he smiled, the more attractive he became.
Raiden needed to watch himself. A macho guy like Levi would probably beat the shit out of him if he caught a whiff of any vaguely homosexual inclinations.
Except…would he? Having spent the past few weeks together, Raiden couldn’t claim to know his bodyguard inside and out. But he felt confident enough to hope that, no, Levi Patterson would not be that kind of jerk.
But he was almost certainly straight, so Raiden needed to keep any wild fantasies he had to himself. Levi was also technically employed by him, so daydreaming about his cock was grossly inappropriate.
The thing was, he had good intentions. But as they traveled down the interstate, there was no getting away from the fact they were going to be spending almost every waking moment together for the next few weeks. A lot of that time was going to be like this. Side by side, in the car.
There was no way Levi wasn’t going to be present in Raiden’s thoughts almost constantly. So this newfound fascination with his body was going to be very difficult to ignore.
Of all the times to start exploring his sexuality, Raiden could have probably picked any time other than now. But there was no escaping it. He was just going to have to jerk off a lot and keep things as professional as he could between him and Levi.
He suspected that might be easier said than done.
“So, what made you leave the Marines?” he asked after a while. “If you don’t mind me asking?” He needed to stop thinking about sex before his dick got excited. Thinking about war would certainly help with that.
Levi shrugged. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked before.”
Raiden played on his phone, updating his Instagram. “Didn’t want to pry,” he admitted.
He couldn’t fathom what would make a man join the armed forces in the first place. That was his dad’s thing. But Levi was obviously more like his own dad as well as Raiden’s than Raiden would ever be. So leaving the Marines was logical to him. He was just curious as to what had pushed Levi in the end.
Levi just shrugged. “It was time, I guess,” he said. “So, now I get ‘Betty.’ I don’t like it,” he added with a sideways glance at Raiden. “But I get it. What about ‘Kevin’?”
Raiden accepted the change of conversation topic. He’d rather not talk about military stuff. It wasn’t like he had much he could add on the subject anyway.
“Are you telling me you can’t think of a single film involving a celebrity getting private security after receiving death threats?”
Levi groaned. “Kevin Costner. The Bodyguard.”
“Yahtzee,” said Raiden. “Pretty funny, huh?”
Levi’s arched eyebrow suggested he didn’t think it was quite as hilarious as Raiden did. “You do realize that makes you Whitney Houston in this scenario?”
Raiden scoffed. “Hell yeah. Damn, that woman could sing.”
Levi licked his lips and glanced away from the road long enough to consider Raiden properly. “You know, most guys wouldn’t be okay with being the chick.”
It was Raiden’s turn to arch a brow at him. “I think you need to hang out with better guys if that’s the case,” he said candidly. “It’s a hypothetical. If a dude can’t handle being compared with one of the most talented artists of the past century, they must have an extremely fragile ego. Do you really consider being likened to a woman an insult?”
Levi surprised him by chuckling. “No,” he said flatly. “I don’t. But a lot of guys would, that’s all I meant.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, then,” said Raiden, staring straight out the window at the tarmac racing under the car. “I guess it’s all pretty macho in the Marines?” he asked.
Levi dragged his lower lip through his teeth. “Yeah. Lot of talk about fucking women, and the F-word gets thrown around as the go-to insult.”
“Homophobia as well as misogyny,” said Raiden, nodding. “Good to know.” Not all that surprising, really.
Levi shrugged again. “It’s all very intense. You have to blo
w off steam where you can. Sometimes, you just say the most shocking things to get a kick out of it. There’s a lot of fights, too.”
Raiden nodded. “Makes sense,” he conceded. “The music industry has a lot of issues, but at least there’s a fair amount of diversity too. Not so much pressure to be a manly man.”
Levi glanced at him, eyes narrowing.
“What,” Raiden asked.
“I want to ask something, but I don’t mean it as an insult.”
Raiden laughed. “I’m pretty hard to insult,” he said. “The whole world pretty much has tried its best. After so many thousands of messages telling me to go kill myself, the bar to shock me has risen substantially.”
Levi seemed to think for a minute. About what, Raiden couldn’t really guess. Then he flicked his gaze briefly towards Raiden before watching the road again. “Are you gay?”
Raiden laughed, loudly. “You’re right,” he said good-naturedly. “That’s not an insult, but those ‘some guys’ you mentioned before might very well see it as one.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, glad to see Levi’s expression was relaxed. There was even a small smile on his lips. Great, at least they hadn’t managed to piss each other off. Again.
“No. I mean, I don’t think so,” he said. He tried to will his cheeks not to blush at his earlier thoughts about cock. About Levi’s cock.
“You don’t think so?” Levi repeated.
“Yeah,” said Raiden. “I mean, I know I’m not gay, because I like women. But, who knows? I could like guys too. If I met the right one, I think I’m definitely open to that. For example. Channing Tatum: not kicking him out of bed.”
Levi chuckled. “Okay. So, you’re telling me you might be a little bit gay?”
“There’s more than just gay and straight, isn’t there?” Raiden countered. “There’s a spectrum. One of my best buds is bisexual. I think it’s more common than a lot of people want to admit.” He flashed a devilish grin Levi’s way. “Just think. If we all chilled out about this sexuality stuff, we could be fucking twice as many people. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”
