Guarded

by L. A. Witt

“Will he?”

  Milo sighed. “I hope so.”

  I gnawed my lip. “And if he doesn’t?”

  He held my gaze. “Personally, I’d rather not think about that.”

  * * *

  I had hoped Daniel and Jordan would come grumbling out of their respective rooms, maybe grunt an apology or something close to it, and we’d all move on. I should’ve known. Years and years of bullshit that had been snowballing between two stubborn motherfuckers? That didn’t go away overnight. Nor did a momentary spat in a shared hotel suite.

  It didn’t go away after two nights either. Or three. As we left the hotel to head to the next venue, the two of them didn’t say a word to each other. After soundcheck, Daniel disappeared—with Milo on his heels, at least—and Jordan and I laid low in the backstage area until show time.

  Everyone within a fifty-mile radius had to have felt the tension between them. Oh, the guys put on perfect smiles, and they gave their all onstage, not giving a single hint that anything was amiss between them, but as soon as the cameras and the fans weren’t looking, the venom was palpable in the air. They stayed as far away from each other as they could, and judging by the confused, nervous glances passing between some of their longtime crew members, this wasn’t normal.

  And apparently their manager noticed too.

  The entire band was summoned to the larger tour bus. I stood near the door, outside the tight circle but still present. The band didn’t care for any outsiders for these things, but tolerated me. Or they had before everyone had figured out something was going on between me and Jordan. Now a few looks came my way, usually looks involving narrowed eyes and tightly clenched jaws.

  “All right, listen up.” Martin, the band’s manager, clapped sharply. “This festival is huge, guys. It’s almost completely sold out, and there are a lot of No Rules T-shirts out there. This is your fucking show.” He swept a glare around to everyone in the bus, myself included. “And no one is getting off this bus until you all get your shit together so you can give your fans—all twenty fucking thousand of them—a damned good show.” He stood straighter, arms folded across his chest, and raised his eyebrows.

  One by one, every gaze in the room shifted toward Jordan. Daniel. Jordan again.

  Martin’s eyebrows rose higher. “Gentlemen?”

  Daniel lounged in one of the oversized chairs, a leg thrown over the arm, and shrugged as he looked up at Martin. “Well, I couldn’t care less, personally. Turns out, I’m out of the band when the tour’s over, so what the fuck do I care?”

  Every head in the room turned toward Jordan so sharply, I thought I heard someone’s neck crack.

  “What the fuck is he talking about?” Martin growled, eyes flicking back and forth from Jordan to Daniel.

  “Talk to him.” Daniel gestured at Jordan. “He kicked me—”

  “I did not kick you out of the fucking band,” Jordan snapped. “I want you to stay in it, goddammit. But only if you get your shit together.”

  Daniel gestured sharply, nearly smacking Milo in the process. “What I do offstage is none of your fucking business, Jordan.”

  “It is when it affects the band.”

  “And it hasn’t yet, has it?” Daniel snarled. He rose slowly, glaring at Jordan the entire time. “Admit it, Jordan. Every fucking time we perform, I’m there one hundred percent.”

  “Yeah, you are.” Jordan stepped closer, and I swore the room got progressively colder as the two of them neared each other. “But how long is that going to last, Daniel? How long before you start getting fucked up and—”

  “When it does, then you can give me shit.” Daniel stepped closer, lips peeling back across his teeth. “But if you ever had any say over what I do when I’m not performing with No Rules, you gave that up when you—”

  “That’s enough,” Jordan hissed, and the temperature dropped a little more. “You’ve made your point.”

  “Yeah, and you’ve made yours too.” Daniel’s eyes narrowed again. “You make the decisions who stays in the band and who doesn’t, and it’s—”

  “Did you even hear a word I said the other night? I didn’t kick you out of the band. I said if you wanted out at the end of the tour, then be my fucking guest. I never once told you that I was kicking you out. But if you want to quit? Get away from the pressure of doing what we wanted to do our entire fucking lives so you can fuck yourself up every goddamned night? Yeah, be my guest, Daniel.”

  Daniel laughed bitterly. “And you’d love that, wouldn’t you? Get rid of the band’s problem child?” He gestured at me. “Maybe you can teach your bodyguard fuck buddy here to play, and he can replace me in the band, too.”

  Silence.

  Cold, loaded silence.

  No one even breathed, which meant when Jordan finally spoke, just barely whispering, I heard him: “I’ve never wanted to replace you.”

  “Yeah?” Daniel’s voice was just as quiet. “Could’ve fucking fooled me.”

  Something in Jordan broke. It was subtle, the kind of internal defeat no one would’ve noticed if they hadn’t already been tuned in to every nuance of his body and voice. I was tuned in, and I felt it from here, my body responding as if I’d just watched him take a kick to the balls. All he said, though, was “Daniel…”

  Martin gave everyone on the bus a quick look, and then stood. “Everyone but you two, off the bus.”

  The rest of the band stood without hesitation and brushed past me as Martin separated Jordan and Daniel with a hand between them.

  I cleared my throat. “Should I—”

  “Stay.” One word that sounded less like an order and more like “Please don’t leave me.”

  Daniel’s lip curled into a snarl. “This doesn’t concern him.”

  “You don’t need your bodyguard in here.” Martin’s voice was calm and even. “He can wait outside with everyone else.”

  Jordan and I exchanged another look. Then he gave a subtle nod toward the bus door.

  I hesitated, but stepped out.

  The rest of the band milled around outside. Some smoked. Some fucked around on their phones. Everyone’s gaze kept darting toward the bus, though.

  I settled on a bench beside a rusted metal picnic table. Milo sat on the table. He was smoking a cigarette, eyes fixed on the tinted, curtain-covered windows that kept us from seeing a damned thing going on inside the bus.

  “Think they’re going to kill each other in there?” I asked after a while.

  Milo shrugged with one shoulder. He looked about as nonplussed as if we were just talking about the latest cliffhanger ending of a Walking Dead episode. Concerned, but in an “it’ll work itself out eventually” kind of way. “They do this every once in a while.”

  “Do they?”

  He nodded slowly and pulled in some more smoke off his cigarette. As he held it out beyond his knee and tapped the ashes onto the grass, he said, “Hasn’t been this bad in a long time, but”—another shrug—“they have a love-hate relationship.”

  “Think they’ll pull it together in time for the show this afternoon?”

  Milo chuckled around his cigarette. “They always do.”

  Well, that was encouraging. God knew I was no stranger to volatile relationships, especially with addicts, and I’d been through that vicious cycle more times than I cared to admit. My ex and I could be at each other’s throats and ready to kill each other, and then madly in love again, and then ready to kill each other again, all in the course of one afternoon. I could only imagine adding in the pressures of a tour, traveling, performing…

  And another boyfriend.

  I stared at the bus windows, guilt twisting under my ribcage. How much was I contributing to this just by being with Jordan?

  A solid hour after we’d been kicked off the bus, most of the band had scattered. Some of the other bands were performing now, the thumping bass vibrating the picnic table that I’d been sitting on since I’d been dismissed. Greg, Andy and Milo had gotten bored waiting for their fr
ont man and guitarist to sort their shit out, so they’d gone off to watch the festival from backstage.

  Because of my job, I couldn’t go anywhere anyway, but even if I’d been just another member of the band or crew, I’d have stayed here. The metal bench was making my back ache, but I ignored it.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  The band was trickling back, offering mixed reviews of the band that had just finished their set, when the bus door opened.

  Martin came out first. His expression betrayed nothing—his features were taut with aggravation, but that was about it. And that was pretty normal for him anyway. Story of a band manager’s life.

  And hot on his heels was Jordan.

  He was almost as difficult to read as Martin. Jaw set, eyes down, he came down the steps and closed the door behind him. Our eyes met briefly, and he gave a slight forward nod, his usual way of saying “we’re going this way.”

  Heart pounding, I fell into step behind him. There were a million questions on the tip of my tongue, but I bit them back. The answers would come out soon enough.

  Jordan pulled open the door to his bus, and I followed him aboard.

  As soon as the door was shut, Jordan released a breath, and that neutral exterior cracked. His shoulders sank. He pulled a coffee cup out of the cabinet and set it on the counter. Then he rested his hands on either side of it and sighed, making no move to put anything into the cup, as if he wanted some coffee but either didn’t have the energy or couldn’t remember how to make it.

  I put my hands on his hips and kissed the side of his neck. I had a million questions, but only one of them mattered right then: “You okay?”

  He exhaled hard, his whole body seeming to waver under an unseen weight. He put his hands on mine and pulled them gently, wrapping my arms around him. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Then we won’t.” I held him tighter. “I just want to know if you’re okay.”

  “I will be.” He pressed back against me, rubbing like a cat. I pulled in a breath. The scent of his skin and hair made me shiver, and I held him a little tighter. He tilted his head, an invitation if I’d ever seen one, so I kissed the side of his neck. Jordan sucked in a sharp breath and tilted it farther, arching his neck against my lips.

  I pulled away for a second to shrug off my shoulder holster and drop it on the couch. Then I kissed my way down to his collar. Jordan pressed back against me, his firm ass doing nothing to keep me from getting hard.

  Grinning against his skin, I said, “You know where this usually leads, don’t you?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Two soft syllables, but I heard loud and clear, Where this usually leads is exactly where I need to go right now.

  I loosened my embrace. Jordan turned around and slid his arms over my shoulders, drawing me down into a long kiss. Oh, yeah, he was upset. His kiss was hungry, his hands shaky. We hadn’t been doing this long, but I’d learned right from the start what he felt like when he was about to break, and somehow the sex that followed had yet to break us both.

  Abruptly, Jordan broke the kiss. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  He looked in my eyes. “This. We’re…” He sighed and shook his head. “I shouldn’t be asking you to do this every time I’m stressed.”

  I tucked a strand of his hair behind his ear. “Does it help?”

  His voice was little more than a ragged whisper as he said, “It’s the only thing that helps.”

  I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him closer. “Then don’t fight it.”

  “Jase, I’m using you.”

  “You need this.” I brushed my lips across his as I slid a hand up into his hair. “And I’m here.” Before he could respond, I kissed him.

  Jordan’s lips immediately surrendered to mine. I didn’t think he had much choice—there wasn’t any fight left in him. He seemed like he could barely hold himself up, his body pressed against mine like that was all he could do at this point. But as we kissed, he came back to life. Fingers glided across my shirt and found their way to the buttons. One by one, he pushed them through their buttonholes.

  I pushed his shirt up and off, and mine was hanging open and untucked as we sank onto the bed together. We tangled up in each other, and though I was desperate to get to more of his skin so we could touch and fuck, I couldn’t stop kissing him, rubbing against him, grinding against him long enough to even unbuckle his belt. He didn’t get much farther with my clothes. His hot palms slid across my skin, but he didn’t push my shirt over my shoulders and I didn’t try to shrug it off.

  Jordan broke the kiss and gently let his head fall back onto the pillow. His eyes were full of need, full of trust—I swore I could feel both of those things simmering beneath his skin in the form of one unspoken request. That one thing I’d been afraid to do and he’d been afraid to ask for ever since the first morning after.

  He wanted my hands around his throat. His airway under my control.

  Please, his eyes begged.

  I was scared to death to touch him like that, but when he was this raw, this brittle, I was even more afraid of not being what he needed when he needed it most.

  Heart thundering in my ears, I trailed my fingertips down the front of his throat. Jordan moaned softly, biting his lip and pressing his neck into my touch. My cock seemed to get even harder, and I couldn’t help pressing it against him.

  “That really is what you want, isn’t it?” I whispered.

  Jordan opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly jumped and glanced down. “What the—oh, fuck. You’ve got to be kidding.” He yanked his cell phone from his pocket and tossed the vibrating little bastard onto the bed. “Where were—”

  “Damn it, really?” I pulled my own buzzing phone from my pocket.

  Jordan’s eyes widened a little. “What the hell is going—”

  BANG! BANG! BANG!

  Someone pounded on the door so hard I was surprised it didn’t shake the whole bus.

  “Jordan!” Milo’s voice cut through the hum of noise outside in between banging on the door. “Jordan!”

  “That’s not good,” Jordan murmured.

  I got up off him, and as he bolted for the door, I picked up my phone, which had Milo’s name on the caller ID. “Hey, what’s—”

  “Daniel needs to go to the hospital. Now.”

  I was off the bed before he’d finished the sentence. “What happened?”

  And I heard the words in my head before he spoke them:

  “He overdosed.”

  Light flooded the bus, and my heart jumped into my throat.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Jordan asked, panic lacing his voice.

  “It’s Daniel,” Milo said. “He OD’ed.”

  “Shit.” And Jordan was running. And I was behind him. And Milo was on my heels. And the other bus may as well have been halfway across the festival grounds, separated from us by a thick crowd which—thank God—parted as Jordan shouted, “Get out of the way!”

  People gasped and stood aside. Milo and I brushed a few of them, muttering apologies as we went but not slowing down.

  Jordan took the steps onto the other bus in two big strides. I was right behind him, and when Jordan dropped to his knees beside Daniel, my heart dropped into my throat.

  Greg was doing his best to keep Daniel fairly still, but a violent convulsion was challenging his grasp.

  “Somebody call a fucking ambulance!” Jordan shouted.

  “Already on their way,” Milo said. “There’s a medic on the grounds. Should be here any second.”

  Jordan acknowledged that with a slight nod and leaned over Daniel. He touched his friend’s face. “Daniel? Hey, man.” He touched the back of his hand to Daniel’s forehead, then his cheek. “Can you hear me?”

  Daniel’s eyelids fluttered. He managed to open them long enough to reveal his wildly dilated pupils before his eyes rolled back. I thought he was about to seize again, but his e
yes just closed, and his head lolled to one side.

  Behind us, shouts and footsteps.

  “Everyone out,” a medic barked as he appeared on the bus and dropped to his knees beside Daniel. “Give him some breathing room.”

  “What’s he on?” another medic asked.

  Jordan looked up, gripping Daniel’s hand against his chest. “He uses coke and meth a lot. No idea if he’s taken anything else this time.”

  “He was in the bathroom before he went down.” Milo gestured toward the other end of the bus. “Whatever he has left might be in there.”

  “Show me.”

  As Milo took the medic into the back, the first one glared at me. “Off the bus. Give the man some space.”

  Jordan looked up at me and nodded.

  I touched his shoulder. “I’ll be right outside.”

  Another nod, and then he was focused on Daniel again.

  And for the second time today, I left him alone with Daniel, feeling both helpless and guilty.

  The crowd around the tour buses was getting thicker. There weren’t a lot of fans back here—just those who’d scored backstage passes and whatnot—but there was no shortage of roadies, venue crew, musicians, and reporters.

  Cameras flashed, and far too many people held cell phones up. As the wind ruffled my shirt, I was suddenly hyperaware of my state of dress. Of Jordan’s. Of how it must’ve looked that we’d both come running out of the bus like this. The bodyguard in me wanted to herd him off the bus and take him someplace safe and discreet, away from all these lenses, but there was no way I was getting between him and Daniel.

  Let the rumors fly, just please, please, please God, let Daniel make it through this.

  Security shouted for people to get out of the way as they guided the ambulance closer. Moments later, the stretcher rattled and creaked as the medics expertly maneuvered it out of the bus. Jordan was hot on their heels, and I fell into step behind him as they hurried across the gravel to the waiting ambulance.

  Without thinking about it, I started to follow Jordan into the ambulance, but a medic put a hand on my chest. “Only room for one.”

  Jordan stepped back. “He’s my bodyguard.”