by Riley Knight
So it was time to say goodbye to him. He would just see him one more time, and then he would walk away, and he would hope to God that would be enough to free him.
Enough to cure him of this nagging feeling that something was very wrong.
* * *
It took a ridiculous amount of money, and every bit of influence that Mark had over anyone of note. Luckily, all of his hard work for various celebrities paid off, and when he put it out there that he was looking for a ticket to the Eternity concert the next night, his contacts delivered.
And boy, did they deliver.
Mark ended up with a seat in the very first row, so close that he would be able to see Christian clearly, almost touch him. At the same time, he knew that Christian, with the bright glare of the lights in his eyes, wouldn’t be able to see him in return.
It was perfect. The perfect way to say goodbye.
He had a backstage pass, too, but he didn’t think he’d use it.
And then, just as he was getting ready to go, his phone buzzed at him and he frowned a little. Briana? Why was she calling him?
He took a deep breath, then answered the phone with his customary ‘Yeah?’ of greeting, only to immediately feel sick and faintly dizzy.
“Mark, you have to help me. I think Christian’s in trouble. I don’t know what happened between you two but you need to come help him if you ever cared for him at all.”
* * *
Briana had said that she would meet him just outside the arena. But, she’d said, he needed to hurry, because she had to get ready for the show and she wouldn’t have long to talk. She’d tell him everything she knew there.
Which led to him rushing quite a bit and getting there much earlier than he had intended to.
Briana was there waiting, just as she’d promised, and she rushed up to him when she saw him and gave him a big hug. It was a strange sensation. He didn’t get hugged much, but he could feel her shaking and he wrapped his arms around her, suddenly much more worried even than he had been and that was saying something.
“It’s been horrible since you left,” Briana whispered, pulling away from him but staying close. “Christian drinks all the time, and I keep overhearing things from his room. His new bodyguard sucks. He doesn’t even let him rehearse. It’s all a mess.”
Mark took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He had to stay calm, even if everything in him was screaming at him that something was very off here. Christian didn’t drink that much. Oh, he liked his beer but he certainly had never been the type to drink all the time.
“Who is his new bodyguard?” Mark asked, looking down into her worried face.
“I think he said his name was Shawn,” Briana said, and Mark’s eyes narrowed.
Shawn. He’d met the guy once. He’d seemed competent enough, and his references had checked out, so he’d let him stay.
Now, though, he found himself remembering things that hadn’t seemed like a big deal before. The guy had green eyes. Hadn’t Christian talked about being afraid that he was being followed by someone with green eyes?
What was Shawn’s last name again? At the time, it had seemed familiar, but …
“Show me where Christian is,” Mark demanded. He’d thought that it was the right thing to do to just walk away, but it seemed like that very much wasn’t the case.
“Be careful. There’s something about that Shawn guy …” Briana seemed to be a very intuitive, compassionate young woman. It sort of blew Mark away that he’d actually been jealous of her at first, when all she seemed to want to do now was help her friend.
Not only that, but he’d definitely gotten the idea that she knew about him and Christian, or at least suspected, and that she didn’t mind. Maybe even that she approved.
So he followed her without question as she led him to a room with Christian’s name on it on a sign. She stood back, and he looked at the closed door very thoughtfully before reaching out and carefully, slowly, turning the handle so that it opened a crack.
Instantly, he could hear voices. One fairly strange to him, the other so familiar that it hurt him.
“Why are you doing this?” Christian asked. “If you won’t let me practice, you’ll destroy me. You can’t get money from me then.”
There was a soft, but thoroughly insane, chuckle in response.
“I don’t really care about the money. I’ll take what I can get, but mostly, I just want to ruin you.”
Mark frowned. He wanted to run in, to see what the hell was going on, but something told him to stay. To keep listening. He looked at Briana, and saw that she was listening intently, too. Good. It might not be a bad idea to have a witness, depending on how this went down.
From what he was hearing, though, something was going to happen. Christian was clearly in some trouble, and maybe Mark wasn’t his bodyguard anymore, but that didn’t mean he was just going to let the man he loved be hurt right in front of him.
Christian took a deep, audible breath. When Mark put his eye right up against the open crack of the door, he saw his young lover in person for the first time in a week, and more than that, he caught a glimpse of Shawn, who was, in fact, the same Shawn that Mark had okayed hiring.
Christian’s back was mostly to him, and Shawn was facing Christian. If the guy turned his head a little, he would see Mark, probably, but luckily, his attention seemed to fully be on Christian.
“Well you’ve just screwed yourself over, because if you’re going to try to destroy me either way, I might as well do what will make me happy,” Christian said quietly. “You can’t get more money out of me. I’m not going to drop the charges against your brother. Instead, I’m going to go out there on stage and tell the world about Mark.”
Mark frowned at hearing his name. Oh, this didn’t sound good. For Shawn. To Mark, it sounded very much like Shawn was trying to blackmail Christian, and that wasn’t the sort of thing that Mark would put up with.
“Don’t you dare,” Shawn said, and Mark could almost swear that he saw panic in those bright green eyes. That was the thing with blackmail. The moment that the victim stood up to it, it stopped working. “You won’t give up your career. Or his.”
Christian shrugged, and Mark felt a sudden surge of pride, fierce and hot, go through him. His fearless, beautiful boy.
“You’re going to ruin my career anyways. I might as well go out on my terms. As for Mark …” There was a brief hesitation, and then Christian visibly squared his shoulders and continued. “I think if Mark was here, he would tell me not to let you do this. And I hope … I hope he hears what I have to say, so that maybe he’ll call me. Either way, it’s over for you.”
Christian started to turn away, so he didn’t see what Shawn did next. Mark, on the other hand, did. He saw the shine of the light on the bright silver of the gun. He saw it flash as Shawn started to pull it out of his jacket.
And that was when he realized just how desperate this man was. How far he’d go to ruin Christian.
There was no time to think, and nothing to think about. Only time to act. Mark yanked the door open at the same time as Shawn was raising the gun, and as the man aimed it at the back of Christian’s head, Mark was there.
He had time only to violently push Christian out the door and to safety before the gun went off with a roar.
Mark’s shoulder suddenly erupted into red hot sensation. It wasn’t even pain, not at first. Not until Mark had tackled Shawn and gotten the gun away from him.
Only when Mark had looked over his shoulder and saw that Christian was safe, stunned but unhurt, only when he saw that people were running into the room, drawn by the gunshot, only then did the pain make itself known.
Chapter Twelve
Christian
There was blood everywhere. Mark’s blood. The blood of the man that Christian loved, spilled because of Christian. Spilled because Christian had been sick and tired of being blackmailed, and had decided to do something about it.
He had known, of course,
that Shawn had a gun. He’d seen it when Shawn had pulled it to show him just before he went to hide, just before Mark had stormed into the room. But he hadn’t known that Mark would be there, watching over him as always, even when he had no further reason to be.
If he had known that his actions would get Mark shot, he never would have even considered standing up to Shawn. It was then that Christian realized what love really was, because he would have done anything, anything at all, to protect Mark.
Just as Mark had protected him.
Even shot, even with his arm covered in blood, Mark was magnificent. He disarmed Shawn with almost contemptuous ease, and in seconds, it was all over. It could have, Christian realized, with a twist to his stomach that threatened to make him throw up, been him shot. He could be lying on the ground, covered in his own blood.
He could be seriously injured, or even dead. And it was all because he’d been too scared to let the world know that he’d fallen in love with another guy. He’d brought this on both of them.
If this was what being rich and famous was about, he didn’t want any part of it.
The backstage area was a flurry of activity, and Christian couldn’t even get close to Mark. He couldn’t even ask him why he was there at all. How he’d shown up out of nowhere to be Christian’s savior again.
Briana was there, looking pale, but with her phone pressed to her face as she urgently spoke with what seemed to be the police. Suddenly Nick was there, too, pale as he looked around at all of the blood.
“Christian, man, we have to go on. They say we have to go on. The fans are waiting,” Nick said, and Christian stared at him blankly. He honestly couldn’t figure out, for the life of him, what Nick was talking about. Not at first. The words coming out of his mouth might as well have been in Martian, for all that Christian understood it.
“He’s in shock,” he heard Briana say, as she finished her call. There were still people all around Mark. More than anything, Christian wanted to go to him, but there was so much blood, and the people surrounding Mark seemed to be helping.
“He can’t be in shock!” Nick seemed to be panicking a bit himself. “We have to go on! Christian, wake up!”
Christian shook his head, and while everything, for a few seconds, had been foggy and indistinct, in that moment, it all became clear. Crystal clear.
“The concert,” Christian said, his voice distinct and firm, “Can go fuck itself.”
With that, he pulled away from Nick and Briana and went over to Mark, pushing his way past the first aid attendants who were doing their best with an injury that they weren’t used to dealing with.
He tried to stay out of their way. He didn’t want to make it more difficult for them. But he did settle himself by Mark’s uninjured side, and without caring, or even thinking, about how it would look, he took Mark’s hand and held it in his own, squeezing, but very gently.
“Hey,” he said, gazing into those dark eyes. Mark had to be in a lot of pain, but he seemed calm. Calmer than Christian knew that he would be. But then, Mark was sort of used to the idea of danger, right?
God, the man was so brave. More than anyone that Christian had ever met. His lover, his protector.
Mark gave him a faint ghost of a smile, then nodded.
“Hey,” he said, and Christian was encouraged by the evidence of consciousness and coherency. Not to mention good humor.
“I love you,” Christian said suddenly. Right then and there, he needed Mark to know, while they were both fully awake and aware. It didn’t even matter that there were people around, people who would hear, people who would definitely tell other people.
Even when it did occur to him, he thought it was probably for the best. There was no going back now. The rumors about his sexuality would start now, almost certainly, and Christian found that he just could not give a flying crap.
Maybe it was better that way. If it was too much of a scandal, Christian didn’t even care. Let people stop buying his music. It just didn’t matter anymore. His reputation wasn’t worth it.
Mark looked surprised for a moment, and then his strong fingers squeezed at Christian’s. There were people everywhere. Ambulance attendants who were demanding that he get out of the way. And he supposed that he should. He could follow them to the hospital, and he would.
Just when he was about to pull away, though, to go find a car, Mark spoke to him again.
“I love you, too.”
Mark’s blood was everywhere, and there was a good chance that both of them were going to have their careers go up in flames from this. It didn’t matter, though. Mark loved him, and he loved Mark.
Somehow, it was all going to be okay.
* * *
They were separated then, but not for long. Christian found out which hospital Mark was going to, and then he rushed over there. He was just grateful that no one seemed to have told the concert goers yet that there was no concert.
In the waiting room, Christian waited. Normally, he was pretty relaxed about, well, everything, but this time, he couldn’t seem to stop pacing. When the doctor came in and told him that Mark was awake, had been awake the whole time, and was asking for him, it was only then that he felt like his heart was beating once more. Only then did he draw in a deep breath and feel like it actually did him some good.
He hadn’t been sure where Mark had been shot, or how bad it had been. For all he knew, it could have been a fatal wound. Mark had been awake, of course, but then, Mark was strong.
Too strong to die, it seemed.
As the doctor walked with him to the room where Mark had been put to recover from his ordeal, Christian pumped him for information. What had happened? Would Mark be okay? When could Mark come home?
The story was gruesome, of course, but it could be a lot worse. Mark had taken the bullet to his upper arm, which had broken the bone. They’d gotten the bullet out and he had a cast that he’d have to wear for a few months.
Six inches to the right and it could have pierced his heart. His lungs. Or even an artery. It was luck, and Mark’s skill, his training, that had kept him alive.
As it was, they wanted to keep Mark for observation overnight, and then he could go home. His bone would heal, and he would be fine in a matter of months.
Still, as Christian looked into the room where Mark lay on the bed, dwarfing it with his size, he couldn’t help but feel guilty. It was still his fault that Mark was hurt at all, whereas Christian hadn’t been injured at all.
It didn’t seem fair.
“Are you going to hang out in the doorway forever or what?” Mark suddenly asked. Christian had been pretty sure that Mark was too out of it to know that he was there, but he should have known better.
It wasn’t impossible to put one over on Mark, but it wasn’t exactly easy, either.
Smiling a little, Christian walked into the room and sat beside the bed. He took Mark’s hand on his good side, then pressed a kiss to the back of it.
“You could have died,” Christian said, after a silence had stretched between them. “Saving me.”
Mark shook his head.
“I’ve got more training than that. But even if I knew I would die, I would do the same thing in a second.”
Christian smiled. That was sweet. The smile faded, though, and turned into a frown.
“I don’t want that to ever be a possibility.” Christian looked at him, meeting his dark eyes. “I know that we weren’t supposed to … I know it was all supposed to be a secret, but …”
Christian wasn’t usually at a loss for words. It seemed that this was a special situation. Mark smirked a little at him, looking sexy as hell even in a hospital bed. How was that even legal?
“I know what happened, I think,” Mark said calmly. “That guy, he was related to Allen, the guy who broke into your house. He tried to blackmail you, and you eventually stood up to him. But that’s why you fired me.”
Christian shook his head, not in denial, but in amazement. This man was incre
dible. He’d put that all together, and now, it made Christian’s job a lot easier.
“But you still shouldn’t have. Fired me, I mean.” All of a sudden, Mark’s voice was stern, and Christian couldn’t help but feel a little ashamed of himself. “You should have come to me and told me what was going on. Never let someone blackmail you.”
Christian nodded.
“I figured that out, but … I actually didn’t care much for myself. I’m tired after my tour. A little bit less fame wouldn’t actually suck. A few less concerts. I could deal with that. But Shawn said you could get fired. And then when you came into the room that day, Shawn had a gun on you. If I said anything he didn’t like, you would be shot.”
Christian could still remember the horror of that moment very, very vividly. Of wishing there was something he could say, and knowing that there wasn’t. Shawn wasn’t messing around. He would have shot to kill.
Mark sighed softly, then shook his head.
“Shawn’s not wrong. It’s against my company’s policy. But do you really think I would pick that over you? Not in a second. If I get fired, I get fired. If I also get you, I don’t really care.”
Christian felt something prickle at his eyes. Tears. He blinked them back, but it wasn’t easy. Mark, the workaholic, would give up his job for him. No one had ever said anything so perfect and amazing and touching in his entire life.
“I don’t care either,” Christian said quietly. “I don’t. I want to be with you. If you get fired, then … then I’ll hire you myself as my bodyguard. Or whatever we have to do. You can get a job somewhere else. Just … please? Be with me?”
Mark opened his mouth to reply, and just then, there was a brief knock at the door and Briana and Nick popped their heads in.
“Hey, heads up, guys,” Briana said, while Nick looked at them holding hands with shocked eyes. Not necessarily displeased, but definitely surprised. “The cops are looking for you, Christian. They need your statement. That asshole Shawn is in jail.”
