“Right now, I like not being with someone,” I say, speaking the full truth.
“Maybe someday you’ll want the opposite.”
“Maybe someday you won’t be a sassy wiseass,” I say.
“Doubtful.” Her grin is playful, and so damn cute that I snap a picture of it.
“How about a shot of both of us?” I ask.
“Because pics don’t exist if you’re not in them?”
“Pretty much.”
She joins me on my side of the table, smushes her face next to mine, and does some kind of hang-ten gesture that probably isn’t a hang-ten thing at all, but what the hell do I know?
The pic makes me happy, and I save it to my photos. If I’ve learned anything since Fabian’s death, it’s that you need to grab your happy while you can.
After I put the image in a folder, my phone pings with an email, and I check it quickly. Tension radiates through me as I read the email from the credit card company, a reminder of the money I owe for the choices Fabian made.
The ones he made without me.
“Everything okay?” Bethany asks.
Clutching my phone, I give her a shrug. “Stupid credit card company wanting to collect on a stupid bill for a stupid motorcycle.”
“Sorry, Jackson,” she says. “Debt sucks.”
I’m sorry too, but for entirely different reasons. Because finding out a few weeks after he died that he’d used our card to finance his bike, the mangled one that died with him, rubbed salt into my fresh wound. I’d not only lost the man I loved, but I’d lost him to the thing I’d begged him to stop doing, and he’d gone behind my back to do it. Stunts for prize money. Crazy, reckless, dangerous stunts.
The cold, cruel irony is that I’m paying for what killed him.
After we finish our drinks, I take Bethany to school. We chat about Mom and Dad the whole way until her phone pings.
“Oooh. It’s a new post from Shipping News,” she says.
“You’re following the shipping business?”
“No. It’s this Instagram feed. The name’s ironic. It’s about celebrity ships.”
“English, please.”
“Right. Mr. No Social Media. It’s a feed that pairs celebs with other celebs, or fictional characters with other fictional characters. Like Kirk and Spock, or Harry and Draco, or Groot and Rocket Raccoon.”
We turn onto the street to her school, and I glance at her, sure she’s pulling my leg. “People want the tree and a raccoon to get together?”
“The internet loves all sorts of pairings. I’ve seen you on there,” she says, tucking her phone away.
I pull up to the curb, my eyebrows climbing into my hairline. “I’m on there? For what?”
She gives me a classic duh look. “You and Stone.”
I flinch. “What the . . . why . . . how?”
There was no one around that night in the hallway. There are no cameras on that floor. How could anyone have pics of us?
Laughing, she sets a hand on my arm. “Don’t worry. It’s just an internet thing. It’s not bad. It’s like when a picture surfaces of the two of you. Like in the airport when you’re walking next to him through security. Or when you’re holding the door of a limo open for him and the paps take a shot.”
I breathe a huge sigh of relief. Normal pics. Not salacious shots. That makes sense. Everyday images go along with my job. Stone’s publicist circulates those in the regular briefings. “Right. Sure. But aren’t there pics of Cruz or Terrence with him too?”
“Sure, but not as many. I mean, the other bodyguards are fine-looking. Cruz has the whole Michael Peña vibe going for him, plus he speaks Spanish. But, for better or worse, Twitter thinks you’re hot. Instagram thinks you’re hot. And the world thinks Stone is hot.”
I tug at my collar because it’s weird hearing that from my sister. Then I gesture for her to go on. “Continue.”
“So, there are usually some comments about how you guys look together. How Stone should do you because you’re hot. Or vice versa.”
I exhale sharply, since we’re getting a little too close for comfort. “People have time for this?”
“It’s just fun. No one is saying you’re a thing. It’s just a ship. It’s a fandom thing, like Oh my God, if he was my bodyguard, I’d be all over that or Let’s make Jackstone a thing this year.”
“Jackstone? What the hell is that?”
“If you were together, the internet would call you Jackstone. Like Brad and Angelina were Brangelina. It’s cute.”
I shake my head, amazed and amused. “Jackstone.”
“Same-sex ships are a big thing in fandom. So, there you go. Bye.” She drops a kiss onto my cheek, scoots out of the car, and heads into school.
I drive away, mulling over ships and internet trends and wondering if they mean anything or nothing at all.
Nothing at all probably.
So I put them out of my mind as I return to my parents, and spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon with them. Then, I head to the hotel to pick up Stone, and we make our way to the airport.
One month, and he’s been true to his word.
He’s been Stone the fun dude, Stone the rocker, Stone the “I’m having a blast” guy. He’s held on to his resolve, and so have I.
Everything’s been the way it was before—because I can compartmentalize anything.
And clearly he can too.
Thank God.
Neither of us has bent.
Neither one of us has slipped.
We are client and bodyguard.
Not a thing—just a ship.
As I drive, I ask Stone, “We’re heading off to Miami now?”
When I checked the agenda, he had meetings scheduled there with some producers he works with. But Stone shakes his head. He drums his palms on the dashboard. “How would you feel about going back to Vegas?”
“Vegas?” I ask, as if I’ve never heard of it. But what I’m really thinking is Vegas, the scene of the crime.
“Brother, my managers inked a deal with The Extravagant.”
“For another one-night-only show?”
He shakes his head, his grin a deliciously satisfied one. “Nope. This is for a two-week residency starting at the end of next week. And we’re going there now to get everything in motion. Press interviews, rehearsals, and all that magic.”
“Two weeks in Vegas?” I repeat, like I need to process this change of plans, and evidently I do. It’s not only the two weeks of the residency. It’s the nearly two weeks before the show starts.
“Indeed. We’ve got suites at The Extravagant the whole time.”
The setup is no different there than at any other place. Truly, it isn’t.
The only difference is that Vegas is where I slipped. Vegas is where I pushed him up against the wall, dragged my lips over his, and kissed the breath out of him.
Vegas is where I told him how much I wanted to fuck him.
My gaze drifts briefly to the guy in the passenger seat. I take in his carved cheekbones, his turn-me-all-the-way-on stubble, his crooked grin.
Then my eyes go lower, cataloging the ink on his strong, toned arms, all of it on display in his T-shirt with BoJack Horseman on the front.