Chapter 11

ELEVEN

ZANE

It’s hard to stay mad at a bear. Underneath that ursine stubbornness, bears are surprisingly charming creatures, constantly playing and testing themselves. This play isn’t just for fun; it’s how they learn to survive in the wild. But it also makes it nearly impossible to hold a grudge against them for long.

—Bear Facts for Insomniacs, Episode 27

I was still in shock. It had been twenty-four hours, and I couldn’t stop replaying the kiss.

Ryan Galloway had kissed me.

He’d more than kissed me—he’d devoured me.

And I’d loved every minute of it.

My heart thundered as I remembered the details. The way Bear’s large body had blocked the wind. The feel of his warm hand on the back of my head. The fact that he didn’t pull away when I kissed him back but instead stepped closer, had put his arm around me and pulled me tighter. The thick length of the hard bulge in his pants nudging my lower belly before pulling away.

The dizzying moment when I realized none of it was in my imagination.

Guitar in hand, I exhaled and stared out at the sun setting across the water. The sunroom was warm and silent. Only the echoes of the G major 7 chord filled the space around me as I tried to piece together the fragments of melody that had been tumbling around my brain since Barlo. But though the house was mostly silent, my mind was in turmoil.

I’m sorry , Bear had said.

Are you? I’d challenged, hoping against hope he’d say he hadn’t been—that, in fact, he’d wanted to do it again.

He hadn’t taken it back, though. Instead, he’d doubled down and reiterated just how sorry he was.

Apparently, kissing me was a regrettable activity.

Well, he could take that apology and shove it up his ass. Bear didn’t get to lecture me about people like my cousin using me for their own gains and then try to pretend the sexiest fucking kiss in recorded history hadn’t happened, as if my feelings didn’t matter one bit.

He wanted my honest emotions? He wanted me to be real with him and not fine ?

Then he needed to know I was angry. That I was mad as a fucking wasp. That I was a whole nest of wasps, in fact, and they buzzed with restless intensity under my skin.

What was I supposed to do with this feeling? Of wanting him, getting a single taste of him, and then learning there were no more tastes coming?

And how was I supposed to act normal and pretend it hadn’t happened?

I tried to be reasonable and calm myself down. Was Bear even gay? I still didn’t know for sure. Had the kiss been some kind of failed experiment for him? Or was he so wonderfully and annoyingly dedicated to his job that he thought kissing me might somehow compromise my safety?

If so, he was dead wrong. I couldn’t be in the same room with my bodyguard anymore without feeling nervous and hot. Without feeling like my face and ears were going to melt off from the humiliation of wanting someone who didn’t want me back.

Without wondering if kissing me had been like getting a free sample of something that looked and smelled amazing at the grocery store and realizing it tasted like dog shit.

That was me. I was the dog shit.

And yes, my brain could argue against that conclusion perfectly well. Millions of fans around the world found me way more attractive than dog shit. I knew that, objectively. But there was nothing objective about this feeling of rejection from the man I was most attracted to. From the man I most wanted to like me back.

I was like a pathetic emo teenager, sitting alone in the darkening room, strumming my feelings out on a guitar.

I needed a distraction.

Better yet, I needed things to go back to normal with my close protection officer.

Which was why, when Bear poked his head into the sunroom after the sun finished slipping behind the mountains across the water, his eyes serious and wary and tentatively hopeful, and said, “Hey, I, ah… had an idea for dinner.” I set my guitar on the stand and stood.

“Yeah, okay. I’m easy.” Hopefully, he didn’t notice me wince at the embarrassing word choice.

“Hope you like horseradish.” Bear turned and moved toward the kitchen. My eyes flicked down to his ass out of habit.

He had clearly just showered because his hair was wet, and he was wearing different clothes than he’d had on earlier. Now, he was dressed in soft sweatpants—the kind that were loose at the hem and so thin from washing that the fabric draped over… everything… in a way that highlighted his assets rather than concealing them.

Goddamn .

I blinked and followed the lines of his body up to his broad shoulders, which pulled the smooth cotton of his T-shirt taut across his back. The shirt was new with a still-bright list of tour cities on it.

Halifax

Montreal

Toronto

Milwaukee

Detroit

Chicago

Minneapolis…

I remembered each city we’d visited late last year. Memories of shows came flooding through my mind, moments when Bear had pressed his large hand against my lower back to usher me through tunnels and down hallways. It had been during that portion of the tour that we’d truly broken the ice between us. Once someone had seen the ugly, backstage side of you, it was hard to keep them at arm’s length.

It had started with a few small moments.

In Halifax, he’d accidentally walked in on me while my voice coach was making me sing a silly song that repeated the line “Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers” over and over at ascending scale and speed. In addition to sounding ridiculous, I was also shirtless with a giant orange warming muff around my throat.

Somehow, he’d managed to say, “Micki is limiting the VIP meet and greet to fifteen minutes,” with a neutral expression.

In Toronto, I’d tripped in front of hundreds of people. Thankfully, Bear—or had I still called him Ryan then? He’d been “Bear” to me so long I couldn’t remember anymore—had been holding my elbow, so he kept me from face-planting. Then he’d immediately said in a voice loud enough to carry, “Sorry, Mr. Barlo. Didn’t mean to bump you.”

In Detroit, I’d been so tired I’d forgotten the name of my own hometown. “Where are you from in Georgia?” the hairstylist had asked, making friendly conversation. I’d stared at her in the mirror. “I have family in Valdosta. Anywhere near there?” she’d prodded.

“Barlo,” Bear had answered. I’d turned to face him with a look of confusion. Why was he calling me by my last name? “Georgia,” he added. “Barlo, Georgia. It’s northwest of Valdosta.”

“Oh, right,” I’d said stupidly. “Yes. Barlo. Like my name.”

The stylist had tilted her head. “Is the town named after your people? They must have been there for generations.”

I couldn’t for the life of me process what she was asking. “Other way around,” Bear had explained. “He picked his stage name to honor his hometown. Hey, ah… Sylvie. Would you mind giving us a minute? I need to go over some security details and need privacy.”

“Sure thing, hon.”

She’d stepped out, and Bear had come over, crouched down in front of me, and put his hands on the arms of my chair. “Hey. You okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

He frowned and reached up to press the back of his fingers against my forehead. “You don’t seem fine. You seem out of it.”

I brushed his hand away and shook my head, feeling it swim a little. “Totally fine. Promise. I’ll be glad to get to Chicago and catch up on sleep before the next show.”

And then, after one of the Chicago shows, I’d finally succumbed to the full-blown version of whatever virus I’d been trying to fight off, and Bear had found me vomiting in the hotel bathroom at four in the morning. He’d rubbed my back and washed my face with a cold washcloth for two hours while I humiliated myself in front of him.

“Fine, huh? You still fine?” he’d teased.

“It’s not that bad,” I’d insisted weakly.

“No, ’course not. Being un-fine would be so off-brand for you.”

“You don’t have to stay. Maybe we can call someone like a visiting nurse or something. You don’t have to?—”

“Shut it, Zane,” he’d said firmly. “No one takes care of you but me. ”

At the time, I’d known he was protecting me, looking out for my reputation and making sure no one else saw me in such a moment of vulnerability. Protecting my reputation was part of his job, after all. But after that, I’d had fantasies about him looking out for me because he wanted to.

Because he cared for me.

And I knew he did care… just not in the way I wanted him to. Not in the way I fantasized about.

“Zane?” he prompted now.

I blinked away my memories and tried to replay the last thing he’d asked me. “Uh… horseradish? Yeah. I like it fine. Every year on Rinny’s birthday, Gran would take us all out for shrimp cocktail at Ruby’s. I’d ask for extra horseradish to mix in my cocktail sauce and ate it till my nose ran.”

“Go get comfortable, then, and I’ll set everything out.”

I was already dressed fairly comfortably, but I was wearing jeans that would show if I got a Bear-boner… which was definitely going to happen since Lou didn’t seem to be joining us and since that kiss was still seared directly into my brain.

I detoured to my room and rifled through my clothes until I found the most shapeless full-coverage outfit I owned. The giant fleece onesie would not only be good for a cold autumn evening in Norway, but it would also cover up as much skin as humanly possible and hopefully keep Bear from discovering how often his inadvertent touches gave me goose bumps.

When I got to the dining table between the kitchen and gathering room, I noticed a platter in the center with several dishes of dips I didn’t recognize, surrounded by stacks of cut vegetables, meats, and breads.

“What is this?” I wondered.

Bear gestured for me to take a seat. “Did I ever tell you that horseradish is one of the primary condiments in Ventdestinian cuisine?”

I shook my head as I sat .

“Ventdestine is a hodgepodge country,” he explained. “Lots of French influence, a little German, and plenty of British—which makes sense, considering English is the most commonly spoken language there. But there’s also a huge Scandinavian influence, and horseradish is common there, just like it is here in Norway. I guess it grows well here.”

I took a cautious sniff in the direction of the platter. “Okay. So… we’re eating horseradish?”

“Yup. In Ventdestine, the royal family used to play a game called Hemmret Sovets… Secret Sauce, and I think it would be fun for us to play it, too… if you wanted?”

I could hear the words Bear wasn’t saying—that he was as desperate to get our relationship back to normal as I was—and that went a long way to dissolving my anger.

“Secret Sauce,” I repeated. It sounded sketchy but also intriguing. “Are you making this up?”

“Definitely not. The game started back when Asger’s father was king. A tabloid teased a story about a secret scandal involving an unnamed member of the royal family, which they’d reveal in the coming week’s issue. Asger’s father lost his royal mind. He called the whole family together—his own siblings, his wife, even little Asger himself, who was only eight at the time—and ranted at all of them, demanding to know what the scandal was so that the palace could get ahead of it.” Bear’s eyes twinkled. “Can you imagine what happened?”

I blinked, distracted by how gorgeous Bear was when he smiled. “Uh… no?”

“One of Asger’s sisters broke down and admitted she’d been engaged in a serious flirtation with a foreign prince who was already promised in marriage to someone else.”

“Oh. Wow. That’s kinda—” I began.

“And another of Asger’s siblings confessed that he’d fallen in love with a local schoolteacher—a commoner. ”

“Wait, what?” I frowned. “There were two scandals?”

“Annnnd — ” Bear grinned openly. “His other sister admitted she’d been writing some pretty well-received racy books under a pen name. And his cousin confessed that he’d been paying a kid to do his homework. And the queen admitted she was pregnant again?—”

“No way!”

“Yup. And little Asger himself admitted he’d adopted a stray cat and was keeping it hidden in the barn.”

Against my will, I laughed out loud. “So which was the real ‘secret scandal’?”

“Who knows? Eventually, all of them might have come to light since the truth has an annoying habit of doing that. But Asger’s father consulted the winds of fortune…” Bear rolled his eyes at this. “…and determined that the best way to deal with multiple potential scandals was to let them all blow free at once. The palace released five simultaneous statements, effectively overloading the Ventdestinian gossip networks. With so many salacious revelations to ponder, nobody got too excited about any one story… and soon, all the scandals were old news.”

“Oh my god.” I clapped a hand to my mouth. “Perfect.”

“It was pretty smart, actually,” Bear admitted. “But while that was an effective strategy for dealing with tabloids, privately, the family realized just how much they’d been keeping from one another, so they came up with a way to share their private truths while keeping them in the family. Hence… Secret Sauce. It’s kind of like Truth or Dare. Or maybe more like… Truth or Horseradish.”

I shook my head. “This might be the wildest thing you’ve ever told me about Ventdestine… and that’s saying something, given the story about the weaver and the possessed carpet. How do we play?”

Bear quickly explained the game. Each bowl on the table held a different sauce Lou had ordered from a local place—some mild, some that might make your sinuses weep—all of which had their labels hidden under the bowl .

We’d take turns asking each other questions, and if we answered truthfully, we got to choose which sauce we’d eat, with the only caveat being that you couldn’t choose the same sauce twice in a row.

If we avoided the question or lied, as judged by the other player, we had to eat a sauce of the other person’s choosing and had to answer a second question.

After explaining, Bear moved over to the fridge. “What drink do you want to go with it? I’m having water, but you can have beer or soda or?—”

“Beer,” I said quickly. I needed my shoulders to come down away from my ears, but I didn’t want to get drunk and say something stupid. Hopefully, beer would split the difference.

He brought our drinks to the table and sat down while I perused the sauces. A white sauce that looked like ranch dressing seemed safe. A violent red one looked like it might blow my head off, and I planned to avoid that one… at least until Bear tried it first so I could gauge his reaction.

“Okay,” Bear said. “Since you’re a newbie, you decide whether you’d rather ask or answer first.”

“Answer,” I said promptly. “Go ahead. Do your worst.”

He smiled softly. “Why do you have long hair? I noticed it was short in your old pictures.”

His question surprised me. I didn’t think anyone had ever asked me that. “My cousin Pearl had always cut my hair in high school, so it was military-short. But when I got to Yale, I didn’t have anyone to cut it, and I couldn’t fathom paying fifteen bucks for a quick-cut place, so it got shaggy. I couldn’t afford to go home for Thanksgiving or Christmas that first year, and by the time I got home the next summer, my hair was wild. But I liked it. Liked running my fingers through it when I studied. So I decided to keep it.”

“Good choice,” Bear said gruffly. He pointed at the platter of sauces. “Take your pick.”

I dunked a carrot stick in the white sauce and found that I’d been correct—the horseradish was mild and mixed with a lemon-and-dill flavor that was delicious.

I took a sip of beer to wash down the food while I tried to think of a question for Bear as he grabbed a pita triangle and waited.

“What’s the scariest situation you’ve ever been in?” I asked, choosing something related to his job.

He wrinkled his forehead. “Got stuck in an unexpected blizzard on a training run one time. I was alone overnight in dangerous temperatures. If I hadn’t read an article a few days before that mentioned winter survival gear, I wouldn’t have had a survival blanket in my pocket that day, and I might not have made it. I was so grateful I tracked down the guy who wrote the article and emailed him my thanks. Never done a run without one since.”

I’d never heard that story before, and I wanted to ask follow-up questions, but I figured that wasn’t part of the game. Instead, I nodded toward the sauces.

Bear dragged his pita through a thicker dip that was light green in color. His face remained impassive as he chewed, so I assumed the green one was safe also.

“My turn.” He gave me a teasing grin. “Who’s ‘Sugar Time Easy’ written about?”

That was easy. “Jude Marian.”

Bear’s eyebrows shot up. “No shit? Why don’t you ever tell people that? Everyone knows how much you love him.”

“We allowed to ask follow-up questions?” I teased. But I answered him anyway. “My relationship with music growing up was… it was like that winter survival blanket of yours. It saved my life. When I had Jude’s warm, easy voice in my ears…” I let out a breath. “I could relax for a little while. It made me happy. His voice is like butter.”

“And now you’ve opened for him and written a song with him, and you’re performing with him at the fundraiser in Berlin,” Bear said softly.

“I know. I still can’t fathom it. Can you imagine having the person you think is the coolest, kindest, most talented human on the planet actually know your name and consider you kind of a… a friend? It’s crazy.”

“Yeah.” Bear’s smile warmed a fraction. “It’s crazy alright.” Before I could ask what he meant by that, he pushed the sauce platter toward me. “Go for it.”

I cautiously chose a dip that had an orangish tinge. This time, I wasn’t so lucky with the horseradish. Hot fire seared my mouth, and my eyes watered slightly.

Bear chuckled at my reaction. “Note to self: avoid the orange.”

I gulped the cold beer greedily, trying to wash off Satan’s own taint from my tongue, and narrowed my eyes. This time, I wasn’t going easy on him.

“Biggest crush?”

“Ooof.” He winced. “Uh… Jude Marian?”

He was clearly parroting my earlier answer, and the twinkle in his eye said he wasn’t even trying to hide it.

“Liar.” I tossed a carrot stick at him and pointed to the red sauce that looked like actual lava. “Dip deep, my friend. Dip deep.”

While Bear loaded sauce on the carrot stick, I thought of a second question. I had so many things I wanted to know that weren’t appropriate, like whether he was gay, and whether he’d liked our kiss, and why he wouldn’t answer about his crush.

Instead, as he put his penalty carrot in his mouth, I asked a bigger question. “If you could have any dream in the future, what would it be?”

Bear’s nostrils flared, and his eyes looked pained as they flashed to me. He made a big production out of chewing and swallowing before answering, and I mentally patted myself on the back for avoiding the red sauce myself. Clearly, it was awful .

“I, um…” Bear coughed slightly. “I have a lot of dreams. That’s a pretty broad question…”

“Are you hedging? What’s the penalty for hedging?” I demanded, pretending to reach for my phone. “Please give me King Gerhard’s phone number so I can call him and?—”

“Hush.” He put one large hand on mine, halting my movement… and the flow of oxygen to my lungs. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t answer. I just need to think about it.”

I raised one eyebrow but waited patiently with my hand still trapped under his while he grabbed a shrimp from the platter and chewed, probably hoping to cleanse the last of the fire sauce from his tongue.

“I… I always daydreamed about saving up to buy a piece of property somewhere like this. Not Norway,” he said quickly. “I mean a big open piece of land in a place where winter brings plenty of snow for playing outside. I’d like to open a winter sports camp. For kids.”

I blinked. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected him to say, but it hadn’t been that. “Tell me more.”

“You know I love biathlon. It set me on a good path and gave structure to my life at a time when I didn’t have any. But winter sports require some pretty extensive equipment—skis, rifles, clothing, shooting ranges, synthetic tracks… snow , which is really hard to come by in lots of places. I’d love to be able to give kids the opportunity to experience that, the way I did.” His eyes met mine before he quickly looked away. “I’m sure that sounds silly. The world has much larger problems to solve than winter sports?—”

“Actually…” I leaned forward. “I think that sounds amazing. Not everybody has gobs of money to throw at problems, Bear. I sure didn’t, for most of my life. I think figuring out how each of us can use our own skills and passions to make the world a better, more equitable place is… maybe the best and most important idea I’ve ever heard.”

He exhaled softly, tension bleeding from his shoulders. “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah.” I nodded, only noticing at the last minute just how close our faces had gotten.

This was not getting us back on track.

I pulled back slightly. “Uh. Good job with the… with the ho nesty.” I waved a hand at the dips. “May the odds be ever in your favor.”

“Right. Yeah.” To my surprise, Bear dunked another pita triangle in the lava sauce and popped it in his mouth like a champ. Because I was hyperaware of him, I noticed his hairline had begun to dampen with sweat, but I couldn’t tell if that was from the dip or the temperature in the room… or because of our proximity and our questions.

I was overly warm, too, for all the same reasons.

And I only got warmer when Bear tilted his head and said, “My turn to ask. You and your brotherhood… What secret are the five of you hiding?”

Shit . It wasn’t that I didn’t want to answer—I trusted Ryan Galloway implicitly—but my brothers and I had a rule. No one outside of our friend group was to know about our billion-dollar windfall, except for Kenji and our life partners. Revealing the truth for one of us would reveal it for all of us, and it wasn’t my place to do that.

I sighed. “Dip me.”

Bear laughed like he hadn’t expected any different and loaded up another pita with a huge gob of orange dip.

“Oh, god. The first dunk of that one almost killed me. I’m definitely going to die now. Remember me fondly,” I said as I put the bite in my mouth.

Bear snorted. “Baby.”

He said the word as a tease. Obviously. He was saying Zane, you’re acting like an infant. I understood that. But hearing the word on his lips had me imagining all kinds of other ways he could say it, and that made me suck in a gasp at the same moment the horseradish hit my tongue.

I stared at him as I began to choke. The dip clung to my throat like an abusive esophageal koala.

Way to get things back on track , I warned myself.

“Shit,” Bear said. “Here. Take a sip of your beer. Good. Now, breathe… there you go. ”

Once I regained my equanimity several sips later—though I could still feel the dip leaving fiery traces down the inside of my chest—Bear sat back, folded his arms in front of him, and stroked his lower lip with his thumb.

“Wow. That was unexpectedly dramatic. Now I’m a little hesitant to ask my next question.”

“I’m fine,” I assured him in a croak.

His lips twitched up in a smile. “Of course you are. Okay, then, Mr. Fine, tell me why, aside from adding onto your gran’s house, you haven’t showered your family in lavish gifts. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think you should,” he added quickly. “Not at all. But knowing how generous you are and how hard it is for you to say no to them, it’s surprising that your aunt still drives an old minivan and your cousin doesn’t simply ask you for money outright rather than asking you to invest in his businesses.”

I watched Bear steadily for a moment. The answer to this question was actually related to the last, though Bear couldn’t possibly know that. I wasn’t sure what the penalty was for dodging two questions in a row, though, and I wasn’t sure my digestive system could handle it. More than that, I found I wanted to tell Bear. I wanted him to understand.

“When I first… got money,” I said carefully, “I planned to share it with my family, exactly like you said. But someone else I knew—another Yalie—had a… a sort of similar experience to me. He came into a lot of money all at once, also. And he bought his brother a sports car.” I remembered Dev’s pride in being able to take care of his little brother that way. “Unfortunately, my friend’s brother was a reckless, irresponsible idiot. Not unlike my cousin JK.”

Bear winced. “Didn’t go well?”

“Went tragically,” I corrected. “He crashed the car and died instantly.”

“Fuck,” Bear said softly.

I nodded. “My friend’s parents blamed him and his money for his brother’s death. So I decided instead of giving away cash and fancy cars, I wanted to give my family opportunities to make something of their own. I wanted to truly help them rather than throw cash at them.”

Bear shook his head. “Smart. I like that, Z.”

I sucked in a breath and girded my loins, trying not to enjoy the way that nickname sounded coming from him. Unlike the earlier baby , I knew this one was meant exactly the way I heard it, and that warmed me all the way through even more than the horseradish had. It was the first time Z had ever sounded like a shortened version of my own name instead of a reference to someone completely separate, my rock star alter ego.

I took another gulp of the beer and set the empty bottle down. “Your turn again.”

“Hang on.” Bear moved to the fridge to get me another drink.

I noticed he’d decided to join me by bringing one back to the table for himself, too. I didn’t make a comment about it, but secretly, I was happy to see him take advantage of the extra security outside to relax a little.

“Okay,” he said as he resumed his seat. “Go.”

I bit my lip, thinking. As I considered, Bear studied the bowls of dip, clearly trying to determine heat level by sight like I’d done earlier. It seemed like on his next turn he was planning to take a chance on a dip neither of us had tried before that looked to be made out of chopped-up mangoes, slivers of almonds, and mayonnaise. I nearly laughed out loud. I hoped for his sake none of those things had been combined with horseradish.

Sometimes in quiet moments like this, when Bear wasn’t doing anything particularly amazing—not growling at someone to back off, or comforting me in the middle of the night, or even kissing me senseless up against a tree, but just being his own, sweet, intelligent self—the overwhelming like I felt for him swamped me.

How freaking great was he, just as a person? How freaking lucky was I, that I got to have him in my life?

I wasn’t sure if some part of what I was feeling showed on my face, but I decided it didn’t matter. I cared about him and appreciated him, and I hoped that showed.

Which was why when he looked at me expectantly, I found myself asking something I hadn’t intended to ask. Something that was more about me and the trust I felt for him than anything else.

“If you suddenly had a billion dollars, would you tell anyone?”