Chapter 3

THREE

ZANE

Bears usually mind their business, but they can become dangerous if provoked. Sudden, loud noises and those who encroach on their dens or their food can trigger a defensive reaction. The best way to avoid danger is to keep your mouth shut… and stay away from their honey!

—Bear Facts for Insomniacs, Episode 23

Landry did what he always did when trying to cheer me up. He reenacted the most ridiculous hookups he’d ever had on his modeling circuit, including full-body shudders, full-volume moaning and shrieking, and full-of-shit exaggeration.

“Then, the guy was like, ‘God, mooooore ,’” he groaned, loud enough for people in Alabama to hear. “‘Suck me harder! I can’t get enough.’”

“Sure he was.” I rolled my eyes and threw myself down on the side of the bed where he wasn’t currently bouncing. “Quit. You’re fucking up my sheets.” I tried to smooth the bedding back to some semblance of normal.

Usually I found Landry’s antics amusing as hell, but today, I was struggling. Between the stamp incident and the memory of Bear’s hands on my skin in the bathroom, my system didn’t know whether to be terrified or thrilled.

Landry scoffed. “Stop being a princess. Nobody needs their bedding pristine. Besides, I love fucking with your bodyguard.”

“B— Ryan’s not homophobic,” I told Landry for the millionth time.

It was getting harder to hold back from using Bear’s nickname in front of my friends, but I knew Landry, in particular, would tease me forever if he suspected how out-of-control-huge my crush on my bodyguard had gotten.

“Ryan wouldn’t clutch his pearls at the two of us having sex,” I went on. “Hell, he probably wouldn’t even notice, unless he thought I was in some kind of mortal danger.” This glum thought did nothing to help my mood. “And you shouldn’t make assumptions about people’s sexuality. We don’t know that he’s straight, do we?”

I liked to pretend he wasn’t anyway, but Landry’s assumption was probably right.

I’d never once heard Bear refer to his own love life, and the only clue I’d ever gotten was a Ventdestinian royal gossip blog post speculating about him and a woman in the royal public relations department several years ago.

“I’m not assuming Ryan’s straight or homophobic. But he’s definitely not happy at the idea of us having sex.” Landry grinned mischievously, but before I could ask him to explain himself, he went on. “Wonder how he could have survived living in a backwoods place like Ventdestine all those years if he’s not straight, though. You know you’re not allowed to be gay there? It’s like this little island in the North Sea that time forgot, and they’re all still living like it’s the Middle Ages. But, like, with internet.” He crossed one slender ankle over his knee and bounced his foot in the air .

“Surely, he wouldn’t have taken the job there if he was gay, though, right?”

Landry shrugged. “The way it all went down, maybe he didn’t feel like he had much choice.”

He had a point. A dozen or so years ago, Bear had made international news when he’d tackled one of his competitors in the middle of his Olympic biathlon competition. When the videos were replayed, it became clear that the man he’d taken down had been aiming into the VIP stands, where the king of Ventdestine was sitting to watch the event.

King Salling had been overwhelmed with gratitude. According to the internet, he’d made a speech saying, “The winds whispered fortune to us this day and have called Ryan Galloway to be a true protector of Ventdestine!” He’d then defied hundreds of years of tradition by offering a coveted spot in his royal guard to a foreigner.

I think for Bear, the choice to take the job had been less about fate and more about opportunity. He’d explained the difference between the annual pay for the head of security at the ski resort where he’d worked in Montana and the amount he made as a royal guard.

“The money was too good,” I suggested.

“Understandable. I met a guy in Colorado once who said the ski resorts pay for shit, and I can’t imagine there’s a market for professional biathletes.”

Landry was right. But that put us right back into speculating about Bear’s sexuality without any actual information, a situation I’d been in for a full year already. More thinking on this topic would only drive me nuts.

I sighed, and Landry frowned as he levered himself up onto his elbows in the bed.

“You’re upset tonight. Gonna tell me what’s up, baby cakes?”

I thought about the spot on my shoulder, the faded target now hidden under what could only be described as a logo for a solar-powered anger management program. I found I didn’t want to tell Landry about it. Though there wasn’t much non-Bear stuff I didn’t share with my brotherhood, I knew if I told Landry about the targets, he’d quickly tell the others. They’d drop their modeling contracts and their business consulting plans, their charity work and their horse breeding programs—all the things they loved—to come to my aid.

They’d worry .

And there was no need for it. Not when we didn’t know whether the stamps were really a threat. Not when I already had Bear keeping me safe.

“Stressed about going home,” I said, because that was also kind of true.

Landry’s perfect forehead creased in confusion. “You love going to Barlo and seeing your gran.”

I shrugged and turned to face him, punching the pillow under my head until it was more comfortable. “I do. But it’s different now. When I go back, everyone wants to see me, which is great. I love seeing everyone. But it’s also…”

Hard to put into words.

“High pressure?” he suggested. When I nodded, he peered at me. “You know you can say no to things, right? You don’t have to visit everyone’s store downtown just because they ask you to.”

“I know. But it brings in a ton of extra business when I do. Shop owners like to take photos and put them up and, like, post on social media and stuff. It makes a huge difference to their bottom line.”

Landry reached out and straightened a lock of my hair. He was so careful about his own look it sometimes drove him nuts that I didn’t give a shit about mine. “You’re not responsible for the whole world, Zane. I know it feels like that sometimes, but it’s okay to simply go home to visit Gran and hide away at her place. You’re allowed to have privacy, you know.”

“It’s not that big a deal. I’m just… tired. I’m sure I’ll rally in the morning.”

He tugged the strand of hair he’d straightened. “You could always take Gran somewhere else. Get away from all the expectations on you when you go back to Barlo.”

I laughed. “Like where? She hates to leave town, and she loves to show me off at home.”

Landry grinned. “She’s one proud granny. Her sweet baby boy is a Yale graduate and ‘a big fancy star like if Travis Tritt and Elvis Presley had a baby,’” he teased, using an exaggerated old-lady Southern accent.

“You suck at accents,” I said with a laugh. “You can’t even do a proper English one right, and your dad’s British. Which part of England are you from, again?”

He made a noncommittal noise. “You wouldn’t have heard of it.”

Landry didn’t talk much about his childhood in England, and I figured it was because he was embarrassed to have grown up poor. I understood this better than anyone—I didn’t much like talking about my early years, either.

Dev, Landry, and I had all gotten a free ride to Yale, but Dev at least had enjoyed a fairly middle-class stability. I, on the other hand, had grown up entirely dependent on government assistance. I’d been the kind of poor that meant special paperwork each year to get free lunch, help with internet access and computers so I could do my homework, and furtive trips to the “clothes closet” behind the teacher’s lounge at school to shop from my classmates’ old cast-offs.

Landry had shown up our first year wearing thrift-store clothes and using the same kind of laptop I’d gotten through the school store with my scholarship computer allowance. Like me, he hadn’t gone home over the breaks, which made sense given the cost of flying back to England. And though we never discussed it outright, I’d always had a soft spot for Landry because of this. I assumed it was one of the reasons he seemed to look out for me, too.

Landry flopped back on the bed again with his hands on his chest. “My point is, you need a place of your own. Not your house in Malibu,” he added before I could remind him of that very thing. “ That’s nothing but a high-priced crash pad for when you’re recording in LA, and you know it.”

“I’m buying a place in Majestic,” I reminded him. When our friend Silas had settled down with his rancher hubby in the weird, wonderful Wyoming town, the rest of our brotherhood followed. “I showed you the pictures. Now I just need to make a final decision and put in the paperwork.”

I had to admit, I’d been dithering about it. There was a ginormous spread available just down the road from Silas’s place, but I’d need to build a house there, and what would I do with all that space? I loved it, but it felt like a big responsibility. I was leaning toward a brand-new modern build a little farther from town, which was tiny but high-end and better suited to a life spent mostly on the road.

“That’s great, Zane. But I wasn’t talking about that… necessarily.” Landry’s eyes took on a faraway look as he stared at the ceiling. “I’m talking about a place that… that calls to you. A place that’s yours . A place that makes you smile when you think of it because it feels good, and happy, and safe. A place that anchors you when you’ve been traveling around so much you start to forget who you are and where you belong. A place where you… where you bring the people who matter.”

I gaped at him. That was the most genuine, un-Landry-like thing I’d ever heard him say… and it made me wonder how much more I didn’t know about this man I considered a brother. “Do you have a place like that?”

“Hmm?” Landry blinked like he was coming out of a daze, and when he turned his head to look at me, the mischievous twinkle was back in his eyes. “Oh, of course. Several. And I have loads of good times in each of them.” He raised his voice in a loud, protracted, keening moan. “ So . Fucking . Goooood . Baby! ”

Snickering, I slapped his arm lightly. “You’re an ass.”

“Thousands of men have said so,” he agreed. He turned on his side to face me, squashing the pillow between his arm and his head. “ So. What are you looking forward to when we get to Barlo tomorrow?” he asked with a fond smile.

Even though Landry didn’t know about the targets, he knew something had been bugging me lately. He’d even made a point of sleeping over in my hotel room whenever he joined me in tour cities. It was a kind gesture—a thoughtful, caring side of Landry he didn’t show many people—and I loved him for it.

I yawned. “The usual. Gran’s cooking and Aunt Rinny’s teasing. I love that they still treat me like my old self no matter what they read about me on the internet. The two of them… well, they’ve been amazing.”

The truth was, I looked forward to pretending, if only for two days, that I wasn’t Zee Barlo anymore. That I was simply plain Zane Hendley—no one interesting enough to scream at, reach for, or sneak stamps onto. No one who owed anyone anything or had commitments to hundreds of thousands of people across the globe for months on end. Someone who could dare to ask his crush out on a date, just to see where things went, without it turning into a feature of viral social media posts or causing conflicts with someone’s job.

I let out another loud yawn.

“Go on, then,” Landry said, breaking me out of my thoughts. He waved a hand toward my phone. “Do your thing, boo.”

I blinked at him sleepily. “My thing?”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re clearly exhausted and ready for bed, so turn on that podcast you listen to every night, and let’s sleep.”

“It’s not every night.” I cradled my phone to my chest a bit defensively. “It’s just… sometimes.”

“ Mmhm . That’s what you say every time I stay over,” Landry agreed. “Then you toss and turn until you think I’m asleep and finally turn it on. Tonight, let’s cut to the chase.” He rolled off the bed just long enough to strip the covers back and crawl beneath them and motioned for me to do the same. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t understand the appeal at all . What’s relaxing about learning that mindless, ferocious, territorial predators lurk in the woods around us waiting to attack?” He gave a mock shudder. “But we all have our strange comforts. Who am I to deny you yours?”

I plugged my phone into the charger on the nightstand and cued up the newest Bear Facts for Insomniacs episode, then curled back under the blankets. “You’re wrong, you know,” I said with a yawn. “Bears aren’t mindless—they’re scary-intelligent. They have the biggest relative brain size of any mammal. They know which creatures are their friends and which are their potential enemies, and their priority is protecting their territory. They only attack if they feel provoked.”

“Well, good.” Landry turned off his lamp with a satisfied huff. “One less thing to worry about. I can’t recall provoking any bears lately.”

I laughed sleepily. The man had no idea.

As I drifted off to the sounds of the podcast, though, I thought over Landry’s advice to find a place that was mine… and about bears and their territories. Where was my place, my territory? Where did I feel safest and happiest? I wasn’t sure it was Barlo anymore, though I loved the town and the people and always would. Was it in Majestic, where most of my brothers had made their homes? Maybe. Or maybe it was a place I hadn’t seen yet. A place I needed to keep looking for.

Maybe once I found it, I wouldn’t need podcasts to sleep.

I fell into slumber thinking about bears—specifically my Bear—curled up in a warm, cozy bed…

So it was a real shock when, a little while later, I found myself on the Scream Machine at Six Flags. The ancient wooden roller coaster squeaked and shuddered as the car I was on careened out of control. People crowded into the car with me, screaming and laughing maniacally. I kept dropping my phone over the side and leaning precariously over other people to reach for it. Someone’s large hand always grabbed the back of my shirt to pull me back at the last minute, just as we fell into a large drop.

As soon as we began going up the next incline, I felt the familiar press of a rubber ink stamp against the back of my neck and a huff of laughter.

“This is fun, isn’t it?” a stranger’s voice asked. “This is fun. Isn’t. It.” The voice repeated the question over and over with increasing anger.

I looked around for Bear in hopes he would get me out of here, get me off the ride, or somehow tell me this was all a bad dream, but I couldn’t make my voice call out for him.

I kept opening my mouth to scream his name, but it wouldn’t come.

Bear. Bear . Bear!

I tried to climb out of the roller-coaster car the next time it dipped down, but someone tried to wrestle me away from the edge again.

Bear! Why couldn’t I say his name? If he knew I was stuck here, he’d get me off this ride. Where was he? Why wasn’t he watching me?

And why the fuck wasn’t my voice working? If my voice wasn’t working, what did that mean for my tour? My career? All of the people counting on me to do my job?

When I finally woke up from my stress dream, I realized my voice worked just fine. And it was screaming loud enough to wake the dead.