Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

OLLIE

Insulting bullshit .

That's what it is. There are no other words to describe what my parents just did.

I'm twenty-seven fucking years old and they actually thought they could forbid me from going out. From getting a job. From finding a way to get out of this suffocating hold they have on me.

I've given them too many passes.

It couldn't have been easy, watching me lose control over my life for so many years. I bet they were terrified from the second the doctor diagnosed me when I was five. It must've been scary as fuck, having to go every day to the hospital because that's where I lived for months on end. It was the only way to ensure they could keep me alive.

So yeah, I understand why they've been overprotective.

To a point.

I gave them free passes for every time they wouldn't let me go to the movies without them, for every time Dad accompanied me to the bathroom on the rare occasions we went out to eat at a restaurant.

I gave them a pass when they wouldn't leave me alone at night. There always had to be someone with me.

Every second of every day. Never alone.

Not even to shower, sometimes.

I gave them a pass when they wouldn't let me watch anything online in case there were any flashing lights.

I got that it all came from a good place, from a place of wanting me to be alive to grow up.

But I've been doing a lot fucking better for four years now, and now that I'm asking them to let me grow up—which is what all that work was for—they won't let me.

They took my bike for fuck's sake.

Because it's not my bike .

Because I have nothing of my own.

I keep my hand held out with my thumb up, trying to get someone to pull over and give me a ride to... wherever they're going.

Anywhere is better than the small, idyllic town where everyone knows my parents and everyone has had a lecture on how to treat me. What food and drinks to serve me. What techniques to use if I have a seizure on the sidewalk.

Not one car pulls over, because of course they don't.

It doesn't matter.

If I have to walk the ten miles to the next gas station, then I will. I've accepted that if I want anything in my life to change, then I'm the one who has to get up and do it.

So even though I'm hitchhiking next to a four-lane highway, I feel better than I did for the past year being safe at home.

My parents let me walk out the door because I didn't give them a choice, and because they had no idea that the second they refused to let me ride downtown to look for a job at the most popular café, I decided I was moving out and never moving back in.

It would've been smarter to get a bus ticket, I know that, but now I'm committed. Besides, there's absolutely no better highway to do this on than this one. From Carmel-by-the-Sea south to LA, there are no better views in the country than the endless Pacific.

The time it will take me to get somewhere will pass fast enough, I know that. It will also be good thinking time. I have a lot of things to figure out, like...

What am I going to do for a job?

I was planning to be a barista and save everything I earned—yes, I know I'm very privileged and that my parents have given me everything except, you know, freedom—to eventually have enough for a down payment on a rental. I'd get a roommate and make some friends.

Well, the plan hasn't changed, except that finding somewhere to live is going to be a problem now since I'm heading toward one of the most expensive cities in the world and only have three-hundred dollars on me—I packed all the money I could find around the house in my hurry to get the hell out of there.

Suddenly, a car crosses two lanes at once with another big black SUV behind it and they park on the shoulder of the highway about a hundred feet in front of me. I don't know what inside me decides that of course they stopped for me, but I start to jog toward them in any case.

A guy steps out of the first car, a white SUV, and when I'm fifty feet away I recognize him so I quicken my steps.

Hawk Storm grew up in the house right next to my parents'. He and his brother were always great friends to me, and the day they stopped coming over to Carmel and moved to LA to start their careers, we lost touch. I've seen them around a dozen times since, less since their mother passed, but it's always a friendly enough interaction. I know that if I can explain the situation to Hawk, he'll help me. And he can get me to LA. That's all I need right now.

"Hawk?" I ask, just to make sure, when I'm only a few feet away. A big guy walks up next to him. He looks like a bull. Damn.

Then another man gets out of the black SUV. He looks like a bodyguard, is dressed like a bodyguard, acts like a bodyguard, so he probably is one.

"Hey, Ollie. What the hell are you doing?" Hawk asks, gruffer than I've ever heard him. He grabs my shoulders and looks me up and down like he's looking for injuries.

"I'm fine," I snap, unable to help it. He steps back, eyes wide, clearly surprised. That's to be expected, I guess, since I don't think I've ever snapped at anyone before today. "I'm twenty-seven years old for fuck's sake! I can take care of myself. I know how. I'm not reckless with my health."

"Uhhh." He clearly has no idea what to say to my rant, and I don't blame him. He turns and looks at both men behind him. Both are looking anywhere but at us. Then he turns back to me and sets his jaw, ready to handle me. "I didn't say you don't know how to take care of yourself, Ollie. I just asked why you're on the side of the highway?" He squeaks out the question and would disarm me completely any other day, but today, I've had enough.

"Because I'm fucking leaving!" I scream. I'm very aware of how hysterical I'm acting, but I can't seem to stop. "And my parents didn't want me to, so they didn't even let me take my bike. Which is theirs, because I can't pay for my own. Because I never went to college, never got a job. I'm a twenty-seven-year-old loser who has nothing of his own and I'm sick of it!"

"Okay." Hawk raises both palms in surrender. "Okay, I get the picture. But where are you going?"

"Anywhere." I tilt my chin up defiantly.

"You wanna come to LA with us? You can stay at my place as long as you need. I'll help you find a job."

I'm speechless for a long moment. "Really?" I ask excitedly, when I can speak again.

"Yeah, man. You gotta call your parents and tell them you're safe though," he says, frowning.

"No problem. I'll text them. I don't want to call them." I agree quickly.

"That's fine. Come on," he says, and the bodyguard grumbles something about strangers getting into cars, but Hawk doesn't pay him any mind, so I don't either. Instead, I let him lead me to the back passenger door and climb in when he opens it for me.

The bull of a man gets in too and starts the car without saying a word, and it's not until we're back in the left middle lane of the highway that he speaks.

"Uh, hi. I'm Derek."

"Oh yeah," Hawk says before I can answer. "Ollie, this is Derek Johnson, my boyfriend and best friend. I got two for one." He turns in his seat and winks cheekily at me, making me relax even further now that I have a plan of action that goes beyond walk . "Dee, this is Oliver Lloyd. He's lived all his life in the house next to Mom's."

"Nice to meet you, Derek." I make a pointed effort to speak at a normal volume and speed despite the adrenaline coursing through my veins because oh my God, this is really happening.

"Same to you. So, uh, what kind of work do you want to do?" Derek asks me.

I let out a huge, put-out sigh from the back and see how Hawk bites his lip. Probably to keep himself from laughing at me. I am kind of a joke, I know, but they're offering help, and Hawk's bull of a boyfriend asked, so I answer with all I know. "I don't know. I know a little bit about a lot of things, you know? I like learning. I always wanted to go to college, but there was no way I could because I had a bad year in my senior year of high school."

"What do you mean, bad?" Hawk asks, sounding worried.

I answer only after another big sigh, it's always the fucking worry with people. "The damn hormones were fucking up my brain even more and I had seizures every other day. Right, Derek wouldn't know. I have epilepsy. A mild one if you compare it to the worst cases. But flashing lights, certain films and stuff can make me have a seizure and it's not pretty at all. So it got really bad when I was eighteen and going through the most delayed puberty to ever delay, and my parents kinda went crazy. I mean, I had a car accident because of a seizure, and was in the hospital on and off 'till I was twenty. So, yeah, I get it. But I'm so much better now, and I know when one is coming and can prepare so I don't fall on my face. It's been seven years, and I just wanna move on with my life. Make a life, you know?"

"Hmm." Derek hums, and I don't know how to interpret that. He's kind of a stone-faced dude. "I bet it's been hard. Are you always this impulsive?"

Seriously taken aback by his harsh and straightforward question, I resist raising a palm to my chest. "No, I'm not. I?—"

"Are you organized?" Derek interrupts before I can go off on another tangent.

"Ooh yeah, I'm Marie Kondo level of organized. I—" He cuts me off again . Man, that's annoying.

"Good with computers?"

"Sure, like any millennial, I suppose." My answer comes as fast as Derek's questions.

"How would you feel about being my assistant?"

The question shocks me to the core. The dude just met me like three seconds ago and he's offering me a job ?!

"Hey!" Hawk snaps at his boyfriend and half-heartedly slaps his shoulder before I can come up with anything to say. "If he's gonna be anyone's assistant, it'll be mine. I've known him almost all my life."

"He has epilepsy," Derek says in a deadpan tone without taking his eyes away from the road. "He can't go to your shows with all the stupid flashing lights and everything."

"He can be my assistant and not see the shows," Hawk grumbles, and the amusement warring inside me with shock and offense at being talked about like I'm not here, wins.

"Well, I call dibs." Derek straightens in his seat and juts his chin out, just like I did a few minutes ago. Okay, so I might have one thing in common with the bull—who's probably a football player, though I wouldn't know because my parents never let me try and watch a game—but that doesn't mean I would make a good assistant for him. Or for anyone...

"Uh, do I get a say?" I decide to pipe up before they can keep discussing my employment situation without any input from me.

"No," they say in unison, Derek's gaze still unwavering from the road and Hawk staring daggers at the side of his boyfriend's face.

My mouth hangs open for a long second at their outright refusal, before they both seem to realize what they just said.

"I mean, of course you do," Derek corrects, at the same time as Hawk.

"Sorry, yes you do."

I can't help but snort. These two are kind of dorks. I mean, I knew Hawk was secretly a dork, no matter how cool he looks on stage or on those fancy photo shoots he and his brother do, but the bull being a dork, that's surprising. "I'll think about it. Let me just text my parents before this goes any further."

"Yes." I smile when I hear Derek whisper while I take my phone out and craft a simple, detached, informative text to my parents. "He's mine." I raise my eyes to see him preening a bit, and I can't say it doesn't feel nice to be wanted. Even though it's very clearly only for a job, no one's ever fought over me like this. Then he glares at Hawk in a mock-threatening way that makes my heart melt with tenderness and envy.

"You're going down, Johnson."

"We'll see about that, Storm."

These two are fucking goals , and even though it might make me feel the most single a virgin can ever feel, I can't wait to work for them.

And that's how I decide.

I'll be both their assistants, even though I have no idea what assistants do . I can learn.

I will learn, and I'll be the best assistant I can possibly be.

I'll get my shit together, find a place to live, maybe I'll even make new friends.

So, as I write and send the message, I feel in my gut that my life will never be the same ever again.

Ollie

I'm moving to LA with Hawk Storm. I don't really want to talk to you, so please don't call me.

I'm safe and I have my pills. Everything will be okay.

The last bit is more for me than for them, but I send it like that anyway. It can't hurt for them to have that extra bit of assurance, right?