2. Two

"Sorry, slick. Looks like you pulled the short straw."

I scowled at Xion as he slid the folder containing my new assignment across Boone's desk. Xion was a full foot shorter than me and small enough I could pick him up and throw him like a javelin if I wanted. Believe me, I wanted to half the time. The kid was a right git who loved to get under my skin just for the fun of it. There was a chance he might grow out of it since he was only twenty, but I doubted it.

Unfortunately, assaulting my boss's husband was out of the question. Boone had earned my respect, and with it, my unwavering loyalty, except when it came to his choice of spouses.

Boone ran his hand through his thick red beard and finished filling two coffee mugs. If Xion was short, Boone was shorter, but everyone was short compared to me. The world wasn't built for men my height. What Boone lacked in height, he made up for in confidence. It didn't take a big man to fire a big gun, and I'd seen Boone snipe pinprick targets half a mile away .

"Be nice, Pup." Boone brought the mugs over and practically dumped Xion out of his chair. "Don't go antagonizin' the employees. Especially when they're bigger than you. Sorry about that, Church."

Boone placed one mug in front of me and I frowned. After three years, he'd finally remembered that I took tea instead of coffee, but like most Americans, he had no bloody idea how to make a proper cuppa. He'd delivered it with no saucer, no milk, no biscuit. The worst part? The water was tepid, and the tea bag on the side. Might as well have brought me a cup of mud. No wonder the Americans threw all their tea in the harbor. They were confused about how to prepare it.

I moved the tea aside, irritated when I saw the cup had left a damp ring behind on top of the folder. "Rangar is next in the rotation to take a job, not me."

"That may be, but…" Boone paused to take a swallow of his coffee before continuing. "Ragnar's not a good fit for the job, and Bowie just got back from that job in Oklahoma. With Happy still MIA, you're next on the list."

I made a sour face at the mention of our missing member. Happy wasn't MIA. He was hiding, and if he was smart, he'd stay hidden. On our most recent job, he'd disappeared just before things had gone sideways and our enemy suddenly had information they shouldn't have about us. Leo, our tech expert, said they could've gotten that info by hacking our computers, but I didn't buy it. Happy had sold us out, and if I ever saw him again, I'd put a bullet in his bald head.

"Sucks to be you. This one's a doozy." Xion commented with a grin, leaning on the back of Boone's chair.

I sighed and flipped open the folder, perusing its contents. The majority of our work came from escort jobs—guarding valuable cargo from point A to point B—or bodyguard work. Neither was particularly exciting, but such jobs were the bread and butter of every private security firm.

I knew it was a bodyguard gig before I even opened the folder. Boone liked to give those jobs to me because I looked intimidating. Despite all that, or maybe because of it, I detested being a glorified babysitter for the rich and famous.

The face staring back at me was one I knew well because it'd been plastered all over tabloids, entertainment news, and even a few commercials. The lead singer of some pop rock band. He certainly looked the sort to draw trouble with his knowing smirk, his long dirty blonde hair, and…Huh. He had eyes the color of the sea, a stormy sort of blue green. I hadn't known that about him since he was always wearing sunglasses in the tabloid pictures. Looking into them now sent a pang of homesickness through me for some reason.

"Dante Deluca," Boone announced. "And if you don't know that name, you've been living under two rocks. Singer-songwriter for After Atom and the record label's number one problem child, apparently. The kid's a superstar and a Cinderella story wrapped up in one, and you know how the entertainment industry loves a story. The only thing the media loves more than a meteoric rise is a catastrophic fall, and this kid is flirting with disaster."

I lowered the folder. "Since when did superstars hire us? Don't they normally work with the big agencies out west?"

Boone nodded. "They do, but the job's not out west. They want everything done on the down-low, and that means working with a small-time security firm like The Junkyard Dogs. It also means they're flying the kid out here tonight. You're to retrieve him from the airport and take him to some vacation rental up in the Hocking Hills. They're sending him out here to sober him up before the band's world tour. Kid's been partying too hard. "

"Which is why you're such a good fit," Xion said with a big smile. "You wouldn't know fun if it pulled your hair and kicked you in the balls."

"I know how to have fun," I grumbled, flipping through the file. "For example, I think it'd be quite fun to give you a kick to the balls so hard Boone will have to retrieve them from your throat for you."

"None of that, now. I like Xion's balls right where they are." Boone reached back to clasp Xion's hand, and I thought I might be sick. There was nothing more vomit inducing than a couple of newlyweds eye fucking each other except knowing they'd be fucking each other on the desk the moment I stepped out of the room.

I flipped the folder closed. "So my job is to keep the little wanker clean and sober for thirty days. Shouldn't be too difficult."

"No booze, no drugs, no hookers, and no parties," Boone said, counting on his fingers. "And no leaving the cabin. You'll get a supply drop once a week, but you can call if you need something sooner. Can't have him getting spotted by the locals. If shit goes sideways and paparazzi does show up, you're to confiscate their recording devices and destroy any evidence he was ever there."

"I'm not an addiction counselor, Boone," I said with a sigh.

"Kid's been medically cleared," Boone continued as if he hadn't heard me. "He's just spent seventy-two hours in a tin can under medical supervision. Apparently, they got this fancy new rapid detox program where they knock you out and pump you full of fluids and special detox drugs that let you miss out on all the fun muscle tremors, sweats, and pain. Wild, huh?"

I shook my head. "How's he supposed to learn there are consequences for his actions if he gets to avoid the consequences?"

"Not our department. "

"I don't care what they pumped into his veins. Three days is not long enough to get everything out of his system," I pointed out.

"Apparently, the corporate assholes are more worried about his image than his health, but just in case, I had them fax Wattson his medical records. Wattson says he's out of the woods. On the off chance you do have a medical emergency, Wattson will be on call. The manager was very clear about no hospitals. I don't think you'll need to worry about any of that, though. I was told he was a bit of a handful, but not like that. I'm sure he's nothing you can't handle."

I agreed. Dante Deluca was five nine and maybe nine and a half stone. If he gave me any trouble, I could just pick him up and carry him to his room and sit in front of the door like I would with an unruly child. I hadn't met a man I couldn't best in a fair fight yet, and Dante didn't look like much of a scrapper to me.

"His plane lands at eighteen hundred hours and you'll need to be on the tarmac to pick him up," Boone said. "Everything else is in the file. Any more questions?"

"No questions, sir."

"Good," Boone said with a nod. "You're dismissed."

I stood, folder in hand. "Just one more thing, if I may?"

Boone shrugged. "You know you can always speak freely in here, Church."

I turned to Xion, narrowing my eyes. "Don't ever call me slick again, mate ."

Xion snickered as I walked away.

Outside, the sun was shining on our little heaven of garbage and rust. The rotting carcasses of once-proud cars and appliances piled high in every direction as far as the eye could see.

Except for one, and that was the direction I was headed in. Situated at the center of the junkyard and circled like a wagon train were several doublewide trailers, one of which I called home. It wasn't my idea, but when Boone brought the trailers in and gave them to each of his Junkyard Dogs free of charge, he'd been chuffed to bits. I never had the heart to tell him that I detested the thing. It was rickety, cramped, and always smelled like the curry Happy had spilled in my kitchen a year ago. No matter how hard I cleaned, I couldn't get that smell out.

I ducked through the doorway and went down the hall to my bedroom, where I had to duck again to get through the door. The ceilings in my trailer were only seven feet high, just three inches taller than me, so the doorways were too low. Yet another reason I hated the trailer.

If I'd had my way, I would've bought a nice log cabin out in the woods, a good hour away from the nearest city. That was still close enough that I could work while being far enough away to discourage visitors. I'd have a place with nice, high ceilings, strong wood walls and natural wood flooring, and maybe a cat or two for company. As it was, I couldn't keep cats either. Between Boone's dogs and my being away on missions too often, I just couldn't dedicate enough time to caring for an animal.

I hauled my old duffel bag out of the closet and started filling it with rolled up clothes from my dresser, alternating packing with a more in-depth read of Dante's file. As far as bodyguard gigs went, this one would be a breeze. It wasn't like when we got hired to guard someone in witness protection, or someone hiding from the mafia. Those jobs almost always got messy. As far as I could see, Dante didn't have any mafia connections and the bank statements Leo had pulled didn't show any signs of a gambling addiction or financial problems. He did blow a large chunk of his income on escort services. A disturbing amount of money, actually. And porn. A lot of porn .

A few recent magazine articles had been printed out and added to the file. The most recent one was an interview with that pushy twat on In Character , Joe Doe. Apparently, Dante had come out as bisexual, which created quite a stir. Enough that I wondered if that might be the real reason the label executives might be stashing him for thirty days. They could be waiting for the controversy to die down. Dante seemed like the sort to stoke the fires a bit.

I retrieved my first aid kit from under the bathroom sink. I wonder if the label executives knew they were hiring an all-queer security firm when they reached out to us? Probably not. It wasn't like we put it on all our business cards, but everyone at The Junkyard Dogs was some variety of queer. That's what had brought us all together. There was still a lot of homophobia and toxic masculinity in the military, and in many of the jobs we were qualified to do once we were discharged. Finding a place to work that would look past both my queerness and my PTSD to see my record had been hell. I didn't want to be a token, and I didn't want to be shown off like a trophy for being a damn war hero. I just wanted to work and live. Boone understood that. He was like a brother to me.

Not that I thought my sexuality would be a problem. Dante was far from my type. I didn't even like his music, and I certainly didn't like to party. We'd have nothing in common, Dante and I. In a way, that was a relief. Maybe he'd ignore me for thirty days and we could get through this without any trouble for once.

And maybe pigs would sprout wings and fly.

I packed everything I could think of into the back of my Tahoe, including my survival gear. Then I remembered there was a lake nearby and went back to get some poles and my tackle box .

When I returned, I found Bowie reclined against the side of my SUV, sharpening one of his knives. He had his snakeskin cowboy hat on crooked, as usual. "Goin' somewhere?" he said in his Texas drawl.

"Job," I replied in more of a grunt than speech.

"I ain't never seen you take a fishing pole on a job before." He tossed his knife in the air and caught it by the blade.

"It's a bodyguard job out in the middle of nowhere." I secured everything in the back with some straps to keep it from rolling around. "I'd rather be over-prepared than under."

Bowie tipped his hat back a little more and arched an eyebrow at me. "You know, in Ranger training, they dropped us off in the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on our back and instructions to be at the rendezvous point by X time on Y date. You missed your rendezvous, you were shit outta luck. I lasted eight days out in the Texas sun with nothing but my brains and this here knife. Ain't nobody need all that shit you got there."

"Need? Perhaps not. Want? That's a different matter entirely." I slammed the trunk shut. "I prefer to be comfortable when working."

Americans like Bowie were obscenely proud of their so-called grit. I didn't understand the point. The worth of a man couldn't be measured by strength alone. What about integrity, loyalty, and courage? What about good, hard work? The exercise he'd described would've been much more telling if he'd been tasked with the survival of his entire team, and not just himself.

But that was why I was Boone's second in command, not Bowie, though he'd assume my duties in my absence.

"Well, you have fun," Bowie said, pushing off my car with his hip. "I'm your contact, by the way, for when shit hits the fan. Oh, and the boss asked me to give you this." He tossed me an unmarked CD.

I frowned, turning it over. "What's this? "

"I do believe that's what the old people call a CD."

I scowled and nearly chucked it at his head. "I know what it's bloody called. What's on it?"

"Oh! Just a bunch of After Atom's songs." Bowie shrugged. "Boss said it might give you a better perspective on who you're dealing with. Help you get into Dante's mind, you know? Anyway, call me when you realize you're in over your head and I'll come to your rescue, princess."

"Bugger off, you wanker." Just in case he didn't get the message, I said it in American, too, with two middle fingers.

Bowie blew me a kiss and waved as he walked off.

He meant well, even if he was being a little shit, but that was just Bowie. He was a brat and seemed to revel in it. It was too bad he'd just finished a job because it'd be just desserts to pair him with someone like Dante. It'd be like putting two hedgehogs in a bag and shaking it.

No, Boone was right to assign me to Dante's case. The lad needed some discipline in his life, which I'd be more than happy to provide.

I double checked everything was in order and then got into the car, tossing the CD into the seat next to me. I frowned at it. My car didn't even have a CD player, so instead, I pulled After Atom's latest album up on the satellite radio.

My finger hovered over the play button and I hesitated, sweat forming on the back of my neck. My heart thundered in my ears. Come on, Church. It's just a bit of music. It's not going to kill you.

I swallowed, closed my eyes, and hit play, wincing at the first guitar rift screeching through the car. My stomach twisted and my skin prickled like someone had walked over my grave. I didn't even make it to the chorus before I had to reach over and shut it off.

In the silence, I slumped forward, resting my head against the steering wheel while sweat gathered on my forehead and my stomach roiled. Everything was hot and cold all at once, and the world wouldn't stop tilting this way and that. Familiar tightness gripped my chest. Not this again.

I pawed at the air conditioner, blasting my face with cold air until the throbbing in my temples stopped and my stomach settled. It took a good ten minutes to calm myself enough that I felt comfortable driving.

That was close. I hope I don't have to listen to that rubbish all month . I sighed and punched the address for the airport into my GPS. It didn't matter. Boone trusted me to do this job, and I wasn't going to let him down this time, certainly not over a weird reaction to music. I could keep it under wraps for thirty days. What choice did I have?