6. Six

The grounds were too large to patrol. It was the one weakness of the location. I couldn't walk the entire perimeter and keep an eye on the house, so I settled for a few yards out. As long as I could see the back porch light, I was close enough to respond if anything happened.

Going back inside was the last thing I wanted to do until I cooled my head.

My initial assessment of Dante had been that he was a typical party boy celebrity who spent his days having everything handed to him, and his nights drunk or coked out with hookers. I thought I would be babysitting an addict with a god complex.

In a lot of ways, I was, but Dante was also quite different from what I expected. He seemed more lost than anything. He reminded me of myself when I was young, before the Army made a man of me. Rudderless, lonely, and without purpose.

I shook my head before I could dip too far into thoughts of the past. That way lay madness. I had to let the past go and learn to live in the present.

Picking my way eastward through the forest, I scanned the trees, but all I saw were squirrels and deer signs .

I would've missed the old campfire if I hadn't nearly tripped on the charred remains. Scattered around them were other signs that someone had been there in the last few days: a cigarette butt, a granola bar wrapper, a dented tin cup.

There wasn't anything unusual about the campsite except where it was located. Whoever had camped there would've had a perfect view of the back end of the house. That didn't mean anything, since the house had been empty. We were in the woods at the height of summer. People camped. The bloke who'd been there probably just wandered across the property line without realizing it, made camp, and then packed up when the sun came up.

I'd keep an eye on the woods for the next few days just to be on the safe side, but I expected it would amount to nothing.

After clearing the perimeter, I went back to the house. I frowned at the sound of Dante strumming on his guitar upstairs and mumbling through some lyrics. That was going to be difficult to live with. Not because he was bad at playing—I didn't have an opinion on that—but because it was music . I generally avoided listening to music if I could. After having it blasted in my ears while I was a POW in Syria, it didn't trigger good memories.

Country, rock, rap, pop… It didn't matter what type of music it was. They'd tried all kinds to break us. When they realized that blowing our eardrums out with music wouldn't make us talk, they just played it in the background while they worked us over. They'd used it to rewire our brains so that we had a visceral reaction to music. Just a few notes sent ripples of pain through my body. If it went on for more than a few minutes, I'd start to sweat. My chest would hurt. By the end of the song, I'd be running for the loo to vomit.

I walked around, checking the doors and windows. I shouldn't be on this job .

Boone didn't know about my discomfort with music. If he had, he never would've given me this assignment. Nobody knew. What was I supposed to say? Music made me ill? Who was going to take that as an excuse? Music was everywhere, and not something I should be afraid of. I was no coward. I just needed to get over it.

"Dante?" I stopped at the bottom of the stairs to call up to him. The music paused, but he didn't answer. "Do you need anything before I turn in for the night?"

"I'm good."

I normally would've ensured that was true with a visual check, but Dante had asked for space and I wanted to respect that. We had to live together for the next month, and that would be more tolerable if we gave each other space.

I thought he'd stop playing once he knew I was going to bed, but muffled music drifted through the floor and straight into my room. I tried to drown it out with a fan, but it wasn't loud enough. I laid in my bed with my pillow over my head, trying to fall asleep. After an hour, I gave up and reached for my earplugs. It was a last resort. With earplugs in, I'd be much less likely to wake up if someone broke in, but I'd be even less effective tomorrow if I didn't get some bloody sleep.

Finally . I sighed and settled back into the slightly too-small bed. Blessed silence .

I jerked awake swinging at the dark sometime later. I was already sitting up in the unfamiliar, cramped bed. It was still dark, but the blue hue of early morning crept in through the curtains. The familiar cooing of a mourning dove outside my window greeted me when I removed my earplugs.

I set the earplugs aside and swiped a hand over my sweaty forehead. I needed a shower, but first I needed to get the demons of the night before out of my system with a decent workout. No point in getting cleaned up if I was just going to get sweaty again.

I hauled my duffel bag up onto the bed and pulled on some workout clothes, noting that I needed to finish unpacking that evening. The night before, I'd been too tired to tackle it after dealing with Dante all day. I hoped he'd be better behaved the second day, but I wasn't going to hold my breath either.

The house was completely silent when I crept out of my room, which meant Dante must've fallen asleep. Just to be sure he was still breathing, I climbed the ladder to do a visual check. He'd go ballistic if he caught me peeking in on him after he'd explicitly told me not to come up into his room, but his safety was more important than his feelings. Considering his history of substance abuse, I needed to make sure he was still breathing.

Dante lay face-down on the bed, his kinky straw-colored hair knotted on the back of his head. His guitar leaned against the bed with an open notebook on the floor, betraying that he'd been hard at work late into the night.

At least he's passionate about something , I thought, descending the ladder. I might not have appreciated his music, but I was clearly the outlier. The man had desperate, screaming fans all over the globe. I wonder what they'd think of him if they knew he drooled on his pillow?

He reminded me of a cat I had once, Chester. Most cats curled up tight when they went to sleep, but not Chester. He liked to sprawl out on his belly, limbs going in all directions. To look at him, you'd think the poor bastard was dead, but no. He was only napping. Not a care in the world, that one, and cute as a button.

God, did that mean Dante was cute? I winced as I reached the back door. No, cute wasn't a word I'd associate with Dante Deluca. Cocky, headstrong, confident…but not cute.

Once I was sure Dante was still breathing, I went out for a run along the perimeter, searching for any signs the campers might still be in the area. I saw nothing that suggested they were, so I let it go.

After my run, I came back to finish my workout on the back stoop so I didn't wake Dante. I was almost done when my cell rang. I picked it up and recognized Boone's number. "Church."

"You sound winded," Boone said. "Is he giving you that much trouble already?"

"You interrupted my workout," I reported, hands on my hips. "But he is a handful."

Boone grunted. "His manager warned he might be. That's why I put you on the job. The manager felt he could use a little discipline. If anybody can whip the kid into shape, it's you."

I felt more like the one being whipped. Now that's an interesting thought.

"Church?"

I shook my head to clear it. "Yeah, I'm here. Connection's bad."

"You need anything?"

I thought for a second. "There's a lot of land out here and no security system in the house. If you could get Leo out here to put in a CCTV system, that'd take a load off my shoulders."

"I'll talk it over with the rental owner and see what I can do. Anything else?"

I leaned against the cabin wall, holding the phone between my cheek and shoulder as I popped the top off a water bottle. "Is someone monitoring his email? Dante mentioned leaked nudes a while back and something about blackmail?"

"It's Dante, is it?" Boone asked.

I cringed. Shit. "He insisted."

"So he's the informal type. No surprise there. Just don't let your guard down. I'm told he has a history of getting chummy with his staff."

No wonder. If he had people controlling every aspect of his public life, I could only imagine how little control he had over his private life. "About the nudes, Boone."

Boone chuckled. "Tell me you don't follow the music scene without telling me you don't follow the music scene, Church. The media made a big deal out of that about a year ago. Kid leaked his own nudes to the press. Apparently, someone thought they'd try to blackmail him with them, so he just did it himself. People print them out and bring him to his concerts to sign like t-shirts. Boy ain't shy, that's for sure."

Tell me about it . I thought back to seeing him the night before coming out of the bathroom naked and hard. I knew I shouldn't have looked, but I couldn't help it. For all Dante's imperfections, his body wasn't among them. He wasn't fit like an athlete, but lithe as if he spent a lot of time in the water. I could see why people went wild over him. He was attractive. The problem was, he knew it, and it made him cocky.

Not that I was attracted to him. Not in the least.

And if I kept repeating that, it'd be true. Eventually.

I cleared my throat, then remembered I had a water bottle in my hands. "The manager didn't mention any obsessive fans or threats or anything, did he?" I chugged half the bottle in one go.

"He's famous. Of course he has those. "

"I meant recently. People I should be watching out for."

Boone sighed. "I'll ask, but even if he does have some crazy stalker fan, they wouldn't know where to find him. You're totally off the grid there except for basic utilities."

"And for his phone," I pointed out.

"He's been told not to post to his socials."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm sure they also told him to lay off the bottle a few times."

Boone agreed with another grunt. "Keep an eye on his socials just in case and I'll ask his team. If there's anything, I'll have the manager forward it to your secure email, but I'm sure they would've mentioned it if it were a concern. Don't make it harder than it has to be."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I know, it's just… He really can be insufferable."

"Well, you can be too," Boone said. "What is it you Brits say? Keep calm and carry on or whatever."

"With all due respect, sir, fuck you."

Boone chuckled. "Start a shopping list. Your first supply drop is in five days. I'll check in then, but call me if you need anything before then. Don't work too hard, Church."

"And you don't forget to make Bowie work. Tell him I expect the place to be running top notch when I get back." There was a loud crash in the kitchen, and I winced as Dante's cursing came through the walls. If Dante isn't the death of me, that is.