Sylus, don't even fucking think about it.

But it was too late. Of course I'd thought about it. It was all I could think about. Which was stupid as shit, considering the factors. The guy was straight. He was a fucking brat. He was a mess.

Shit, of course I’d be into him. The Synn Curse at work again.

I trudged back to the car, passing by the fountain where I'd stashed all of Chris's liquor. I'd found a compartment in the base where all the pump machinery was and put all the bottles inside. I had zero intention of ever telling him about it, but I couldn't just pour it out. I didn't have the heart to waste nice liquor. And he had some nice stuff. The entire collection probably cost more than my car. For Chris, it was probably pocket change.

My phone rang—it was Bau. I slipped into the driver's seat to take the call.

"Yeah," I answered.

"Just checkin' in," he said, shouting over a loud roaring sound in the background, like an engine. "How was your first night with Mr. Rockstar?"

"Wonderful," I said. "I had to subdue my own client. That's gotta be a first."

"It happens," he yelled. "He a wild one?"

"He's got a streak," I said. "He's—" The roaring was now replaced by the screeching of tires and a loud chattering sound that I knew all too well. "Hold on, are you in a fucking firefight, right now?"

"Got a contract shuttling some VIPs over the border from Juarez."

There were more gunshots and some shouting. "Uh, shouldn't you be concentrating on that?" I asked.

"No, it's alright. I'm not the one doing the shooting. Federales have got a machine gun on the back of the truck and they're doing the work right now. I just wanted to make sure my little brother was doing okay."

"I'm fine," I said. "Chris is... Well, he's a handful."

"Huh. Is that affection I hear in your voice?"

"No, it's not," I said, and then relented with a sigh as something exploded in the background. "Okay, yeah. I guess it is. But anyway, he's straight. Not to mention unstable as fuck."

"Sounds like your type," he said, before shouting something away from the phone in Spanish, followed by a ratatat burst of automatic gunfire. "My bad. But I have to warn you. It's never good practice to fall for a client."

"But you've fucked a client before?"

"Oh, definitely. But that's sure as hell different from falling for 'em."

"I'm not falling for anyone," I said. "Anyway's, he's straight. And unstable as fuck."

"Yeah, you said that. You never know. Straight boys sometimes turn out to be not so straight as you think. I know you know this, you were in the Marines."

I snorted. "I dunno what kind of experience you had, Bau. The army must be different."

"You've always been into a man who needs a little fixing. You sure you can handle this job? I can reassign you..."

"No," I said, maybe a little too quickly. "I'm good. Always up for a challenge."

I could hear the slamming of car doors and the crunch of boots on the ground. "Sounds like it's gonna work out," he said. "Well. Gotta go. Keep me posted. Keep your wits, brother."

The line clicked.

I felt a little wistful, hearing all that action going on the background. But that was not my life anymore, as much as I could feel its constant draw. I'd been gone for too long, lost from the world. Virgil had completed his tour several months before me and had chosen not to do another.

I was following that path too, thinking I needed to make my way back to the civilian world. I'd participated in enough war, seen enough shit to last a lifetime. So, why did I still feel it drawing me back? Three months at home and I felt lost. Thank God for my brothers, because without them I definitely would be.

I shouldered my pack and went back inside. Chris was on the couch with an acoustic guitar, his feet kicked up on a chair. "Upstairs, third room on the right," he said, without bothering to look at me.

The room was bigger than my whole studio apartment, with its own attached bathroom and a patio balcony that overlooked the front of the house. There was even a ladder that went up to the roof. The furnishings were sparse, just a massive king-sized bed and a lounge chair in the corner.

I opened the closet door and was surprised to find it was almost as big as a whole room. I unpacked my things and hung up the one suit I'd brought, along with a couple dress shirts. The rest was my usual t-shirt and jeans, and I stored them in a drawer. From the bottom of my bag I pulled out a locked security case and slid it into the corner of the top shelf.

Carrying a weapon was a difficult habit to break. I just didn't feel secure without it. Sometimes, I wondered if I didn't belong here, if being a soldier was all I was meant to do.

The sound of Chris's guitar floated up through the house, echoing off around the empty, cavernous space.

"You're actually pretty good with that guitar," I said, coming back downstairs. "I wouldn't have thought it from the shit I've heard on the radio."

"Oh, wow. Thanks. So glad I have your approval."

"There was a guy in my unit who was fuckin' obsessed with Chris Barker Stevens. He had your music playing all day, every day. Working out? Chris Barker Stevens. Downtime? Chris Barker Stevens. The worst part about it was how goddamn catchy your shit is. All of us were singing 'Pickup Kind of Girl,’ whether we wanted to or not."

Chris laughed. "Oh, you mean, this song?" He played the chords to "Pickup Kind of Girl" and began to sing.

"Oh, no," I groaned, standing up. "Please, stop."

"You better get used to it," he said. "You're gonna be hearing a lot of my music."

I really did hate that song, but it was a kind of love-hate thing. Stockholm syndrome, maybe, from all the hours being forced to listen to it. I never thought I could find myself actually enjoying it, but that was what was happening now.

I wasn't the type to get star struck. Celebrity, fame, wealth, all that shit had never been on my radar. It was a world so far removed from my own. Music and movies were just noise to fill up the space when I wasn't out on some rooftop with a scope to my eye and my guys’ backs to protect.

But right now, hearing Chris play that damn song... Well, it sounded pretty damn good coming directly out of his mouth. He looked different. While playing his music, Chris glowed. I was entranced. It didn't matter if it was "Pickup Kind of Girl;" at that moment I probably could've listened to him play on for hours.

He closed his eyes as he sang, swaying gently, his fingers dancing up and down the strings. It reminded me of how I was with my rifle. I knew every piece of that gun front to back. If someone tossed a ping pong ball up in the air and said "shoot," I could nail that thing in the blink of an eye. It was obvious that Chris's guitar was an extension of himself, too.

Damn. I already thought the man was good looking, but was I actually gaining some respect for him, too?

"Ahh." Chris laughed, stopping mid-song. "It is pretty terrible."

It sure was, but I probably could've listened to him sing it a dozen times. I wasn't about to tell him that.

"How's your hand?" I asked, nodding towards his bandages.

"It's fine," he said.

"And your face? Looks like you took a pretty hard beating."

"This?" He touched his swollen, bruised cheek. "Nah. The dude had a weak punch. This was nothing."

"You're a glutton for punishment," I said.

He shifted his eyes to look at me. "No. I just know how to take it."

I felt the slightest jump in my heart. God, I must've been fucking horny. I was assigning meaning to things that had none.

The doorbell sounded. Chris stood up and I turned, alarmed.

"Does someone have access to your gate?"

"Sure," he said.

It hadn't been in my briefing materials. "Who?"

"I don't remember. I don't need you to answer my door."

"I'm your bodyguard," I replied, pushing him back onto the couch by his shoulder. "It's my job."

"Fine, alright." He held his hands up. Then he picked up the guitar and strummed it as I walked to go see who it was.

I was probably more on edge than I needed to be, but I didn't like this unexpected hole in security that I had no way of accounting for. As I walked, my hand brushed against the area on my waist where my sidearm would usually be, and my mind drifted upstairs to the closet where I had it stored away. You're just a celebrity bodyguard, I reminded myself, still worked up from Bau's call.

I tapped the screen next to the door and a fisheye view of the front porch appeared. There was a girl standing outside, a young woman with blonde hair held up in a long ponytail, her arms crossed impatiently over her chest. She rang the doorbell again.

"Chris! It's Audrey. Open up!"

I pulled the door open and her eyes widened as they flicked up and down my body. Looking at her face to face, I suddenly realized who she was. Audrey Apple. Like Chris, the only reason how I knew about her was because of the guys in my unit. Last year, a hell of a lot of her photos started turning up in our tent after someone had become a fan. I'd always found it weird, she was only like nineteen, but then again, at thirty I was the old man of the group surrounded by a bunch of guys who were in their early twenties.

Something else clicked—the photo I'd seen in Chris's room. Audrey Apple was the girl from the photo. Isn't she like, ten years younger than him?

"Uh, hi," she said. "Who are you?" She tilted her head, trying to peek past me.

Chris appeared behind me. "Audrey! It's cool, Sylus. This is my friend, Audrey Apple. She's no threat. This is my new bodyguard."

Audrey's eyes flashed. I stepped aside to let her in. "Oh, a new bodyguard. Hi, nice to meet you," she said sweetly, holding hand out. "I'm Audrey."

"Sylus," I said, and she flashed a twinkling smile at me that quickly vanished into a death stare when she turned to look at Chris.

She shouldered past him and stomped to the kitchen, her heels clicking loudly on the stone floor. "I'm no threat, huh?" she said. Chris hurried after her, and I followed behind.

"Hey, Audrey," he said. "I'm sorry about what I said. I—"

"You know, for a moment I thought he might be something else," she said, gesturing towards me.

"No idea what you're talking about," Chris said, looking annoyed. I didn't either, and I realized that this was probably a conversation I didn't need to be a part of. Obviously, they had some shit to work out.

"Hey, where you going?" Audrey called as I tried to back out of the room. "I'm Chris's best friend. We better get to know each other if you're gonna be guarding this asshole's body."

"Alright," I said.

Chris looked uncomfortable. If they were together, she obviously loved to bust his balls. From my first impression of her, I liked her. She reminded me of my aunt, the kind of person who was everywhere and in everyone's business all at once.

She got a glass out from the cupboard and opened the liquor cabinet. "Whoa. No more, huh?"

"Uh... No. Sylus dumped it all." He shot a glare at me.

She filled the glass with water from the fridge. "Maybe you won't be such a dumbass anymore." She walked up to Chris and poked his bruised cheek. "Wow, your face looks even shittier up close. Actually, it's an improvement." She smiled and sipped her water.

"Alright," Chris muttered. "Get your shots in. I deserve it."

She nudged his arm with her elbow. "You know I love you. So, no more Big Mike? I bet he was sad. Did he cry? He seems like he would cry."

"Ah..."

"I knew it! Poor guy. He was such a sweetheart."

"He still works for me," Chris said. "Just doing other stuff."

"You seem a lot more capable," Audrey said to me. "Big Mike was big, but that was about it."

"Apparently," I said. "He let you get beat up."

"That wasn't his fault," said Chris. "I made sure he was gone."

Audrey raised her hand. "Hold up. You were trying to get your ass kicked?"

"No. I was pissed off and drunk and I wanted to teach that guy a lesson."

"Because he called you gay?"

Chris sighed and scratched his chin.

What? That was the reason for the fight? Because some guy called him gay?

I felt a pit open in my stomach. Was that the kind of guy Chris was?

"You don't like gay people?" I asked flatly.

"No, that's not it," he grumbled. "It was stupid. It shouldn't have happened. I just get sensitive about when people say certain things."

"Well, you should probably know that I'm not straight," I said. If he would have a problem with me, I wanted to be upfront about it. I had no issue with losing the job because of it, but I wasn't about hiding.

Both Chris's and Audrey's jaws dropped.

"Oh, really?" she asked, looking at Chris, who didn't look back at her.

"That's... That's not a problem," he said to me.

Audrey looked pleased. It made me think that he was just acting cool with it because she was angry with him about the incident, and was trying to get back on her good side. It didn't make me happy to be used like that, but I was willing to put up with it. Or maybe I was just used to it.

"Alright," I said.

After a moment, he turned to me and asked, "You're really gay?" It looked like his world had been turned upside down. "You don't... seem gay."

All I could do was laugh.

Audrey rolled her eyes at him. "Oh my god..."

"Let's talk about something else," he said, his face a shade of red.

"That's fine with me," I said.

I couldn't tell if the look on his face was true remorse or if he was just feeling uncomfortable with me.

"Okay." Audrey sounded eager to change the subject, too. "One of my girlfriends has a movie coming out this weekend and she's throwing a big party at Club Insomnia tonight. It's gonna be VIP as fuck."

"Would she really want me there?" He pointed to his face. "With yesterday, I'm probably public enemy number one, as far as the press is concerned."

"Don't even trip. There isn't going to be any press. It's a totally private event. Insomnia is legit when it comes to these things, they'll have it on lock. Anyway, you're you. Of course, she's going to want Chris Stevens at her party. I want you there. And you can bring your sexy new bodyguard."

Chris's face went even more red.

"Yeah, okay," he said, still avoiding looking at me. Seeing him squirm was amusing as hell and I loved that Audrey was fucking around with him.

I left the two of them alone and went outside to go reconfigure the passcode on the outer security gate. If the two of them were going to bang I didn't want to be around to hear it.

I was sitting on a folding chair outside by my car looking at birds through a pair of binoculars, making mental notes of distance and wind speed and trying to anticipate their movements. A black shape filled up my view, and I lowered the binoculars to see Audrey standing in front of me.

She smiled and looked over her shoulder. "What were you looking at?"

"Birds," I said.

She crouched down next to me, squinting off at the trees lining the mansion's security fence.

"Can I see?"

I held the binoculars out to her, and she peered through them.

"Chris doesn't have any problem with you," she said. "Wanted to make sure you know."

"Doesn't matter either way," I said.

"He doesn't have a problem with gay people. He just... he's got shit he's gotta work out. Personal stuff, you know?" She handed me back the binoculars. "It's why he gets himself into trouble so much. He can't accept himself."

I stared at her, not sure what she was getting at.

"I dunno why I'm sharing this with you," she said, sighing. "He's a good guy." She stood back up.

"I'm just his bodyguard," I said. "I'm just here to make sure he stays out of trouble."

"Knowing the full story might help you," she said.

"The full story?"

She chewed her lip. "Maybe you'll figure it out."

I watched as Audrey hopped into her silver Mercedes and drove away, honking the horn and waving at me. I waved back, feeling slightly perplexed.