To say the night had taken a turn for the unexpected was probably the understatement of the fucking year.

Yeah, I'd had a hunch. I thought that Chris might've been bi-curious. I was so sure that he and Audrey were actually together, officially or not. Watching how they interacted with each other in the club, the intimacy they shared, it seemed obvious.

My conclusion was that he was keeping me around because he was curious. With the discomfort he seemed to express when he found out I was gay and the other reactionary homophobic incidents like the fight, it wasn't out of the question. I'd experienced it numerous times in the military when guys learned about my orientation. Sometimes, the ones who spouted the most hate ended up being the ones coming around trying to suck my dick when they got a little too wasted during R&R.

I hadn't expected that Chris was only into dudes, though. That the whole Audrey thing was a ruse they maintained, that she was the only other person besides me who knew. I wasn't aware of that stuff when Chris was crying in my arms, but I knew the pain he felt. The fear. The uncertainty. I'd been there before. I was lucky enough to have the support of my family. I'd been out about it for about as long as I knew what attraction was. Chris... He didn't have that.

We left the party early. I sat with Chris in the back of the car instead of where a bodyguard would usually sit up front. I wanted to make sure he was alright. It wasn't healthy for a man to bottle himself up. I knew that too well.

"This is no one's business but my own," he said, after a long silence. "I don't plan on telling anyone else. I never have."

"You told me."

"You figured it out yourself."

"What you feel, it's a part of you," I said. "Continuing to hide it won't do you any favors. Trust me."

"I don't plan on telling anyone else," he repeated, speaking slowly and looking me straight in the eye. "I only told you because... I don't know why."

"There's nothing wrong with who you are," I said. "It's your business, it's your choice. But if you continue to make decisions because you're ashamed of yourself, you're only gonna find regret at the end of that path."

He said nothing and turned to stare out the window.

"You're scared," I said.

I saw him react, just a subtle clench in his jaw. I eyed him, trying to figure him out. There obviously was some deep-seated shit going on, shit that really wasn't my job to delve into or figure out. I was just his bodyguard, after all. I wasn't even his friend. I was on a payroll.

So why did I feel so taken by him? It wasn't a feeling of obligation or duty. The attraction I'd had to him had quickly and unexpectedly become something else. It made no sense for me to feel this way and yet here I was, confronted with the reality that I actually had some kind of feelings for him.

It was completely unlike me. From my years in MARSOC, I'd become pretty good at isolating my emotions. It was a necessary skill to do such precise, dangerous work. How had he managed to slip past my defenses? I could've shut down those feelings with a snap of a finger. Dispatched. Done. But the truth was that I was enjoying the way I felt. It was something I hadn't experienced in a very, very long time.

But of course, I had to go and feel this way about a man like Chris. At the end of the day it all went back to the reality that I would watch him, protect him, make sure he stayed safe—always from a distance. I was just his bodyguard. He was my client. The Synn curse continued to work its ways on my life.

The next few days passed by without incident, almost as if nothing had happened at all. Chris disappeared into his recording studio and I tried to find shit to keep busy with. It was pretty crazy how much money Chris's management was paying us to have me out here 24/7. We were charging for an executive service normally utilized by politicians or other VIPs with constant high-level security threats to their personal safety, not celebrities with destructive habits. It sure was an eye-opener about the disposable income available to the entertainment types—if the gigantic empty mansion hadn't already been enough.

The house was so big that it felt like I hardly saw Chris around at all. His old bodyguard, Big Mike, showed up with takeout deliveries that Chris would whisk back into his studio. It was impossible for me to not be a little worried about him, and I did my routine checks to make sure he was staying out of trouble, but I knew that I needed to give him space.

If Chris's refuge was his recording studio, then mine was the mansion's fully-equipped gym. When I say fully-equipped, I mean fully fucking equipped. There was your usual variety of free weights and machines, but also a lap pool, basketball court, and climbing wall. It seemed like half of the shit had never even been used, so I made it my goal to put my prints on everything in there.

When I went into the gym that morning I was surprised to find Chris occupying it. He was struggling to complete a bench press, his arms shuddering with the weight. I hurried over and spotted him. The bar dropped onto the rack with a clang.

"Thanks," Chris said, wiping the sweat from his face with a towel.

"Mind if I join you?" I asked.

"Be my guest."

I added weight to the bar and swapped places with him, positioning myself on the bench. Was I trying to impress him? Maybe a little.

He stood over me, his shirt darkened with sweat. I stared up at the ceiling, unable to avoid looking at him. His junk was right above my head, and I could just make out the shape beneath his gym shorts. Stop staring, stop staring. I couldn't help myself. He was right at the perfect height. All he had to do was drop those shorts and I could swallow him right down my throat...

Stop thinking, stop thinking.

I reached up and grabbed the bar, grunting as I engaged all my muscles to lift it from the rack. Slowly, I lowered the weight to my chest and exhaled as I pushed the payload back up. One.

"You been alright?" I asked, pumping the bar again. Two.

"Absolutely," Chris said.

I strained with the weight and Chris reached out to help me. "No, no," I said. "I've got this." I clenched and pushed through. Three.

Down. And...

Sweat streaked down my forehead.

"When did you come out of the closet?" Chris asked. He looked off at the wall, like he was too shy to look me in the eye. My arms shuddered and I quickly stabilized myself, pushing the weight back up. I hadn't expected that question. Four.

"Never was in it to begin with," I said through clenched teeth. "Always been open and out about it. Ever since I was young."

"I can't even imagine that. I've spent my whole life doing everything I could to not think about it."

Five.

I brought the bar down for one more pump. Six...

"I need someone to show me," Chris said, still looking off, not making eye contact. I was straining to get the weight back up.

"Wha?"

"Could you teach me how to be gay?"

I choked. I could feel the muscles in my arms shutting down. I could lay motionless on a rooftop for hours under gunfire and all sorts of hell without even so much as a blink, and that single statement managed to take me out. The bar wavered in the air, and Chris caught it before it could wreck my face. He guided it back onto the rack.

"What?" I repeated, sitting up. I laughed, thinking he had to be fucking around with me, but his expression was completely serious.

"Dammit, I don't know," he said. We switched places. I moved to strip the bar down to its original weight, but he stopped me. "No, keep those on."

Chris lifted the bar and pumped the iron. His arms bulged with veins, and the ripped muscles of his chest strained against his skin-tight workout shirt. My eyes kept on wandering. I couldn't help myself, the guy was gorgeous. Now his head was in the perfect position, right beneath my dick. What would those lips of his look like wrapped around my...

Shit, shit. I was on the verge of a hard-on, and his fucking question hadn't helped me at all. Just what was Chris asking of me?

He pushed through his reps, eyes focused up on the ceiling. I stuck my head over him to look him in the eyes. "Just what are you hoping for me to teach you?"

He muscled out his last rep and threw the bar back onto the rack. "I don't know," he said, wiping himself off.

"What, you think there's some kind of secret gay handshake?" I laid back on the bench. "Just live your life. That's all you gotta do. Unless, you're looking for instructions on how to suck a cock."

"Hell no!" His face was completely red. "Are you crazy?"

"Maybe a little," I said, grunting as I started my next set of reps. "I'm just fucking with you."

He crossed his arms over his chest, looking embarrassed and completely fucking adorable. He said nothing, and for a few minutes the only sound in the gym was my own strained breaths.

"Alright," Chris said. "Yeah. What if I was looking to learn how to do that kind of shit?"

I re-racked the bar, mustering all the ability I had to keep my expression cool. I sat up and wrapped my towel around my neck. "You're a celebrity. I'm sure you could hire someone qualified to do that for you." I went over to the free weights and took two dumbbells to lift in front of the wall mirror. He had to be fucking with me.

"That's exactly why I can't do that," he said. "I'm not about to have some escort blackmailing me."

I laughed. Jesus. He sure sounded serious.

"So, you're asking your bodyguard?"

"I'll... I'll pay you."

"Fuck off," I said, huffing as I curled the weights. "That's not part of my job description. What makes you think I wouldn't out you, anyway?"

In the mirror, Chris looked me right in the eye. "I don't believe you're the kind of man that would do that."

"You don't even know me." Were we seriously talking about this? Was this really on the table? "You're assuming a hell of a lot about me. Just because I'm gay doesn't mean I'm desperate for just anyone to touch my dick."

That wasn't true. I would've loved to have Chris on my dick.

"Yeah," Chris said. "You're right. I'm sorry."

I stopped lifting, surprised. It was the first apology Chris had made in the entire time I'd been under his roof, after all the shit he'd put me through. He looked genuinely embarrassed with himself.

"I'm done here," he said. "Um... Listen, just forget what I said. I haven't been thinking straight."

"It's all good," I said dumbly. I didn't know what else to say. I watched as he left the gym, and immediately I felt like a complete idiot. Had I seriously just turned down a blowjob? No, had I seriously just turned down being Chris's first blowjob?

That was when I understood how Chris had to have been feeling. The man had been deep in the closet for his entire fucking life. That probably meant zero contact, not even so much as a kiss. Maybe not even a hug. Synn curse? Fuck that. What I was dealing with was nothing compared to what he had to be going through.

I finished my workout, distracted with thoughts of him. No, this whole thing wasn't my responsibility, but I really felt for him. I was the only man he could turn to.