The Complete Rockstar Series (65 page)

My eyes zero in on the bed, disheveled and covered in Mitch’s scent. I can’t stay here. It feels as if the walls are closing in on me, making it difficult to breathe.

Mitch knows that I’m a coward. That I’m weak and gave up. That I allowed my father to bully me into suicide because I couldn’t or wouldn’t stand up to him.

Big, strong, fearless Mitch Hale won’t ever look at me the same again. A wave of panic crashes over me, threatening to drag me under. My knees buckle and I have to grab the edge of the bed to keep from hitting the floor.

Scrabbling, I locate my phone and fumble until I find the correct entry. It only rings once before it’s answered.

“Hey. I need to get out of here or I am going to lose it,” I confess to the person on the other end.

“I’ll be right there.”

I end the call and sink to the carpet cursing myself for thinking I could ever leave my past behind. I hadn’t realized how important it was to have Mitch’s respect until it was gone.

H
ow did
everything get so screwed up so fast?

One minute Gavin and I were tangled together, sweaty and writhing, the next, he’s shut me out and locked himself in his room.

I pace the back patio, staring out at the view of the city. It’s hot and hazy today, the smog dense around the tall buildings. The back of my shirt becomes sticky within minutes.

Wow, it’s really hot out.

The pool glistens in the sun, inviting and cool. I’m already barefoot, so I roll up the bottom of my jeans and sit on the edge, sticking my feet in the cold water.

I freeze at the sound of a car pulling up the drive. The front door slams and the car engine revs. I’m on my feet and running through the house when I hear the tires squeal on the asphalt. By the time I get to the front step, it’s long gone.

Shit!

My hand goes to my pocket to call Marcus at the front gate and tell him not to let the car leave, only to find it empty.

No! No, no, no, no!

I scramble back into the house and dash up the stairs, gracelessly stumbling into Gavin’s room. The bed is still unmade, the scent of sex heavy in the air. I check the bathroom, the guest rooms, and the entire house before I accept that Gavin is gone.

“Son of a bitch!” I shout. To who? I have no idea. No one is listening.

Furious, I snatch my phone from the duffel bag I dumped on the kitchen floor and dial Gavin. Straight to voicemail. Of course. It takes me three tries to stop shaking in anger long enough to pound out a text.

D
on’t do this
. It’s not safe. Call me.

W
hen I don’t get
a response, I call Marcus and tell him to come back to the house then throw the phone onto the nearby couch and sink down onto it.

Could I have possibly blown this job in a more spectacular manner? Shame quickly overtakes my anger. It’s not Gavin’s fault everything went to shit. It’s mine. I can’t be mad at him. I’m the one who is here to do a job, not screw my client. I’m the one who crossed the line by kissing him the other night. I’m the one who took off for a few days because I couldn’t face the truth about myself.

Jesus, I’m a walking cliché. Not just the part about hooking up with a client, but being so far in the closet I didn’t even realize there was one.

My phone rings from under the couch cushion and I bolt upright to find it. Please let it be Gavin. It takes a few seconds of looking, but I finally get it in my hand and glance at the display.

Ross Evans.

Shit. Time to face the music.

I answer in my normal clipped tone. “Hale.”

“What in the holy fuck is going on?” I inhale to respond, but he continues his rant. “Hawke just called to tell me that he’s with Gavin and they’re taking off for a few days and not to try and find them. Was this your idea?”

“No. Gavin left without telling me.”

Cringing, I wait for the verbal lashing I’m due to receive for losing track of my client. Instead, I get a much more rational Ross Evans than I expected.

“Well, it’s probably good that he’s lying low.”

“What?” I nearly shout.

“After that stunt you two pulled at the release party, then Gavin’s little foray on the beach.” He pauses and a flood of jealousy has me seeing read at the thought of Gavin with that cute twink. “Hawke promised to have them both back in time to start the tour, so it’ll give the media time to cool off.”

“The boyfriend thing was all for show, Ross.” I figure I may as well straighten things out with Ross. There’s no sense telling him about the hook up this morning since I can’t let it happen again.

“Alright.”

I ignore Ross’ short response. “When does the tour start?” I ask, still seething, only not just from the twink. Now I’m furious that Gavin is somewhere without me, and I don’t know when I’ll see him next.

“Ten days,” Ross answers. “And you shouldn’t have posed as his boyfriend without clearing it with the label.” Thankfully, he says his piece and lets it drop, so I don’t bother arguing with him that it’s Gavin’s choice who he dates, not the label’s. “Ten days should give you time to take care of personal business and do some legwork before we go on the road. The record label deposited a check in your account to cover the damage to your townhouse.”

I ignore the part about the break-in, choosing to clarify the more important detail. “Wait…you want me to go on tour with you?”

He can’t mean that, can he?

Ross huffs out an impatient sound. “Mitch, ninety percent of the notes and gifts have happened on tour. Of course you have to come. It’s when this sicko usually makes contact.”

He’s right to be annoyed. I’m the expert. I should have come to the obvious conclusion. My head is all twisted around with this case—two stalkers, my house being destroyed, my involvement with Gavin. Maybe ten days reprieve will do me good, help me remember that I’m not here to get laid.

“Alright. I guess I’m going on tour.”

“I’ll have my secretary send you the details, hotel arrangements and all that,” Ross adds. “Call me if you find anything, otherwise I’ll see you on the fifteenth.”

The line goes dead.

S
weat pours
off of me as I climb the basement stairs of my townhouse. Once in the kitchen, I grab a Gatorade from the fridge and make quick work of it. The brand new solid walnut table in the corner calls to me just like it has every day in the six days since Gavin disappeared.

After running my head under the cold tap and toweling off, I walk over to stand at the side of the table. I’ve turned it into a makeshift desk. Most of the surface is covered with documents. Now that I have upgraded doors and windows, plus a new security system, I’m almost okay with leaving the documents in the kitchen instead of locking them up in the office. The office is just too tiny to spread everything out. I’m a visual person. I need to see everything at once.

I glance over the papers, already having most of them memorized by now, searching for the connection that eludes me. Once again, I’m frustrated by the fact that I can’t find a single thing.

Stomping upstairs, my mind keeps going back to Gavin. To the way his body felt against mine, hard and hot and so unbelievably sexy. Now that I’ve had a taste of him, and of the
real
me, the thought of letting him go is near crippling. That’s if he even wanted me anywhere near him after he took of with Hawke last week. Plus, there’s the pesky fact that he’s a
client
that keeps getting in the way.

I take a quick shower and jerk off for the millionth time to images of Gavin as he comes, full lips parted, bright blue eyes glazed over, skin flushed.

Dressed and once again disgusted with myself for being unable to control my own body, I grab my keys and head down to the garage. There are a couple of people from Gavin’s past I want to speak to—a club owner where the band played when they first started out, and a neighbor from one of Gavin’s old apartments. Both of them have police records for stalking or aggravated harassment.

The garage door lifts and I back out of the drive, careful to watch out for the pack of kids that ride their bikes up and down the street at all hours. As I put the car in drive, my gaze drifts to my front step.

What the—?

I slam the car into park and leap out, not caring that I leave it running in the middle of the road in my not-so-safe neighborhood. I stop at the bottom of the stairs, trying to get a good look without touching anything. Slowly, I pull out my phone and call Detective Vallejo.

“Vallejo.” His deep voice is serious when he answers.

“Detective, it’s Mitch Hale. You’d better come to my house. I just received a present from our stalker.”

“
J
esus
, you are boring as fuck, Walker.”

“Shut up,” I mutter to Hawke as he paces the room for the hundredth time. “Can you sit down? You’re making me a nervous wreck!” I drag a hand through my hair and continue to play a game on my phone in a useless bid to occupy my mind.

“I’m making you a wreck?” Hawke’s eyebrow piercing shoots up under his hair. “You didn’t tell me we were going to have to stay
inside
the whole time, Gavin! You know I can’t do this! I have to
do
something, anything!”

My best friend starts clawing at his shirt, his complexion pale.

“Hawke, I told you to go out,” I reiterate for the hundredth time since we arrived at his sprawling vacation home in Boulder, Colorado.

He stops his freak-out long enough to glare at me from behind those black-framed glasses. “Hell no. Not with a stalker after you.”

I scoff. “He can’t possibly know where we are. No one would ever think to check here.”

Hawke fidgets some more, moving to look out the window at the huge mountains that lay in the distance. “It’s not a secret that I own a house here, Gav. It pops up in the news every now and then.”

He’s right. Whenever he gets papped doing something—usually unbelievably reckless—in this town, the media always reiterates how he bought a secluded estate in the mountains.

I shrug. “It’s fine. Please, Hawke, I’m begging you to go. Take your bike or go rock climbing or whatever it is you do. I promise to lock the doors and stay at the house.”

Hawke flicks his gaze over to me. “You promise?”

“Yes.”

Anything to calm him down before we’re both climbing the walls. I’ve known him a long time and there’s one thing about Hawke that’s never changed… his unquenchable need for thrills. That’s why he bought a house in Boulder. It’s packed with adrenaline-filled activities—rock climbing, mountain biking, base-jumping, skydiving, you name it, Hawke’s done it.

“Alright, I’ll go. Just biking over at the trail.”

The trail
is most likely a steep, long, dangerous path down a mountainside. I’ve learned to pick my battles with my best friend. He’s not going to stop living on the edge, so I don’t bother objecting anymore.

“Sure. Just take your phone in case you need to call for help or anything,” I smirk.

“Fuck off. I’ll take my phone in case
you
need to call me,” he retorts with a smile. “And eat something,” he calls out over his shoulder. “You look like shit.”

I grin even though he can’t see me.

Less than ten minutes later and Hawke is pulling out of the driveway in his black Jeep Rubicon, mountain bike perched on the back.

I thought getting rid of the nervous, twitchy, restless Hawke would allow me to relax. How wrong I was. The silence that permeates the large house combined with the tranquility of the view outside—all it does is give me plenty of opportunity to think. And thinking is the last thing I want to do.

My mind drifts back to that amazing experience I shared with Mitch and the overwhelming number of questions it inspired. Is he gay? Has he ever been with a man before? Does he want to do it again?

Irritated at myself for pushing Mitch away and then taking the coward’s way out by running, I wonder if I should call him. Seven days. It’s been seven days and he hasn’t contacted me once. Well, he did initially, but when he realized I was with Hawke and safely tucked away, the calls and texts stopped.

I close the game app on my phone and pull up Mitch’s number. At least twice a day, usually more, I stare at it with my finger hovering over the screen to make the call. Closing my eyes, I remember the way his rough hands felt on mine, holding me down on the bed. I can almost feel his mouth sliding across my skin, the scrape of his stubble leaving a fiery trail behind.

My hand goes to the juncture of my shoulder and my neck, rubbing over the spot that Mitch marked. The bruise is gone, but just the thought of it has my dick hardening.

Shit.

Unnerved and desperate for something to distract me, I wander into the bright kitchen and make a cup of coffee. I should eat. Food has been difficult to get down, nothing sounds appetizing. I look out the large kitchen window. It’s a beautiful day out, sunny, not a cloud in the sky, and no humidity. It makes me miss the beach. If I could surf, I could forget for a while—lose myself in the waves.

Of course
Hawke wouldn’t buy a house on Hawaii where I could surf all day. He might love being outdoors, but the beach is definitely not his thing. If I’m lucky, he’ll come with me every once in a while and watch me ride the waves. No, Hawke’s prefers wide-open spaces to get his thrills.

I take my coffee and add a generous amount of sugar before taking it to the back deck. For a moment, I hesitate at the door, wondering if I should be leaving the safety of the house. Then I chuckle to myself. We are in the middle of nowhere, and no one knows where we are.

Aggravated with myself for thinking the worst, I lie back on one of the cushioned lounge chairs and sip my coffee, letting the sun heat my skin. I focus on the symphony of nature—the birds, the insects, the rustling of the trees—and I can almost convince myself that I’m not thinking about a pair of strong arms and gunmetal grey eyes.

“
G
avin
! Gav!”

The faint sound of my best friend’s voice rouses me from a deep, dreamless sleep.

“Gavin…! Fuck! He’s not here! I told him not to leave!”

The distraught tone of Hawke’s voice has me fully awake. I stand up and head for the patio door. Opening it a crack, I pause, listening to my best friend’s heated exchange.

“Mitch, stop fucking yelling at me!”

“No, I was only gone two hours!”

“Well fuck you! You’re supposed to be the one watching him! If you weren’t such a dick, maybe he’d be with you instead of me!”

“The fuck you are! He doesn’t want to see you, asshole!”

I stiffen. I didn’t tell Hawke anything about Mitch and me. He must have guessed what happened between us.

Steeling myself for the worst, I slide the door the rest of the way open and enter the kitchen. Before I can call out, Hawke comes barreling into the room, nearly knocking me down in his frantic state.

“Jesus fucking Christ. He’s here.”

Hawke’s tight expression relaxes a bit, relief evident in his unusual eyes. Mitch must say something on the other end of the line, because Hawke’s hand tightens around the phone and his mouth curves into a scowl.

“No.”

“Fuck you. He’ll call if he wants to talk to you.”

With that, Hawke ends the call and drops the phone into his pocket. He reaches out and yanks me into a hug, squeezing me tight. Shocked, it takes me a minute to wrap my arms around my best friend and hug him back. Hawke is not big on people being in his personal space. In fact, I’d say we’d only hugged once or twice in all the years I’ve known him.

“Shit, Gav. I thought you were dead or something,” he confesses, his voice cracking.

When Hawke finally releases me, he leans back on the counter, removes his glasses, and runs a tattooed hand down his face.

“What happened?” I ask, concerned with his level of distress. “I thought you were riding?”

“I was.” He lays the glasses on the countertop. “Then I got a call from Mitch. He’d been trying to reach you but you wouldn’t answer. I figured you just didn’t want to talk to him specifically, so I tried to reach you. No answer.” He glares at me accusingly.

My face heats up. “I was outside. My phone is—”

“On the couch,” he finishes for me, pulling my phone out of his pocket and holding it up.

Sheepishly, I take it from him. “Sorry.”

“Fuck, Gav. You gave us all a heart attack.” Hawke’s eyes shine and he swallows loudly. I feel like shit. Hawke has lost so much in his life. The thought of losing me must have been terrifying.

“I’m so sorry, Hawke. I didn’t think. I didn’t mean to…shit.”

He looks at the ground, scuffing his shoes on the mosaic stone floor. “Don’t do that again.”

“I won’t.” I realize something and pull my brows down in confusion. “What did Mitch want?”

“Oh.” Hawke blanches. “Ummmm, he got a package.”

“What do you mean?
Mitch
got a package? From the stalker?”

My mind can’t comprehend this information. No way. The guy wants
me
, not Mitch. Right?

“Yeah. He wouldn’t give me details, but it sounded like it was…similar to New York.” Hawke flicks his gaze up to me, but all I see is a bright white light surrounded by darkness. The darkness grows until the light becomes a tiny pinprick in the distance.

My last thought is that maybe I should have eaten something.

Then, nothing.

A
s we wait
for the record label’s private jet to land, I try to stay as calm as possible so I won’t giveaway how agitated I am. After explaining to Ross that my ‘relationship’ with Gavin was a rouse to lure out the stalker, I don’t want him to notice that I actually have feelings that clearly run deeper than client and employee.

Hell, I don’t want
Gavin
to see it. I don’t want to be the clingy guy who falls in love after a single hookup. Wait. Love? No, not love. Feelings? Yes. But that could be me projecting a lifetime of denial onto Gavin. Mere gratitude for accepting the real me and for giving me a life-changing sexual experience.

“Hale,” Ross snaps from his seat in the surprisingly plush terminal of the Van Nuys airport.

“Yeah?” I take the seat across from him, tapping my fingers on the armrest and bouncing my knee in a staccato rhythm. I chew on my lip nervously.

He stops typing on his phone long enough to glare at me. “Relax. We have enough security to keep this sicko away from you and Walker.”

Ross thinks I’m nervous because the stalker targeted me. I’ll admit, the ‘gift’ was disturbing, but I’ve seen way, way worse. Granted, I’ve never been on the actual receiving end of such attentions. Unfortunately, that’s not why I’m an anxious mess. I’m worried about seeing Gavin again. When I couldn’t reach him and Hawke couldn’t find him…hell, I swear I nearly had a breakdown. I need to see him more than I need my next breath. But will he want to see me?

We’ve had zero contact over the last eight days and I’m losing my mind. My hands literally ache to touch his smooth skin and hard muscles. Sometimes, I swear I can taste him on my tongue, sweet and salty and completely addictive. I dig my fingers into my thighs to stop my wandering thoughts from giving me a hard-on in front of Ross.

A sleek, white jet lands on the runway and makes it’s way towards the terminal. It takes forever to lower the stairway and the passengers to disembark. Gavin’s blonde head of hair comes into view and for the first time in eight days I physically relax. He’s safe and in one piece. I knew this, but I had to lay eyes on him to believe it.

The group makes its way to the doors. Gavin and Hawke have their heads down, their demeanor subdued. The four large bodyguards surrounding them are alert, scanning the area continuously.

The doors slide open with a
whoosh
, bringing in a gust of hot air along with the loud sounds of jet engines whining. Ross hops up to greet them, giving his nephew, Hawke, a hug before turning to Gavin for a fist-bump. Jealousy spikes into me, painful and sharp. Not because of Ross, but because Ross can touch Gavin freely.

I can’t.

I hover on the fringes of the group, unsure of how welcome I am. Hawke is discussing something with Ross when Gavin tiredly glances around the terminal and locks onto me. Those gorgeous blue eyes widen in surprise and that damn luscious mouth falls open.

Neither of us looks away. It’s only when Ross takes Gavin’s arm to pull him towards baggage claim that the connection is broken. I trail behind the group wordlessly, wondering how Gavin will react when he finds out the newest plan to catch our friend.

He’ll probably be so angry he’ll put me down again with one of those excruciating pressure point moves. Oddly, I don’t find the thought disturbing in the least. As long as Gavin is touching me, I can deal with the physical pain. It has to be better than the hollow ache I feel inside.

I guess I’m a masochist, because I welcome whatever he’s willing to give.

“
T
his is complete bullshit
, Ross!” Gavin shouts from one of the bedrooms of the hotel suite.

“Calm down, Gavin. It’s necessary, and frankly, the only way to get rid of this guy once and for all.” Ross’ calm voice does nothing to placate an agitated Gavin.

“No way, Ross. There has to be another way.”

I shouldn’t be eavesdropping. Hell, I’m
not
eavesdropping. Gavin is so loud, there’s nowhere in the suite I can go where I won’t hear his ranting. We can’t go back to the rental house and the only way I can go on tour without alerting the stalker of my presence is to continue the façade as happy lovers. Gavin is pissed.

“Yeah, there is,” Ross agrees. “We can cancel the tour, let the album tank, and you can hide out in seclusion until the guy fucks up big enough to be caught. How’s that sound?”

I can barely hear Gavin mutter a string of curses.

“Shit, no. I don’t want that,” he grumbles.

“Then please, just do what I’m asking Gav. I don’t ask for much.” Ross’ voice has lowered to that of a concerned friend or family member.

“Fine.”

I hear Gavin’s begrudging acquiescence and close my eyes. That means eight weeks of living in each other’s back pockets. How I’m supposed to get through this without losing my sanity is beyond me. Hell, I’ll be shocked if I can control the rock hard erection that springs up whenever Gavin’s around.

The bedroom door opens and Ross walks out. “Hale, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” He doesn’t stop or look at me as he speaks, moving quickly through the suite. The click of the door closing is the only evidence that Ross is gone.

I’m alone. With Gavin, who, judging by the loud protesting he was doing, is not happy with this arrangement.