The Muscle

by Amy Lane

  The things were fun and sparkly—but Grace had priorities.

  Hunter had spent his whole life doing for others. Living a life of service. Trying to find the best outfit that would take his intelligence and physical prowess and use it for the best ends.

  What would it be like, he wondered, to be one of Dylan Li’s priorities?

  “They are a tight group, yes?” Artur Mikkelnokov broke into his thoughts. He’d sent Lucius on up ahead to peruse the gift shop, and he’d been carefully making his way along the bridge, his fearlessness indicating that once he might have been a dancer like Grace, and his care revealing that his joints and bones were not what they had been.

  “Yes,” Hunter agreed. “You know all of them?”

  Artur shook his head. “Josh, yes. Josh was there through Dylan’s hard years, and I was grateful. When you see a student one, two, three times a week, you can watch them turning down a wrong path, but you can’t always move fast enough with them to steer them the other way. Josh and his parents were there, every day, for Dylan. I never met them. I certainly did not know his mother was so charming, but I always felt as though we worked as a team.”

  Hunter watched as the group of them went tear-assing across the Cliffwalk again, Grace at the lead. From behind Grace, he could hear Josh calling, “Grace—no! No, man, please? None of that crap here,” and Hunter’s heart sank. What was he planning now?

  “So,” he said, eyes narrowed, tracking them up the series of stairs to where the Cliffwalk began. The walk was one of the park’s biggest attractions, and it featured a catwalk built around the great granite walls of the gorge. People who weren’t rock climbers could experience the freedom of rock climbing, as well as get the treat of seeing the lush green beauty and stunning granite savagery of the entire park. “What were Grace’s hard years like?”

  Artur sighed unhappily. “I’m afraid I should let Dylan tell you the particulars,” he murmured, “but I will say this. His propensity for self-destruction really did frighten us all.”

  Hunter swallowed and watched Grace leaning out over the angled railing for the Cliffwalk and thought, with his heart in his throat, that for anyone else, doing what Grace was contemplating should have been too difficult to even attempt.

  “I can imagine,” he said through a dry throat, staring at Grace and willing someone, anyone, to talk him out of it. C’mon, man—don’t do this. Not for stupidity’s sake, okay?

  And as if Grace could hear his thoughts, he looked up and down through the free air between the Cliffwalk and the bridge, his face barely visible between the trees.

  Hunter gave him a game salute, wondering if Grace could see him at all, and then Grace waved back.

  And backed away from the ledge he’d been thinking about balancing on.

  Hunter let out a long breath, and Artur gave a definite wobble as the bridge caught a gust of wind. Hunter offered his arm, and Artur took it, and together they ventured through the courtyard, stopping to get a cookie from one of the vendors. In twenty minutes, Josh, Grace, Molly, Stirling, and Broadstone met them, right as Julia emerged from the gift shop, her shoulder tote not quite bursting.

  “You shopped!” Molly wailed, as though it had only now occurred to her that she would miss out on something if she went running around like a high school kid.

  “Only for Danny and Felix,” Julia said, but she sounded self-satisfied. “They were so disappointed they couldn’t make it.”

  Grace made a suspicious sound, and Josh elbowed him in the ribs. Hunter suppressed his own smile, and Stirling, oblivious to the interaction around him, said, “Cookies? Did you guys get cookies without us?”

  Hunter held out a bag with enough for everyone, and as a group, they wandered back to where the bus would pick them up and continue the tour.

  “Thank you,” Hunter said quietly after they’d found their places on the bus.

  “For what?” Grace took a bite of his cookie and made a happy sound, like a child. Hunter got that now. Much of his childhood had been unobserved and uncelebrated. Hunter may have been too serious—and definitely too prone to fight, and he’d hated his hometown—but his parents had thrown him birthday parties and taken him to the movies and come to see him when he played football. They may not have understood him, but Hunter knew what it was like to be a cared-for child.

  Grace didn’t.

  “For not walking along that ledge and getting us kicked out of the park,” Hunter growled.

  Grace tried valiantly to swallow an enormous mouthful of cookie. “I wathn’t golma—”

  “Yeah, you were,” Hunter huffed. He leaned close enough for their shoulders to touch. “But you didn’t. It would have scared the hell out of me, so thank you.”

  Grace munched for a moment and recovered himself. “I do dangerous things all the time,” he said, as if trying to sound sullen, but Hunter heard the plea there for clarification.

  “Yeah, so do I,” Hunter said. “But this would have been foolhardy, and there wouldn’t have been a reason for it. We’re both adrenaline junkies, Grace, but we don’t have to be dicks about it.”

  Grace grinned at him, and Hunter wiped cookie crumbs from the corners of his mouth. Grace bit a full lower lip, and Hunter watched his eyes widen—and then fill with heat.

  “See?” Hunter murmured. “See what can happen when you don’t scare me half to death?”

  Grace rolled his eyes. “It might happen anyway,” he said pertly.

  “Sure, but now the odds are even better.”

  That smile widened, and Grace buried his face against Hunter’s shoulder. “You say good things,” he pronounced. “I can’t wait to see what good things you say tonight!”

  Hunter laughed, low and dirty. “We have to make it through the rest of the tour to find out.”

  GROUSE MOUNTAIN turned out to be fun. They rode a tram up the mountain, saw the giant windmill, watched lumberjacks throw axes, and heard a talk about birds that made Hunter appreciate the vulture way more than he had. It also made him want to stay far away from the very useful giant garbage scows, because apparently vulture vomit really was a thing, and it was awful.

  At the end of the day, Julia had taken them all for Korean barbecue, and finally they spilled back into the hotel, tired and sweaty and chattered out.

  Hunter could admit it to himself—he hadn’t had a day this good in a long time.

  As the rest of the group gathered into the elevator, Hunter saw it would be too full and held Grace’s arm to keep him back. “We’ll catch the next one,” he said, because he wanted a few words with Grace not overheard by the collective.

  Grace seemed to know why, and he waited patiently for the next car to arrive.

  “Plans?” he asked.

  “Shower and some sleep,” Hunter said with a yawn. He winked. “Late night last night. Early morning, this. Quiet night in, now. You think?”

  Grace nodded. “Yeah, I think that sounds goo—” His eyes widened, and he suddenly became very focused on a spot beyond Hunter’s shoulder.

  “What?” Hunter demanded.

  “Remember Jenkins?” Grace hissed.

  “The guy with the gun?” Hunter fought not to swivel his head.

  “He just came out of the stairwell. He’s moving slowly, like he’s pretending he doesn’t want to run like hell.”

  Hunter’s body was on full alert. “You got your bud?” The question was almost rhetorical. As far as he knew, even Julia had brought hers, because good thieves were paranoid thieves.

  Grace nodded, and Hunter pulled his from a little box in his pocket and fitted it in. “You go up the stairwell and find out what he was doing in there. Be careful. I’m going to follow this Jenkins guy. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Grace said, and together, slowly, eyes still on each other, they turned from the elevator and headed for the exit, like two people who had suddenly decided to get dessert or something.

  “You text the others and let me know what’s doing,” Hunter said. He reached
out and gave Grace’s hand a squeeze. “Careful, thief.”

  Grace wrinkled his nose. “Fine. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  And then Hunter peeled off and went wandering through the lobby while Grace took the stairwell as they passed it.

  Hunter felt the separation physically. God, he’d been looking forward to going back to the room and spending time with Grace. The intimacy they were building, brick by brick, hint by hint, sent shivers to more than Hunter’s groin. The thought of winning a smile, a pert remark, a surprising observation from Grace made Hunter feel like… like the boss, the commander, the mastermind.

  Hunter didn’t mind being the enforcer—had never thought of gathering his own crew because the responsibility of other people’s lives was a terrible weight to bear. But Grace…. Hunter didn’t want to trust Grace to anyone else’s decisions but his own.

  And that was stupid, because Dylan Li was a grown-assed man and Hunter was the muscle. Hunter shouldn’t have even dreamed of having a say.

  But he wanted one.

  Hunter caught his breath—shit! He’d almost let Jenkins get out of his sight. The man had left the hotel and turned along the marina, seeming to be searching for someone down by the sailboat berths. Hunter found the same line of trees Grace had used after running up Lucius Broadstone’s body and hid behind one, keeping Jenkins in sight. It was still twilight, even though it was after nine, but the brightness of the mist seemed to absorb the figure who walked with purpose toward a boat near the end.

  Fuck. There was no way to stalk the man in this light. Hunter, in his dark clothing, would stick out like a sore thumb, and his footsteps would sound like someone banging on tympani with a squirrel in the marina.

  He’d have to stand watch there and see if Jenkins came out of the marina again. If he took off in a boat, well, Hunter couldn’t have followed him anyway.

  “Hunter,” Josh snapped out into the earbud. “Where are you?”

  “Watching for Jenkins. He’s meeting someone on a boat in the marina—can’t see which one.”

  “Great. Okay, keep watch. Check your text.”

  Hunter pulled out his phone and saw Moving to Times Square. Will text you rooms.

  Hunter blinked. “Goddammit.”

  Explain later. Lucius is going to stay in Artur’s room tonight. You and Grace get to room with me and Stirling. The women get their own because girl parts are gross. Sorry about that.

  “Goddammit,” Hunter muttered again—and texted it too.

  Yeah, life’s a cockblock. You’ll recover.

  Hunter let out a sigh. It’s not that. Or not only that. Queen-sized beds, Josh. They’re tiny.

  Stirling curls up like a kitten. We’ll be lucky if Grace doesn’t keep us up all night muttering. There’s the real danger. Give it another hour and then bail. I have the feeling Jenkins has an escape planned if he’s in the marina, and we’re not equipped to have you follow. Keep us posted. See you in an hour.

  See you.

  Hunter huffed out a breath and resumed his post moodily. Josh was probably right. Whatever Jenkins had done back in the hotel—and nobody was talking on coms, which gave Hunter a very bad feeling—odds were good he had his escape well planned.

  They needed to see who this guy worked for and what his connections were before they tracked him down. Anyone who’d shoot at an innocent man in a stairwell and chase down the guy he’d been planning to rob was no one to fuck with.

  And odds were good they’d be dealing with Jenkins again.

  In the Normal

  THEY HAD about an hour after situating themselves in the Times Square before Hunter returned, meeting them in “the boys’ room” as Julia had begun to call it even as they’d been walking, luggage in tow.

  Grace had been carrying his bags and Artur’s, but that Lucius guy, who couldn’t seem to leave them alone, had flagged down a taxi so Artur didn’t have to walk the distance. He’d also helped carry some of the other luggage, including Julia’s and Molly’s. They seemed to have bought out half of Vancouver, in spite of the fact that this was a work trip. Grace couldn’t believe it.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t like clothes—he bought a new wardrobe whenever he put highlights in his hair. He still had a closet full of his magenta phase. He just didn’t understand random shopping for nothing that ended up netting you a whole other suitcase. It was like a gift or something. Grace was impressed.

  But he was also disappointed. He’d been thinking about this night as his and Hunter’s last night together. They’d have more rockin’ sex, and then Hunter could tell him they wouldn’t be doing this when they got back to Chicago because blah blah blah, they were coworkers and blah blah blah vacation, and Grace would tune him out anyway because he didn’t want to hear it, even though he knew it was coming.

  He’d really wanted to have the time before he and Hunter went back to being….

  What?

  When he hooked up with guys from the dance troupe, they’d go back to being fellow dancers. No harm, no foul, whatever. But Grace and Hunter worked different jobs. Would he and Hunter be able to hook up again the next time they went out of town?

  He just… just… didn’t want to not hook up with Hunter again. He didn’t want to hook up with anyone else right now. Just….

  Fuck.

  Fucking bugs.

  He’d gone up the stairwell after he split off from Hunter, and Josh and Stirling had come down to meet him. But they didn’t need to go that far.

  Michael Jenkins hadn’t closed the circuit board by the stairwell door completely, and Stirling had traced the wires he’d fiddled with to their rooms.

  He’d tapped into the security feed for their hallways, for their rooms, and had added audio to the rooms themselves.

  They’d been bugged.

  The minute they’d seen that, they’d quit using the coms, except for Josh’s epically long text with Hunter, and they’d moved.

  Grace had texted Josh that they could leave the bugs there, and he and Hunter could make whoever was listening wish they’d never seen a bug, but Josh had looked him in the eye and said, “Do you really want what you and Hunter do alone to be the property of anyone who sneaks into your room?”

  Grace scowled at that. That thing that he and Hunter had done the night before wasn’t a tchotchke. It wasn’t a diamond or a hair straightener. It couldn’t be put in someone’s pocket or given away. That didn’t belong to anybody but Grace and Hunter, and dammit all anyway!

  “I hate people,” he announced, genuinely pissed, and Josh gave him a sympathetic look.

  And it didn’t hit him until they were slogging from one hotel to the next that Josh had given him a sympathetic look and not a snarky one, not an I-told-you-so look and not anything that would piss Grace off. Josh had given him a sympathetic look because Josh apparently understood something about Grace and Hunter that Grace wasn’t ready to face up to yet.

  Or he hadn’t been until they’d gotten to the room, which seemed tiny to have four grown men in it, and Grace found himself hanging Hunter’s coat—the one Grace had stood on, that first day—carefully in the closet.

  Hunter’s coat. It needed to be wiped off and cleaned and oiled and cared for. Grace didn’t know how to do any of those things, but he could at least hang it up and shower and then sit on the bed and out of Stirling’s way as he set up a makeshift system with Josh as quickly as they could.

  Sort of sit on the bed.

  When Josh looked up at him, he was in the lotus position, on his shoulders, with his neatly folded legs flat and facing the ceiling and his head dangling over the edge of the bed.

  Josh had seen him do this before, and his upside-down visage didn’t even twitch.

  “Feeling unsettled, are we?”

  “I wanted a last night.”

  “Last night of what? Vancouver? It’s not going anywhere.”

  Grace scowled at him.

  “Neither is Hunter. You idiots live in my parents’ house.” His voic
e went high as he mimicked a melodrama. “Oh, Hunter, whatever shall we do? We live a whole three rooms away from each other, and we’ll never feel each other up again!”

  “I hate you,” Grace muttered, embarrassed. “That’s not what I was thinking.”

  Stirling snorted and continued hooking up his computer.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Grace asked, although from Stirling, it was practically a paragraph.

  “It means,” Josh translated, going back to the electronics, “that I’m pretty sure Hunter is prepared to carry this on when we get back to Chicago, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t.”

  “I’m too me,” Grace said, hating himself. “He’s probably tired of me.”

  It was Josh’s turn to snort. “Have you seen him? He could probably run a marathon tomorrow and then an obstacle course while he shoots bad guys. I think you’re overestimating your capacity to be a pain in the ass.”

  “I don’t know,” Grace pondered. “I’ve never topped.”

  Josh and Stirling both stopped their fiddling and stared at him.

  “What?”

  At that moment Hunter walked in, and Grace swung his legs out and rolled off the bed so he could stand up and smile at him.

  Hunter looked back and forth from Grace’s smile to Josh’s and Stirling’s horrified expressions. “Do I want to know?” he asked Josh.

  “I have a feeling you will eventually,” Josh told him, still looking dazed. Then he glowered at Grace. “But we will not bring it up now. Do you understand me?”

  Grace crossed his arms. “Killjoy.”

  Hunter let out a little huff of air. “Are you going to tell me what happened and why we’re suddenly in the Times Square instead of the Westin?” He looked around, noting the cotton comforters and clean appointments. “Not that this is bad.” He went to the closet and slid off his duster, looking to where Grace was still standing, because Grace hadn’t thought of anything better to do. “Thanks,” he said, noticing his coat, and then Grace had something better to do, which was smile stupidly at him.