by R. J. Scott
Together they got him out of the pool, Lucien immediately going into first-responder mode.
He checked for breathing, placing his ear next to Kev’s mouth and nose before checking for a pulse.
“Jesus, he’s not—Call the ambulance.”
Lucien tilted Kev’s head back and lifted his chin, pinched his nose closed and covered Kev’s mouth with his own.
For a few seconds Max was in limbo. He didn’t want to leave Lucien, but Lucien was right, they needed an ambulance. Thank fuck the lifeguard ambled in, took one look, and ran straight back out with a yelled “I’ll get help!”
Lucien placed the heel of one hand on the center of Kev’s chest at the nipple line and began compressions. Max spotted the blood on Kev’s scalp, dripping steadily and pooling at Kev’s neck. He cursed; there was a large wound there.
“Come on, come on…”
Just when Max was going to try and move Lucien’s hand, Kev jerked weakly, water spilling from his mouth, his breath a raspy inhalation, and his cry of pain horrible to hear. Time slowed. Lucien cradled Kev’s head, pressing a towel to his head wound, talking softly and calming Kev, who had tears forming and rolling down his cheeks.
“Do you remember what happened?” Max asked.
Lucien snapped a look of warning at him, but Max shook his head. Whatever they were—lovers, Kev’s friends, whatever—at the end of the day, this could have been something that was going to hurt Lucien.
“Meet you early,” Kev forced out as he gripped Lucien’s hand.
“What do you mean?” Max asked.
“A note, and someone watching,” Kev forced out.
“Don’t talk,” Lucien encouraged.
Max interrupted. “Who was watching?” When Kev didn’t immediately answer Max asked again. “Who?”
“I was checking… I don’t know… stairs… some guy.” Kev shut his eyes on another moan of pain. “My jacket.”
Max immediately went to the jacket in the changing room and pulled out an envelope folded into fourths. He considered what to do with it given he was just wearing these damn speedos, then he just snapped a shot with his cell and hurried back to Kev’s side with the note in his hand. He was back before Lucien even noticed he was gone.
“What else can you tell—?”
“That’s enough,” Lucien interrupted. “He doesn’t know anything.”
The paramedics arrived, jogging their way around the pool to Kev. Time for questions was over.
“What happened?” the first paramedic asked briskly even as the second one took over from Lucien.
“We found him in the water unconscious, head wound.”
“He must have slipped and hit his head,” Lucien said.
“Not necessarily,” Max warned.
“Jesus, Max, not everything is a fucking conspiracy.”
“How are we to know that he wasn’t hit and pushed in the water?”
“Save it for the cops, guys,” paramedic two interjected.
Lucien stood as they wheeled Kev away. He looked down at the blood on his swim trunks and on the floor and became awfully pale.
“He’ll be okay” was all Max got to say before the police arrived and asked their questions. He gave them the note from Kev’s pocket and they took notes and photos, but judging from their reaction to blood on the side of the pool, Max could see they were agreeing with Lucien that Kev slipped and fell.
“You sent this note to him?” they asked Lucien.
Lucien looked at the note. “No, I didn’t.”
“Is there another Luke on the team?”
“No,” Lucien said. “Maybe it’s another friend.”
Max listened as they asked Lucien questions, but he didn’t step in with his theories of the connections that spun in his head.
If only he could subscribe to Lucien’s hypothesis, but something about this made him feel on edge. He waited until they had showered and dressed, then before they left he went and stood back out by the poolside, Lucien next to him.
He pulled out his cell and the picture of the note inside the envelope. Meet at pool early, problem with butterfly, Luke. The note wasn’t handwritten but typed on a nondescript piece of white paper.
“I didn’t type that.”
“I know you didn’t. Someone sent that to him to get him here.”
“I really just want to go,” Lucien said.
“One more minute, okay?” Max turned a full three-sixty and gestured up at the glass cubicle in one corner. “That’s where someone could watch you if they wanted.”
“You think there’s a connection between what happened to Kev and me?”
“Call it a gut feeling.”
Cautiously Max took the stairs that led off from one side of the pool. They doubled back on themselves halfway up and it was there that Max spotted it, a darkness on the metal. He crouched and pressed a finger against the smudge. As he’d suspected, it came away red, like blood.
“We need to call the cops back.”
* * * * *
Lucien felt sick. He’d been asked questions, listened as he heard Max explain everything. And now it was his turn again to go over everything for the second time.
The cop regarded him carefully. “So, Your Highness—”
“Please don’t call me that. Luke is fine.”
The cop looked at his notes and cleared his throat. He was a young guy with buzz-cut hair and a subservient attitude. The hair was nice, the attitude not so much. Being nice to the prince was not going to find whoever did this to poor Kev.
“Luke, you didn’t see anyone before you dived into the pool?”
“Just Kev, Kevin Milsen. He was on his front in the water and my only thought was that he wasn’t moving and the way he was lying, it wasn’t like he was floating to practice his breathing. He looked broken.”
The cop made notes.
“I think we have everything. We’ll interview the staff and see if there is anything on the security cameras, then get back to your associate if needed.”
“He’s not my—” Lucien stopped. What was the point of explaining that Max was his bodyguard and his lover, his partner, when at the moment it felt like he was anything but. There was a distance as Max investigated the scene, but that was okay. Lucien understood distance from people he loved.
Love. That was a joke. They’d only known each other a few weeks. Lust, maybe. That was a better word to use.
So why did his heart ache when Max looked at him and there was no smile on his face?
When they were done at the pool, they walked the most direct route back to the house, Lucien fielding calls from the team after he’d sent a blanket text. He’d underplayed the near drowning, but if he and Max had stopped to kiss more or had decided to sleep in or hell, one of a million other things that could have been different, then Kev could well have died.
He was quiet. Max was silent. The house was empty when they got home. Empty and noiseless. Lucien made it to the shitty sofa before his legs gave way under him. The next thing he knew, Max was handing him a cup of tea with sugar and reassuring him that this was exactly what Lucien needed. He took one sip. It was disgusting, but under Max’s orders he finished it all.
He was in shock. The tea didn’t aid anything. Nothing was going to help.
Max crouched down in front of him. “Talk to me, Lucien, what are you feeling?”
Lucien cursed his inability to explain. No one in his life ever asked him how he felt, and he didn’t know how to answer. Instead he focused on something else. Anything to quell the nausea in his stomach or the buzzing in his head.
“Will Kev be okay?”
Max waved his cell, which blurred a little. “Mickey texted me. Kev has a concussion, but no lasting damage. They’re keeping him in for a couple days. I might go visit and have another chat with him, see if he remembers more.”
Something snapped inside of Lucien. “No,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere.” He didn’t mean to come over like he wa
s ordering Max about, but shit, wasn’t Max supposed to be here for him? And Lucien really needed Max to stay with him and stop him from feeling like his heart was going to jump out of his chest. “Please don’t go anywhere.”
“Okay,” Max said. He didn’t argue or push or anything Lucien expected, he just said okay in an awful, dead voice. Then he moved to the kitchen and busied himself with coffee.
Lucien had two choices. Go to his room and wallow or actually face up to the fact he’d probably pissed Max off. Was what they had enough to survive a prolonged breakdown in his room or was Lucien ready to face his first adult relationship with some actual talking? He wished he knew what to say.
“Sorry,” he blurted out. Then he followed it by walking over to Max and hugging him from behind, crossing his hands on Max’s stomach and holding tight.
“What for?” Max turned in his arms with some struggling, until they faced each other and Lucien loosened his hold a little.
“For telling you not to go and see Kev. Ordering I mean.”
“You’re the client,” Max said. He sounded puzzled, and Lucien didn’t understand why. Then it hit him. Client.
“Is that all I am?” He didn’t let go of Max, but he buried his face in Max’s neck, inhaling the scent of the man and feeling instantly reassured.
Max stood still for a bit, holding him, then very deliberately, he extricated himself and pushed Lucien away a little. “Sit down,” he said. “We need to talk.”
Lucien didn’t want to talk. He’d had people do that to him before. Friends who said he was too much work, doctors who told him how ill his brother was, family that told him he needed to buck up and stop grieving, the authorities who told him to stop drinking.
Feeling dread like none he’d felt since losing Seb, he slid into the chair at the table and sat with straight back and his hands folded in front of him. He would take whatever Max said with his mask firmly in place.
Max took the chair opposite him and cradled the mug of coffee.
“My first responsibility is to keep you safe,” he began.
Lucien’s stomach fell, but his training meant he had to try and make Max feel good about himself before Lucien could demand more. “And you do.”
“But this morning, Lucien, when you ran and dived into that pool, my heart stopped. Way before the adrenaline hit, for those few seconds, I could think of nothing but the way you ran straight into danger.”
Lucien shook his head. “It’s a pool. Kev was unconscious. I couldn’t leave him.”
“I know.” Max held up a hand to stop Lucien. “Your first instinct was to aid your friend, but what if your stalker was waiting in the pool?”
“He wasn’t—”
“You didn’t know that—”
“What did you want me to do, casually turn to you and say ‘Oh look, Kev’s in the water and I think he’s in trouble. Let’s call a lifeguard?’” Every word dripped with sarcasm and a hint of anger. Max winced.
“No. Look. You did what any person would have done in that situation, and I admire you for that. The man I sleep with is selfless and brave and thinks on his feet, how can I not respect that? Just… next time, wait for me.”
“That’s it?”
Max tilted his head, and the puzzled expression was back. “What do you mean?”
“I get you’re angry that I dived in, I get why that was a bad thing, but you’re not giving me the speech about how you were compromised as a bodyguard and how what we have is…” He waved a hand, utterly lost for words.
Max grabbed his flailing hand and pulled it towards himself, closing both of his around it. “What we have is good, Lucien. I have feelings for you that I don’t think I’ve ever felt for another man, and believe me, I’ve had a few men.”
Lucien was jealous. Not because he wanted plenty of men, but because Max had enjoyed other men. Still, the comment that Max had feelings for him slipped through the jealousy and left a warm feeling inside.
“I’m sensing another but.”
“I’m still here to keep you safe, so let me have my moments of action mode. Okay?”
“I can do that.”
“We’ll both go and see Kev tomorrow, as friends, and I will ask my questions, but meanwhile, tell me how you’re feeling.”
“Angry. Really angry at whatever happened to Kev.”
Max smiled. “I didn’t mean that. I said I had feelings for you. Don’t you have something to say to that?”
Lucien smiled back. “And you’re not worried that they’ll cause… issues? Remember, I’ve seen The Bodyguard now.”
“That isn’t real life, Lucien. Nope, real life is us”—he released one of Lucien’s hands and indicated them both—“complicated and new, the bodyguard and the prince.”
“Sounds like the title of a porn film.”
Max pressed a hand to his chest and let out an exaggerated gasp of shock. “You watch porn?”
Lucien couldn’t help the snort of laughter. “I’m in my twenties and I’ve never had a real sex life. How do you think I made it this far? I have an intimate relationship with XTube.”
As they talked at the kitchen table, about porn and BI and Kev and everything that was going on, it all felt so natural and normal.
Like nothing outside this house could hurt Lucien.
Nothing at all.
Chapter 10
They’d just been to see Kev in the hospital. He remembered nothing of the attack but was working on trying to recall. Max was convinced Kev didn’t even see anything given the injury to the back of the head. The attacker had come up behind Kev and taken him by surprise. And now they were in the library. Lucien working, and Max killing time.
“I still don’t get this,” Max muttered. He wasn’t really talking to Lucien or to the other people in the library, but his exasperation was enough that it spilled out into the real world.
“Give it to me,” Lucien said. Before Max could stop him, Lucien grabbed the book and pulled it towards him. Lucien was working on some complicated treatise on something to do with the media and their ways of dealing with immigration through use of language. Max got the gist of what the essay was about from Lucien’s explanation, but the language Lucien was using was beyond him. Max was an engineer by interest and trade, and arty-airy words that explained nothing meant very little to him.
Still, if Lucien was in the library, then Max was in the library. After Max had chosen the quietest corner that also had clear views on all sides apart from the wall to their back and that was close to the exits, he had little left to do. So he’d brought his own book to look at. Well, newspaper anyway. Lucien’s face was creased in thought, then it cleared and he nodded.
“See, six down is effect, not affect, which means that one across is zygote. Six letters meaning a fertilized egg cell.”
Lucien rubbed out the letters Max had inserted in yesterday’s Times crossword and passed it back.
“Give me an empty water bottle in a desert and I’ll fix it,” Max muttered. He was doing a lot of that. Lucien was the academic; Max was the kid who left school after his exams to fly and only passed exams when he needed to further his RAF career. Good job he’d shown skills that had officers pushing him, otherwise he’d not have made it as far as he did.
“Why did you end up doing what you do?” Lucien asked.
“Huh?”
Lucien lowered his voice. “A bodyguard? I saw your records and I know you stopped being a pilot, but you must have been able to stay in the Air Force or taken up civilian flying of some sort after the accident?”
Max knew that he should have a proper answer to this by now. He’d not really had to explain himself to BI, they took him on his skills as a bodyguard. He’d never talked about it to anyone outside the Air Force shrink, and even that had been very matter-of-fact. There was no big reason why he had decided on the route he’d taken. He just had and he refused to think of there being anything he had buried to come to that conclusion.
“What do
you know about the accident?”
“Teddy wasn’t given much personal information on you.”
“Well, it’s not pretty, I got caught with an STA, a surface-to-air missile,” Max explained. “I had to limp the plane over the border before ditching. Ejector seat jammed and only blew when it was getting to the point of no return. I met the earth with force, damaged my lower spine, my knee.”
“Jeez, Max.”
“I had the choice of a desk job, but I couldn’t pass the physicals for what I really wanted to do, fly. My eyesight was affected, my left knee is mostly metal, but that’s okay. If I couldn’t fly in the RAF, though, I was ready to try something different.”
“That must have been so hard.”
Max shrugged. “I have a private license if I want to fly, and hell, I love what I do now.”
“The accident—”
“You should be studying and not talking,” Max admonished. He didn’t want to talk about the crash or flying or anything that wasn’t Lucien focusing on his studies and him actually finishing one of these damn crosswords.
Lucien smiled at him, then waggled his hand in front of Max’s face. “How many fingers?”
Max didn’t follow at first. “What?”
“You said your vision is… y’know… I’m just checking that my bodyguard can actually see.” Lucien was being tongue-in-cheek, mischief in his dark eyes.
Max grabbed Lucien’s hand, entwining their fingers, and the mischief disappeared to be replaced with heat.
Abruptly Lucien extricated his hand and began to gather his books. “We’re leaving.”
When they left the library, it was nearly five p.m. and dark, and by silent agreement they walked straight home, holding back the need to touch until Max had done all his checks and they were safely inside their locked house. No sign of Jamie meant they really did have the house to themselves.
Lucien dumped his books and folders on the kitchen table, then grabbed Max’s hand and dragged him up the stairs. They played a game of Max pretending to tug away, but at the end of the day, Max wasn’t arguing. When Lucien’s bedroom door shut behind them, they didn’t waste a single second, meeting each other in the middle of the room in a heated, passionate, wanting kiss. This was what it had become between them, hot and instant, and Max could quite happily compartmentalize the sex and his job. Caring and all the messy emotional side was a little harder to manage, but he was trying.