Like a five-star bachelor pad. Updated, trendy. Double the size of my shoebox Philly apartment.
I remember Akara telling me security housing in New York costs the most. Weird to think that I’m more friends with Akara than with Oscar. There was a time where I thought Akara and I would butt heads forever, but I fixed that fast.
I don’t like having enemies.
While I wait for Oscar, I wander around and pause near the bookcase. A family photo rests in a pewter frame.
Must’ve been taken years ago. Oscar’s little sister Joana looks no older than ten, smiling a wide crooked-toothed smile. Her hands are up in fists while she’s perched on the shoulders of a twenty-something Oscar.
His fists are playfully up too, but he’s facing his younger brother Quinn, who pretends to box his big brother.
A boxing family.
I know that much. I wonder if he’s as close to his siblings as I am to Jesse. I’ve been around all three of the Oliveiras before. Like at Scotland last Christmas where Oscar, Quinn, and Joana were snowed-in with me and a lot of others.
I frown, remembering an argument between Quinn and Oscar outside a Scottish pub. Quinn punched Oscar. I don’t know why.
It’d crush my soul if Jesse even tried to swing at me.
Deep down, I wish this show were about Oscar. I have so many things I want to ask him. I have since the first time he called me Long Beach.
“Alright, Highland, let’s get this over with.” Oscar walks closer, a bag of mini powdered donuts in his hands.
I do a literal double-take. His gray gym pants hang low on his chiseled waist. He’s shirtless, and my eyes drift along the Latin script inked on his golden-brown skin, placed across his collarbone. He’s Brazilian-American, born and raised in Philly, but I know the Latin phrase has something to do with Brazil.
Oscar has the body of an athlete, like me. I’ve met many guys who are just as cut, just as toned, and I never really gave it a second thought. But I’m standing here with a notebook clenched in my hand and surveying his beauty and washboard abs like he’s the Mona Lisa.
I wonder what it’d be like to run my hand across his body, his chest, his unshaven jaw. To hold his face and kiss him. He’s masculine. Hard. Muscled.
What am I doing?
Get your head in the game, dude.
I lift my gaze back to Oscar’s.
He rips open the donut bag, the noise sounding too loud in the apartment. “You know, I’d ask you if you find something you like,” Oscar says, trying to be casual but I hear the strained endnote. “But we’ve already covered that. You’re straight, right?”
My throat swells, tongue weighed down. I hate myself for uttering those words in Italy. But I’ve never questioned myself about my sexuality. Not at ten-years-old, not as a teenager, not in college.
I’m twenty-seven. I should have this shit figured out. I should know who I am. I thought I did. I’m straight. I’ve only dated women. Only been sexual with women. Only really thought about being with a woman.
But then Oscar entered the picture, and my flirty jokes and banter that I have with just about everyone felt different with him.
I would anticipate it happening again and again. My heart would float like I was breathing in helium. I felt…
I feel…
I swallow hard. He’s staring at me. Waiting for me to speak, and I bide time by pulling the pen out from behind my ear and twirling it between my fingers.
You’re straight, right? he asked.
I nod slowly.
FYI: I feel chicken-shit scared in this moment. To believe one thing for so long about myself and then have to reassess is not even close to easy.
Uncomfortable silence still hangs, so I try to play it off like nothing’s changed between us. “Well, if you did ask me if I found something I liked, I would’ve told you that I like your look.” I motion to the rolled blue bandana tied around his forehead, pieces of his curly hair falling over, and my blood heats. No, actually, my dick pulses. “You’re an attractive guy, and you’d be good on TV.” Do I sound choked?
Oscar pinches a powdered donut between three fingers. “You’ve told me that before. And the answer still hasn’t changed.”
Selfishly, I just want to grill the fuck out of him.
He pops the donut in his mouth, and my stomach lets out a loud groan. I’m about to laugh the noise off when Oscar frowns deeply. He rubs powdered dust off his lips with the back of his hand. “You hungry?”
“I had to run out the door this morning, so I missed bre—” I don’t even finish my sentence before Oscar is moving back to the kitchen.
“It’s fine,” I tell him. Dude, shut up. Something inside me is utterly enamored with how easily and quickly he just moved into action for me.
“Bro, your stomach is screaming at me,” Oscar says. “It’d be a crime not to feed you.” He bends down to his bottom cabinet. Back turned to me, his drawstring pants pull tight around his ass.
Jesus fuck. My stomach squeezes. And my dick almost rouses. Stay down.
I cage a breath. Don’t breathe. Don’t speak. My composure is teetering on the edge of a diving board, and at this point, I’m questioning if I even know how to swim.
Me, Jack Highland, a collegiate swimmer at Penn.
I manage to sit on a wooden barstool across from Oscar without completely losing it. My body acts like he’s the hottest thing to ever step foot on this Earth, and my brain has trouble catching up to these feelings.
I’m laps behind.
Tensely, I take off my messenger bag and pull out a contract. I set the paper beside my spiral notebook and abandoned donuts on the marble bar counter.
“I can just have a donut,” I end up saying. “You don’t need to get me anything.”
Oscar stands up with two boxes of cereal. “Baby donuts will hold you over for five seconds.”
Baby donuts. I smile.
He shakes the boxes. “Pick your poison, Long Beach.”
Organic granola cereal or Lucky Charms.
I hesitate, my smile faltering.
Something intangible stretches the air. I hate that uncertain, uncomfortable feeling because it means other people feel uncomfortable and uncertain. I pride myself on erasing doubts and fears and tension in any room.
But lately, I realize, if it’s just me and Oscar sharing space, I can’t seem to let out the words to ease this thing between us. I let it fester for a second too long.
Oscar frowns. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy that overthinks things. And not for nothing, Long Beach, but it’s just cereal.”
“Yeah,” I nod. “I just don’t know what I feel like.”
“So have both.” He opens the flap to the Lucky Charms.
My head spins. “You’re right, you know. I don’t overthink things.”
More tendrils of his hair fall over his rolled bandana as he shakes cereal into a bowl. “Look, I didn’t want to bring it up and make it more awkward, but I’m not a twelve-year-old, and I won’t avoid it.” He closes the Lucky Charms box and opens the granola cereal. “I think you’re hot, but I think a lot of people are hot. Me asking you for a kiss isn’t a big deal. We don’t need to make it a big deal.”
My stomach overturns.
Disappointment. Devastation. Wrapped up nicely in a little ball.
“It’s not a big deal,” I say, appeasing him, and then I quickly add, “You’re not the first person who’s asked to kiss me.”
His brows knot as he slowly spins the cap off a milk carton. “But I’m the first guy that’s asked to kiss you.”
My pulse pumps harder. “Well…yeah.”
“Good to know,” he says in a gruff way that sounds like he actually would have preferred to go to his grave without that knowledge.
Make this better. Jesus fuck.
“It’s alright,” I tell him.
“Don’t do that,” he says quickly as he adds milk to the bowl.
“Do what?” I reply, but I know w
hat he’s referring to.
He rummages in a drawer for a spoon. His brown eyes keep flitting to me, strands of his hair hitting his lashes. My muscles tense. Why is that so fucking hot?
“You do this thing, Jack, where you try to make everyone feel good. I don’t need that kind of emotional baby blanket.” His eyes touch mine. A beat passing between us. His brows rise. “I’m good.”
“Good,” I say, my chest tightening.
He nods. “Good.”
The air deadens.
I can’t take it. “Oscar, I’m just trying to make this less awkward.”
“That’s not going to be possible.” He pushes the bowl forward, both cereals mixed together. His eyes latch on the contract near the donuts. “Is that one mine?”
“Yeah,” I breathe. “I dropped Charlie’s contract off to his lawyer on the drive here, and I have a copy for him to sign.” It would’ve been easier to send electronic contracts, but Charlie specified paper instead of digital.
In case of leaks.
While Oscar’s eyes journey over the paper, the sun finally starts to rise. Oranges bleed through the window 21-floors high. Bathing the kitchen, him and me, in rays of light.
It brings me back to the wedding reception. When I was bent over the hatchback as the sun set along the coast, and I turned around. The glow of the waning sun illuminated Oscar Oliveira, and he was gorgeous.
I almost told him.
I’ve told plenty of guys they’re beautiful.
But I stopped myself because that moment felt different than those other times. Maybe I just wanted it to be different.
I clutch my spoon, another knot in my chest. Giving him time to read the fine print, I shovel spoonfuls of cereal in my mouth.
After a minute, he starts shaking his head aggressively.
“What?” I question. “It’s all standard.”
“This says he has to have at minimum ten interview sessions. Charlie can barely sit down for one.”
This is what I was worried about. “If he wants to do this, he has to put in the time. Either he signs it, or he doesn’t. It’s no sweat to me.”
Oscar doesn’t say anything.
I study him, up and down. “Do you want him to do the show?”
“Answering that would require me to know why he’s doing it. Which I don’t. He rarely tells me shit.”
“Why is that?”
Oscar gives me a pointed look. “I’m not your subject, Highland.”
“I can just ask Charlie.”
“Go for it,” Oscar says. “I’d love to hear his answer.” He stares down at the contract and flips through the last couple of pages. “You have in here that there’ll be an additional three people involved in crew. From a security standpoint, I’m a little concerned about all of you getting in my way. We Are Calloway filming lasts ten minutes around him. I can’t have that all day every day. It’s going to be a problem.”
“I need a crew—”
“I need to do my job,” Oscar cuts me off.
I let out a frustrated noise. “And I don’t need to do mine?”
“How hard is yours?” he wonders. “Because mine is fucking difficult every way you come at it. I can’t add something else to it. Narrow down your crew or it’s a no-go. I’ll cut the cord before Charlie even gets the contract.”
Confidence radiates from every pore, and his threat is palpable in the room. I’ve been head-to-head with enough guys on security to not cower. But something about Oscar slowly simmers my blood.
“For the pilot, I can agree to that,” I tell him. “But if it gets picked up for network, I can’t have a reduced crew.”
“I’m not budging from this.”
I shake my head. “Out of all the things to push back on…”
“You’ll understand when you start filming him,” Oscar says. “I’m not being an asshole just for shits and giggles. Just trust me on this.”
Getting a series order will happen down the line, and maybe I can renegotiate a bigger crew then. Right now, I just have to get off the block.
“I can agree to—” Static crackles, and I cut myself off, realizing the black radio pack beside the sink, earpiece cord wrapped around the small device, is turned on. Volume is so loud that I hear security clearly.
“Farrow to Thatcher, is anyone making a pit stop at the lake house?”
Oscar’s hand jolts fast towards the radio. Seizing it. Maybe to power it off or lower the volume so I can’t hear.
I’m production.
I’m not a bodyguard.
But as our eyes meet, something stops him. He cradles the radio in his palm.
I dunk my spoon into the milk and ask lightly, “Are Farrow and Maximoff already at the family’s lake house?” I heard they were spending their honeymoon there, but I didn’t know when they were leaving.
Oscar glances at the rising sun. “Yeah, they should’ve arrived this morning.” His muscles are still flexed. Still rigidly clutching the radio.
I may have gone to an Ivy League, but it doesn’t take a genius to know whatever Oscar is thinking, it’s not good. But more than anything, I can’t get over how he’s not shutting me out of comms.
I can’t name a single bodyguard who wouldn’t pull the plug and turn the volume to negative 100 on me, on anyone in production.
6
OSCAR OLIVEIRA
What in the ever-loving hell am I doing?
Turn the volume down on the damn radio, Oscar.
Put your earpiece in.
Don’t let Jack Highland listen to comms chatter.
I’ve never wavered about this. One girl I slept with was two seconds from hearing a bodyguard talk about Luna Hale. How she was close to flunking high school. I snatched the radio off my end table like it was the last Snickers on Earth, and I shut the girl out of my work.
In this jack-knifing second, my common sense is thrown in the gutter, making way for…what? Idiocy. No. No, I’m too intelligent to be that dumb.
Some part of me is instinctively saying, keep this guy in the loop. Keep him with you. Keep him close. And he might be production, but he understands sheltering secrets about the famous ones. He’s never betrayed them, and I have no reason to believe he’d betray me.
Don’t let me down, Highland.
I let him overhear comms.
Thatcher responds quickly to Farrow with a simple curt, “Negative.”
I must wear my confusion because Jack asks, “Is that a bad thing?” He swirls around his cereal but looks at me.
“Thatcher is the SFO lead,” I remind him as I reach in the pockets of my sweatpants for my cell. Not there. I scan the kitchen. “So he should know where every bodyguard is at. We’re supposed to report if we make any location changes, and he’s saying no one is at the lake house.”
“But Farrow thinks someone’s there?” Jack asks after another spoonful of cereal.
“Bingo.” I’m still searching for my phone.
“By the toaster,” Jack points out with the tilt of his chin.
I eye him and his easy-going smile that makes this situation seem less caustic. A grin edges across my mouth in return, but I remind myself not to play the part of fool and fall into his allure.
“Is Ripley with them?” Jack wonders.
I grab my phone. “Yeah, they brought the baby.” I approach the bar counter that separates his body from mine. Being close causes my gaze to travel along his features: squared jawline, dark thick brows and glittering eyes—and that smile, fuck that captivating, dazzling smile. And I swear he’s doing the same to me.
He does this to everyone.
Does he check out everyone?
It’s the only thing that makes sense.
Jack asks, “What do you think about Farrow being Ripley’s guardian? The baby is six-months-old now, right?” He eats more cereal.
“Look at you, going all ‘producer’ on me and asking me life questions.” I mockingly hunt for his video camera, opening and shutting drawers.
Glancing over my shoulder, up at the ceiling.
His eyes are glued to me, lips rising.
“Your baby has to be somewhere.” I lean over the counter and peer around Jack’s body. My biceps flex, and I see his honey-brown eyes trace the carve of muscle. Blood pumps in my veins, especially as our gazes crash together, and he intakes a more confident breath.
If only he wasn’t straight.
I’d already be clutching his jaw and kissing the hell out of him. I’ve thought about pulling his crew-neck tee off and skating my large palm down his chest a painful number of times this morning. Once I started imagining his hand around my cock, I hit defense mode on my internal alarm system.
Lock it up.
Slowly, I careen back. Giving us some space.
He runs his fingers through his hair. “My camera is in my car.” His voice is just as light as before, and he motions between us. “This is off-the-record.”
I touch my chest. “I’m flattered you’d do that for me.”
He smiles. “Well, I love to flatter you.”
“Oh I know,” I say, trying not to sound sexually or romantically frustrated.
He keeps dunking his spoon in milk, silence extending before he tells me, “I’m just trying to get to know you better.”
Is that a good idea? Against better judgment, my defenses drop. Maybe because I want to get to know him better too. “Ripley is, in fact, sixth-months-old,” I answer his questions. “It’s still unbelievable to me what happened. You know, Donnelly was supposed to become the guardian, but he couldn’t do it. I’ve known him for over a decade, and the guy is responsible but he’s not ready to be a father.” It would’ve destroyed him.
“So Farrow stepped in,” Jack nods, knowing the history.
Of course he does. I don’t know why I forgot that he hears and sees a lot. Plus, the famous ones talk to him.
“Yeah, that’s how Farrow is. Everyone wants to be his friend because he looks like a cool motherfucker. He’d do anything for his friends, even if you haven’t talked to him in years. If you need him, he’d drop everything and help.” I shrug. “Donnelly and I are similar, but we’re easier to befriend. And I’m happy Farrow was there to take the baby. He has Maximoff to lean on.”
Charming Like Us (Like Us Series: Billionaires & Bodyguards Book 7) Page 5