I scrub a hand over my face, suddenly exhausted. Not from activity. I can take a beating inside the ring and not feel this shitty. No, this is purely emotional. Spending very much time with Kurt just drains me.
“I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do about it. One of the producers wanted me to have drinks with some of the regular cast. Sort of an introduction. I couldn’t really leave without looking like a shitheel.”
“Boo hoo! What a pissy life you have, with your money and your fame and your legs. Tell that shit to somebody who gives a damn about your selfish ass.”
With that, my brother grips one wheel, spins around and speeds off down the long hall that leads to his bedroom. I gave him the big master suite, which is on the main level, while I took one of the smaller bedrooms upstairs. I’d sleep on the roof if it put some distance between us. When he gets like this, he’ll seek me out ten times before I go to bed just to fight. But only if he can get to me.
Another pang of guilt streaks through me. He’s had a tough life and I feel like a bastard for getting frustrated with his attitude. Kurt isn’t one of those guys who came back from Afghanistan wounded yet thankful to be alive. No, he came back with a chip on his shoulder the size of a Boeing 757. In the three years that he’s been living with me, I’ve heard at least a thousand times how he can never catch a break and, honestly, I can see why he thinks that. He first had to deal with the world’s biggest asshole for a father, who he escaped by enlisting, only to get wounded in a foreign land. I guess he has a few good reasons to be bitter. But damn! It sure is hard to listen to it day in and day out.
With a sigh, I make my way back to his bedroom. I can hear the sounds of Call of Duty peppering its gunfire through the crack in the not-quite-closed door.
I knock. No response. I knock louder. Still no response. I knock a third time, adding a very congenial, “Hey, man, can I come in?”
All noise ceases when he pauses the game. I know he heard me; he’s just making me sweat. Kurt is never one to let an opportunity to punish me pass by. He pouts until he gets what he wants, which is essentially a nonspecific assurance that the entire world does, in fact, revolve around him.
He barks his acknowledgment of me a good minute and a half later. “What?”
“Look, bro, I should’ve called again instead of leaving a message. And if I couldn’t get you, I should’ve just told them I had to get home to my brother.” Another pang of guilt as I push the one button I know will get him off my back for a few minutes—his pride. He hates that he needs help, that he needs someone to take care of him.
Kurt spins around in his gaming chair, legs dangling limply in front of him, toes dragging lifelessly along the hardwoods. “Is that what gets you off, dickhole? Humiliating your poor crippled brother and using him as an excuse to get out of shit you’re not man enough to get out of on your own?”
“So let me get this straight. Telling the truth makes me a dickhole. Not blowing off the people who are paying me to be here makes me selfish. Damn, dude, what do you want me to do, then?”
His lean face is red with barely suppressed rage. I know the second I scored the winning point. His lips thin and his eyes narrow before he spins back around to face the television.
“Whatever, asshole. Just try to keep your word a few times before I’m dead.”
I shake my head and back out of his room, closing the door behind me. That’s as good as it’s going to get for a while, so I’ll leave that comment alone.
As I walk back down the hall, my gut burns, like my tactics were acid and I just swallowed a huge gulp. I knew I’d feel like shit about using his pride (which was just about the only thing left untouched by his ordeal) against him, but my brother really needs to take his head out of his ass every once in a while. Sometimes things can get ridiculous. I mean, all this over me being a couple hours late? When I left him a message to tell him so?
Seriously?
I grab a premium beer from the fully stocked premium fridge and stand in the kitchen as I down the first one. My phone rings before I can finish. It’s Jasper, one of the men who feel more like my family than my own flesh and blood does sometimes.
“Missing me already?” I ask, hoping this is a social call, but pretty sure that it’s not.
“You’re not pretty enough for me. Now Tag on the other hand . . .”
I laugh. Tag is the lady-killer of the four of us.
Three, I remind myself. Reid, our fourth brother-in-arms, was killed not too long ago. Someone knew his location and led a mercenary right to him. Our commander, Colonel Denton Harper, is still trying to figure out why he was killed and by whom. It’s very likely it had to do with one of the government covert operations we executed, but until the Colonel tracks down some answers, we are all in danger. For that reason alone, I suppose it’s a good thing Kurt came with me to Enchantment. We couldn’t be any better hidden if I’d handpicked a place for us to go. We’re in the middle of nowhere in a town the size of my thumbnail. A stranger would stick out like a sore thumb here.
“I’ll be sure to pass along your admiration when I see him.” Tag works a vineyard on the side of a mountain not far from here. I’m sure we’ll get together at some point.
“Just calling to say that I got a new lead. Turned it in to the Colonel. Hope it gets us something.”
“Me, too, man. You heading back to the states?”
“Uhhh, not yet. It’s not safe yet and there’s . . . Well, I’ll fill you in later. But no, I’m not coming back yet. Hopefully it won’t be long before I do, though.”
“Sounds good, J. Until then, watch your back.”
“Watch yours,” he warns.
“We’ll get this bastard.”
“Yes. We will.”
I hear death in his voice. I’ve heard it before. We all have. We’ve all done things we’ll probably never be able to talk about, but Jasper . . . he had demons that were riding him before we knew each other. I guess we all did, but his . . . Well, he’s the most tortured of us. The deadliest, too. But he’s my family and I’d trust him with my life. We all would. We all are. He’s the one most actively searching for the person responsible for Reid and his mother’s death. “Later, Ro.”
“Later, man.”
He hangs up with a click and I grab another beer before I head upstairs to go over tomorrow’s script and then turn in. Jasper and the traitor are very much on my mind. To distract myself, I think of Katie . . . maybe a bit too much. After an hour, I’ve looked at the same page a dozen times and retained exactly none of it. I have, however, managed to successfully recall every minute detail about the sexy-as-hell makeup artist. When I wake up just after three a.m., it’s with my hard dick in my hand and an auburn-haired beauty on my mind. That’s the first time I realize that I might damn well be in trouble.
NINE
Katie
I woke up feeling determined, determined to remain calmly unaffected by Kiefer Rogan. He’s just a man, probably a total jerk when he’s not trying so hard to be charming.
Total jerk, I say to myself over and over again as I make my way down the hall. I’m halfway to my door when I pull my mind back to the present enough to notice that my coworking cohort is missing from my walk. Mona gets in before I do and usually she is filling my ears with all manner of gossip, romantic elation or relationship heartbreak by now. Only this morning she’s not.
And when I get to my “office” I see why.
There, leaning up against my makeup table, gawking at Kiefer Rogan, is Mona. I don’t know which part of the scene shocks me more—Mona gawking or Rogan beating me to work. Again.