His gaze narrows in want.
I test something and edge my fingers towards his—he tenses. Badly. Enough to where I draw my hand back to his shoulder, and he stays rigid and catches his breath.
I have to ask. “You still want to try to bottom?”
Maximoff lifts his body off me a little more. His palm on the quilt by my shoulder. His eyes trace an inked skull pirate on my ribcage. “Yeah,” he says with a heavy breath. “I do, but I keep thinking about the tour bus and how the fuck this’ll work.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I say, confident about this.
He waits for me to add something else. A strategy or a plan. Maximoff likes to pack his survival gear, and I’m basically saying, just trust me with what we have on our backs.
He makes a face. “So we’ll figure it out in a million light-years.”
I roll my eyes into a short laugh. “I meant we’ll figure it out in the moment, not when we’re both buried six feet under the ground.” His phone rings and then buzzes somewhere on the bed.
He sits up. “I could be immortal.”
I sit up too. “You’re definitely not humble.” I find his phone beneath his pillow and toss it to him. “Here you go, beautiful.”
Maximoff catches his cell and looks thoroughly annoyed by me. Job well done. “Thanks,” he says. “Now I’m eternally sterile.”
“That’s not how that works,” I say. “Looks like you need elementary biology.”
His next words are garbled in a long yawn.
“And sleep,” I add as he pinches his tired eyes—he drops his hand, glowering. His forest-greens flit to my rock-hard bulge, then his bulge.
“I can tell you who’s bigger. And it’s not you.”
He tries hard not to break into a smile. “Funny.”
“It wasn’t a joke.”
He glares. “Now I’m fucking limp. Thank you.”
I tilt my head. “Do I really need to point out the lie here?”
He ignores me by pulling the quilt over our legs. Then he unlocks his phone. “It’s probably Dari.” His assistant. “I emailed her about the tour.” A frown crests his face. “I missed a call. Maybe a butt dial since it didn’t ring that many times…and a text from the same person.” He straightens up.
I rest my elbow on my bent knee. “It’s not Dari,” I assume.
He flashes his cell, a text on the screen.
Can we talk when you have time? – Dr. Keene.
Fucking hell. My father is texting him. On a subject unrelated to his health.
Someone among the Hales, Cobalts or Meadows must’ve told my father that I’m dating Maximoff. It makes the most sense.
And instead of contacting me, his son, he’s reaching out to Maximoff. I sense the strain between me and my father all the time, but it seems to yank tighter.
Maximoff cracks a knuckle. “What do you want me to do?”
“I don’t care.” I’d rather he just lie back down and try to sleep than deal with this shit.
“You do fucking care,” he rebuts, “or else you wouldn’t look ready to uppercut a punching bag right now.”
“If that were true, then it’d mean my father pisses me off.” I’m about to swing my legs off the bed. “And when it comes to him, I feel nothing.”
Maximoff catches my bicep before I move away. “You seriously feel nothing?”
“It’s irritating that he’s texting you and not me, but that’s it. I didn’t start the cold war. It’s all him.” My father wants me to join the family legacy and be a practicing doctor. I have the MD, but I’m never finishing my residency. It’s just not what I want, and he hasn’t accepted that.
Maximoff nods. “I’ll call him back later.”
I try to slide off the bed again.
Maximoff pulls me back for a second time. “Where the fuck are you going?” he asks.
My lip quirks. He really doesn’t want me to leave him, and I struggle to look anywhere else but at him. Consumed. “Need my hand?”
“No,” he says firmly. “I just want you.”
That hits me hard. I almost crawl back. Do your motherfucking job, Farrow. I grit down and then tell him, “I have to get my phone. I haven’t checked social media threats tonight.”
Security’s tech team spends more time doing this tedious shit for us. But personal bodyguards are still supposed to “stay updated” and “aware” of the discourse about our client on social media.
With the media fallout, it’s more important for me to gauge the climate surrounding Maximoff.
“You can do it on my phone,” he tells me, handing me his cell. Trusting me with it.
I can imagine the envy of girls and guys everywhere. And he chose me.
He loves me.
Damn.
My chest swells for a second.
Maximoff lies back, smashes a pillow and then places his head down. He yawns. “I think I’m going to…” He yawns again.
He’s going to pass out. Exhaustion starts drawing his eyes closed.
Good.
He needs that.
I’ve slept in the same bed with him enough to know that he’s typically not a cuddler until a couple hours into sleep. It’s a private, personal fact that tabloids would crave and reprint a hundred times. And it’s all mine for safekeeping.
I stack a couple pillows and lie flat. I’m not about to click into his texts. Privacy is already hard for him, and I’ve never been a nosy little bastard.
I download a program to his phone. It filters certain words on all social medias, and I select a time range. Basically from the last time I did this yesterday to now. Then I type out variations of phrases I need searched like:
kill Maximoff Hale
die Moffy
murder Lily & Lo’s son
Results pop up, 99% just hyperbolic bullshit or slang. I scroll and scroll for two hours. Long enough that Maximoff turns on his side towards me, and our legs interlace.
He rests his head on my shoulder, his arm splayed across my abs. A small smile edges my mouth, and I rub his back before holding him against me.
With my other hand, I still scroll. I have to reach the bottom of the list. About finished, I hover over a search result: @maximoffdeadhale
Usernames like that one are rare. I click on @maximoffdeadhale to find the origin. An Instagram account: 3 posts, 0 followers, 1 following.
I go very still, and my gaze narrows on the oldest photo.
Posted 8 hours ago, the user photoshopped Maximoff reading a comic at Superheroes & Scones into a gory death scene. Eyes crossed out, swords impale Maximoff’s chest, and blood gushes. In the comments, the user posted only one thing: #DeservesToDie
Motherfucker. I grit my teeth, my nose flaring. Distaste runs into the back of my throat. I pop up a second photo, posted 7 hours ago.
An altered photo of Maximoff in his Audi. Where he’s halfway out of the windshield. Blood soaking the glass. My stomach roils. I swallow a rock, and I remember to view this horrific account as his bodyguard.
Not his boyfriend.
Right now, I have to separate the two. My job description says, scrutinize visual deaths of your client with rational thought and care. But I’m scrutinizing visual deaths of the guy I love. I may as well slap a hot iron at my face. Painful—and it’s pissing me off.
I grind my teeth a few times.
Be his bodyguard. I can’t lash out in the comment section of an anonymous internet user. I can’t be overly sensitive to idiotic fuckers. I’m the shield that protects Maximoff Hale, and I’m never going to break and leave him defenseless.
See, I have to practice a great deal of restraint. Especially now.
I examine the photo closer. Real threat or fake threat?
It could be a troll account. I don’t have enough information yet.
Third and most recent photo, posted 5 hours ago, shows Maximoff outside of the nightclub Tidal Wave. And he’s decapitated.
Fuck.
My chest constric
ts, and Maximoff shifts his jaw more in the crook of my neck and shoulder. He’s only vulnerable like this with me, and usually, it happens when we’re alone. Shit, I just want to protect the fuck out of him.
Staying motionless, I try my best not to wake Maximoff.
And I force myself to analyze the third photo. Searching for anything to help determine if it’s a real or fake threat.
Seems fake. But my heart rate elevates. Because I recognize it’s not 100% confirmed. With the slimmest chance, someone out there may truly want Maximoff Hale to die.
Enough to make it happen.
“Farrow?” Maximoff lifts his head groggily.
“Go back to sleep,” I whisper and click his phone screen to black.
He squints and rubs his eyes roughly. “Your whole body is flexed…” His gaze lands on the black-screened phone, and he readies himself like a soldier for combat. Immediately sitting up, alert and awake.