Page 56 of Rock Bottom

I groaned. “Fine,” I said, and half rolled off of him, falling to the floor. Annoyed, I sifted through our discarded clothes for something to clean us off with and settled on my shirt, swiping my fingers over it before grabbing his phone and tossing it to him.

He hit the button and held it to his ear. “Church.” His neck flushed a brighter pink. “No, I was just…” He glanced at me. “…working out. What did you find? Really? Are you sure? No, I’ll talk to them tomorrow morning. It’s late and Dante is…He’s sleeping. Yeah. Okay.” He rolled his eyes. “Oh, fuck off, Bowie.” He hung up and tossed the phone back to the table.

I finished wiping him off with the t-shirt as best I could. “Did they find Oscar?”

“Not yet.” Church sighed and sat up. “But Bowie says it looks like this isn’t the first trouble you’ve had with him.”

I frowned and scooted up onto the sofa to sit next to him. “But I’d never met Oscar before I came here.”

“Not in person.” Church stood and grabbed his pants from the floor, pulling them on. “Bowie pulled Oscar’s paperwork from when he signed the NDA here and compared his signature with a signature on some of your fan mail.”

“That doesn’t prove—”

“Threatening fan mail.” Church bent over to pick up his shirt. “He’s using a different name, but the handwriting is similar. He’s sending it to an FBI agent who owes us a favor for an analysis. We’ll know for sure soon.”

I sighed and let my head fall back against the cushions, eyes closed. “I just want to forget about this whole mess and move on.”

“If he came after you once, he might do it again, especially now that he’s had a taste for it.” Church sat down and took my hand in his before planting a quick kiss on my cheek. “Don’t worry, Dante. I’ll protect you.”

I forced a smile, despite the sick feeling churning in my gut. “I know you will, kitten.”

Dante went to bed early that night. It was the first time since we’d arrived at the cabin that he’d gone to sleep before one. I checked on him at midnight and found him face down and snoring, dead to the world. He looked so relaxed, it made me want to crawl into bed next to him.

But I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready for a lot of things.

Maybe we were moving too fast, but it wasn’t like we had unlimited time. We had a little over two weeks left before he had to go back to his life. It didn’t feel like enough. Not enough time for him to get better, or enough time for us to explore what this thing between us was.

It’s a fling, Church. That’s all it can be. I sighed and fell into my bed, staring at the ceiling. Since when I was I the sort that had flings? I didn’t even date people. I’d never wanted to. My life was too complicated to go getting involved with people. Asking someone else to put up with my PTSD felt unfair. Even if I did pursue a relationship, it couldn’t go anywhere. What were we going to do? Get married? I couldn’t see that working without one of us giving up our careers. I wouldn’t know what to do without the Junkyard Dogs, and Dante…He loved music, which I could barely tolerate on my best days.

I closed my eyes. I’m thinking about this too hard. Maybe I should just enjoy it for what it is while I can. It’s not like I’m getting any younger and there aren’t exactly people lining up to get in bed with me.

On nights when my anxiety was running high, I usually tried to tough it out and stay awake, but I was so exhausted I couldn’t stop myself from drifting off to sleep with a heavy heart.

I dreamed of the four by four cell that was my home for more than a year. I shared it with nine other men in complete darkness. The space was so cramped, we had to take turns sitting. Meals came once a day, and with them, beatings. Guards pulled people from the cells at random, but usually grabbed whoever was closest to the door. At first, I tried to be there most of the time, knowing that I was bigger than my cell mates, that I could take a beating better than them. But as the days wore on and my injuries festered, I offered myself up less and less until it was me cowering in the back of that cell, praying they’d choose someone else that day.

That was the time I dreamed of most often, of wishing to be small, to be a shadow in a crowded room, to be invisible so the pain would fall on someone else, at least for a little while, and the crushing guilt that followed.

I woke with that feeling weighing heavily on my chest and drenched in sweat. The ceiling fan spun above me like the blades on a helicopter, around and around and around. I thought about nothing, about everything, about sinking into the bed and never waking up, about the letters I should’ve written to the families of the men who had died in that cell if only I’d known their names. Instead, when I made it back to London, it was endless interviews and cameras crowding, voices shouting, applause roaring and “God Save the Queen” over and over while so many more were dying elsewhere.

I squeezed my eyes closed and forced myself to focus on my breathing. Name three things you can touch. The blanket in my hands. The pillow. Dante’s soft lips… I sighed and let my eyes open, saying to the room, “I need to piss.”

The room didn’t answer, but my sleep-hoarse voice felt too loud against the steady whirr of the fan blades.

I got up and started my morning routine, downing two glasses of water before going out back. Nightmares always left me feeling angry for no reason, and the best way to get it out of my system was to workout. Weights were best, but I’d only been able to bring my travel equipment, which meant my adjustable dumbbells and resistance bands.

I started with a pair of twenties, doing curls, squats, and presses while watching the sun come up. Birds sang and crickets chirped. If I listened carefully, I could hear the frogs out at the lake, too. I still hadn’t made it out there to go fishing, and it was likely I wouldn’t. Dante didn’t strike me as the fishing type, and there was no way I could leave him alone after what’d happened.

The door slid open behind me and I paused my workout to turn around. Dante leaned against the doorway, his hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, eyes still puffy. He’d thrown on a pair of sweatpants and a thin cardigan, but opted for his guitar instead of shoes.

I turned back to the workout. “You’re up early.”

“I figured since I confessed last night about watching you from upstairs, there was no point in all the secrecy.” He paced out onto the patio and draped himself in the wicker chair, putting his feet up on the matching table. “Might as well come down and get a better view.”

His fingers danced over the strings and my shoulders stiffened.

I looked over at him with a frown. “I’m not here to put on a show for you.”

“That’s just a pleasant side effect,” Dante said with a wink. “Forget I’m here.”

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