Page 77 of Rock Bottom

I fell on the bed with a happy sigh and smiled up at the ceiling. Despite this hiccup with our exit, things were going way better than I’d ever expected them to when I left L.A. I couldn’t wait to put all this behind us.

Once my thirty days were up, Church was going to have to take a few vacation days to join me in L.A. before the tour kicked off. There was this little vintage tea shop downtown I wanted to take him to. It was expensive as hell, but they let you create custom blends from the best leaves from all over the world. Whatever the cost, it would be worth it to see him smile.

Maybe I could talk him into coming with us on the UK and Western Europe leg of the trip. I bet he’d love the chance to go back to London without the pressure to visit his family, and there were two whole days between that show and the one up in Glasgow. We could do some sightseeing in one of those double-decker busses, hit up a pub for some authentic food that wouldn’t be as good as what he made…

And I knew he had issues with his parents, but I was dying to meet them just so I could tell them how amazing their son was. I wanted to kiss and hug and cuddle in front of them and watch them squirm, and then to leave dramatically. Hopefully, the press would catch some of it. Maybe I could make a few calls and embarrass the hell out of them. I didn’t know if Church would go for it, but homophobic jackasses deserved to be publicly flogged by the media. I didn’t care how rich or British they were.

I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, my eyes snapped open at the sound of a loud bang. I inhaled and coughed. Gray clouds hovered above and all around me, but why were there clouds inside?

Not clouds, idiot. Smoke! And where there’s smoke…I rolled out of bed and hit the floor, still coughing. Where was Church? And why weren’t the fire alarms going off? There was no time to worry about the second part of that. I had to find Church.

“Church!” I shouted between coughs, crawling toward the ladder. There was so much smoke that I could barely see anything. Tears ran down my cheeks from my stinging eyes, but I started down the ladder, pulling my shirt up over my mouth and nose. “Church, where are you?”

Something wasn’t right. He should’ve been dragging me out of the house by my ear. Instead, he was nowhere to be found.

The kitchen was a wall of red-hot fire and smoke that was quickly chewing through the place. Fire roiled along the ceiling, clawing towards the loft. If he was in the kitchen, he was dead. The thought made the tears flow faster down my cheeks. I wanted to stay and search for him because he had to be somewhere, but it felt like my lungs were about to explode.

I stumbled, coughing, through the front door and tripped right over Church. I went down, catching myself with my hands on the porch. Splinters of wood bit into my skin, and I rolled away, hissing in pain.

It was only then that I realized Church wasn’t moving.

“Church!” Ignoring the pain in my hands and knees, I grabbed him and rolled him onto his back. He groaned. That was a good sign, right? At least I knew he was breathing. “Hold on, Christian. We’re going to get you out of this.”

I moved my hands down his chest and paused. There were two white coiled wires coming out of his stomach. What the hell?

“Don’t.”

I lifted my head and locked eyes with Oscar, who held a gun in one shaky hand pointed straight at me. His other hand was clamped over his bicep while blood dripped around his fingers.

The bang that woke me up…It must have been a gunshot. I followed the coiled white wires over to where a bright yellow gun lay on the porch. A taser. Oscar must’ve tasered Church and taken his gun after Church shot him.

“Get away from him,” Oscar demanded, waving the gun.

I slowly lifted my arms in surrender. “Easy. You’re not going to shoot me.”

His jaw trembled, and he pointed the gun at Church. “No, but I could shoot him with a real gun this time.”

I threw myself on top of Church, glaring up at Oscar. “Then you’ll have to shoot me, too.”

He stomped over and yanked on my shirt. “I said get away from him!”

I thought about grabbing for the gun, but the chance that it might go off and hit Church was too high. Instead, I hunched over, putting up my hands. “At least let me move him away from the fire! Let me make sure he doesn’t die and then I’ll do anything you want!”

He froze, studying me. “Anything?”

“Anything you want. I won’t fight as long as he’s safe.”

He clenched his jaw, considering, then took a step back. “You can bring him off the porch, but that’s it.”

“Thank you.” My mind was racing as I put Church’s arm around my shoulder. For the first time, I found myself irritated by his giant size. Dragging him down the stairs left my back aching in places I didn’t know I had. I propped him up near the post.

He groaned, his head rolling back and forth. “Dante?”

“I’m okay,” I said, taking his face in my hands. I planted a quick kiss on his lips and whispered, “I love you.”

Maybe it was the worst time to say it, but I was worried I might not get another chance before Oscar took me off into the woods and killed me.

“That’s enough!” Oscar yanked me away from him by my collar and shoved me toward the woods. “Walk.”

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