Page 31 of Protecting Mr. Fine

“Auden must have been devastated when the king died. Both of them, really. Gerhard and Auden.”

“Mm. I can’t even imagine. I’m glad they have Gisella. She’s very fun-loving. A great mom and wife. Hopefully, she’ll balance out Gerhard’s strict stodginess and remind Auden not to take himself too seriously.”

We reached the tree line and continued into the small forest on a path that looked well traveled by the property’s summer visitors.

“I had a friend like that in college,” I said. “Bodhi, actually.”

“Asshole,” Bear coughed.

A laugh bubbled up unexpectedly. “He’s not an asshole.”

“Remind me again what he said about your teeth.”

Bear’s growly, instinctive protectiveness surrounded me like awarm blanket and made things in the vicinity of my heart get tight… to say nothing of the situation in my jeans.

Instead of luxuriating in the warmth, though, I forced myself to wave his words away. I concentrated on walking faster and the rhythmiccrunch, swishof my feet on the leaf-strewn ground.

“Bodhi was young and stupid,” I said. “That was one of the things I liked about him. I took myself incredibly seriously at Yale. Felt like I had something to prove. Bodhi convinced me to live a little. Have some fun. Make time for music in the midst of all the academics. He taught me about balance.” I thought about it for a moment and added with a smile, “And my teethweregenuinely awful.”

“I think he sounds like a shithead. A jealous, immature shithead who wanted to make you feel bad,” Bear grumbled.

I snickered. “Hardly. I helped him get seen in the music world. Bodhi always wanted to play drums professionally, and now he does.”

Bear glanced at me. “That’s rare.”

I nodded. “It’s not easy to make a living as a musician.”

“No, I mean it’s rare for you to take credit for helping someone.”

My face heated, but I hoped I could pass it off as exertion from walking uphill. “Bodhi was grateful, and he’s very supportive. When I stopped using Noelle as my publicist, he did the same?—”

“Zane, Noelle was incompetent. Any idiot would have left her after learning how she and her PR team almost ‘publicized’ you right into state prison.”

He wasn’t wrong. “Still. Bodhi is good people. I got an email from him this morning, actually. I asked him why he never showed at Shaky Knees, and he said hedid—he actually really wanted to talk to me—but security wouldn’t give him access to my dressing room after the show.”

I wrinkled my nose. Bear had locked everything down after hearing about the Stamper, and I didn’t blame him one bit, but I hated that Bodhi might have felt unwanted after making an effort to see me.

“Anyway,” I went on, “he’s playing a fewgigs somewhere in Ireland, I think, so he’ll be at the Amsterdam show. He asked if I could arrange another VIP pass for him. Kinda cool that the two of us will both be playing in Europe at the same time, huh?”

“Do you think it’s interesting that he’s picked now to ‘really want to talk to you’?”

“Nope. He does this every few years. It usually coincides with him breaking up with a guy. Bodhi doesn’t do solo very well, in music or in his personal life. He probably just needs a shoulder to cry on.”

“Hmm.”

I’d gotten to know Bear well enough in the past year to recognize when he was holding himself back from stating his opinions.

I’d also gotten to know him well enough to know exactly what those opinions were.

First, Bear thought Bodhi was a hanger-on, like certain members of my family. He thought our friendship was mostly one-sided. He’d almost definitely put Bodhi on a short list of possible stampers and was having him investigated by Violet’s team. I knew Bear was wrong about this part, at least—Bodhi might be a little self-absorbed, but he wasn’t dangerous—but I knew better than to waste my breath explaining. Especially not when Bear’s protectiveness felt so damn nice.

More importantly, though, it was Bear’s opinion that I should cancel the remaining tour dates.

“I know you’re over there perseverating on my insistence to still do these shows,” I began.

“Yale grads sure do like their big words,” he said, not for the first time. I glanced away to keep from staring at the edge of his lip that was turned up from teasing me.

“Articulating your vitriol is superfluous,” I said with a sniff. “You imply I’m loquacious, which is a definitive juxtaposition with your previous implication I’m cautious and perspicacious. And totes adorbs.”

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