Page 6 of Protecting Mr. Fine

“You’re not canceling it. I am. This is the third time some psycho has gotten their hands on you, Zane, and I’m not allowing you to?—”

I whipped around, shaking his hands off me in the process. “Not allowing? I’m not your child,Ryan. I’m your principal, as you remind me on a regular basis. You work for me, remember?”

His eyebrow winged up, possibly at my use of his real name, and there was the barest hint of a smirk at the edge of his mouth. “I actually don’t work for you.” He paused before casting my own word back at me. “Remember?”

I pressed my lips together in frustration. “Fine. You work for the label. But you’re here for me, for my protection. And the label doesn’t get to decide that I can’t visit my family. I’ve been looking forward to this trip for months, and you know it.”

“I do know, and I’m sorry. Genuinely. But it’s not safe. We don’t know what the stamps mean. We don’t know who’s doing this. We don’t know how they keep getting to you. And we don’t know what they might do next. We need to regroup. To come up with a new personal protection strategy to?—”

I held up my hand. “No. I know what you’re going to say. You want the label to bump up the detail and put a fucking army of people on me. That’s not happening, not when there’s no proof the person or people doing this mean me any harm.”

He shot me another look. The man had an innate ability to read my mind, but I did my best to keep my emotions locked down anyway. If he realized just how freaked-out I was by this situation, he’d burn the whole world to get me home to LA and shut me up tight in my Malibu home.

He’d threatened to suspend the tour to “reassess our security strategy” more than once, but thus far, I’d always managed toconvince him to do the reassessing while keeping the tour going. Canceling shows meant costing the venues revenue and costing their workers jobs, not to mention costing the fans lost time and money.

Bear knew how committed I was to following through on my promises, to providing jobs and bonuses to the people on the team who busted their asses to make these performances the best they could be. He knew how devastated I’d be if our team’s decision caused even one penny-pinching preteen to be disappointed.

But this time… this time, I was almost tempted to let him take over. To curl up in a ball and ask him to ferry me away from the crowds and the fear of the unknown. The only thing stopping me was the thought of missing a long-awaited visit with my gran.

There was no place I felt safer or more loved than in Barlo, Georgia. In Barlo, nothing would be able to reach me. There, everyone knew me and loved me. Everyone would gather round and keep me safe. For at least a little while, I’d be able to forget about Zee Barlo and simply be…

“Zane.” Bear’s voice was like whiskey poured over gravel. “Someonetouchedyou. They stamped a literal target onto your fucking skin?—”

I sucked in a breath. “Yes, a stylized target. The same target as the one on my first album cover,” I reminded him. “It’s not a threat. Necessarily. It’s probably a… a… I don’t know. A prank. A dare, maybe. Or they have a weird obsession with the album. Or the target icon. Or they think they’ll seem cool if they can get close enough to me to…” I didn’t have the words to describe what I was trying to say, and I could tell that my arguments were only making Bear more angry. I added hastily, “My point is, there’s no proof they intend harm. So we’re not going to overreact. You and Lou can handle things in Barlo. It’s a tiny town, for god’s sake.Thenwe’ll head back to LA and figure out if there’s anything to be concerned about. But I can already tell you there won’t be.”

“Need I remind you there is a contract stipulation about your safety that indicates…”

I stopped paying attention to the lecture since it was nothing new and instead focused on Bear’s face as he spoke—on his intense, broody eyes and chiseled jaw, on his strong hands that always touched me so gently, on the broad shoulders and barrel chest that made me feel safe and nervous all at once.

“Zane? Are you even listening?” he demanded.

I winced. “Uh. Yes?”

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, storming out of the room. He paused and turned when he got to the hall.

“I’m done trying to reason with you, Zane,” he barked. “We’re doing this my way, and that means wheels up in sixty minutes. Do you understand?”

I firmed my jaw and forced myself to sound unaffected. “No. I told my family I was coming in time for Sunday supper tomorrow. We’re not leaving Georgia until after I’ve had my aunt Rinny’s tomato corn pie and cheese grits. I’ve waited months to see my family, and I’m not letting some bullshit prank take that away from me.”

Bear was usually an island of calm sanity in the midst of my chaotic life, and seeing him upset—especially when I knew it was out of fear for my safety—brought home exactly how serious he perceived this threat to be.

It wasn’t a prank.

He knew it. So did I.

But while I loved how much he worried about me—seriouslylovedit—I hated seeing him this way. Hated knowing that I caused him stress and worry. I swallowed and tried to get us back to normal, to the way things were supposed to be.

“Bears are supposed to beveryfood-motivated. They’ll eat anything and everything, according to the podcast episode I listened to last week,” I managed to tease, though my voice came out wobbly and an entire octave higher than usual, which probably ruined the effect. “So I’ll remind you that last time we were at Gran’s, you ate three helpings of those cheese grits?—”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he demanded. “I don’t give a shit about your podcast, Zane. This is about your safety. It’s not a joke?—”

“I know it’s not,” I soothed. “I do know. I promise. It’s just… how many times do I have to tell you… I’m fine!”

“Sure you are, Zane. You’re Mr. fucking Fine. Keep telling yourself that.”

As soon as Bear—Ryan—stormed off, I closed the dressing room door behind him and locked it before leaning my back against it and sliding down.

The tears came instantly. I’d been holding them off for hours to get through the final set, and now here I was, on the floor, face swamped with tears of exhaustion, fear, and a desperate, bone-deep need to go home and see my family.

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