Page 45 of Wild Fixation
“It’s going to be okay,” he says. “We’ll figure out the stuff with Seth. Not all fans are like that. Most of them are nice.”
“Fans?”
This wasn’t about a fan, not really. All of the fans we met today were perfectly normal, even if they were excited to see us. Shawn doesn’t correct himself. He simply leaves me there in the dark, shutting the bedroom door quietly behind himself as he goes.
I sit there for a moment, clinging to the edge of the mattress, staring at nothing. A few days ago, I was getting ice cream with Seth. I was inviting him up to this room. I was touching his beautiful body, sharing a moment with him that I thought meant something to both of us. Could I have been that wrong about what I felt that night? Or maybe it’s that he doesn’t feel it too, that he really is nothing more than a protective bodyguard, and I’m nothing more than a client he happens to find attractive.
I force myself to strip down and crawl into bed. I cocoon myself in the sheets, but they’re no substitute for having a real person beside me, a warm body who might actually care about me.
I drift to sleep hugging my pillow against my chest and wishing it had a heartbeat to match my own.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Seth
“HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT.”
Mason’s shout startles me from a sleep that was restless even at the best of times. I slouched home after firing myself yesterday and took whatever I found in the medicine cabinet that I thought might help me sleep. It sort of worked, but I woke up several times, tossing and turning as my thoughts chased me all night.
Now, Mason is banging on my bedroom door. After a couple knocks, he dispenses with the niceties and barges in.
“What the hell is going on?” he says.
I rub at eyes gummed over with both sleep and the lack thereof. I have nothing but briefs on, but it’s far from the first time Mason and I have seen each other in such a state.
“What?” I croak.
He strides to the bed and grabs me by the wrist, tugging until I grudgingly get up. As he drags me nearly naked down the stairs and into the living room, my head clears.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“Trying to figure out what kind of mess you caused for us.”
“Me? I’ve been asleep. I didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, then explain this.”
Mason takes me to the front of the house and yanks on the cord beside the blinds. They snap up — and suddenly cameras are flashing in my face. I blink, reeling back, as a horde of reporters press closer to our front window. The glass muffles their shouted questions, but the sheer volume and quantity of the blood suckers floods the house with strange voices.
I snatch the cord from Mason and close the blinds as quickly as I can. The cries continue penetrating the glass, and I stumble back several steps. Only then do I remember I’m in nothing but underwear, a fact all of those cameras undoubtedly captured.
“What the hell?”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Mason says. “What the hell, Seth? What is going on here?”
“I have no idea. How do you even know this is my fault?”
Mason levels a skeptical look at me. “Do you really think those reporters are here to talk to the accountant? Or do you think they’re here to talk to the rich, famous, hot rockstar’s bodyguard?”
Realization hits me like a bucket of ice water.
“I’m not his bodyguard anymore,” I say.
“Yeah, well, apparently they haven’t gotten the memo.”
Mason waves dismissively at the front window before stalking away. I follow him. The clamor softens as we retreat toward the kitchen, where Mason hands me a cup of coffee he must have made before the commotion started. We take our mugs to the couch and turn on the television, mostly to further drown out the torrent.
“So, you wanna tell me what this is about?” Mason prods.
