Page 81 of Holding On to a Hero
“Gotcha. I won’t breathe a word.”
“Thanks. Can you text me the address?”
“Sure, I’m doing it right now. I can’t wait to see Jason and I’m looking forward to meeting you.”
“Great, me too!” Spence seemed like a good guy. The phone pinged with a text notification. Jason and Cole were almost to the SUV. I smirked at them and felt…mischievous.
“Oh, and Spence?”
“Yeah?”
“We do only need one bed. But there will be three of us sleeping in it.”
“What? Wait,what??”
I hung up the phone, laughing.
Chapter Forty-Two
Jason
“You know, at some point we’re going to have to forgive Brian for not telling Will I was okay.” I supposed I was glad Cole had waited until we were alone to share his point of view. At least the restaurant’s parking lot wasn’t crowded.
I grunted. “Not yet though. And I’m also pissed about this Malcolm guy he apparently hired. He had hislandlorddriving Will to the airport! Who does that? You don’t involve civilians in protection duty. What if the shooter had been chasing them? I need to make sure Brian gets rid of this guy.”
Cole was silent for a few steps. “Well, the thing is, Jason, you put Brian in charge. It’s his show to run now, however he sees fit.”
“But I’ve still got majority—”
“I’m sure he’d be happy to tell you how the landlord ended up involved yesterday, and I know you’re mad about the coma thing, but probably you should get rid of the accusatory tone and just ask some questions.”
“But—”
“Jason. Don’t make me quote one of my movies at you.”
“Oh, no. Which one?” I felt a smile try to move in but I shut that shit down.
“Desperate Crimes.”He put on an authoritative voice. “’Tanner, never second-guess the agent in the field.’”
Well, shit. I blew out a breath. “Fine. I’ll try it your way.” Satisfied, he peeled off to find the restroom and I got in line to order.
We were almost back to the SUV when we noticed Will was on the phone. He was also sitting upright, which hopefully meant his back was feeling better. I hoped it was Spence calling. Will wasn’t the only one who could use a decent bed.
Will hung up right before we got to the car. “Hey,” he said as Cole and I sat down and handed a couple of the bags to him. “That was Spence. He’s excited to have us come stay with him.” He tossed the phone awkwardly between the seats at me with his left hand. “Here’s his address. I told him we’d be there in about an hour.”
“Thank fuck. I can’t wait to see him.” Cole let out a laugh as he started to cut up Dave’s chicken breast. “Hey, was he Spence or Spencer when he realized he didn’t know you?”
Will looked puzzled. “What do you mean? I asked if he was Spence and he said yes.”
Cole chuckled. “Spence has two personas. His real self, Spence, who is mostly a sassy queen with a heart of gold. And his Hollywood stuntman self, Spencer,” he dropped his voice lower, “Who is a serious straight-seeming guy you’d think would never be caught dead in lip gloss.”
“Uh, I definitely got the queen. Is he in the closet then?”
“At work, yeah. It was something he and I had had in common, and we bonded over pretending to be something we weren’t.”
“Huh. Well, I’m looking forward to meeting him.”
After we ate and got back on the road, Cole tried to entertain Will with stories about Spence’s stuntman adventures. At first Will seemed interested, participating in the conversation. But as we drove on he got much quieter. I thought maybe he was just tired, but then I saw the way he was sitting.
