Page 88 of Naughty Dreams
Roy pulled up a chair to the concrete lip. He draped a towel over DJ’s shoulders and sat down, close enough that DJ was able to lean against Roy’s leg. Roy rested a light hand on his shoulder.
“This doesn’t change anything, Roy. I don’t need a protection detail anymore.”
“So you’re just going to let him have you,” Roy said evenly.
“Yeah. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“You think it’s okay to give up, give the guy who murdered your brothers what he wants.”
DJ showed Roy a cold eye beneath wet curls. “I’m going to give him what he wants, and then find a way to gut the bastard. After that, nothing else matters.”
Thatmade more sense, and explained all of this. DJ was a survivoranda protector. Giving up wasn’t his style. The wound had been deep enough to pass as the truth, though, because DJwantedto give up. He just intended to take the asshole down with him.
“You think it’s your fault, what he did to your friends. This twisted psycho will use that against you. He’s been two steps ahead of us, so he thinks he’s smarter than me or you. But he isn’t. With everything he does, we’re getting closer, because he’s establishing patterns and clues to who he is, and how he’s doing the things he’s doing.
“And it’s bullshit, by the way,” Roy added. “It’snotyour fault. Your friends would tell you that, too. Except maybe Tal. He liked to yank your chain.”
"You're such a dick."
Roy squeezed his shoulder, tracing a few beads of water along it. "You told me things happen for a reason. Like Tal coming into your lives. Maybe I came into your life now, you lucky bastard, to help you through this."
DJ’s sigh took his wide shoulders up and then down into a slump, but he laid his head against Roy’s knee. Roy tugged gently on his wet hair.
“I scraped together a family out of nothing.” Normally, every syllable DJ spoke suggested the beauty he could bring to a song. Right now his voice was flat as a coffin bottom. “He took it away in a second. That’s how fragile it all is.”
“I’m so sorry, Dory.”
DJ watched the unicorn float, drifting their way. “Tal’s laughing at me, you know he is. ‘See, you dumb shit? You neverhad to save me, because I wasn't going to be your problem or anyone else's long enough for it to matter.’"
The float bumped against his legs. DJ touched the whimsical face, the golden horn. Then he sent it back toward the center of the pool. When he got up, Roy suppressed the urge to steady him. DJ gathered the towel around him, his eyes hollow, his face blank.
“I’m going back to bed,” he said.
“All this melodrama wear you out?”
“Fuck you,” DJ said, but without heat this time. “You’re not fired. For the next few days, I’d rather you handle things, Roy. Tell everyone to leave me alone.”
Roy rose and put a hand back on his shoulder, his thumb caressing the pulse in his neck. “If you need that kind of care, you’re not talking to your bodyguard, Dory. So you don’t tell me. You ask me.”
DJ swayed, almost broke, but Roy watched him pull it in, hold onto it. “Please, Roy. Please…Sir.”
Now Roy was the one gut punched. He tightened his grip. “Go to bed,” he said. “I’ll take care of things.”
“Okay.” DJ lifted a hand to hold onto his forearm. His need to be held was almost palpable, but Roy thought he might need it held out of reach more. Yearning was a good way to remind someone they were alive.
So he called on every ounce of willpower to stay still, unbending, and DJ stepped back. “You’ll know when it’s time for me not to stay in bed anymore. Right?”
“You can count on it.” Roy held his gaze. “But just FYI, you try something like this again, I’ll beat your ass into next week. In front of your whole staff, by the way.”
“Milton will need a tranquilizer.” DJ’s gaze flickered with a dull light. But when his mouth tightened, that light went out. Giving Roy a nod, he turned away.
Roy was well aware DJ wasn’t keeping his guitar or any other instrument close, and he hadn’t crossed the threshold of his home studio to make any music. He hadn’t written in his notebook since the crash. He’d become a blank page himself, the empty void preferable to anything else.
He still needed time to grieve, but ultimately, making sure he left that sea of hopelessness and returned to his music was every bit as important as keeping him alive.
Staying alive didn’t mean a damn if he stopped living.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
