In central LA, I pulled up to the same low building I’d visited alone last week.
Take two in getting information from Stafford Jackson.
After we left the beach, Maddock and I grabbed lunch. Neither of us had gone shy after our exhibitionist moment. Instead, it was almost as if we had a God-given right to each other. If we weren’t finding ways to touch the other, we were making demands that only couples could.
Kisses, proximity, sharing. For the short time he was here, I was taking what I could get. What I needed. Exactly as per our agreement.
Yet he still wouldn’t share his story, and that was messing with my head.
If I didn’t care about him beyond sex, it wouldn’t matter.
The nightclub doors opened with two people deep in conversation exiting. A moment ago, a woman had gone inside. She’d seemed vaguely familiar, but I hadn’t got a good enough view of her face to place her.
“It’s busier here today,” I observed.
Maddock peered through the windshield to scope the entrance. “Could be a good thing. Let’s do this.”
I nodded, and we climbed out of the car and made our way to the entrance. Inside the dim corridor, I marched on, refusing to be intimidated after being thrown out the last time.
It sucked that I knew Stafford wouldn’t lay a finger on me now I had a man with me, but some jerks were just built that way.
Through the double doors, I scanned the open floor and the bar, finding my quarry almost immediately. Stafford keyed something into the register, the woman we’d seen a moment ago leaning over to talk to him.
His gaze lifted to meet mine, and he visibly swallowed.
I sensed Maddock at my back and jutted out my chin.
“Not again,” Stafford muttered.
“Yes, again. I came to talk to you, and you tossed me on my ass.”
He peeked at the other people, busy in corners of the room, then rounded the bar and crossed the floor, stopping behind a table. Like he needed something between us to protect him. “What do you want?”
“I sent you a text with a question. You never answered.”
Stafford scratched his head. “Something about a college bill? I know nothing about it so I didn’t bother replying.”
I blinked. In my head, Stafford was the owner of the money. His actions when I’d been here last cemented that in my brain.
Before I could frame a question, he continued on, flustered.
“I haven’t spoken to you in forever, then out of the blue, you’re texting me, checking up on me online, which I know you’re doing because it keeps suggesting you as a friend.” His lips twisted. “Then you show up here and embarrass me in front of my dad. Seriously, what gives?”
I snapped closed my mouth. “That guy was your dad?”
“Yes. And he’s already pissed at me for my girlfriend hanging around too much.” He jacked a thumb at the woman by the bar.
She drifted over, and I did a double-take as recognition finally dawned.
“Pen Godson?” I stared at her.
This woman and her brother had been short-term tenants in our shared college home. Both had the same mousy-brown hair and sharp chin, and both had returned to England after a single term.
“Hello, Rory.” Pen folded her arms. “I guess this is the part where I should warn you off my boyfriend, but you left me hanging with the question about my brother. Where is Sin?”
“Who?”
“My brother!”
“Isn’t his name Johnnie?”
She gave a shriek of frustration. “First he was over here in LA, then home in England. But I’ve just come from there, and I know he’s full of shit. Our mother is gunning for him. He stole cars from our garage.”
“Sorry, can’t help. I haven’t seen him in forever.” I switched my gaze back to Stafford. “And I’m not chasing after you either. Is that seriously what you thought?”
Stafford’s cheeks reddened, and his gaze dropped to the floor. He raised a single shoulder. “Why would you come here otherwise? In your messages, you used to say you loved me. Fucking creepy, and way too stalker-ish.”
Stalker-ish? I drew in a shocked breath. “Are you kidding me?”
Maddock growled. “Rory is not chasing ye, ye arsehole.”
Stafford stepped backwards, stumbling. “I know that now. Sorry, Rory. I’m busting a gut to prove myself to my dad, and no amount of time I spend is enough. Maybe I got paranoid thinking you were going to cause me more problems. Hell, you still might. He’ll be back soon. You can’t hang around. If I’m not pedal to the metal, he’ll be pissed.”
“I don’t intend to,” I huffed. “In fact, see ya.”
Turning on my heel, I strode toward the exit.
“What about my brother?” Pen bellowed.
“For the last time, I’ve had nothing to do with him,” I yelled over my shoulder.
Outside, I dove back into the car, humiliation adding to the myriad emotions of the day.
Maddock dropped into his seat and glared at the building. “How dare that wee shite?”
I muttered in exasperation, started the engine, then merged into the traffic. “I’m so embarrassed. You were right when you said my love-ya habit was a bad one. Fuck!”
“Why? It’s his mistake. If—” Maddock stopped his sentence and laughed. “I was about to say something really stupid.”
“Tell me, please. After that, I could use a laugh.”
He rolled a look my way, and I slowed in the traffic queue.
“I was just about to say that being stalked by ye would be a privilege, and he should’ve counted himself lucky.” Maddock placed his hands to either side of his head and mimed blowing up his brain.
I couldn’t help my giggle. “Maybe I should stalk you.”
“Any time, sweetheart. I’ll stalk ye right back.”
Our laughter quietened, and the tension I was used to around him filled the car.
I groaned and tapped my forehead on the steering wheel. “How is it that we’ve only just had sex and I still want you? More, if that’s possible.”
“Right back at ye. Now where are ye taking me? Because I have plans.”
“Do they involve a horizontal surface? Will my bed do?”
Something registered in his gaze. “You’re taking me home?”
I bit my lip but nodded. Never once had I brought a boyfriend back to my mother’s house. Not that Maddock needed to know that detail, but I didn’t want to leave him in a hotel when we could be together the whole time.
“Mom’s been on her own all day. So long as you don’t mind spending a little time with her, you can sleep with me tonight. Wait, how long do I have you?”
He took a long breath, his attention heavy. “Jordie gave us Monday morning off. The flight time plus the eight hours difference adds up to a longer journey in terms of hours lost, so the jet leaves at three PM on Sunday.”
We could chill out for the evening without rushing to the airport again. Sleep in together. The thought sent a shiver down my spine.
This was more than I’d hoped for.
Or maybe than I bargained for.
But Maddock misread my silence, and his ardent attention morphed to confusion.
“If I get in the way, just say the word and I’ll go. I’m a big lad, I can find my way around California.”
“No.” I tapped the steering wheel and kept my gaze on the road that delivered us back to Temecula. “I’m just…happy.”
“Ye say that like it’s a bad thing.”
More of an unfamiliar thing. Definitely a dangerous thing.
I was taking Maddock home, and I couldn’t quite work out how that made me feel.
Needing to change the subject, I asked again the question he’d deferred twice. “Will you tell me what happened now? The event Gabe referred to. Did something bad go down on your last training run? It’s been killing me not to know.”
Maddock sighed and stared out of the window. “Aye, ye could say that. Sure ye want to hear all this?”
There was a weight to his words that it took me a moment to recognise, but then I understood. He’d deferred telling me because that wasn’t part of our deal. It touched on something highly personal. Yet he’d followed me all around the city, merging into my life. I needed in his, too.
“Are you kidding?”
“Fine, then listen up.”
In undramatic sentences, he described the most alarming scene.
Of dangling from a helicopter on a cable.
The wire breaking.
Of being stranded on a frozen mountainside, at night, with no protection.
His matter-of-fact telling didn’t stop panic from drowning me. “Holy shit,” I uttered on repeat. “Weren’t you terrified? You could have died.”
He made a noise of disagreement. “It was cold, but I’m trained in survival.”
“What happened with the helicopter? Why did they leave?”
“Jordie had a problem with the hoist. It stalled, and a burning smell filled the cabin. Tommy panicked, and the wind cut communications back to almost naught, so they couldnae talk to me. On top of that, conditions meant we’d drifted closer to the mountainside than was safe, particularly with the least experienced pilot of us all at the controls. The winch jerked back to life and rolled out, dumping me down, and the wind blew them closer to the rocks. Jordie made the instant decision to sever the line. He could see I was safe, but he needed to get the helicopter away from danger. Taking me with them meant potentially having to reel me in by hand or smacking me into the mountain.”
“Which meant abandoning you?”
“It wasnae for long, even though it felt it. They switched out Gabe to take the controls, came back, and landed on a lower slope. I found them, and we set off for home.”
His casual words couldn’t reassure me.
I hid my dread behind silence, and Maddock moved on to talk more about the other training they’d done, and then rescues he’d been on back home in the Highlands. But I’d fixated on that lonely scene. Of a black-and-white landscape, with the shock of red hair the only indicator of a living thing in a wasteland of snow and ice.
What if the helicopter had crashed? What if some other incident had meant they’d left him for longer?
No one could survive out there for long.
That would’ve meant the end of the most incredible, intense, beautiful person I’d ever met.
I couldn’t stop my heart from hammering.
Yet my freakout didn’t make sense. If I only wanted him for sex, none of this mattered. Which meant I was either lying to myself, or some major change was coming over me.
Or both.
Real relationships based on that kind of fixation only equalled bad things. My mother and her devotion to Wade was the prime example. I never wanted that.
This new feeling? I didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Nor did I have a hope in hell of stopping it.
