Page 45 of Nothing Special X: The Last Stand

Day pulled back just enough to speak against his lips.

“It’ll be fine. We’ll have this handled soon, and you know Free deserves to have some fun. He’s on call twenty-four hours out of his life with us. He doesn’t ask for much. And he loves Curtis and misses him. He’ll be a good person for him to tour LA with.”

God looked past Day to where Free was smiling at his keyboard, refusing to meet his glare.

Everybody loved Curtis. It was hard not to.

Curtis had first encountered Day when he was stupidly trying to rob a convenience store with an old pistol that had no bullets.

He and Day should’ve arrested him. But, when he’d confessed to needing the money to pay for his sick mother’s medicine and to turn their electricity back on, they’d seen him for what he was—a desperate boy with too much responsibility and nobody there for him.

God gave him work running errands for the team. Grocery pickups, mail deliveries, lunch runs. Simple things that all of them paid generously for. And it didn’t take long before that kind, nervous kid had every hardened man on the task force wrapped around his finger.

Especially Green. Ruxs pretended not to be just as affected, but it was amazing the way they both watched over Curtis too.

When Curtis was seventeen, his mother died, and Ruxs and Green had adopted him without a second thought.

By some miracle God didn’t understand, Curtis grew up gentle and good despite his fathers being two fucking mad men.

“Fine. But if anything happens to Curtis while he’s out here, you’re on your own with his dads.

Day grimaced.

The door beeped after a keycard was scanned…and speak of the devil.

Ruxs and Green walked in carrying the kind of tension that told God the situation had been worse than their initial reports suggested.

Behind them was Xander Vale.

On the star’s six was Morrison and Steele.

Tech and Free rose from their chairs at the same time.

For a moment, they both forgot every professional bone in their bodies as they stared in wonder at the-fucking-Xander-Vale standing in his hotel suite at four in the morning.

God couldn’t blame the way everyone was watching him.

He wasn’t polished in the fabulous way his films made him appear or when he walked the red carpet. Not tonight.

Tonight he looked like a regular guy, wrung out in a way sleep alone wouldn’t fix.

His round, hairless cheeks held almost no color, his skin appearing even more pale beneath the black ball cap he had pulled low over his forehead.

His blue eyes were rimmed red, too wide and alert. His mouth was pressed tight as though he was holding a sob back with his teeth, and faint tremors moved through his hands despite the way he tried to hide them inside his jean’s pockets.

A tight pull of sympathy tugged at God’s chest.

Him and his team dodged death so often that sometimes he forgot what it did to people who weren’t built for it.

Xander wasn’t a cop or military, he was an entertainer.

And this was the second time in a couple of weeks that he’d narrowly escaped death.

Wes and Law hadn’t exaggerated, their friend was in serious danger.

LA law enforcement wasn’t going to provide twenty-four-hour private protection for a movie star, no matter how beloved he was, and the studio’s security had failed him twice.

Morrison didn’t have enough reliable manpower to cover both the production lot and Xander’s private detail at the level this threat required.