Page 56 of Never Forget

If only there was more time. A month from now, the guesthouse will be finished enough for them to stay there, and everyone could reasonably avoid each other. I purposefully put the houses on opposite sides of the property, where they cannot be seen or heard by each other.

As it is, only the basement and main framework are complete, and I had the construction paused for a week while my grandparents get settled.

I wonder how difficult it would be to pull a handful of trailers onto the property instead? Or would that be too conspicuous?

“Is everything alright?”

The sound of Simon’s voice behind me lurches me out of my internal thoughts, causing me to spill the contents of the glass of water I’d just poured down the front of my shirt.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry,” Simon says, quickly reaching to grab a dishtowel and passing it to me. “I didn’t mean to jump scare you.”

“Not your fault,” I assure him, using the dishtowel to mop up my mess from the counter and floor. My shirt is a lost cause. “I’m a little in my head.”

His forehead creases with concern. “It sounded like whatever’s going on is serious. Are your grandparents okay?”

”Oh, no. Sorry, I should have said that first. Everything is on track for them to move in tomorrow. It’s… work stuff?”

“Ah. I understand. I definitely don’t want to intrude, but if there’s anything I can do to help…”

We’d discussed how important it was to keep my career completely separate, so he’s probably trying to feel out the situation to know if he should even ask.

“Shit has kinda hit the fan,” I admit, worrying my bottom lip. “You’re probably going to be getting a little more excitement than you signed up for.”

Simon tilts his head to the side, one eyebrow cocked curiously.

“I think you deserve to know some of what is happening, because it does, at least indirectly, affect you. And I understand if any of this is too much and you want to reevaluate your position here. If you feel comfortable staying, I can assure you that none of this should impact your duties or my grandfather’s care, except that he⁠—”

“Mr. Les– Naz,” he corrects, remembering that I’d asked him to use my first name when addressing me. He can save the honorifics for my grandparents. “It’s okay. Just tell me what’s going on and how I can help,” he says, bringing me a new glass of water and ushering me into a seat at the kitchen island.

Simon isn’t stupid. He knows exactly who he’s working with and signed a whole stack of NDAs before Emmy would even allow him on the phone with me. If he did any homework at all, he knows about the trouble we’ve been dealing with, most recently the violence that shut us out of our last concert and the bomb threat that made news last week.

“When we spoke on the phone, I told you I had taken steps to assure our privacy here, and that so far no one outside of a small group of people know where this property is.”

“Yes, I remember. I know you go through great lengths to keep your career from affecting your grandparents, specifically.”

“Well, the good news is that so far this property is still far enough off anyone’s radar that we’ve been able to avoid being noticed or bothered. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my friends. My bandmates, that is. They were attacked earlier this afternoon, despite being in locations we thought were private.”

Simon’s eyes widen. “Are they okay?”

“Thankfully, yes. We’re all a little shaken up by it, of course.”

“Understandably.”

“They’re coming here,” I blurt out, wanting to get to the point. “It’ll hopefully be very temporary, and I really hope it doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable or unsafe.”

“Unsafe how?”

“Because we’re targets. We’ve pissed off someone enough that they’re making it their mission to put our lives at risk. You already know about the bomb threat. The attack today was some kind of drone carrying explosives. Well, we think they were just fireworks, but they caused enough damage.”

Simon pauses and looks at me quizzically. “Fireworks, really?”

“Yeah, the house Ari and Will were staying in had a broken window and scorch marks all over the yard. And Jesse, you know about his boyfriend Luc Martín, right?” Simon nods.

Of course he does. Everyone has heard about the very public Super Bowl Halftime kiss that was televised across the world. It got more publicity than the game did, making Jesse Moore and Luc Martín household names even outside of music and sports.

“A drone showed up where they were staying. On a yacht out in the middle of nowhere basically. Luc knocked it down, and it ended up blowing up and setting a fire on their boat.”

“Jesus,” Simon says under his breath. “It’s lucky they weren’t seriously injured, but…”